Thoughts on the "Bottom Right"...

[benEzra]

There was a discussion over on a gun board I frequent about Senator Obama's views on gun ownership (which is a topic for another thread). Incidental to that dicussion, someone made an interesting observation about what he calls the "Bottom Right" of the political spectrum, in response to an Obama critic who insisted on making a point of Mr. Obama's middle name.

Its an attempt to try and bring out prejudice in people. The same with calling him Osama.

It's not so much the use of the name that offends me... it's the people who think this is a viable strike against the man. Like it's an actual contention for the idea that he's a bad, untrustworthy guy.... These people... well, I wouldn't really call them the far right either. The term I think is most fitting would be the "bottom" right.

Yeah, the bottom right. The simple individuals who are right leaning because they're from a right leaning environment, whose thought processes used to arrive at their conclusions consists of the demonizing propaganda they see on their right leaning communities, and one liner bumper sticker slogans. The bottom right would probably be liberals if they had been born in a liberal area. They don't seem to be able to think well on their own. The types who only know argue for gun rights by shouting those one liners. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" "When guns are outlawed..." etc. And demonizing the opposition "Don't listen to them bobby! Them gun grabbers are nothing but commie elitists!" And are at a loss to develop an actual idea to elaborate beyond that. I'm quite sure they tend to be poorly educated as well.

The whole name association is just a part of the bottom right standard. It just shows an incredible lack of intelligence and education. A name like is easy to demonize, and they choose to do that because that's what they know. It's stunningly similar to what the bottom left do. They don't like EBR's ("Evil Black Rifles," e.g. modern-looking civilian rifles like AR-15's --bE) because of the scary names or looks they have. The bottom left argues by demonizing ammunition and calling it "cop killer bullets" to stir people against it, like the bottom right demonizes this guy by calling him "Obama bin Laden" to try to do the same. Neither have any grounding for associating the object of their hate with the implications of the names they choose. Both just use these simpleton slogans to try to goad others into thinking what they do, rather than forming rational points of persuasion. They try to create names and slogans, because that's all they know. It's the identical strain of stupidity in both, by the lowest denominators of our society. I have a feeling these people are basically one and the same, having risen from the genetic cesspool of stupidity, with only environmental factors accounting for the differentiation of ideology. They just happened to have opposing beliefs printed into their heads by their environment.

I thought "Bottom Right" was a rather insightful term for those of that mold. Whaddya think?

(And I tend to agree that there are those on the left that do it too, which IMHO doesn't help progressives one bit.)

[thereismore]

1. "Bottom right" is a great label. I'll use it from now on. nt

[KG]

2. well, this yayhoo believes there is a 'bottom left', too.

that's his term for for those who believe in gun control. how nice. :eyes:

[benEzra]

3. Actually, he was referring to those who throw around buzzwords

without even knowing what they refer to, and base their support for banning a particular item on the scariness of the label that someone else has tagged it with. Which is not really any different from judging a candidate's merits on whether you like his name.

FWIW, Sarah Brady is a rightist (Reagan republican and proud of it), not a leftist, and the head of the Brady Campaign is a repub politician of some sort. I'd put them both on the bottom right, personally.

I do think he is correct that those who like to play name games exist on both the right and the left, but I think it's somewhat more common on the right.