I have a different view. Fearmongering is not a distinctive feature of the Right - Lefties are equally good at that - it is just that they have different bogey men. The feature which, in my view, explains hostility to pacifism and kindred public displays of "weakness" is what I call DISCIPLINARIAN POPULISM (or DP). DP is a public spectacle of punishing, either literally or figuratively, someone branded as enemy of "the people" or rather a broadly defined group of people and exercised by an authority figure that purports to represent the views, interests and core values of that group. Michel Foucault aptly underscored the spectacular qualities of public executions in the middle ages, in which the offenders were subjected to elaborate tortures and death in front of the public. This is, perhaps, the purest form of DP.
Today, of course, whipping, crucifying, breaking with a wheel, impaling, quartering, burning at stake or decapitating is too much for an average suburbanite. Thus, vicarious forms of public punishment have been developed, such as TV and radio shows (cf Limbaugh, or O'Reilly) in which the host (auhtority figure) attacks, insults and denigrates "enemies" of the audience: liberals, feminists, homosexuals, and so on. Sometimes a representative of the hated group is invited to the show only to be insulted and trashed by the host. This is also akin to George Orwell's "minute of hate" which is the Soviet version of DP. China under Mao also used DP quite extensively during the Cultural Revolution. Red Guards and other self-styled "representatives" of the people, publicly humiliated assorted "enemies" on the daily basis, as I had the opportunity to witness when I lived there. Gang rape, certain forms of porn, crucifiction of Jesus, as well as professional wrestling all belong to the same genre.
The key element of the DP is not a particular ideological content, but a particular social dynamics involving three elements: the collective, the authority figure, and the outcast. The central element of a disciplinarian populisst spectacle is the vicarious exercise of power by identification with a conventional agent wielding power (authority figure) and emotional rejection of the target of that exercise (hatred of the outcast). DP is not just an emotional state but a social script that guides certain types of interaction. The dynamics revolves around the drama of the authority figure exercising raw power over the outcast in the name of the core values purportedly defining the collective, and thus allowing members of the collective to vicariously "participate"in the drama, identify with the punishing authority figure and at the same time bond with each other. DP is undoubtedly a sado-masochistic spectacle, but it would be wrong to reduce its appeal and popularity to sexual preferences. I think it is other way around, DP and SM have coomon roots or causes, or perhaps are different manifestations of the same personality trait and the form of social interaction it entails and feeds on.
Disiciplinarian populism explains, for example, why most US right-wingers hated Clinton even though he espoused many elements of their ideology. Howevere, what matters here is not ideological contents but role expectation - similar to a BD relationship - the actual feelings of the partners are not as important as the roles they are expected to play. In that sense, Clinton represented a role reversal in the DP spectacle of the US Presidency. The President, as an authority figure, is supposed to play the punishing, sadistic and dominating part. Clinton did not play that role well, or did not play it at all. Instead, he showed character traits that the DP spectacle normally attributes to the outcast and symbolizing weakness (e.g. being too intellectual, too tolerant etc). So even though he espoused many elements of the ideological agenda of the Right, the right hated him passionately . Bush, by contrast, built his popularity on appearing as mean, punishing and vindictive and that is why a good chunk (if not most) of the American people love him. He gives them a spectale they crave - an authority figure lashing out at the traditional enemies of Boobus Americanus - foreigners, intellectuals, and assorted weirdos.
Pacifists, gays, liberal elites etc. are treated essentially the same in the disciplinarian populist script. They all exemplify a role reversal - an unpatriotic Amerikun, a female-like male, a weak upper-classman - that is equated with a failure, and thus despised and punished. In the same vein, Jesus was a failed king, did not fulfil the expectation of making his followers strong, instead preached weakness, and for that failure the crowd decided to put him through the spectacle of disciplinarian populist punishment and save "strong" Barabas instead.
I am not quite sure what are the root cause of the popularity of the disciplinarian populism spectacle, but this phenomenon is not limited to the US, as some of my examples illustrate. My suspicion is that is a function of authoritarian personality developd through disciplinarian child rearing (as Adorno et. al. argued), but also of certain cognitive predispositions, but these are merely generalities. The key point is that such reactions are far more than just learned behaviors or functions of certain ideological positions - they are deeply ingrained in human psyche, cognitive styles, and social interaction.
Wojtek