I recently stumbled across another blog entitled stuff white people like. The blog is genius and I laughed so hard my stomach hurt for the rest of the day. I check it frequently as, despite its clever humor, it delivers poignant observations about the Caucasian race in America.With that in mind I wanted to do an entry on stuff right-wingers like.
This is going to be the most fun-filled post I've done since the inception of the blog.
Disclaimer: This list could grow or diminish in size. The list is not intended to capture all of the objects of pleasure of the right-wing lemmings but merely underscore the principal commonalities. Their condition, or dis-ease if you will, can only be cured by an icon who is a respected military authority, a champion driver on the NASCAR circuit or in the country music industry who would be willing to reveal the truth to them: that they have been duped and that the Bush Crime Family screwed them, too.
Let the fun begin...
Patriotic country music
This is perhaps the most common. Any song that speaks of America kickin' ass, that the "Red, white and blue are comin' fer you too" or of 9/11 (usually in the form of a ballad) is pretty mainstay for the average right-winger. They may have a compilation of this type of music on CD or multiple CD's. At any rate these CD's are readily available and easily accessible in their vehicles. You may have heard some of these songs as they tend to roll their windows down in their vehicle and play the music at a high volume when cruising. The music can evoke a wide array of emotions, from rage to sadness to grief. Bottom line: necessary for nutrition for the blindly patriotic.
Patriotic (allegedly) t-shirts
For the average right-winger the choice in apparel is paramount. Having the right t-shirt can make or break their night out. There are many choices. T-shirts with the following slogans/designs are generally considered chic: "These colors don't run", "Let the eagle soar", "Freedom ain't free", "Bin Laden we're comin' for your ass" (usually with Uncle Sam as the protagonist), "Unleash the military - Give war a chance", "I Love Waterboarding", "I love torturing terrorists", "Peace through superior firepower". These t-shirts come in many colors, too. It's important for the average right-winger to wear these classics by tucking them into their Wrangler BLUE jeans with either broken-in cowboy boots or a pair of tennis shoes (NOT running shoes...remember, "these colors don't run").
Trucks
Big. Loud. Ford. Dodge. These four words mean a lot to the average right-winger. They basically stand for, "I'm gonna kick yer ass whether you want me to or not". The choice in trucks says a lot about the average right-winger. They know that it takes $182.75 to fill up the gas tank but that is not a statement of their wealth but rather of their arrogance and disdain for anything environmental (how could you be an avid fan of war AND be an avid fan of the environment at the same time?)
The younger lemmings tend to choose a flashy, 25-foot high truck with flashy rims and an outrageous bumper sticker like, "I'd rather be in a CIA secret prison waterboarding a terrorist". The older, more sophisticated right-winger tends to have a Ford F150 extended cab with responsible tires and rims, no more than 2.5 feet from floorboard to the ground and a "W 04" sticker or a "Bush/Cheney 04" sticker. They may (and this is probable) have a front decorative license plate that is of the American flag or of a bald eagle or they may have an American flag windsock out of their back driver side window. Whether it is the young buck right-winger or the homophobic older type, they both keep their trucks 5 levels above operating-room cleanliness. Trucks are to right-wingers as Volvos are to liberals: a mutual sign of fraternal order.
American flag lapel pins
Who would have thought that those American flag lapel pins you can buy at Chevron, Circle K or 7-11 would become so incredibly popular and be considered so sacred and patriotic? Well, believe it. These little suckers can go anywhere, not only your lapel. You can put them on hats, scarves, vests, ties, backpacks and they go great on any apparel from Cabela's or Bass Pro Shops.
If you do not own one of these, and the average right-winger owns more than one, you are immediately classified as a terrorist and hateful towards America and anything American.
You can also be accused of communist tendencies and, although you may know nothing about the Muslim religion, a Muslim extremist who owns many sandals and plenty of curry at home.
The flag lapel pin is akin to Popeye's spinach. If you find yourself in a precarious situation and in need of displaying deep, meaningful patriotism, then bust it out and slap it on so everyone can see how sincere you truly are.
Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity
To the average right-winger these two propagandistic deities are in the realm of demagogues. If O'Reilly and/or Hannity were to advocate violence towards any Democrat we would find ourselves in a type of Armageddon previously only seen in movies. Both Hannity and O'Reilly have hypnotic power over the average right-winger. These men supply the weak, empty talking points to millions of right-wingers daily.
If you hear terms like "SP" or "selective moral outrage" then you know you have encountered one of these lemmings. Just know that any type of truth, data or factual evidence is virtually useless against these individuals. Their perspective is dependent on false accusations, fear-mongering, judgment, hate and ignorance. There is absolutely no room for truth in this world.
The average right-winger makes desperate daily attempts to convince others that their talking points were not gathered from Hannity or O'Reilly. They are usually confronted on this when debating with progressives but when they are in the company of other average right-wingers, both parties pretend not to know that the other is actually regurgitating verbatim what Hannity and O'Reilly said the day before.
More war (battleground TBD)
The only thing better than the Iraq war would be more war. The target country is rather unimportant. What is important for the average right-winger is that when there appears to be a lull in violence that the Bush Crime Family find another country, and quickly, that is not a threat and bomb it back to primitive times. The reason for more war could and will change according to facts and truth that are uncovered. Example: supposedly we went into Iraq because, according to intelligence, they had weapons of mass destruction and they were going to use them against us in the near future ("can't let the smoking gun be in the form of a mushroom cloud"). When it was discovered (proven) that Iraq DID NOT have WMD the mission changed to "removing a brutal dictator". When Saddam was executed, then it became, "spreading democracy".
Intelligence reports have concluded that Iran does not have a WMD program. You know what that means? Iran is next on the list.
There is an adolescent excitement that exists here, similar to Christmas Eve, and it most likely is very related to my previous blog entry and the average right-winger's obsession and love of the military.
NASCAR
I am convinced that there is not one NASCAR fan who is, or ever was, against any war---past, present or future. To watch identical cars go around in a circle and wait for them to crash can say a lot about someone's view of the world in general. The ultimate weekend for an average right-winger: going to a NASCAR race with your friends where all of the attendees have trucks, patriotic t-shirts, tight Wranglers, patriotic country music, lots of Busch beer and when overly-intoxicated, closet homosexual tendencies.
Being an average right-winger and being a NASCAR fan are nearly syllogistic in nature. Ultimate orgasmic moment: having your driver win the NASCAR race and do the victory lap with a gigantic American flag.
"Truthiness" and general disdain for facts and truth
Stephen Colbert coined the term truthiness a while back. Here's the definition according to wikipedia:
"a satirical term to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts."
This phenomenon has permeated nearly every aspect of the average right-winger's world. Real truth, to them, is simply abhorrent. When presented with evidence and facts, such as the fact that Iraq had no WMD or that the "surge" is really the U.S. government offering huge payments to al-Sadr's army to temporarily cease violence, the average right-winger will become enraged and offer his/her brand of "truthiness": "That's bullshit! Everyone knows that Saddam had WMD and that he smuggled them into Syria before the invasion, my neighbor's kid is in the Marines and he has satellite images of it. No one can see them yet because they're classified, but they will come out someday. And the surge is working because we've got more soldiers there then we ever had and we're killing more of them!!!" Facts: we have less soldiers there now then we did pre-surge, we are paying Muqtada al-Sadr large sums of money to remain idle and to this moment in time there have been no WMD found in Iraq. Those are facts. But the average right-winger cannot tolerate facts and therefore relies on what his/her truth is, which is "truthiness".
In all seriousness I believe this boils down to a psychological defense mechanism that prevents someone from having a nervous breakdown. If the average right-winger were to face the truth and facts regarding Iraq, let's say, the truth would be literally crippling: both psychologically as well as emotionally.
"Truthiness" can also be applied to the above topic of pretending to be or pretending to have been in the military. As Joseph Goebbels once said, "If you tell a big enough lie enough times people will come to believe it."
Submissive wives
No surprise here. The average right-winger male needs his wife to be submissive and thoughtless, but yet the ultimate caregiver for the children. As he engages in deep political, philosophical debates such as "What type of bomb would you drop on Baghdad, bunkerbuster or clusterbomb?" and "Do you think Al-Qaeda was kinda responsible for Hurricane Katrina, too?" the submissive wife is close by, listening attentively so that she may relay these illogical and nonsensical points to her girlfriends and to various radio talk-shows (Hannity or O'Reilly) when the husband is away at work during the day. Perhaps the submissive wife achieves the highest form of unconditional love: when she would be willing and competent enough to disable the part of her brain that allows her the ability to reason so that it will instead simply and automatically validate and affirm the husband with robot-like frequency.
During one of the philosophical discourses on the Iraq war and while in the presence of the husband the submissive wife is not allowed to change the subject, interrupt the husband or to offer too radical of an opinion. The expectation is simply that a head-nod or a "mmmmhuh" will be more than sufficient. Typically the submissive wife will don the same gear (only one size smaller) as the average right-winger husband: patriotic t-shirt, tennis shoes, tight Wranglers (stonewashed). Other necessary components include Wrigley's Xtra gum, Marlboro lights, heavy makeup, teased hair, perfume from 1993, manicured nails with American flag emblem on each fingernail, drinking beer from bottle sans glass.
Television show "24"
The television show "24" allows the average right-winger to engage in their fantasy at least once a week: the country is under attack and there is ticking-time bomb scenario and only Jack Bauer can torture the suspect enough to save America. This is what is feeding the average right-winger's view of the Global War of Terror. This is what validates their "shoot first, ask questions much later" mentality. To them al-Qaeda is in the process of procuring dozens of canoes in order to row to America, land somewhere in Maryland and begin their take over of America. I would argue that the average right-winger viewer actually HOPES to be involved in a "24" episode in real-life. The temptation to torture is too great to resist.
Since 9/11, torture has become almost a form of entertainment much like gladiator battles were to ancient Rome. There is a sense that the average right-winger could not care any less whether a suspected terrorist is innocent or not; the simple fact that they are of darker skin and speak Arabic is justification for a Spanish Inquisition-style torture. Our forefathers would shake their heads in disgust, shame and disbelief.
Bottom line: the average right-winger believes that "24" is reality. Which would beg the question: how in the heck did America stay safe while Kiefer Sutherland was doing time for his DUI arrest?
Believing al-Qaeda was always in Iraq
Although tens of thousands of pages of intelligence have been submitted, along with dozens of military intelligence analysts going on record to state it, the average right-winger believes, rather KNOWS, that al-Qaeda have been in Iraq for decades. How do they know this?
Because al-Zarqawi, the red-headed stepchild of al-Qaeda, got medical treatment from a hospital in Iraq one month before the Iraq invasion. Match point, I guess. This falls under that umbrella of "truthiness". The same people who told us that there were WMD in Iraq and that they knew where they were planted this gem of information into the right-wing world. It shot around like a super ball on crack and now every average right-winger holds on to that tidbit like a 5 year old girl hugs her teddy bear. Problem: Saddam would have killed Zarqawi had he known he was anywhere in Iraq. Saddam thought al-Qaeda to be much too radical and that they attracted too much attention. The ONLY agreement Saddam had with any organization was this: "if you come across any stray nuclear weapons, I'll buy them from you at any price and if you come into Iraq I'll cut your f#$%^& head off!"
Al-Qaeda is in Iraq because we took out Saddam. End of story.
Believing Saddam was involved in 9/11 (select few, usually in rural areas)
16% of average right-wingers still believe that Saddam was behind 9/11. This demographic usually falls into the rural areas of America in communities no larger than 2,000 inhabitants. There may be one or two people who have a computer in these towns but they refuse to tell the other 1,900 + people that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.
Believing that violating the Constitution is a fantastic way to fight terrorism
Perhaps the most frightening pleasure of the average right-winger. They are perfectly content with illegal wiretaps, the elimination of habeas corpus, torture, racial profiling, illegal detentions, denial of rights and the multiple executive orders that give Bush control of each state's National Guard and the power to accuse any American of being an "enemy combatant".
You will usually hear the average right-winger say, "Well, if you ain't got nuttin' to hide, whadda ya worried about?" Little do they know this is how Nazi Germany began its ascent to a totalitarian state. The average right-winger, as I've mentioned several times before, normally lacks an education for whatever circumstance. That is no judgment on them. They cannot see the dangerous correlation between "they hate us for our freedom" and the fact that the Bush Crime Family has taken away more of our freedoms than al-Qaeda could have ever done in a thousand years. One person losing their rights is everyone losing their rights.
Bush once said, "The Constitution is just a god-damned piece of paper". That statement could very well have transcended the population that believes he is more intelligent than they are.
When you have bludgeoned a population with the club of patriotism you can accomplish almost anything.
As Benjamin Franklin once said, "If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both."
