Is it just me or are the teabaggers/freepers TRYING to f*ck up the world they will leave behind?

[LiberalLoner]

When I look at all the things they want - a non-functional government, no safety nets for the poor, disabled or old, no labor laws to protect the working man, endless war with pretty much every other nation on earth (including using nukes), environmental destruction....it just seems to me that these teabaggers and freepers, who are by and large over the age of 60, are becoming aware of their own approaching mortality and their attitude is, "if I can't live, no one else should be able to live either. Let everyone die, let the whole planet die!"

It just seems to me that the bottom line of these freeper types is just that - they want the entire world plunged into chaos and most of us if not all of us dying. Or at least they want the U.S. to die as a nation.

Are my perceptions wrong here?

[ThatsMyBarack]

1. Spot on.

Teabaggers, freepers, etc., are a waste of oxygen.

[LiberalLoner]

3. Thank you for replying. And you know I notice whenever these types decide to go

out in a blaze of glory, they seem to delight in taking others with them. Thinking of the Holocaust museum shooter, the guy who shot a bunch of people in the church in TN, the guy who flew into the IRS building, etc. I mean there are dozens of examples of right-wingers like that who have a suicide/murder wish.

I feel like a big minority of the nation has turned into people who want suicide/murder...and the rest of us are trying to fight against them for sanity.

[toddwv]

23. I think that there are multiple ideologies in play with the teabaggers.

1) People who actually believe that their ideas will work...this time.
2) People who don't care as long as they profit.
3) People who believe that the quicker we destroy the Earth, the quicker they will be "raptured".

Any of the three would be frightening enough in control but to bag all three of them up together is a guarantee of extreme hardship for everyone.

[Stevenmarc]

2. It's a chicken little'ish movement of the self-absorbed

They aren't really Big Picture people

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. Self-absorbed a$$hole$

[LiberalLoner]

5. Thank you both for replying. I have noticed the right-wingers I have met seem to be

very self-absorbed and just mean-spirited I guess I would call it.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. One more theory:

They've bought into the Horatio Alger myth of this country is special because you can become successful by your own means and without any help. The suckers without gumption, determination, and imagination are the ones left behind and too bad for them.

Government "entitlements"/security ruin the myth. They see government assistance as a barrier to "true" success in that it encourages sloth and idleness instead of industry.

These true believers refuse to see that the system is rigged with no government protection and only reliance on private industry. Their thinking and logic are flawed. They are delusional to think that they too will be successful if they play by the rules and remove the "barriers" altogether.

[starroute]

18. They don't believe in evolution but they're obessed with survival of the fittest

You see very similar attitudes spelled out explicitly in some early 20th century science fiction. A belief that following the "law of the jungle" makes the survivors tougher and more capable, coupled with a fear that allowing the unfit to survive will leave the entire society decadent and at the mercy of those who haven't let themselves get soft.

Those sort of beliefs faded out of the mainstream around the time of World War II, when the new narrative in the US was that victory depended on everyone pulling together and that the Germans had fatally weakened themselves by trying to cull out anyone they regarded as unfit.

But they came back round in the 1950's as a result of the Cold War, which sparked a conviction among some segments of the right that tolerance and plurality were weaknesses that both offered openings for Communist infiltration and left the US too soft to resist it. The current right-wing formula of rugged self-reliance, old-time religion, and cutthroat capitalism comes out of that period.

That formula explains why the libertarians, the religious right, and the corporations have somehow managed to form a continuing coalition, despite their obvious differences on other issues. It also explains why they need enemies and constant wars to prop up their belief that toughness is the ultimate social virtue.

It may even explain why the right seems to choose "enemies" that are as poor and scuffling as possible. The stereotype of illegal immigrants who are willing to risk death to cross the border and then have a dozen children when they get here fits the survival-of-the-fittest narrative perfectly. Impoverished but religiously fervent Muslim hordes are almost as useful to the theme of "they want to out-breed us and take us over."

Relatively prosperous and culturally diverse nations like India and China, who will be our real economic rivals over the next several decades, don't even make it onto the right's radar. They're so lost in their strange Darwinian dream that they have no apparent awareness at all of what it really takes to compete economically.

[no_hypocrisy]

7. Dupe. Sorry.

[LiberalLoner]

9. I've noticed a lot of right-wingers I have known, the ones who are really frothing at the mouth,

identify with the uber-wealthy. If you listen to what they say and watch what they do, they are loathe to show any working class traits or middle-class traits. They are delusionally convinced they will be billionaires one day too. Or just trying desperately to suck up to the people they perceive to be winners in the world.
P.S. Thank you for replying. I didn't mind the dupe - your reply was good enough to read twice. :)

[no_hypocrisy]

25. You made my day!

:)

[yellerpup]

8. You've got them pegged.

K&R :kick:

[LiberalLoner]

10. Thank you for replying and for the K&R. I guess the next question is,

how do we fight against this insanity in our nation? I feel like it's 1930's Germany all over again and the sane voices are becoming the minority. Some days I really feel so afraid and hopeless.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. Media. Good media.

And investigations. You need a system which is less constipated than what it is, especially in the State Attorney's Office and Department of Law Enforcement.

They get plenty of complaints on corrupt politicians and malfeasant governments, but they won't do anything unless someone high on the political scale tells them to. And that person is usually corrupt too.

That system needs to change and the media can change it.

[yellerpup]

24. Staying sane is important.

If I had the answer or even any good ideas, I'd run for office myself. Keep your heart and strive to be fearless. Best to you.... :hi:

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. There is a slight of hand going on.

They are living the good life. All this chaos works in their favor on a local level. At least where I live, you have a corrupted group of community leaders which feed their dogs to keep the rest of us in check.

[endless october]

12. no, amazingly, i think they really believe this bullshit will work.

they just don't have much foresight, and they don't understand balance of power. they don't understand that corporations are a source of tyranny equal to government's tyranny potential.

without a regulatory force like government, we get something worse than feudalism. and, conversely, if government has all the power, we fail in the other direction (tyranny, dictatorship, military state.)

it's very difficult to achieve a sustainable balance of power.

but to address the original question, no, i don't think the tea party movement wants to destroy the world. i think that the movement is made up of a lot of "leave me alone" types with little foresight and who are pushing solutions that won't produce the intended results. and i think they are being directed by those who would profit from a return to feudalism.

[Andy823]

13. They are gullible!

I had a professor that said everybody makes things to complicated. They may think they know the answer to things, but then they think they couldn't really know because it seems so simple! They let others think for them because they believe that say politicians, preachers, the successful, and even the talking heads on TV know more than they do, so instead of thinking for themselves they let other do it for them. Even when the path they take is the wrong one, it's hard for them to admit it when they have been duped into buying all the BS those they "think" know more than they do, tell them! Once you let yourself into accepting something as a fact, it's really hard to change your way of thinking. It can be done, but it is not easy.

It's a lot like any addiction, you may know deep inside you need to break the chains, but it's not easy to do. If a person can stop listening to the con artists who are filling them full of BS, and if they can actually start thinking on their own, doing their own research, checking out the facts, they can change. Sadly most would rather let others do this kind of work for them, and so they continue down the wrong path. The best tactic used is always "FEAR", "DOOM AND GLOOM" and the big one is making the person feel like they only way to salvation, freedom, understanding, etc., is listening the person who is pulling the con job on you! When a person feels they are special, or they are doing the will of God and can be saved from whatever fears they have, they will keep on following the wrong path!

[EstimatedProphet]

15. They are little broken toys

They're sad, ruined people that have been jerked around and had to suck up to bullies all their lives, and all they care about anymore is getting people to suck up to them. So they bully and puff themselves up, and fantasize about when it will be their turn to be king.

[handmade34]

16. don't think so

I believe the teabagger types are not capable of serious critical thought and function more from emotion than rational thinking (mostly Christian thinking which is based in indoctrination and faith). I don't believe that they want to intentionally make our society a lesser place; they really have bought into the "anyone can make it with hard work" and if you don't you are just lazy or not very smart. These people imagine their kids to be smarter than the rest and therefore will do okay. They are lost in the 20th century...

[ladjf]

17. They seem to be operating at some kind of a barbaric throwback

, raw emotion, caveman type fears that show no connection whatsoever with the philosophical enlightenments that have been occurring during the post few hundred years. They are reacting to knee-jerk fears and phobias. Unfortunately, they genuinely feel that they are tasked with saving the world. But, so was the leader of the Hale-Bop Comet cult.

[Lyric]

19. They're pissed because they thought they'd be raptured

and apparently that's not going to happen, so now they're just pissing in the lifeboat out of sheer spite.

[LiberalLoner]

22. LOL I really do think you are right about that...n/t

[felix_numinous]

20. These people are not real Christians, they are True Believers.

When I read True Believers by Eric Hoffman, it explained this phenomenon to a T. He wrote the book after the holocaust in order to understand the psychological reasons why people are lead to do horrendous things. This book should be on the best seller list again, because it seems history is repeating itself in this way.

[LiberalLoner]

21. A big "thank you" to everyone who responded. :) Gives me a lot of insight. Thank you. n/t

[Posteritatis]

26. Apres eux, le deluge.

Pretty much.

The libertarians and Randroids simply don't care about what happens after they're gone; the religious ones are split between those who wouldn't mind the end of days on the one hand, and the ones who believe it's theologically impossible to damage the planet on the other.