This meme just confounds me. Take for example this unintentionally ironic billboard. It juxtaposes photos of Obama, Hitler and Lenin with the caption “Radical Leaders Prey on the Fearful and Naive”.
Now, that statement may well be true. But it argues the exact opposite of the intended meaning.
Even if you think Obama is radical, when has he ever used fear? When has the media ever used fear to promote anything but a right-wing agenda?
Examples of right-wingers using fear are more than abundant.
It was Bush’s core platform.
Beck sells (overpriced) gold and bunkers and freeze-dried food to survive the coming armageddon or whatever.
Republicans in campaign mode commonly mention 9/11 and “your children’s safety” in the same breath.
How many times have you heard “If you don’t support xxx you won’t even recognize your own country in a few years”
(BTW it took me a while to figure out that the last one is dog-whistle for “the brown people are coming”)
It’s easy to just dismiss this as so much insanity but do they really think liberals are fearful? And how do they not see the irony?
As for naive, well, they kind of have a point there. Obama was naive to think he could work across the aisle and should have just steamrolled instead of letting republicans ensure that only crappy things passed. But I don’t think that’s what they mean.
Someone posted an opinion in a Pit thread (I think) about preachers and homosexuality. I’d rather not search for it, but it went like this: Straight people don’t think about homosexuality. That is, it’s not something that’s on our minds a lot. These preachers who turn out to be gay have been taught that homosexuality is bad. And yet, as repressed homosexuals, they think about homosexuality all the time. They assume that they are ‘normal’ (relax – it’s just shorthand), and if they think about homosexuality all the time then it follows that everyone else does. Therefore bringing homosexuality into the open is a Bad Thing because all of these people who are obviously (to them) always thinking about homosexuality will ‘turn gay’.
I think that the ‘fear’ issue is the same thing. People who are afraid assume that everyone else is as well. So they compensate by putting on a strong face. They’re afraid of The Others, so they make out The Others as the fearful ones. And no, they don’t see it. If they did, then they would have to face their own fears.
a) their warrior instinct is lacking. They instinctively shy away from the use of deadly force.
b) they mistrust those God has rewarded with authority and power. When situations call for unthinking obedience and loyalty, they ask too damn many questions, instead of showing resolve, which equals courage.
Being a liberal, though… there are a lot of things I am afraid of. I’m afraid of contracting a debilitating illness I can’t afford to treat. I’m afraid of being unable to support my family. I’m afraid of having no place to live.
The difference between my fears and the right-wing fears are that mine are happening to lots of people, every day. How many people do you know of that are being attacked by terrorists?
I’m lucky to be Canadian and have most (though not all) of the costs of the first one covered, at least. And as far as the other ones go; we’re just as vulnerable as our neighbours to the south.
Guess what: anyone who is afraid of those things is afraid of the free market and of having to compete to survive. And that is another kind of person conservatives have deep contempt for. “Waa waa waa,” they hear you say, “take care of me and don’t make me have to line Mr. Big Bad Businessman’s pockets to stay alive.” Well, courage to them means trusting in Higher Powers - be they God OR Mr. Big Bad Businessman. How many people have what kind of problems - or how pressing they are, especially to individuals without power - is just not important.
Lest anyone think I intended to shit this thread, I want to make it clear that I am playing devil’s advocate in the above 2 posts. I put it to you that conservatives - many of the farthest-right ones especially - think deep down of liberals in the ways I described. I would welcome opinions pro or con; it could lead to a good all-out debate.
There’s a leap of logic between ‘not wanting to compete to survive’ and ‘being afraid of losing that competition’. And the competition metaphor fails completely on the health standpoint, except from an evolutionary biology standpoint. (I’d like to see that argument – universal health care lets people live when they should die and improve the gene pool – from the same group that wants to ban abortions because life is sacred, and whose members largely reject the validity of natural selection.)
Both parties use fear sometimes, and it’s a pretty common tactic across the political spectrum. Do you want examples of just Obama doing it, or of it being done by liberals in general?
Neither, as it’s not germane to the topic at hand. If you want to discuss that, why don’t you start a thread about liberals using fear as a tactic? This thread is about teabaggers thinking liberals are fearful.
I thought the thread is about “Even if you think Obama is radical, when has he ever used fear? When has the media ever used fear to promote anything but a right-wing agenda?”
I mean, maybe it’s possible that teabaggers think liberals are fearful, because, on some issues liberals are fearful. If this thread is intended to be no more than “Look at how crazy and disingenuous teabaggers are”, it sounds to me that it belongs in the Pit.
But don’t conservatives run on the idea of a radically free market, where everything possible ought to run on a for-profit basis? That implies not only that health providers/insurers compete in the marketplace, but that individuals compete in the job market to be able to pay for their care.
Then again, all this may be reasoning too far back for teabagger minds to even comprehend, let alone to portray in a 30 second sound bite in the media. One gets into big trouble when trying to logic these folks into understanding where their beliefs will lead.
At least some of them have historically called themselves that. And I thought tolerant, open-minded conservatives weren’t all up in arms about this whole Political Correctness thing.
Good points, especially the PC thing. It has been proven time and again that “Teabagger” originated with the Tea Party. That is why it is so funny. If someone else assigned it to them, it would be on the level of grade-school humor. Any child can point at someone and call them a “Teabagger”, but having someone stand up and proudly call themselves that, well, that’s a special kind of clueless. And when a large group of ppl do it, for weeks and months, in interviews and in front of cameras, well, that’s just epic. No do-overs. We’re not going to turn back time and pretend that didn’t happen. Teabaggers embarrassed themselves right out of the gate, and they must own it. If they don’t like it, they need to look in the mirror.
Also, that kind of cluelessness should be considered when they speak on other topics. If you can’t even choose a name without embarrassing yourself and spending the next couple years running from it in denial, what could you have to say on other subjects that I would want to hear?
