…And, yes, it is the American way.

The leftist “Pon Farr.” You see it on occasions when they think they’re finally going to get their dream: a government with absolute power and their Party in total control.

Which, of course, is an amazing new concept that has nothing in common with any other societies that have ever existed.

But don’t take my word for it. I’m the crazy one here.

Of course, not all conservatives are racist, some are even black or Hispanic themselves, or even arranged for little Peggy Sue to get her abortion when she found herself in the club, and her contraception so it wouldn’t happen again. And this tribe has its share of gays and atheists, too. Its not any one particular issue or cause that characterizes this crowd. It is a constellation of obsessions, and you don’t need to share all of them in order to join up. Its like a smorgasbord of characteristics, or a menu in a Chinese restaurant. Pick one from column A, one from column B, and even if you don’t share in the whole catalog of usurpations, you can have enough of them to join up. So if you’re an atheist Libertarian, you champion the cause of fundamentalist Christians, or at least, never let on your Ayn Rand hero was an atheist too, and all in favor of abortions to boot. This is a coalition, a true confederacy of dunces. But they have a big tent.

The shared cloak of righteousness can be extended to even those who they may differ with profoundly, on some other level, because they are working together for a common goal, and it is this central commonality we should seek. Naive Liberals think it is fascist or religious politics, or brutal 19th century capitalism, or even racism. But I am convinced it is more cultural than political or economic.

This country was not settled by people looking for religious freedom, but by individuals who wanted to set up their own little Puritan theocracies here. The history of the early colonies was not based on inclusion, but isolation. No Papists, No Jews, no Christians that didn’t belong to their particular sect. Heathens were either murderous savages that had to be driven off the land so it could be expropriated, or subhuman Africans who destiny was to build the New Jerusalem with their blood, sweat and tears. That was the 17th century, that’s what Northern Europeans were like back then.
This settlement pattern and psychological cultural framework has survived long after the original religious barriers were dissolved by time.

The founders were products of the Enlightenment, highly capable and yes, Liberal, men (by 18th century standards). They were not aristocrats, they were educated independent businessmen, at a time when Capitalism was a true progressive force that was transforming the world and sweeping away the decadent and corrupt old order. These men knew perfectly well the dangers of factionalism and religious intolerance, and the concentration of economic and political power in too few hands, or at least, in the hands of either the blooded aristocracy or the Rabble. Their Classical ideal was not Athenian Democracy, but the Roman Republic. For them, it was only right and proper that Gentlemen of Property should rule. That was why the the English Revolution was fought, and memories of regicide and Cromwell’s Protectorate were still fresh in their minds.

But as we now know, the founders left a lot of unfinished business, and that old Reformation ferocity was never fully eliminated, that hideous beast was to emerge again four score and four years later. And it is now emerging again.

No one wants to admit they’re a Northern European chauvinist, especially if your people came across the pond from Southern or Eastern Europe, Asia or Africa. But it is the children of the old English/German/Dutch settlers that form the core of this rebellion–they, and those who feel they have earned the right to join that Real American bloodline by marriage, if not by birth. Of course, the latest batch of immigrants are always the Other. The Muslims, the Hispanics, the Blacks, the Eye-talians, Jews, Slavs, all the way back to the Irish have had their turns. They’ve all had to spend some time on the shit list before they could call themselves Truly White.

At any rate, when this tribe, and their freshman members, decide the Others are threatening their hegemony, all bets are off. When the constitution doesn’t work for them, it must be ignored or changed or circumvented, and if necessary, by extra-constitional means. This explains our current political shenanigans. It also explains the Civil War.

I once had an argument with one of these fellows about how it was unconstitutional, if not actually treasonous, for a President to conduct a secret illegal war in direct contravention of specific Congressional prohibition; especially if it it meant clandestinely raising money to fund it by selling weapons to a terrorist state that had declared itself our enemy. His answer: it was necessary to do so because it was to fight communists, and that justified it. It was further justified because Communists had taken control of the Congress.

There are no Communists any more. But there will always be a Great Satan somewhere to justify why we no longer can rely on the Constitiution. I reject this idea. I once swore a solemn oath to protect the constitution, as I know you did too. It is the only oath I have ever taken in my life, and it was taken freely and without coercion. I take it very seriously. It does not only apply in those circumstances when I am in agreement with it, but even in those times when I find myself in total opposition to it. A great Civil War was fought to confirm that Constitution. Once Americans stray from that, we are finished.

And yet Republicans, as you note, think it’s normal and usual to ignore the needs of others in order to get their own way. As you point out, getting their own way is more important than the welfare of the country and anything, no matter how damaging. Terrorist tactics are “fair” and necessary, only they somehow aren’t “terrorist” when used by Republicans. No compromise. A lock-step party organization reminiscent of some historically recent dictatorships.

That’s not democracy. That’s not what America was created to be.