No, Republicans aren't getting dumber and crazier. Really, they're not.

[Rozlee]

Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, the misspelled words at teabagger rallies, the glazed-eyes of the conservative faithful that listen to Glenn Beck rave about his conspiracies that connect Code Pink to the Illuminati and Sasquatch. I've heard and seen us all watching in horror, wondering, thinking and asking ourselves: "What's happened to the Republican Party these last fifteen years? Have they gone crazy?"

Not any crazier than they've always been.

Actually, it's wrong to call them Republicans. Maybe the correct term is simply conservatives. After all, Republican Northerners were the ones who tended to be behind the movements of abolition and suffrage. Southern Democrats were the ones that, for the most part, enslaved blacks and, after the Civil War, terrorized them and persecuted them with Jim Crow, the Ku Klux Klan and segregation. Not, mind you, that liberal Northerners were saints. Northerners, after all, were the ones who were the most instrumental in the genocide of Native Americans in that part of the country and who set guidelines for their extermination throughout the rest. No saints there. But, in the South, specifically the Bible Belt slave states, the rationale for slavery created a culture of intolerance and hate that's a bit more in-your-face than in the rest of the country. These are the states, after all, that are the poorest, score lowest in education, are fattest, have the highest rates of murder, broken homes, teen pregnancies and firebrand preachers that love telling people that they're the chosen ones and those that defeated them in the War of Northern Aggression are the ones who have no family values and regard for life, liberty, and love of the country that they once tried to tear asunder.

But, the Southern Democrats, as we all know, flipped over to the Republican Party in rebellion over the Democrats' championing of the Civil Rights Act and the dynamic changed. Now, many Northern states have also flipped Republican, but Republican and Democrat lines are blurred. The differences we have are between conservatives and liberal/progressives.

I'm not telling anyone here anything we don't already know. It's just a little background for some of the observations I've made lately looking over some Time magazines that a relative of mine was throwing away that dated back to the late 70s and early 80s. And what an eye opener!

"Did people really believe this crap?" I asked my aunt.
She assured me that they did.

What did they believe?

Well, they believed in Reagan's Civil Defense Plan for a nuclear war.

It seems that Ronnie thought that we could survive a nuclear attack and somehow convinced his adoring followers that we could.

I have conservative relatives and fellow volunteers here at the VA that are concerned about the radiation leak making it's way from Japan, but when I told them about these articles about Reagan thinking we could survive a nuclear war with 10,000 nuclear weapons going off from two countries, they said that we most likely could. Because their hero said so.

What's in that Civil Defense Plan?

It's hilarious! I thought at first that it had to be some sort of a parody, but it's not. Some of you older guys might know about this, but it's new to me. Check it out. I'm still reeling.

1) In the event of a nuclear attack, people with odd-numbered plates should wait for those with even-numbered plates to leave the city first.

2) The Postal Service will issue free "Change of Address" cards so that friends, relatives and the government can locate you after the bombing.

3) One Reagan official had this gem, "Dig a hole, cover it with a couple of doors, and then throw three feet of dirt on top. Everyone's going to make it if there are enough shovels to go around."

My aunt told me that the civil defense plan distributed for San Antonio had people driving downtown to designated city buses and being taken to a town 37 miles south of the city as soon as the siren sounded that IBM's were on the way. Which meant they'd reach us in, what? Twenty minutes? Then consider the traffic; and the fact that those damn buses never run on time when there's not anything going on.

Oh, the stupid, it hurts. And the Army adopted this protocol. Now that I think about it, I remember during NBC training (nuclear, biological, chemical), we were told that when we saw a nuclear fire ball, to don our MOPP gear and throw ourselves face down on the ground or into any ditch nearby. A nuclear fireball that would be close enough for us to see, would be radiating spot heat almost as hot as the core of the sun.

After reading some of this shit, I'm now totally convinced. Conservatives aren't getting dumber or crazier. Seriously, they're not. They always have been. I'm going googling. This is too good!

[elleng]

1. NOT 'conservative.'

'Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.'

[niyad]

3. I favour the word "reactionaries", or, as another DU'er said, "regressive reactionaries"

[elleng]

4. Good, much better.

'Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress'

[themadstork]

5. Oh my, thank you!

I've been struggling with what to call the teabagger faction of the repubs, as I don't believe they're truly conservative. Regressive reactionary totally nails it.

[intaglio]

6. Regressives - sounds good

On a more serious note there are 2 wings to this movement, the Regressives and the Eliminationists and also here

Rush Slimeball is the "acceptable" voice of the Eliminationists

[niyad]

2. I am old enough to remember that nonsense. I even remember the bs in the 50's with "duck and cover"

and I remember being grateful that I lived in one of the top targeted areas of the country, so I would be one of the first ones out of here when the bombs started falling.

Dr. Helen Caldicott expressed my feelings when she said, "a nuclear war will be the first time the living will envy the dead"

are they getting crazier? perhaps not. what they ARE getting is more and more emboldened to put their insanity in plain sight, no longer even bothering to pretend.

[woodsprite]

7. It used to be a stigma to be their kind of nuts. Now it's a status symbol

thanks to Palin, O'Donnell, Limbaugh, Bachmann, Beck, etc. <the list goes on, and on, and on.....>