My encounter with a batshit right-wing nut at the bar this evening

[jtuck004]

42. I don't mind saying it at all. Yours seems the broadest brush of all.

The op clearly stated "batshit right-wing nut". That is not the description you used in saying your mother is a Republican and one of the nicest yada yada yada...

They are talking about Michelle Bachman type "Republicans". I suspect your mom would no more think that was a reasonable human being than you would. And there are millions of them out there. They will burn this fucking country down around our ears if they need to to avoid losing. They don't care about anyone winning, they just want their own way. Even if it kills everyone.

That didn't sound like your description of your mom, and I am surprised you lumped her in there. But you know better than me.

An easy-to-see analogy would be, say, equating Hitler and some 69 year old grandma in Nazi Germany who was a "member" of the Nazi party. No way in hell does either of those people have jack in common. One is a sociopathic menace, the other one likes to drink tea and makes lace, but is very happy that the government found a way to full employment (that, btw, is what he did before he unleashed his killers. He was the ULTIMATE populist). Hitler improved the hell out of that economy which was suffering terribly. Kind of like the Republicans today who are castigating Obama for wanting to lower the military budget - they are hell bent on keeping us fighting and dying and warring, so they and their friends can make money. Lots of Republicans agree in principle.

But ask all Republicans if we should "balance" our spending by taking food stamps away from already hungry families like we did last week. Most of the ones I talk to don't think so, but they have real reservations about being cheated. A few, however, the batshit crazy ones, as a group very proud of their hatred with no empathy for anyone, who will hurt anyone who tries to oppose them, change them, reason with them, see nothing at all useful in giving people food, and figure they might as well starve or find something in a public soup kitchen or just die. They wouldn't give a nickel to help them if at all possible..

If one thinks they are like the others, feel free to go reason with them. Good luck. I have lived here too long, seen how people feed on hate, and how it changes them. This is nothing new, but it is different from watching parents incite their kids into race riots or turning over buses. They actually felt some shame and sorrow in a fairly short period of time.

These people are far meaner, deadlier, and show every sign of getting stronger, more organized, and maybe crazier. And they have crazy money behind them to help.

The real point of that OP is that it doesn't matter what you do, there is a group that will hurt you, all of us, even themselves, in the pursuit of whatever is in their wormy fucking heads. And there is nothing, not a thing, that YOU or anyone can do to change them, any more than you could rehabilitate Charles Manson. We will do best if we can find a way to "cage" or marginalize any power they might get (and they are VERY good and VERY organized about getting it), because otherwise they will hurt you, all of us, when it is convenient for them.