"...the modern Republican party is not only intellectually bankrupt, but morally bankrupt as well"

More on the current state of the modern Republican party from E.D. Kain writing at The League of Ordinary Gentleman:

I only caught the end of [last night's] debate, but that was enough. It was enough to remind me that the Republican Party boils down to three things: tax cuts, “What Would Reagan Do?” and violence. For every problem there is a tax cut that will fix it. For every dodged question, the ghost of Reagan looms like a smiling, beneficent prophet. All you need to do is rub his tummy and Republican boilerplate comes dribbling out to fill in whatever gaping crevice is left unfilled by any actual ideas. And when Perry is asked about the two-hundred and thirty some people he’s executed on death row during his governorship, the audience bursts into applause. Torture, war, and death, and this is the “pro-life” party.

I submit to you that this moment is perhaps the most telling since George W. Bush left office; that the modern Republican party is not only intellectually bankrupt, but morally bankrupt as well. The conservative movement and the Fox News and talk radio media empire it has built up around itself is not only ethically decrepit but morally atrophied. As Andrew Sullivan noted, “any crowd that instantly cheers the execution of 234 individuals is a crowd I want to flee, not join. This is the crowd that believes in torture and executions.” ...

...Yes, I get a bit sick to my stomach having to hear first Bachmann, then Santorum, then Romney toss Reagan around like that, twisting his every word and deed to fit the current political climate, but I felt a real chill when I heard that audience applaud. It takes balls to execute an innocent man alright. It takes something anyways. And it takes the same sort of thing to applaud.

USA! USA! USA!

This is the "pro-life" party.  This is a party totally without compassion or empathy.  They are people who suspect they are ignorant and that the educated urbanites in the cities are living better than them, and having more fun, and they hate it!  Thus they hate Harvard-educated, Chicago-dwelling, urbane, Barack Obama, and the Democratic party that embraces science, logic, and religious skepticism.  They hate the Democrats who are comfortable living in large cities with it's scary people of color and it's multi-cultural flavors.

--Trakker

Comments

[horsec]

No points for being right

the educated urbanites in the cities are living better

Is this even open to debate?

embraces science, logic, and religious skepticism

A mode of thinking that makes money.

Wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, gluttony and envy. See Bertrand Russell on envy.

[Trakker]

I've always been one who reads letters to the editor, and now comments left in response to news articles and opinion columns. The Washington Post is especially fertile ground for taking the pulse of the tea party right (but it takes stainless steel nerves to read some of them). One thing that really stands out is that they are certain, CERTAIN, of their Fox News taking points, and they are just as certain that in 2012 they will not only win, but will vanquish the Democratic party and smash the liberals once and for all. They seem almost giddy in their anticipation.

I'm not sure a democracy can survive a Fox News.

[horsec]

I'm not sure a democracy can survive a Fox News

You have company.

As an observer from outside I take a grave view of the plight of the press. It is the weak slat under the bed of democracy. It is an anomaly that information, the one thing most necessary to our survival as choosers of our own way, should be a commodity subject to the same merchandising rules as chewing gum, while armament, a secondary instrument of liberty, is a Government concern. A man is not free if he cannot see where he is going, even if he has a gun to help him get there.

One alternative to an informed people making right decisions from choice is a correctly informed Government making decisions on the basis of information it cannot communicate to the people. That would be competing with private industry, even in the squalid form that a number of publishers represent, and the preservation of private industry is the principal reason for having a country at all. To make this alternative system work, requires a people imbued with, or cowed into, the habit of blind obedience. We are not ready for it.

The Press, (c) 1961, 1964 A. J. Liebling, page 71.

[Trakker]

Written in 1961? Wow!

Sadly, a free and independent press would have few readers these days. We are no so polarized that everyone seeks the press that feeds their desires to always be right and to have enemies who are sub-human.

[horsec]

A free and independent press vs fishwrap

Newspapers have always been supported by advertising. Automobile advertising is virtually the sole source of financial support for our local papers. Auto dealers could easily bypass the local press by starting one or more newspapers that did the job that the local press once did, 'Comfort the discomforted, and discomfort the comfortable.'

Advertisers need eyeballs. Real news reporting in advertiser-owned newspapers would give them eyeballs.

Auto dealers are being victimized by so-called 'newspapers' that aren't doing the job of the press.