It’s the Right That’s Attempting to Scare the Public?

In response to The Media and the Amygdala:

I don’t believe I’ve seen a single liberal campaign in ten years that wasn’t based primarily on fear.  Obama’s 2012 campaign was entirely that, by design and admission (“Kill Romney”), as his own record was disastrous.

I just wrote about the left’s inability to conceive themselves as flawed in any way.  This is a dangerous mindset, because it’s only the knowledge that we are flawed that serves as an internal restraint to stop us from behaving badly.  And that’s not just a religious mindset; I spoke of “flaws” not sin. 

 It’s our self-knowledge that we are all, by turns, selfish, self-justifying, self-pitying, and self-righteous that causes us (on our good days, at least) to reflect upon our behavior and ask ourselves, “Am I behaving in a good and decent way?  Or am I behaving selfishly, but then letting the selfish little gnome of the mind provide me a juicy self-justification, which I am all too eager to accept as true because I want to think well of myself and I also want to continue behaving badly?”

For all the left’s talk about the perils of hate and emotion, I sure see an awful lot of c-bombs dropped into @MichelleMalkin’s twitter stream, with a side order of racism. How do they justify this to themselves? If hate and anger are the marks of bestial shame, why are they so damned giddy in their hatred and anger?

This is my best guess. Lefitism must be viewed as a religion — as a cult — and then it makes sense.

Now, in many cults (or religions, more broadly) there are certain actions which are deemed taboo — but a religion usually affords some way in which performance of the action is sanctified, if it’s an action that is important and necessary.

 For example, let’s take sex. Sex is a taboo in most religions (and in most societies, period) and there are a whole bunch of rules for how sex must happen, if it it is to happen, and not be taboo. In a traditionalist religion, the most obvious form of sanctification of sex is via the vehicle of marriage — marriage makes the relationship not about base sexual gratification but about something important and eternal (children, family).

 Even non-religious society creates methods of sanctification of otherwise taboo acts. For example, among non-religious 16 year old girls, perhaps they might call a girl who sleeps around a “slut,” but they also probably have constructed a sanctification safe harbor for sex: if it’s a boyfriend you’re going steady with (i.e., have dated for two weeks or more, almost an eternity!) and it’s about love, then you’re not necessarily a slut for having sex, unless we don’t like you, in which case you still are.

The reason I bring this up is to point out that in the Cult of the Left, “Hate” is the Ultimate Taboo….  But note that they have created a ritualistic safe harbor for a sanctified, praiseworthy expression of hatred: If the Committee of the Whole declares someone persona non grata and Not of the Body, then all taboos against hate are rescinded and you are permitted — nay, obligated — to direct as much hatred towards that Designated Hate Object as your envenomed heart may contain.

And thus, the need to hate — to judge, to scorn, to mock, to ostracize, to bring low with insult and venom and screaming and anger — is channeled, by the High Priests of the cult, towards socially benevolent purposes (at least when viewed from the perspectives of the High Priests).Hatred is their taboo, their ultimate taboo, the One Forbidden Fruit of which they must not eat, but they soooo wish to bite into this delicious fruit of sweet hatred. To deny them fully would be very difficult, contrary to human programming, and Also No Fun At All.

So a safe harbor for sanctification of the free venting of hatred, judgment, and bullying ostracism is thereby created to appease this urge.

…

This is the general Ritual Consecration of the Free Hate– the claim that the Designated Hate Opponents are themselves haters and therefore it is now Moral and Godly to hate the Haters as hatefully as cerebral blood vessels will allow.

…

So while hatred is, supposedly, forbidden, it in fact occupies the center of the cult in the dark church’s most sanctified place. As every primitive, totemic religion requires scapegoats, sin-eaters, and blood sacrifice, so too does this one.

Of course, even as I write this, the Dedicated Adherents of Logic and Heroic Opponents of Hate and Anger are once again celebrating Andrew Breitbart’s death, cheering his death because it turns out he’d been right about something (Pigford).

You know, the way people free of hate and anger do.