Thursday, March 20, 2014

Desperate for conservatism to be true

The last time I wrote I had a post about Fred Phelps being excommunicated by Westboro Baptist Church, which he founded. According to the Topeka Capital-Journal from comments made by Nathan Phelps, who had previously been kicked out, it seems there was a power struggle and Fred "called for kinder treatment of fellow church members." Which implies the old guy was thrown out of the church for trying to encourage people to be nice.

Les Sterling of Seattle Gay Scene writes about what he'd like to say as Fred Phelps dies, and what he will say at the old man's passing.



Eric Zuesse of Huffington Post Politics first lists the most popular lies of conservatives. Those include Bush's claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, the "death panels" in a Medicare bill, that Obama wasn't born in American, that climate disruption isn't happening. Zuesse also notes that in all cases the more proof that the statement is false the more ardently conservatives believe it. Which leads to the question: why?

A big chunk of it, according to Zuesse, is that conservatives are desperate for conservatism to be true. Then he takes it another step, which I doubt is necessary or wise. He says that conservatives are addicted to lies. Of course, there is a big business to feed the lies to the addicts. The major point that Zuesse is making is that it is difficult to deal with addicts. But isn't it also difficult to deal with those who are desperate?

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