Reply #13: Partisan tomfoolery.

[rrneck]

Inaccurate contradictory tomfoolery at that.

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".

As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

...

The authors, presumably aware of the outrage they were likely to trigger, added a disclaimer that their study "does not mean that conservatism is pathological or that conservative beliefs are necessarily false".

Limbaugh et al are not conservatives. They are fascists. Conservatives merely desire a reduced rate of cultural change. Such a desire is inadvisable in light of the changes we will be required to make in the face of our current socioeconomic and environmental problems, but conservatives are hardly evil simpletons.

While tolerance for ambiguity and a desire to nurture are admirable traits, sometimes that tolerance can be fatal. There is no time to vacillate when one is being assaulted. Anyone who cannot tell who the bad guy is under those circumstances and act to defend themselves is an idiot, no matter their political persuasion. Anybody who thinks they can dictate how an individual may defend themselves without offering a viable substitute is an arrogant ideologue. No sensitive, thinking person likes to fight, but every person with any sense has to be aware of the possibility. And any sensitive person has to consider that others may not be as fortunate as themselves and have to fight to stay alive.

Human interactions are significantly more subtle and complex than the OP would have us believe. Even the most tolerant and nurturing left wing liberal has the ability to respond unambiguously and deceivingly to a threat. In fact, the lack of decisive action and cooperation has been the undoing of the Democratic party for quite some time. That's probably because liberals have stopped being liberals and have rested of the laurels of their jaundiced memories of the 1960's and failed to be the change they are supposed to be. I suspect that too many liberals have been behaving like the conservatives described in the linked article in the OP in that they have spent more time pining for the days of Berkley flower power and hippie love and failed to keep up with the times. Of course, while pining for the past of the 60's liberals may inadvertently get reintroduced to the the skull cracking, building burning, street shooting labor riots of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

Vague platitudes like "reducing the availability of guns" don't cut it with people in the real world. Guns, and the self defense issues that go with them, figure large in people's minds. It's a personal issue that is just as important as all the personal issues that liberals are best at defending like GLBT rights, racial and gender equality, choice, and marriage. There are eighty million or so gun owners in this country, and it's political suicide to tell them they might be collateral damage for some ideological construct that leaves out the possibility of a viable self defense for them or their loved ones.

The best thing for us to do is put aside all this partisan bullshit and ideological parsing for our own gratification and remember the words of robber baron Jay Gould who said, "You can always hire one half of the poor to kill the other half."