Remember that the defining characteristic of all true-believing right wingers is craven cowardice.

Not timidity, but absolute piss-themselves, pants-shitting terror. Everything they cannot control through bullying or sucking up or posturing or the massive accumulation of guns or money is a threat and a danger and something to be killed or crippled. Rationality has nothing to do with it. Facts don't matter. They are terrified by the "other," the "they," that amorphous and ill-defined enemy which always lurking somewhere. The Moslems, "aliens" (from outer space or Mexico), the commies and liberals, the gays, the satanists, the jews, the freemasons, the atheists, the nonconformists, the underclass, the social "deviants."

Any two-bit demagogue or TV preacher can get them marching blindly in any direction, because they have no principles to guide them, only mindless fear, so irrational in its roots that any attempt at reasoning is absolutely irrelevant.

They cannot even recognize their core cowardice. They will scream with red faces and spittle spewing rage that they are fearless. But they prove the opposite by their trust in the efficacy of brutality, intimidation, sadism, torture and terrorism as means of control. They project their own unacknowledged traits onto "the other" and assume that everyone can be controlled through fear.

So they support the most brutal forms of state power, thinking that ever longer prison sentences will deter crime or make those who do not conform to their rules behave themselves. They support the death penalty, thinking that it will protect them from murder. They love torture, just for the sheer joy it gives them as cowards seeing that those who suffer are the "other" and not themselves, and they heartily endorse the use of "pain compliance" to suppress dissent. They submit to their leaders' authority, trusting that their own facade of conformity and abject submission to that higher power will protect them.

They believe that a massive display of ruthless force, called "shock and awe" (even the naming reveals the mindset of a coward) or in a variant, "blitzkrieg," will cause a whole nation to prostrate themselves at the feet of the invading master class and kiss the jack-booted feet of the occupying armies. They know in their hearts that they would submit and become collaborators in an instant.

This is true up and down the ranks of the authoritarians, leaders and followers equally. A million dead Iraqis and the cowards are still living in fear of the "them." All they can "think" of is to Kill yet more. Kill them all. More murder, more blood, and there is never enough to quell their fear. Yet it is the only solution they can imagine.

That is the true nature of the real enemy the people of this poor planet face.

How do we fight back? Well, institutionalizing them as a danger to themselves and others would be a pleasing fantasy, but at the practical level it just comes down to building a better world, one in which children are not brutalized and turned into fearful adults, where fear and hate is not taught as dogma, and where success in life is not measured by money or the power to exploit or oppress or harm others. One in which we understand that an injury to one is an injury to all and our acts serve to build the greater community, rather than creating more divisions and building higher walls.

Republicans are the least evolved among us and are stuck at the lowest levels of moral reasoning and emotional and mental development.

And I agree that it goes back to their childhoods. It really does make me feel a sort of pity for them, to think of how they have been abused.

We have to stop the cycle of abuse and violence if we want mature adults who won't destroy the planet. Personally I think having to pass a test showing that you're somewhat emotionally mature and won't abuse your kids before you're allowed to have any would help. I know that'll get me flamed, but I don't mean it in any sort of selective breeding eugenics way. In my ideal world, there would be state supported programs to help people work through their psychological problems and reach the higher levels of understanding and then once they passed the test, there'd be financial support if they needed it to help raise their kids. The point is not to prevent people from breeding, but to make sure that they're ready to and that they won't turn out a generation of broken and stunted people.

I do think that we're getting better bit by bit every generation, especially in the last century or so. But we really don't have time now to wait for it to happen naturally, not if we want the species to have a decent chance at a future.

Undergroundpanther linked this site in a thread a while ago, and I think it really helps to explain much of what's wrong with the species.

http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/05_history.html

Check out the last paragraph, which mentions that Sweden does have parenting classes and that they seem to be working.

is that it is more a matter of using fear and brute power to force the kids into compliance that turns them into fear-driven adults, whether or not sexual abuse is part of that dynamic, not sexual abuse per se. Sexual abuse will leave scars, but not in and of itself turn the victims into the kind of fascist personality type that is so driven by fear that I described in the OP. Whatever the developmental dynamics, the right wingers and hate-driven zealots all seem to be driven by an intense fear that most normal people can only faintly imagine.

It's the ONLY cure. :D

Hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure that if you whisper "illegal immigrant" in their ears - prepare to stand back - the reaction would be evidence one way or the other.

(edit typo)

"durp durp durrrrrrrp! DURP!"

but an imminent, incomprehensible, aggressive, and--above all--totally obliteratory menace to the hometead: terraists, Pawnee, wolves, cougars, Black guys with crowbars, rats, and EPA agents want to dissolve the U.S. and literally lead us shackled into their falafel or tofu mines

I agree with everything you say. I don't know how to reform people who have been turned into fearaholics though.

is just to change the world they live in. In a better society they would be diagnosed as victims of PTSD and cared for (cautiously). For now there are a few fringe cases who might be reached through compassion, but mere reason will be the least effective of possible approaches. (In my view, of course.)

Yup yup yup.
It is the ESSENTIAL characteristic of the authoritarian, whether top or bottom. :evilgrin:

K & R

Win elections by something other than a razor edge margin come to mind as the way to fight back.