What is it that drives right wingers to threats and violence?

[Renew Deal]

What is it about right wing ideology that drives certain people to violent behavior? We’ve seen the same thing over and over and over again in multiple countries and with multiple similar agendas.

Look at some recent examples:
OKC Bombing and McVeigh
9/11 and Al Queda
Shawna Forde and the murder of a man and his daughter. She was associated with the “Minuteman” fraud.
Jared Laughner
Norway massacre

This was all right wing fueled madness. Somehow these people are convinced that the “ultimate solution” is to murder their perceived “enemies.” You see that type of rhetoric in the US from time to time. Just look at all the revolution fetish stuff that goes on in the US:

"Don't retreat, reload."











The other disturbing fact about all the cases I listed above was that the terrorists all targeted children. They somehow see it as part of their duty to snuff out their opposition in it's crib. The world needs to stand up to this bullying. I'm sure that targeting their behavior will somehow confirm to them the evils of government, but the world cannot shy away from confronting right wing barbarism.

[HopeHoops]

1. It is a sign of Advanced Lackanookie Syndrome - a very sad condition.

[NightWatcher]

6. I was going to suggest, little peckers, or married to a slob with a little pecker

[bluestate10]

16. Gee. You beat me to the punch. nt

[BNJMN]

21. Uh, I have a 'little pecker' and that's a pretty stupid thing to say.

Not very thoughtful or sensitive to us 'little pecker guys' out here.
You think we want to be associated with deranged killers?
Sheesh.

[Skip_In_Boulder]

10. Yes, which can sometime advance to

comeoniwannalayya, or in some cases the dreaded, iwannapokeatwatalot.

[HopeHoops]

22. Both of those conditions lead directly to Gostraighttohell donotpassgoitus

[Skip_In_Boulder]

29. I have heard that before

:toast:

[SharonAnn]

36. I think it's "Black and White" thinking. I'm right, everything else is wrong and is

the end of the world.

And, it's my job to fix it!

[HopeHoops]

38. Fuck the world - what's on the tube?

[nc4bo]

2. Not to make light of it but sometimes I suspect that their god is not a gentle God

of peace, love and hope.

Their God is a vengeful, hate-filled, mean spirited God that will condemn you to the fiery pits of hell for the slightest infarction.

Imagine hearing that every Wed. and Sunday, 7 days a week on radio or tv from cradle to grave.

[BiggJawn]

20. When they say "Gimme thet Ol' Time religion"

They mean the Hateful, vengeful, psychopathic gawd of the old testament. Helps with their feelings of inadequacy to have a "friend" who's such an ate-up "badass".

[flamingdem]

3. No longer a secret: Right Wing Ideology is generalized hatred nt

[SecularMotion]

4. Their frustrations that they will always be a minority

[pipi_k]

5. What is it that drives ANYONE to threats and violence...

A feeling of powerlessness, maybe? Weakness? The thought that nobody will listen unless they do something extreme?

The inability to ask/negotiate for what one wants or needs without having to act out?

Lots of reasons, I think...

[no_hypocrisy]

7. It's more than hatred. It's a form of misanthropy that's predicated on

intense feelings of fear bordering on paranoia, helplessness, hopelessness, inferiority, and a need to project their existence (more to impress themselves than others). Taking a life is taboo in all cultures unless there's a "justification" that allows the breaking of that taboo. These individuals take their inner fears and unhappiness and transform them into a righteousness that allows them to not just murder but to murder a multitude of people. It's like taking their lives en masse restores the life of the murderer.

[Maccagirl]

13. Very thoughtful and eloquently stated

I hope ALL people targeted by the hate realize the gravity of the situation.

[marions ghost]

39. yes

you have it right. Boils down to "If others Die then I Live." (...or the ideology they represent lives on after them...)

You can see the twisted logic in that from someone with a severe case of black/white thinking.

[LadyLeigh]

69. You may be on to something there.

[valerief]

8. The RW gun fetish sure doesn't help. nt

[spin]

15. Be aware that many Democrats also own firearms ...

Many of the gun owners who currently vote for Republicans would vote for Democrats if our party wasn't viewed the supporters of draconian gun control.

Of course those who own firearms and belong to fundamentalist Christian churches are unlikely to ever vote for Democrats.

[DBoon]

25. owning a firearm does not make one a gun fetishist

I own a few pairs of shoes, doesn't mean I have a shoe fetish

Owning a firearm for sport and rational self-protection is one thing

Elevating the firearm to a political fetish is another

[spin]

30. I know people who have a large collection of firearms ...

as an investment. In recent years they have done better than they would have if they had put the same amount of money into the stock market.

I agree that merely owning firearms is not a fetish. I have assembled a small collection over my 45 years of shooting. My personal collection has little value as most of my firearms have fired thousands of rounds downrange at paper targets.

[valerief]

53. That's correct. It doesn't. However, the RW has a gun fetish. nt

[DBoon]

58. Damn right it does

and gun owners who do not share that fetish need to realize how much the right wing is damaging their legitimate interests

[Amonester]

9. Easy answer: they want TONS of money, and the percieved POWER that

comes with TONS of money, without having to work for it themselves (which they instinctively know very seldomly ever comes to hard workers).

In short, they want to submit OTHERS to do the work (or the robberies) for them to profit from.

Always been in this species' DNA.

[GoCubsGo]

11. FEAR

Nothing but a bunch of ignorant, gullible, pissypants cowards who are afraid of EVERYTHING that is different from them and their pitiful, narrow views. The only one who doesn't really belong on your list is Jared Loughner. He's mentally ill--an obvious schizophrenic.

[pipi_k]

24. Just wanted to point out...

that fear is more than just a sign of a "pissypants coward".


Fear itself is a primal emotion. The human race could not have survived without it.

Some people have fears that have been instilled in them from an early age. It doesn't do any good at all to call people names because they have fears.

And as someone who has had to deal with a great many fears over the course of 50+ years, I find it insensitive and ignorant that so many people think anyone with fears others don't understand (or agree with) are "pissypants cowards".

[handmade34]

60. excellent point

it is the "black and white" thinking that causes the problem and we are no better when we reduce it to the same...

as a victim of some of that right-wing anger (being called a terriorist at a rally, slurs directed at me, bumpers stickers stolen off my car, etc) I realize the answer doesn't lie in returning the same behavior...

[marions ghost]

41. And this Norwegian guy

is not obviously ill?

[duhneece]

12. Violence, revenge are addicting

The rush of self-righteous anger (and I feel it far too often myself) is a rush. I imagine the neurotransmitters are similar to those stimulated by cocaine.

[RagAss]

14. Religion. .... next question.

[slackmaster]

17. Extremists and authoritarians of all stripes are prone to violence. They rationalize it.

I think all extremists should be taken out and shot.

[Swede]

18. Their fear of everyone and everything different.

[pampango]

70. The right's politics is based on exactly that "fear of everyone and everything different".

Given that fear of "difference" their politics is centered on the goal of keeping "Them"(who are 'different') away from "Us". To accomplish that the right wingers have to demonize "Them"; otherwise what is so bad about "Them" living with "Us"?

Unfortunately this demonization of "others" has been politically successful so far for teabaggers and the populist right in Europe. However, in a multicultural world (particularly so in multicultural countries like the US, Canada and Europe) that kind of thinking leads nowhere good.

[undeterred]

19. Some people see things in absolute terms and are unable to

question themselves. They don't have the capability to evolve emotionally or intellectually, so everything that conflicts with their worldview causes extreme frustration.

But that alone is not enough. There are lots of people who fit that description who don't resort to violence. I think there has to be some underlying personality probems and a huge lack of impulse control, plus a lack of conscience. They are usually isolated. Such a person may be extremely rare, but when you have this many people in the world, its going to happen.

[Zorra]

23. It's simple.

They're fucking crazy.

Combine the results of the research below with ignorance and hateful political and fundamentalist religious ideologies, and you get twisted baby killers. I'm GLBT, and I have no doubt whatsoever that half the conservatives in this country would publicly hang me and have a tailgate party in celebration if they could get away with it.

Researchers help define what makes a political conservative

Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include:

Fear and aggression
Dogmatism and intolerance of ambiguity
Uncertainty avoidance
Need for cognitive closure
Terror management

"From our perspective, these psychological factors are capable of contributing to the adoption of conservative ideological contents, either independently or in combination," the researchers wrote in an article, "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," recently published in the American Psychological Association's Psychological Bulletin.

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_poli...

Study: Conservatives have larger ‘fear center’ in brain

A study at University College London in the UK has found that conservatives' brains have larger amygdalas than the brains of liberals. Amygdalas are responsible for fear and other "primitive" emotions. At the same time, conservatives' brains were also found to have a smaller anterior cingulate -- the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/28/conservatives-fea... /

There's No Arguing With Conservatives ... No, Seriously, Scientific Studies Prove It

A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder. In essence, schooling conservatives makes them more stupid. From the Washington Post article on the study, which came out yesterday:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-sweeney/theres-no-arg...

Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain
Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.

Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.
snip--
"Does this mean liberals and conservatives are never going to agree?" Amodio asked. "Maybe it suggests one reason why they tend not to get along."

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-sci-politics1...

[treestar]

26. Their philosophy is based on domination and not cooperation

It is reflected in their views of marriage for example. It is not a relationship of cooperation between two people - the husband is the head.

When they have a political difference, they don't think in terms of agreements or treaties - they think in terms of military attack and domination. Might makes right and everything is a hierarchy, since they don't want to deal with other humans. They just want a hierarchy organized so they can live without thinking.

[KharmaTrain]

27. The Need For Certainty...

When you listen to a wingnut they're talking in absolutes...no shades of grey. It makes the world easier to "understand" and for their puppetmasters to manipulate them. The hallmark of a right winger is ignorance and arrogance that is worn like a badge of honor. Many have been indoctrinated with this mindset for decades and have been driven further and further from reality as their leaders find new ways to amp up the outrage and manipulate their sheep.

It's what turns doctors into "babykillers" and anyone with dark skin as a "terrorist"...as boooooshie once said "you're with us or you're against us"...and that "us" is a very exclusive club.

[BNJMN]

28. Well it's easy to stigmatize 'the other' nowadays...happens here all the time.

It seems clear to me that some of them really fear that the Democratic Party is in the midst of a Socialist Takeover or whatever. How they got to that point and who is fueling their fear is an important key, but, as an activist that actualy has face-to-face encounters with these people, telling them they're 'just crazy' or that their brain is smaller and that's why they think the way they do...just isn't going to help my situation.


Whatever.
It'd be nice to see people connect as humans once in a while,
Guess I'm in the wrong subject entirely for that though.

:D

[Zorra]

33. If you know an effective method for engaging in an honest, productive,

and reasonable discussion with a conservative, would you please post it in an OP?

Nobody else that I am aware of seems to have been able to crack the code yet.

If you engage in face to face encounters with conservatives, then you must know that they are not reasonable, in the sense that they continue to believe in things that are obviously not real despite all evidence to the contrary being presented to them.

If you are out of touch with reality, and you deny others their rights, cause children to go hungry, and you blow up buildings with innocent people in them, and you shoot and kill children, that makes a fair case for saying you are crazy by definition in most societies.

Your statement that "some of them really fear that the Democratic Party is in the midst of a Socialist Takeover" is an excellent example of just how totally out of touch with reality these conservatives are. They really fear something that does not exist.

Crazy people believe crazy shit and then they do crazy shit because of the twisted things that they believe.

Conservatives stigmatize themselves. Denying their insanity and not preventing this insanity from manifesting in action could be fatal. They've been responsible for the deaths of many millions of innocent people throughout history.

Maybe you can sit down and have a beer with a conservative, talk about those Bears, the weather, and the price of milk, connect as a human through some common experience.

But underneath the pleasantries is the underlying fact that what conservatives believe in results in action or policy that almost always inevitably leads to predation, unwarranted violence, and repression, etc., in some form or another. Their potential for engaging in mass insanity and destruction is always there, and when it has manifested in the past hundreds of millions of people have suffered and died because of it.

And if I can't convince them through reason not to hurt me or my children, directly or indirectly, wittingly or unwittingly, then I certainly can't trust them, and need to take steps to prevent them from hurting innocent people.

Understanding how conservatives got that way and feeling compassion for conservatives is great, and it is extremely important, I'm totally down with that. And it is true that telling them to their face that they are wacko is not productive. But fully understanding the irrational nature of conservatives by non-conservatives is critical to preventing conservatives from causing suffering to innocent people.

http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?4&TheScorpionandtheFrog

[BNJMN]

42. Stigmatizing the other, case in point.

Unfortunately, I see it on both sides.

'Further than that I am not willing to argue the point.'

[Zorra]

44. Stigmatizing. Is that a new Third Way meme?

Most of us here are Democrats because we do not believe in or condone GOP/conservative ideologies and policies. They are in direct opposition to what we believe in as Democrats. We are Democrats. Not Bipartisans. Not Third Way. Not repunblicans.

A lot of us Democrats really don't like it when people try to convince us that conservative ideology/policy is reasonable and that we should accept it as part of the Democratic Party platform. Is calling a crocodile a crocodile and describing it stigmatization?

If Democrats are stupid enough to let conservatives into their tent, they should not be surprised when they get stabbed in their sleep.

“If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.”
Adlai Stevenson

Whoops. More "stigmatizing".

[BNJMN]

47. You're arguing both sides now, and still winning!

Wonderful. Amazing.
:D

[Zorra]

63. I thought so. Thanks for the confirmation. nt

[BNJMN]

67. Okay. Be well. Take care.

Smoochies!

[booley]

56. There's stigmatizing the other

and then there's honest criticism.

And Finally there's false equivalency.

Saying that "both sides do it" is only legitimate if both sides are currently doing it. But as much as there is anger on the left at the right, for as much vitriol that gets expressed, the left is not engaging in the kind of violent eliminationist "no compromise" rhetoric that many conservatives are doing right now.

There are differences between Liberals and Conservatives. Otherwise there wouldn't be Liberals and Conservatives.

And engaging in false equivalencies in no way helps create a dialogue. It destroys dialogue by trying to put critics on the defensive.

[marions ghost]

43. "Denying their insanity ...could be fatal"

u said it zorra

We make a mistake to show too much tolerance I'm afraid.

[saras]

55. I know one, but it isn't practical or legal - take all their power away

What's left often isn't attractive, or more mature than a two-year-old, but it's the part you have to talk to, as it's the part that makes the decisions.

[rucky]

31. Conservatives freak out about things they can't control

like the skin tone of their neighbors, or those gays

and their lives have much more certainty if all those other things just went away.

Their unevolved brains can't adapt, so they go with brute force.

[snot]

32. Their ideology is driven by fear and unreason; so, too, their actions?

[Rex]

34. They love domestic violence and controversy imo.

Just look at 'professional wrestling' and you will quickly discover their mindset.

[zacherystaylor]

35. They were abused as children

Right wing indoctrination starts when they beat the truth into children.

[reformist2]

37. It's a sign they are getting desperate.

Their world view is falling out of favor and they know it.

[ladjf]

40. Answer: Profound ignorance. nt

[white_wolf]

45. It's the black and white world view.

To them it is good vs evil, light vs dark. A poster on another political forum I go to said this about a conservative poster there: Don't waste your time with him. In his mind there are two types of people in this world. People who agree with him and Marxists." That could be said of the entire right-wing, just substitute Marxist for the fear of the day, though that one never goes out of style for too long for them.

Another point could be is that terror and violence does work to achieve their goals, since their goals are to hoard power into their hands and create a Fascist type state, fear leads to that state. The left's goals are different and terror will not help us achieve those goals. Even the far left such as communists know this. Trotsky wrote that terror and assassination were useless because there is always another to take that person's place. Though even if terrorism guaranteed our goals we should never use it. War is one thing that is sometimes justified, but terrorism is never justified. If anyone wants to look up my claim about communism and terror Trotsky wrote this essay on the use of terror: http://www.marxists.de/theory/whatis/terror2.htm

[Initech]

46. This.

I know people who are so black and white it's scary. There's no such thing as a grey area with them. It's one thing is the greatest and the other is the absolute worst. I think it's this type of mentality that drives people to violence.

[mstinamotorcity]

48. Reality!!!!!

It is starting to set in that they are messed up in a lot of ways. they are slowly waking up out of their repug-induced coma. And its not looking so good for them. they are turning on each other because of the Black President. They would rather let the country go to hell than have an African American President be over this country or them. They would burn and go to hell first. but self preservation is kicking in on some and what the President has been proposing doesn't seem so radical now. The more they take their position and hold to it the more people see they are special. The more people see that their hatred and greed are tied hand and hand.

[butterfly77]

49. They want to control everyone but...

they don't want anyone to tell them what to do,HYPOCRITES!

[ZombieHorde]

50. I don't really know, but I have worked in mental health for over a decade,

and the folks who are the most violence are ones who have the most trouble communicating.

[mmonk]

51. Eliminationist speech.

[Maru Kitteh]

52. jared Laughner does not belong in that lineup.

He had no coherent ideology because there is/was nothing left of coherence in his mind at all. The disease took it all.

You cannot ascribe a reasoned motive to an utterly disordered and irrational mind.

[booley]

54. The Need to Punish?

Look at the rest, the ones that don't necessarily do personal violence but whose ideology is still pretty vile.

Look at their ideological "solutions" to problems and one can see a pattern:

The problem with the poor is they are lazy and spoiled. So we should not give them money so they "straighten out"

Abortion and contraception lets a woman avoid the consequences of being sexually promiscuous. They must not be allowed, even if that means a child being born with HIV. (It's just part of the lesson)

Someone with a drug addiction should be jailed because prison will surely fix this lack of willpower.

IF someone lost their home, then no help should be given because clearly it must have happened because they were irresponsible.

And there is nothing that can be done to people who have done wrong (like prisoners). There is no punishment too extreme, no conditions too harsh. In fact the harsher the better because then these people will be less likely to re-offend. Punishment is the ONLY form of rehabilitation. Thus everything from wearing pink underwear to torture is just fine.

In short, if there's a problem, in their minds it's because someone (always the one with the least ability to defend one's self) hasn't been punished enough to "learn their lesson". IF a thousand innocents suffer, that's ok as long as not one of the guilty escapes.

Terrorism is just the logical conclusion.

I am sure somebody could come up with some pop psychology reasons for this. The guy who wrote the authoritarians seemed to have some good ones. But whatever the causes, this is the end result.

[AverageJoe90]

57. The YouTube B.S. machine has already started to go into full swing from what I'm seeing.............

Some suspicious characters are already trying to claim that he wasn't a true right-winger, or was a 'Zionist' plant, etc.

[moondust]

59. Toxic gene pool.

[craigmatic]

61. They have small minds and short tempers.

[Tikki]

62. Poor impulse control and a twisted and skewed...

perspective of their importance...


Tikki

[Dawson Leery]

64. kick

[yurbud]

65. most of the ways to confront it are indirect: good public schools, social policies that don't lead

to working class families working two jobs to survive and so unintentionally neglecting their kids.

There is a harder level of this--a lot of people have identified elements of fascists personalities, but I haven't read of anyone figuring out how to draw them into non-racist, non-corporate feudalism mainstream.

[michreject]

66. That's easy...........liberals nt

[begin_within]

68. They feel their power structure is threatened.