The answer here is almost as easy as the question: What does Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Pat Robertson all have in common? Obviously -- certitude. In an age when few of us has any sure explanations for unemployment, terrorists, bank corruption, and earthquakes, these guys have....!
Excuse my certitude here, but I'm guessing they're doing is what all conspiracy theorists do to make sense out of a chaotic world. They're finding vile little conspiracies that have set this chaos in motion. Obviously they have no convincing solution, but all it takes for some people is a convincing conspiracy. Terrific -- now I can go to bed at night not being sure of a better world, but at least being sure why it's so bad.
For Palin, the conspiracy is "that other America" (ie. multi-cultured, big-city non-whites) that has taken over our traditional small-town, Norman Rockwell America....
For Limbaugh, the conspiracy is anything that's not hard-right Republicanism (ie. specifically defined by his own gifted understanding of what is "hard" and what is "right")...
For Glenn Beck, he's a chattering showman who revives our history of past populists by finding conspiracy in some hidden someones plotting a Socialist (or what the heck maybe call it a Fascist) take-over of America...
For Pat Robertson, the conspiracy has been hatched in the hearts of evil people who somehow have not come to the feet of the Almighty specifically learned in the Gospel of Pat....
Not really bad people or bad Americans. Just wealthy, fellow citizens who are the unintended consequence of the 1st amendment!
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I don't take their kind seriously...but unfortuately a lot of people do
ReplyDeleteThey may not be "bad people" in the vein of a killer or a drug dealer, but I think they have VERY mixed up belief and have some VERY bad qualities. What gives them the right (or the intelligence for that matter) to think they have all the answers?
ReplyDeleteKen, it strikes me that nice people can be as dangerous as bad people. So yes, these four are not bad; but boy do they help set off bad ideas!
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