While protests are going on around the world because of a stupid video made in line with America’s extreme, right-wing, religious conspiracy theories… Paul Ryan speaks at an event that supports those exact religious conspiracy theories, the Values Voter Summit, and offers more possible fuel to the fire. Amazing. Again the most inept campaign I have ever seen, but it’s all for one reason: maintain the veil over truth.
One rather choice Paul Ryan quote from today at the Values Voter Summit was in line with the usual paranoia. He promises the Obama administration will create “A county where everything is free but us!” Republicans and their ongoing crap about “the decline of America” (coupled with, of course, Chuck Norris’s “1000 years of darkness”) is reaching epic levels.
…but that Republican strategy… one of creating information isolation, paranoia, and conspiracy theories is VERY similar to that of the governing strategy of the dictators at whom the Republican right boldly flash their giant swords and scream from across the riverbank.
Stick with me for a second, it’s a thought experiment on leadership. I’m not calling the Republican Party totalitarian dictators, I’m saying they use the same political tactics:
Think about ruling philosophy and ruling techniques as general concepts; divorce them from all the politics, hoopla, geography and issues of the current political environment.
Let’s compare the actual techniques used to run and rule a political party. I’m usually a person who asks people to look at policy and use that as a gauge for what a party actually believes, but recently HOW the Republican Party governs in regards to its techniques is actually analogous to that which they shout the loudest against: dictatorships. Within the confines of the two-party democracy that we have in the United States…the tools and approach used are the same.
What’s the Difference between Dictator Ruling Philosophy and the Republican Party?
Isolation, Paranoia, Religion.
Totalitarian dictators isolate their population: control education, and therefore beliefs by blocking out all information that is NOT controlled by them. Republicans can’t do that in the United States, however, they can and have gone out of their way to build up an in-bred mistrust of all media EXCEPT their own channels: Rush, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Mega Churches, etc. They preach every day to people who are loyal listeners, and they believe everything those outlets say… those same followers totally refusing to even consider facts from other information sources. “Don’t trust any other media! They won’t tell you the truth!” is a damn catch phrase slogan of many right wing radio and tv shows. Isolation.
Creating extreme distrust of “everyone who is not like you” is the second rule when one wants to control the masses, which is easy if you’ve isolated a group to controlled channels of information. Create a common enemy that makes people jumpy and on edge will make that group follow whoever claims, however vague the solution (Mitt), that they can “solve the problem” of that enemy (personified or metaphorical). We’ve seen it since the dawn of civilization; over and over and over again. It’s just the way large groups of people act; we are pack animals after all.
I’ve seen and read more than once now anecdotal evidence from reporters who have been to North Korea, and when talking with people there, that North Koreans are convinced… convinced… that when American children wake up in the morning their first thoughts they have directed towards how they can “destroy North Korea”… that American children are taught from birth to destroy North Korea… clearly not true, but that’s what they’ve seen in media for generations… they have no evidence to the contrary. All they have access to is the North Korean equivalent of Rush Limbaugh… contract or differing opinion doesn’t exist.
Isolation, paranoia to create conspiracy theories: in Republican Party of the 21st Century: Taking away your guns, threatening your marriage, killing your grandma, not a real American, destroying your religion, disrespecting your religion, taking away your freedom, putting you out of work, secret Muslim extremist ties, killing babies in and outside of the womb…the list goes on and on. The Republican Party could rival any dictatorship when it comes to creating an enemy and making its people paranoid about that enemy. The last 4 years that tactic have reached very frightening, feverish levels . Wild animals pounding on their chests with guns raised and shouting about Jesus… how do you reason with that?
You don’t. You can’t.
As we see in the second-phase of the Arab Spring (what’s happening this week has to happen; it always does when new paradigms in a country arise, the timing and way Mitt Romney has politicized it is the sad part). The point, though: religion cannot be “argued against”. It’s religion! That’s why the founding fathers wanted it OUT of government. But the Republican Party has intentionally put religion back into government because they know you cannot reason with/for/against/in-relation-to faith. Moreover, they’ve managed to create the belief that anyone who does not align themselves with the the far right is somehow not religious, are hedonistic, even, and lacking in any moral code or compass… and that those who are not aligned with the Republican right are out to get them – against them…
Sound familiar?
Religion in Politics: Christian Right vs. Sharia Law.
I don’t care, and it doesn’t matter, if an individual agrees or disagrees with how a religion practices or in what it believes. We all need to leave one another’s religions alone. What matters is you can’t argue, reason, or compromise with religion. It’s faith, which is why the US government has now been brought to a standstill, or in the Middle East people in defense of their prophet storm an embassy… or back in the United States people in defense of their savior bomb a building or shoot a doctor. Religion is too sticky and tricky to have in government. Period. Republicans shout fearsome quotations about Sharia Law… but what they’re doing now is exactly the same thing by bringing Christianity into US law. Same thing. Yes, Sharia law can justifiably be seen as more extreme in its connections between religious text and policy… because it’s been allowed to become that way. If you fear Sharia Law, you should fear having Christianity being injected into national policy just as deeply. BOTH are bad ideas when attempting to govern a county of diverse people where freedom of thought is a priority.
Isolation, mis-information, paranoia, fear, and religion… all of these things are tools of the Republican Party in the 21st Century. How is any of that different than the ruling philosophy of a dictatorship? How is storming an embassy any different than faith-based bombings and killings in the US over abortion?
Prove me wrong.
Published: by | Updated: 04-21-2015 17:47:20
