The self-definition of the modern conservative is predicated on their imagined persecution

[JackRiddler]

It's not just a bonus but absolutely constitutive to the post-Sixties conservative ideology, which exists as a never-ending reaction to the imagined injustices done to the image of America the all-powerful and all-beneficient, to the "Christian" culture and to the traumatized white male victim.

Even after the post-Sixties Reaction took power in the Reagan revolution and had its way in bloody wars and unleashed covert ops, and despite the endless right-wing Hollywood propaganda of the 1980s, the 1990s began with enormous new right-wing energy dedicated to decrying the "fascist" tyranny of political correctness, "feminazis," the "liberal media," the supposed fall of English as the national tongue, etc. etc. Conservative ideology lives from rage predicated on the illusion that the power structures are inverted from reality.

And look at Hollywood! All the brainless-blockbuster fascism of Bruckheimer and Emmerich, a slew of Pentagon-financed war recruitment films every year, Schwarzennegger, Eastwood, Chuck Norris, Jack Valenti's all-powerful MPAA, the producers who obediently met with Rove after 9/11 and pumped out Alias and 24 and "The Agency" and "The Unit" and all those thought-crime series like NCIS and "Criminal Minds" with the cool hipster punked-out kids collaborating so smoothly as they hack their way into the NSA surveillance machine to bag the insidious baddies, violating Constitutions for the higher good ... BUT WAIT! John Cusack made a movie, too! Barbra Streisand said something MEAN about THE PRESIDENT!!! There's actually watchable programming on cable!!!

Alert, alert, liberal hordes eating babies again!!! Dittoheads, ARISE!!!

---

(Posted as a response in the "Hollywood Conservatives to Out Themselves" thread, I hope you'll agree this can stand as its own OP.)

[anonymous171]

1. Correct. They are simply Cultural reactionaries.

[Phred42]

2. Quote: John Kenneth Galbraith

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith

[Bolo Boffin]

3. The self-esteem of MANY people on both sides of the aisle are based on their imagined persecution.

Nice rant.

[JackRiddler]

4. Can you give an example of how this is systemic on the left (not just individuals)

[Bolo Boffin]

8. The 9/11 Truth Movement.

Although, truth be told, most of the biggest names among the more accepted leaders are nutcase Republicans. However, the Truth Movement has gained a lot of support among people on the left who want to see the Iraq War end. Most who do join feel that undermining the "official story" of 9/11 would delegitimize the rationale for war. It is by far the weakest argument against the war, particularly because it is full of such silliness.

And one of the major talking points of the 9/11 Truth Movement is how they are kept out of the mainstream media because of the massive amount of their truth. If gatekeepers weren't keeping them down, the public would recognize the real enemies and Justice would be Had. They thrive on people talking them down, because to their dot-connecting minds, it is proof that they are on the right track. The attempt to talk to them rationally or just mock them incessantly is a treasure of their hearts. Go to 911Blogger and read the self-congratulatory rhetoric, the raging against the corporate media, the nursed vendettas against people who wish they would only really seek the truth. There is no better example of this on the left.

It's on the right, too. It's not a function of politics. It's a function of confirmation bias. Everyone is susceptible to confirmation bias. Right?

[JackRiddler]

9. all sides are susceptible to claiming victimhood for advantage

However, some are genuinely reactionary, in that victimhood is a constitutive element (reacting to change as though it's a personal affront, when this is objectively not the case = reactionary).

Reactionary victimhood defines the modern (post-1960s) right per se, it's the originating moment; it hardly defines 9/11 skepticism per se, which originates in... not believing the government fable.

Anyway, I'm not interested in debating the merits of the "9/11 truth movement," since that's secondary to the actual issue of the 9/11 cover-up, and I find both irrelevant on this thread.

But you're welcome to your case, and thanks for the kick!

:yourock:

[fascisthunter]

5. sure it is

[starroute]

6. The right has spent 40 years ripping off the 60's leftists

In the 60's the lefties were cool and revolutionary and got all the hot chicks -- so the right decided they needed a revolution of their own. But since they couldn't, you know, revolutionize things for the better, they had to dedicate themselves to revolutionizing them for the worse.

The left was scoring browning points by being on the side of all the persecuted minorities and oppressed peoples of the world, so the right decided to make a case that rich white Christian males were the most oppressed minority of them all.

The left was loud and defiant and vulgar and in-your-face in the name of speaking truth to power, so the right dedicated itself to being loud and vulgar in the name of preserving the status quo and putting down anybody who dared to object.

It's enough to make any sensitive leftie start trying to enact a revision of Kant's categorical imperative -- something like, "Behave in such a way that you'd be content if every right-wing asshole in the world attempted to imitate you."

[MisterP]

7. hence the grand crusade against "totalitarian" liberation movements and "fascists"

like Islamism
and also hence the "campus freedom" preventing undergraduates from hearing anything they might object
it's quite a boondoggle: authoritarianism in the name of freedom and by the means of liberal democracy--warped beyond recognition

[JackRiddler]

10. kick

[TWiley]

11. Conservaives bought an image and they wear it like a shirt.

They wear their shirt because they think they look cool in it. Patriotic, Moral, Righteous, Family Values, and Christian. They are not critical thinkers and never realize how destructive their politics really are to the very things they "cherish"

It is an example of a brilliant marketing strategy.