Some of us do understand the right-wing. Some of us understand them far too well.

[Bjorn Against]

There are many who accuse those of us on the left end of the political spectrum of being partisan ideologues who are simply unable to understand where the other side is coming from.

But some of us do understand where the other side is coming from, some of us understand it far too well.

I understand right-wing ideology because I used to be a right-wing ideologue. I started my political life as a Libertarian, and for a while I believed very strongly in Libertarian principles. I was told about a magic system called the “free market” which was supposed to bring about freedom and prosperity for all. They told me that if we just slashed taxes, eliminated government services, and stopped regulating corporations we would all be better off. They told me not to worry about global warming because they said it was junk science, they told me not to worry about corporations abusing their power because consumers would always choose an ethical business over an unethical one and so the market would give corporations an incentive to regulate themselves, they told me to trust in the market and so I trusted in the market.

My trust was violated.

It turned out that all those “scientists” they brought out to tell me that global warming was a hoax had been paid off by the oil companies to come to their conclusions and none of them had been peer reviewed. And everything they told me about the market being able to regulate itself was a lie. In reality consumers did not always choose the ethical company over the unethical ones, and more often than not the companies with the biggest profits had the most unethical business practices. Wal-Mart would make billions by exploiting workers while the friendly mom-and-pop stores down the street would be forced to close their doors because they could not compete. Exxon would rake in record profits by gouging the consumer while companies striving to make cheap renewable energy were unable to get off the ground. Time and time again we would see the so-called “free-market” benefit the most unethical corporations while the small businesses who treated their customers and employees well were forced to go out of business. When I started to see the greed and corruption which consumes corporate America my right-wing ideology could not hold up any longer. I was being lied to, and I knew that I needed to go in search of the truth.

I spent many hours on the internet reading up on abuses of power by the government and corporations, I started to understand progressive views and the more I started to understand them the more I started to realize just how much sense they made. Once I started to learn the facts my ideology rapidly shifted, and in just a short period of time I went from being a right-wing ideologue to being an outspoken leftist.

We are always being told that we need to move to the center to win over voters, but I was not moved by centrist ideology I was moved by leftists and progressives like Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Michael Moore. I was moved by those who spoke out loudly and passionately about what they believed in.

Now some people think that sounds crazy, many people think if a person is going to genuinely move from one end of the political spectrum to the other it is going to happen gradually. But the fact is when a person realizes they are wrong it makes a lot more sense to move to the correct position immediately rather than stopping halfway between right and wrong.

And let's be clear politics is ultimately about right and wrong. While the media may try to treat it as a game and constantly focusing on polling and who won this or that debate, the fact is that politics is not a game it is something that has a profound impact on our daily lives. The decisions made by people in power can often be life or death decisions for many people. Politicians decide whether or not people get sent off to die in war, they decide the laws which determine whether or not people will have access to health care, they decide what regulations are in place to protect our environment, these are serious issues and we can not reduce politics to being simply a game in which we cheer for our own side.

Ultimately as human beings we all have the same basic interests. We all want to live our lives peacefully, we don't want our homes to be foreclosed, we don't want to be denied health care when we are sick, we don't want to go hungry because we can't afford to buy food, we don't want war to destroy our homes and our lives, we don't want to drink polluted war or breath toxic air, as humans we all have basic interests no matter what our ideology. Yet quite often a person's ideology goes against their own interests as human beings, and most of them do not realize it. But when a person does realize that their belief system is going against their own interests as humans, many of them are going to start thinking differently.

When I realized my belief system did not reflect the interests that we hold as human beings I knew I had to change them very quickly. Now my goal in life is to show others the truth about my former ideology. While I am certainly not proud of the fact that I used to hold right-wing views, my time with the right-wing has helped me to see the flaws in their logic in ways which I would have never been able to if I had not bought into their crap. Those of us on the left are often accused of not listening to the other side, but I have listened to the other side and that is why I am a leftist because I now realize just how absurd the views I once held really are.

The right-wing lied to me, they betrayed me, and they betrayed this nation. It is now my duty as an American citizen to do everything in my power to show just how destructive their ideology is.

[Rageneau]

1. Some of us understand them better than you -- which is why we NEVER fell for their BS

I knew and always have known that every right-wing talking point was just another way to excuse their personal greed, prejudice, xenophobia and unrestrained paranoia.

I always knew better than to join the KKK, too, for the same reason.

It is easy to find out if you are on the right political side: just feel where the hate is coming from, and there you'll find the right wing (including the ones in disaguise.)

[Bjorn Against]

3. Well maybe I did take the wrong path originally, but I learned from my mistakes

I am not proud of the fact that I was a right-winger, but being on that side of the aisle for a while does help give me an insight into their ideology that I would have never have if I had not once believed in it. The right-wing lied to me and deceived me, and that has made me more passionate about fighting back.

We can't expect everyone to be right the first time, I am sure you haven't been right about everything and nobody else has either. I converted, and I am going to welcome anyone else who makes a genuine conversion with open arms.

[sansatman]

34. David Brock is another right winger gone good...

David Brock is the author of four political books, including The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy (Crown, May 2004). In his preceding book, Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative (Crown, March 2002), a 2002 New York Times best-selling political memoir, he chronicled his years as a conservative media insider. Brock was the recipient of the New Democrat Network's first award for political entrepreneurship. He currently serves on the board of The Progressive Legislative Action Network, an organization created to support progressive state legislators. He is the President and CEO of Media Matters for America.

http://mediamatters.org/

[Time for change]

41. The best or only path to wisdom and knowledge is the willingness to change one's beliefs

when appropriate.

Right wing or left wing, those who believe they are always right and have no willingness to change will never learn much.

And as you say, changing one's views, though very difficult, also leaves one with a better understanding of one's previous views than others who never held them.

[alittlelark]

5. Actually he understands them better than you do.

He lived w/in the ideology. You were taught it was wrong early on.

I know of very few RW whackos who came from open, progressive parents... that kinda sh*t needs to be taught early.

[nxylas]

29. I know a lot of progressives who come from RW parents, though

Myself included.

[Jackpine Radical]

33. You're right. I mean left. Oh, shit. You're correct.

There's a reason why a left-wing upbringing doesn't produce wingnuts. Lakoff has it about right in his description of childrearing practices. Progressives are much more likely to be self-actualizers, open, tolerant of ambiguity and of others, etc. They are raised with the sense that they can regulate both themselves and their environments, rather than being raised to fear and bow to authority. There's just no going back from a liberal perspective--it would be like voluntarily putting your eyes out so you can blindly follow some demagogue.

[pretzel4gore]

37. which is why i've always loathed gary david goldberg...

goldberg's 'family ties' was comedy, yes, but the very notion that the cool, with it, and lovable rightwinger/nixon admirer, in the person of the boy Alex, was so far ahead of his dingbat hippie parents, and must have made the reagan years palatable (imo, it SEEMED like it really sold regan's vicious bullyboy mentality, made it appear harmless, to people too busy to notice they were being screwed) to the formless blob that made up the viewing public in the 80's...reagan led directly to what we have today, and goldberg was selling snake oil, since real hippie parents invariably produce open minded liberal kids (another fact that runs aground on the overwhelming 'conservativism' of the baby boomers, who were never leftwing even in the 70's, being greedy selfish stupid fukks for the most part- hypocritically allowing a hideous boor like reagan to be crowned president only 6 years after nixon was fired)

[eridani]

13. Libertarianism is not quite the same thing

Neocons are most assuredly not libertarian, and they are way more dangerous.

[ToughLuck]

42. Very true eridani, Neocons are very dangerous..look at our foreign policy

Republican conservative Mickey Edwards is a Constitutional scholar, he is appauled at the Bush administration on many levels..Iraq, the expansion of the executive branch, signing statements, FISA immunity etc. He wrote a book recently, "Reclaiming Conservativism". The neocons are radical and dangerous to say the least. When you have a Republican conservative calling a sitting Republican president "King"..you know the tide has truly gone out too far.

[Jackpine Radical]

30. How Goddam righteous and wonderful of you

to have been blessed with these superior powers of insight--since shortly after birth, I assume.

[Jackpine Radical]

32. Thank you for this. It resonates with what happened to me 40 years ago.

I spent my first 21 years or so as an adherent of the right as it existed in the very early 1960s. I accepted libertarianism both in both its civil and economic aspects, and I did not believe, nor do I now, that the people around me were hateful, greedy, xenophobic, or paranoid. I will say that I never did like Tricky Dick very much. I, and many people like me, participated in civil rights activism in the early 60's, seeing no conflict between that and our variety of conservatism. We were mostly atheists and agnostics--hardly cultural conservatives in the modern sense. We were largely Ayn Rand idealists.

Vietnam changed me. That's where I got my eyes opened to the doings of the American Empire. And, as with you, there was no stopping in the middle. I went from "young fogey" to SDS-sympathizer practically overnight.

Edited to mention that I intended this as a response to the OP, not to myself.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Well said!

I've always seen the right wing ideology as one of self interest, while, by and large, the left wingers were looking at what was good for everyone.

[Narkos]

4. Don't feel bad...most people's political orientation

is as much a process of socialization as it is a conscious decision to seek out the truth. Bravo to those who figured it out before anyone else, but jeez, when you grow up hearing this bullshit as if it's common sense, it takes a big effort to tear down the walls of ignorance. Good for you for figuring it out and really educating yourself.

[tblue37]

38. Exactly! Fish don't know they are wet. n/t

[The Doctor.]

6. I haven't changed my registration yet...

but this Republican is with you.

I have the capacity to engage in real, critical thinking. I have a keen sense for the abstract. I can see the dynamic of large functioning systems at a glance.

The right-wing ideology of my parents could never have survived very long in me. I realized that for certain in 2000, and I dropped all affinity for "balance". Since then, the more I have learned, which I can describe in excruciating detail, the more I have realized how completely and totally fooled those on the 'right' are. They have no idea how perfectly managed they are by the corporate media to be nothing more than sheep for fleecing and a buffer against populist reforms.

They have been infused with a 'sport's fan' mentality, and will root for and defend their 'team' no matter how many penalties they commit, how badly they destroy the field, or how much they gouge us all at the concession stands. They will perceive any attack on their 'side' as partisan rather than an attempt to seek social justice or improve the lives of working Americans. They will actively fight against their own best interests because they are told 'we' who want to stop the fleecing of America are 'the enemy'.

It makes me sick to realize just how deeply ignorant, not entirely through any fault of their own, so many of our fellow Americans are. But they would read this, and instead of asking "how can you say that? Please show me what you mean", they are programmed to say, "You're an elitist who thinks you're smarter than we are and thinks you know what's best for us."

They really don't want to know, and they don't know they don't want to know.

We have a hell of a fight ahead, and our own people have been turned against us by the forces of greed with the power of ignorance.

[Bjorn Against]

7. Very well said...

Once people stop viewing politics with that sports fan mentality and really start to think about the issues critically I don't think the right-wing ideology could survive in very many people. The fact is the vast majority of people are harmed by right-wing policy. Our money is being shipped off to Iraq, our jobs are being outsourced to overseas sweatshops, our environment is being destroyed, our economy is going in the toilet, our Constitution is being shredded, our people are going without health insurance, and corporations are ripping us off. Nobody benefits from this but the elite few, once people realize that they are not of that elite few it becomes very difficult to hold a right-wing ideology.

[ret5hd]

17. Is this the same Dr that would support the gulf war if it was executed more competently?

[leftofthedial]

8. the post-WWII American right-wing ideology is UTTERLY corrupt

nothing about it is true in the slightest.

[annabanana]

9. A healthy regard for our Duties as American Citizens should

compel us ALL..left/right/center & just plain confused to strive to understand how best to serve our fellow Countrymen. As you have so clearly shown, the privileges of the few are not very compelling when weighed against the rights of the many.

[Wednesdays]

10. Go forth and preach to the world

and not just to us choir members. ;)

Thanks for your essay.

[JDPriestly]

11. Many of us on DU have read widely and understand the

philosophies and theories of the right very well. I understand the appeal of libertarianism and believe deeply that the protections provided to us in the Constitution for individual rights are extremely important. My view, however, is that, while the Constitution guarantees individual rights and property rights, it balances those rights with the common good very well. The extreme right does not seek a balance between individual rights and societal rights. That is why I am at home here on DU. That is why I am a liberal. I believe in a flexible balance that guarantees individual rights within a society in which justice, compassion and peace and harmony are treasured as much as individual rights.

My right to wealth must be balanced with the right of the poorest to a life in dignity. My right to worship as I please cannot encroach upon the right of my neighbor to worship as he or she pleases. My right to fulfill my potential cannot deprive someone else of the right to fulfill his or hers. Each right that I wish to enjoy, I must extend to an equal extent to those around me. That is the key to harmony.

The French said it: liberty, equality, brotherhood. Your can't have one without the other. There is no liberty without equality and brotherhood. Libertarians err in believing that there is.

[spin]

12. Life is a journey...

you can learn from your mistakes.

I'm following a similar path as you. My opinions are changing.

I was once a believer in the "free market". No longer.

With luck and considerable effort we can change the course our country is embarked on.

We just have to elect the right people. People who have our interests, rather than that of the multinational corporations, at heart.

That might be the problem. As soon as we elect the people we believe in, they turn on us.

[Echo In Light]

14. I perceive rightists ideology to be pathologically driven: denial, chauvinistic belligerence, greed

The rhetoric and conservative tags are applied as a necessary smokescreen as the rights movement is highly projective {also Orwellian, in the "newspeak" manner = opposite is true} ...that is, obsessed with internal and external enemies. For that particular mindset, such 'enemies' {self loathing} only get in the way of the profits-over-people ideal {a disease, which is why the left is often deemed "weak" for not being afflicted by it}, and serve to lessen the authority of the state {groupthink} through dissent/lack of uniformity/conformity. Take away the rights need of an enemy to hate and attack, that is, if a rightist acknowledges the 'enemy' within, the dreaded other, there's nothing left fueling the impetus.

[liam_laddie]

18. rights or right's?

Think you meant "right's"

[Juche]

15. I've had that too

I've never subscribed to GOP or libertarian economic thinking, but I was whats known as a 9/11 republican for a couple of years. In the aftermath of 9/11 I became alot more hawkish on foreign policy, I was something like Lieberman (liberal on everything except national security). By the midddle of 2003 the experience was basically over and I voted (for the first time in my life) in 2004 for Kerry. So its not like I did any real damage to the political system by this experience I went through in 2002 and 2003. I think one of the things that shooke me to my senses was when Peter Arnett was fired for telling Iraqi TV that the US didn't have a plan and was fired. The US didn't have a plan, that is common knowledge. We were sliding into fascism. And I look back at how the Dixie Chicks were treated (which I never agreed with) for just saying they were 'ashamed' Bush was from texas vs what we say now. Thank god the 9/11 fever is broken and we are more rational now.

however looking back I had a tunnel vision that I do not have now and that I think explains alot of the irrational stubbornness of the right. You have a very narrow mindset full of black/white thinking that probably comes across as highly irrational and closed minded to others. However for you you are just certain you are right and don't even consider the validity of alternate viewpoints.

Speaking of economic thinking, it sucks and needs to be changed that some RW talking points are the 'default' opinions. Like 'free markets are best' or 'taxes hurt economic growth'. It seems those are the opinions people come to just by growing up in America, and are only disproven by personal experience or learning.

[Bjorn Against]

16. I don't consider the validity of alternate viewpoints?

I used to hold alternate viewpoints, so I don't know how anyone could claim I haven't considered them. I am not engaging in black and white thinking, I know there are many possible solutions to our problems and I never claimed to have all the answers. But I do have some principles which I will not compromise on. I believe it is wrong to bomb civilian populations on the basis of lies. I believe it is wrong to cut services to the poor while spending billions on Halliburton contracts. I believe it is wrong to torture. These are moral issues, you could not treat someone who believes it is OK to launch a war that will kill hundreds of thousands of people on the basis of lies and someone who wants to find peaceful solutions to the worlds problems as if they have two equally valid opinions. There are some positions that people take that are absolutely disgusting and they need to be called on it.

That is not black and white thinking though, because there is a lot of room for differing opinions. I don't pretend to know all the economic policies we should have in place, there are countless ways to organize our economy and I want to hear many views. When we are dealing with global warming there are many different paths we can take, and we need a lot of people giving their input.

There are many opinions we need to listen to, but there are some opinions that are so ridiculous they need to be rejected outright.

[FiveGoodMen]

19. I guessing the 'you' in that post wasn't you.

As in 'under the influence of right wing thinking, one doesn't consider alternate viewpoints...'

[malaise]

26. Lovely OP

The bottom line is that all objective empirical evidence proves that right wing policies only benefit the rich and do serious harm to most of the planet's people and our environment.
Most of the so called alternative opinions are bogus bullshit turned out by more than a few universities owned and financed by right wing think tanks and corporations.

[Leo 9]

20. That's what I've been saying.

Well said!

[Uncle Joe]

21. I agree with everything you said, but

I want also to smoke a doobie in the privacy of my own home without having to feel like a criminal from a joined at the hip corporate loving Big Brother government.

Thanks for the thread, MN Against Bush.

[Bjorn Against]

23. Hey, I support your right to smoke a doobie just make sure to save some for me.

[Uncle Joe]

24. Absolutely,

I believe in sharing with my friends, so long as you're of a legal age, I don't believe in contributing the delinquency of a minor.:hippie:

[applegrove]

22. It hurts to understand them far too well. It actually hurts to know the shit.

[Pushed To The Left]

25. K&R! Excellent post.

These issues have real effects on real people, which is something people forget far too often.

[lpbk2713]

27. K&R

You have obviously had an epiphany. Terrific post.

:thumbsup: :hi: :thumbsup:

[beezlebum]

28. well done

kick and rec

[whistle]

31. Starting now the term right wing needs to be replaced with fascist

[walldude]

35. K&R.. great post! n/t

[Towlie]

36. Great Essay!

I'm also deeply bothered by people who regard conservatives and liberals as simply two alternative but equal political ideologies. As you say, it's not about left vs. right, it's about right vs. wrong, and the right is wrong.

[nikto]

39. Right-wing politics...

simply SUCK.



That is all.

[calimary]

40. Hey, nikto and Towlie - Welcome to DU!

Isn't the OP terrific?

I feel more encouraged and hopeful when I read essays like that. There just might be hope for this country if we have more such awakenings.

[Towlie]

43. Welcome?

Try checking user profiles. We've both been members since 2006.