Ideology and Ignorance

        Today, hanging your ignorance out there for all to see is a perfectly natural thing to do for right-wingnuts. No one is embarrassed by the gaping holes in whatever argument they make, whether it’s to say the Founding Fathers worked hard to end slavery, or that because I can see Russia I’m an expert in foreign policy regarding that nation, or that James Hansen isn’t a climate scientist so why should anyone believe what he says. And not exhibit the slightest tinge of chagrin at being caught in such easily refuted falsehoods. Receiving four Pinocchios (an indication that truth has played no role in the speaker’s statements) from Glenn Kessler, the Fact Checker at the Washington Post, is now a badge of honor among many (most?) right-wingers, especially at the national level. Spouting what should be eye-popping ignorance and standing by it is the new in-thing on the right.

        George Bush didn't invent that trend, though he certainly reveled in its almost daily application while in the White House. Neither did Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman, though I could fill this page with statements of blithering and jaw-dropping idiocy that have crawled out of their mouths. My finger of blame rests on that consummate entertainer and clownish vaudevillian, Rush Limbaugh, who has made stretching the truth well beyond the breaking point his stock in trade for more than 25 years. Limbaugh, a man who proudly disputes the relationship between CFCs and depletion of the ozone layer, is famous for using such phrases as environmental wacko in referring to mainstream climate scientists and other environmental advocates with whom he disagrees. He also, in reference to American feminists, popularized the term feminazi. Accomplishments he proudly trumpets.

        It doesn’t matter to his fellow right-wingnuts that noted scientists Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton chemical physicist and one of the world’s leading climate scientists, and David Wilcove, Princeton biologist, documented 14 major scientific errors Limbaugh professes to believe in his book, The Way Things Ought to Be. What? Me worry about the truth? seems to be Limbaugh’s and every right-wingnut's reaction when confronted with verifiable information that demonstrates the blatant falsehoods in their expressed positions.

        What has happened is Limbaugh, on his call-in radio show, empowered the crazies to flap their jaws without having to be tethered to the anchor of reality. Anything they said was right; no one challenged them with respect to veracity. So, the masses who live to the right of Attila the Hun discovered the new-found freedom of diarrhea of the mouth without having to defend what they were saying to anyone who could tell his right elbow from his asshole. The more outrageous the mis-statement, the better. And thus were born the Glenn Becks, Michelle Malkins, Ann Coulters, Bill O'Reillys, and Sean Hannitys of the right-wingnut world.

        The point of this short opinion essay is that people who proclaim beliefs that are not based in fact or reality and refuse to examine them when called on it can not or will not engage in reason. Thus, no meaningful conversation or discussion or meaningful exchange of ideas with them is possible. So, quit trying to talk to right-wingers. It isn't worth the effort.

        What we are seeing is a veritable race to the bottom to see who can make the most outrageously stupid statements and thus attract more voters with IQs of 85 or less. Witness the truly depressing reality that on August 9, 2011, every one of the Republican presidential candidates running in the Iowa caucuses pledged that if elected they would reject a budget that contained a ratio of ten-to-one spending cuts to tax increases as an ideologically unacceptable compromise.

        Never in my life have I witnessed such a lock-step demonstration of group stupidity. That action speaks very badly for the future of this nation.