>The right-wing machine enjoys several advantages a left-wing counterbot can
>scarcely hope to match, not least of which is its ability to rapidly replicate
>and refresh itself across the country because essential 'raw materials' are so
>abundant.
>
>Raw materials such as people's lack of detailed information about their
>nation's
>actual role in international events, persistent belief in unquestionable
>national
>virtue and the near universal appeal of supremacist ideas.
>
>By 'supremacist ideas' I'm not referring to easy targets like racism but a
>broader sort of supremacism -- a vision of the essential superiority of the US
>built upon a context free, quasi-religious awe of words like democracy,
>freedom
>and capitalism (which are widely understood as forming a concentric circle,
>diagramming our national perfection).
Well, the other thing I find disturbing is that rightwingers simply want to do away with anyone to the left of Say it Ain't So Joe Lieberman. Lefty types tend to pride themselves on their tolerance. If an opponent is clever, intelligent, brilliant -- they'll acknowledge it. They try to find common ground on the basis of some shared set of values or on 'reason.'
Ann Coulter and the like simply dismiss everything on the left as aligned with an evil to be eradicated. They're not interested in debate, tolerance, truth ostensbily emerging from an agonistic public life. Thus, they feel no need to pretend to respect their opponents.
And, as I said when I opened up this discussion, it seems to me that you'll hear/read lefties engage in critical self-reflection, acknowledging their faults (as many of us have done in this very thread). The rightwing doesn't do this. What rightwinger would say, "To be fair...."?
s.s.