**WHY** SO MANY RIGHT WINGERS GO NUTS | 1999-07-24
One of the continuing themes of Whitaker Online is that leftism is SILLY. I keep pointing out that leftism never WORKS. I keep saying that we must never, never allow leftists to scare us with labels like "racist" and "anaziwhowantstokillsixmillion Jews." Unless a right winger learns these facts, he is going to go nuts, as so many right wingers do.
The reason right wingers all seem to go nuts is because they enter into the liberals' world of delusion.
It is generally recognized that psychiatrists tend to be a bit nutty. One of the reasons for this is that people with mental problems tend to study mental problems. But there is another reason so many mental health workers tend to be a bit batty themselves. It is a problem they are continually warned against in training: Do not enter into your patients' delusions with them.
But this advice is hard to act on. After all, you are talking to mental patients all the time. You are trying to communicate with them and understand them all the time, so it is very, very hard not to absorb some of their thinking. You have to tell yourself, day after day, that these people are not making sense, though they can often be very convincing.
Which brings us right back to dealing with the political left. You MUST remind yourself over and over and over, daily, that these people are SILLY. You must remind yourself over and over and over that what they say really never WORKS in the real world. If you don't, you are going to enter into their delusions with them.
You can tell when a right winger is about to go over the edge when he gets that goofy look in his eye that says, "I am going to be SHREWD today." I remember running into it some years back at the office of the Southern Partisan magazine.
I remember seeing that goofy look come across the face of an official at the Southern Partisan magazine. "We Have Decided," He announced in capital letters, "What To Do About The Flag Issue."
"Oh, God, "I thought, "This is really going to be hopeless."
It was.
Liberals were objecting to the flag over the state capitol. Liberals pointed out that the Klan used that flag a lot. So the Southern Partisan was going to completely take them by surprise with a SHREWD move: The Southern Partisan was going to switch its support from the DIAGONAL flag over the state capitol to a SQUARE flag.
This time the Shrewd Bit was to switch to asking for a SQUARE Confederate flag on the dome. The Klan used the DIAGONAL flag.
Let me tell you why this was supposed to be SHREWD.
During the Civil War, the battle flags were almost all square.
Like every other flag living people fly in this century, OUR Confederate flag is rectangular. It is the flag of living Southerners. But the Partisan wanted to apologize for the fact that the Klan used that flag. They would do that by really surprising the liberals -- the leftists were going to be so SHOCKED and so IMPRESSED! - - by using the SQUARE flag!
Like all right wing ideas that are supposed to be SHREWD, this was so silly it was hard to know where to start pointing out how ridiculous it was.
In the first place, absolutely nobody was going to notice that the flag the Partisan was pushing was square except those of us who knew it was an apology. In the second place, absolutely nobody who is against the Confederate flag cares whether that flag is square or diagonal or round or shaped like a puppy dog.
Real national flags today are ALL diagonal. If you want a flag for living people, it must be diagonal.
I would also point out that the flag over the state capitol is also made of materials that did not exist in 1865. You could really astonish, terrify, and destroy the liberals by demanding that we only support a flag that is square AND one hundred percent cotton!
Boy, that would really make the anti-flag forces collapse into confusion, wouldn't it?
Why should people take somebody who pushes this kind of nonsense seriously?
But in the end, the point here has nothing to do with the flag. The point is that this was another case of right wingers going over the edge. They were taking liberals seriously. They were acting like the objection to the flag had something to do with reality.
They entered into the leftist delusion.
Another common characteristic of rightists going over the edge is the constant tendency of all right wing movements to turn into God R Us Stores.
Leftists keep claiming they represent Truth and Mercy and Goodness. So the rightist says, "Aha! I am going to be Shrewd. He claims to represent Truth and Brotherhood, so I'll say I represent God Himself!"
Meanwhile, back here on Planet Earth, everybody knows that liberals do not represent Love and Brotherhood, and that you do not represent God. So you look as silly as they do.
What a sane person does is stick a pin in that nonsense and point out that all Wordists claim the same thing liberals do. Point out that what they call Love is thinly veneered hatred for America, for Western Civilization, and for white people.
That's the truth, and people will believe it simply because they already know it's true. But rightists simply will not stick to what everybody already knows is true!
Leftists are always screaming "Racist!" I have never ONCE seen a SINGLE conservative have the simple guts and intelligence to ask the liberal, "What do you mean by that word?" Not ONCE! As soon as the liberal says it, all conservative spokesmen hit the floor groveling.
In other words, they take the liberal label seriously.
Another group of rightists responds to being called "racist" and Nazi" by putting on swastikas. They are saying, "I'll show THEM!" Again, they take the liberals seriously.
When rightists kept calling leftists Communists, it got to be a joke. Leftists call anybody who disagrees with them on race "anaziwhowantstokillsixmillionjews." And ALL rightists ALWAYS take it SERIOUSLY! If we don't question it and put it into perspective, I guarantee you no one else will.
Once again, leftists are being SILLY, and we act as if they were making a serious point.
People know leftists are ridiculous. People know leftists use labels wildly. They know that leftism never WORKS.
If we make those points, we can win!
But if we keep insisting that the left represents a highly intelligent conspiracy, we cannot win. If rightists keep claiming that they represent a Political Papacy, they will continue to get the horselaugh they deserve.
The truth is the only thing that will work.
Once again, the choice is clear: you can either tell the TRUTH or you can GO NUTS.
Sticking to the truth requires INTELLIGENCE, MENTAL DISCIPLINE, and GUTS. This is a titanic battle we are waging. If you don't have the INTELLIGENCE, MENTAL DISCIPLINE, AND GUTS to wage it, you will drift out into the never-never land of right wing crazies.