Troubled American Skies

One of the few thin strands of commonality that Americans share these days is the belief in some personally defined delusion. These fantasies are easily tailored to fit whatever political, religious, socio-economic standing, or any other views a person bases his or her reality on no matter how ridiculous they might be. To justify these beliefs people naturally seek out others who believe the same thing and then usually begin a process of reinforcing and augmenting these viewpoints. As these groups become more insulated paranoia sets in with anyone who even seems to be deviating from the accepted orthodoxy being branded a heretic.

Since I have long declared myself a liberal most will conclude I am speaking strictly about those calling themselves by a variety of monikers that boil down to social conservative, governmental libertarian-leaning Republicans. The nifty little catch in this is I am not; I have met more than my share of liberals/progressives that have long since drifted off into the netherworld of political La-la land. Their chief fault being summed up in the demand that Utopia be immediately established and God help the person who hinder this process that should not take more than a year to accomplish at the most.

With that open admission out of the way, where warm and happy delusional liberals fall short as compared to batshit crazy conservatives is that the latter is very heavily armed where as the former often go into seizures at the mere sight of a bolt-action deer rifle. This is not a criticism of liberal trepidation at firearms, being a Southerner who was raised around the religious zeal associated with gun culture from the late-70’s to now I have personally seen it mutate into a paranoid monster both eagerly awaiting doomsday and I believe something far worse.

In the strange world of conservative media, no event can go by without it being branded as some vast left-wing conspiracy out to impose a commie/Muslim/atheistic/vegetarian/animal rights believing world government on righteous, God-fearing, capitalistic Americans. The blood was not cleaned up in the Sandy Hook Elementary school classrooms when it was already being declared a diabolical plot by Obama to take away guns from the ever vigilant, liberty loving Americans. It should not go without saying that even as Boston begins to recover from the aftermath of the very recent terror attack on the marathon the loony bin reverberates with the shrill sounds of conspiracy.

Okay, let me reiterate this because I know someone reading this has his or her terribly bent out of shape despite what I already admitted. Yes, liberals very much have their own wackos spouting all sorts of wild conspiracy theories on a wide spectrum of subjects but as a group, we do not purchase huge arsenals of assault weapons and ammunition awaiting the jackbooted thug knocking at the door.

Elements of the right-wing have gone so bonkers that after reading an article concerning how many of Rush Limbaugh’s commercial sponsors had dropped his radio show after an incident calling a woman a slut the comment section was awash with his fans proudly proclaiming they were ready for civil war. As you might be able to guess, they saw this as some plot to take away his First Amendment rights.

Along those same lines I personally heard a coworker say he believed the 2010 midterm elections were fixed because the Tea Party-inspired Republicans were unable to win enough seats to take over control of the United States Senate. This bright boy clearly ignored the fact that the Delaware “I am not a witch” candidate and the crazy loon from Nevada who believed in “Second Amendment remedies” were simply rejected by the voters of their respective states. Like I mentioned, when any group believes they are in some fashion the sole carriers of truth and justice anything that does not support that assumption has to be the result of some mistake or scheme to subvert their legitimacy.

One of my own brothers once posted a comment on Facebook equating disagreement with conservative principles, both religious and secular, as a form of behavior traitorous to true American ideals. The funny thing in all this is that in a family filled with God-fearing, Second Amendment loving, tax-hating, conservatives the liberal black sheep, me, is the only one ever to serve in the military. Not to further expose my family’s dirty laundry but contact between those branches and mine have been severed since November 2008.

There are ultimately two real points I am trying to make here. The first being that there is a large, paranoid, and heavily armed segment of the American public that views any deviation from what they consider normal as not only an affront but an attempt to impose a tyrannical government. By no means am I saying the majority of conservatives hold this view. I still hold to the belief that most Americans on both on the left and right understands it takes compromise to manage a country as large and complex as the United States of America has become.

I do believe that a large segment of conservatives extremely fear the huge change in demographics this country is going through. And that this fear manifests itself in several ways. Ethnic xenophobia with talk of border walls and mass deportations, nightmarish anxiety that institutions such as marriage might be corrupted if Gay people are allowed that basic right, and a despotic federal boogeyman out to take peoples hard earned money.

The second point I am trying to make is that while the United States does have real and dangerous enemies in the world by divine protection or sheer dumb luck we have never faced one with real intelligence. If such a cunning enemy did exist, he or she would only have to understand that our truly most vulnerable point is not some long and unguarded border but a deep mistrust and ignorance constantly exacerbated by a troop of insane political clowns. A few terroristic events staged to make one side or the other of American politics look guilty could very well push this country over the edge.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The number of extremist groups in the United States exploded in 2009 as militias and other groups steeped in wild, antigovernment conspiracy theories exploited populist anger across the country and infiltrated the mainstream, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Antigovernment "Patriot" groups - militias and other extremist organizations that see the federal government as their enemy - came roaring back to life over the past year after more than a decade out of the limelight. 

The SPLC documented a 244 percent increase in the number of active Patriot groups in 2009. Their numbers grew from 149 groups in 2008 to 512 groups in 2009, an astonishing addition of 363 new groups in a single year. Militias - the paramilitary arm of the Patriot movement - were a major part of the increase, growing from 42 militias in 2008 to 127 in 2009. 

The report, "Rage on the Right," is the cover story in the Spring 2010 issue of the SPLC's quarterly investigative journal Intelligence Report.