Just an open question, throwing it out there for others to ponder, but what is it about the Conservative mindset that drives them to such extremes? Is it a need for intellectual simplicity, a basic unwillingness to grapple with the complexity of the world around them? Is it a desire to reduce all issues to a single Manichean moral vision, with a clear distinction always and easily drawn between good/bad, right/wrong? Is it fundamentally an authoritarian drive, a need to identify an “other, an ideologically impure group” against which they can rally themselves as members of the “true faith”?
I’ve begun thinking the modern GOP’s radicalism is systemic in nature. That is, Conservatives seem to think it a virtue to take extremist positions solely for the sake of taking extremist positions. As George Bush famously said, they “don’t do nuance.” For modern Conservatives extremism is a feature, not a bug.
And so in the last GOP presidential debate Herman Cain was asked about his recent statement that he would consider negotiating with terrorists if necessary to win back captured American soldiers. Almost the entirety of the field jumped all over him for this, because as everyone knows “you don’t negotiate with terrorists” – and there cannot possibly be any exceptions to this rule or any extraneous circumstances in which it might not apply.
And then Ron Paul delighted many of us watching when he asked if that didn’t mean Ronald Reagan was wrong when he sold arms to Iran in part to secure the release of American hostages? The rest of the field was fairly well gobsmacked as to how to respond.
More below the fold.
