To the right, we are not Americans, we are the enemy.

The WaPost has an interesting article today, "The e-mail rumor mill is run by conservatives."  Here's a clip:

Of the 79 chain e-mails about national politics deemed false by PolitiFact since 2007, only four were aimed at Republicans. Almost all of the rest concern Obama or other Democrats, such as Hillary Rodham Clinton. The claims range from the slightly daffy (the White House wants to rename Christmas trees as “holiday trees”) to the serious (the health-care law will grant free medical care to all illegal immigrants).

I don't think this comes as any surprise to those of us on the left, but it certainly elicited a lot of angry (and totally whacked) comments from the right.  Most of the comments from righties reinforce why the right is so receptive to emails containing lies, but a few made me stop and think, like this one:

dryrunfarm1

2:40 PM EST

I'm one of those conservative recipients of right-wing email. As owner of a private shooting range, and host to many avid 2nd Amendment supporters (several officers in law enforcement among them), the one about the UN treaty on small arms is one that sticks out in my mind. My response to this rumor? I tell ever sender, by reply email, that it's nonsense. 
 
Not that I doubt for a minute that the UN, Obama and the left, generally, don't WISH it were true. I don't. 
 
The fact is, though, that the 2nd Amendment exists, it has been affirmed and "incorporated" as an individual, Constitutional right, and there isn't a treaty out there that can supersede it. Besides, treaties have to be ratified by Congress: even if some treaty COULD (for example) establish Roman Catholicism as the state religion of the US (an accomplishment fully equal to denying citizens the right to "keep and bear arms"), there are enough members of Congress - including quite a number of Democrats - who support the 2nd Amendment that no such treaty would stand a chance. 
 
So why do I get such emails? 
 
It isn't mistrust of the media. It's mistrust of government; and, under the Obama administration, that mistrust has driven all but the most level-headed conservatives to virtual paranoia regarding the excesses Washington is now capable of. They don't doubt that Obama is capable of anything, up to and including sending tanks down Main Street USA, imposing martial law and suspending - in advance of totally repudiating - the Constitution and every individual protection in it. 
 
We fully believe Obama's heart is up to such a thing - Pelosi's, Reid's and Schumer's, too - and our rights and protections under the Constitution seem flimsier and flimsier each day under their watch. The Bolsheviks have taken Washington - THAT, we believe, is an indisputable fact. Is there any wonder that we're willing to believe almost any detail that agrees with that fact or appears to validate it? 
 
The United States of America is under attack, by the left, from within. Describing conservative emails as belonging to a conservative "underground" is closer to the fact than the health and well-being of the Union can afford.

The writer sounds lucid and responsible, and that's what makes this all so scary.  It appears he honestly believes that Obama and the left are enemies of the state, not regular citizens who serve our country, pay our taxes, and work hard to play by the rules and vote like everyone else.  No, to the new right, we are NOT Americans, we are not welcome in their country, we are evil devils trying to take their country by "...sending tanks down Main Street USA, imposing martial law and suspending - in advance of totally repudiating - the Constitution and every individual protection in it."

This not just depressing, it's frightening, but now I'm beginning to see why the right seems so explosively angry these days, and I'm now less confident that we can ever reunite as a country. I suspect this is a war that only one side can win.

--Trakker

Comments

[horsec]

Where ignorance is bliss

The truth is out there. You just have to want to find it.

[Trakker]

It's so much easier to make stuff up and insist it's fact.

[horsec]

all but the most level-headed conservatives

The level-headed conservatives are on the left. The so-called right isn't conservative. Advocating a government so small it could be drowned in a bathtub is to advocate no government, government like Afghanistan.

[Trakker]

Some things that the right hates and wants to end forever:

Crime
Pedophilia
Cancer
Government