Secular Café: Right-Winger quits "Hate, Anger And Fear Machine"

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Right-Winger quits "Hate, Anger And Fear Machine" May 26th 2012, 06:44 Writer Michael Fumento Quits Conservative Movement, Calls It "Hate, Anger And Fear Machine" / Queerty My break with the extreme right - Salon.com Quote: …I find myself linked not only with the Unabomber, but also Charles Manson and Fidel Castro. Or so says the Chicago-based think tank the Heartland Institute, for which I've done work. Heartland erected billboards depicting the above three declaring: "I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?" Climate scientists now, evidently, share something in common with dictators and mass murderers. Reportedly bin Laden was scheduled to make such an appearance, too.You see, I've published articles saying I do "believe in global warming." Yes, I've also questioned the extent to which man-made gases have contributed to that warming and concluded that expenditures to reduce those emissions would be as worthless as they'd be horrifically expensive. No matter; just call me "Ted." Or "Charlie." Or "Fidel." This is nuts! Literally. As in "mass hysteria." The sort of manners that the right wing has? Quote: Civility and respect for order—nay, demand for order—have always been tenets of conservatism. The most prominent work of history's most prominent conservative, Edmund Burke, was a reaction to the anger and hatred that swept France during the revolution. It would eventually rip the country apart and plunge all of Europe into decades of war. Such is the rotted fruit of mass-produced hate and rage. Burke, not incidentally, was a true Tea Party supporter, risking everything as a member of Parliament to support the rebellion in the United States. All of today's right-wing darlings got there by mastering what Burke feared most: screaming "J'accuse! J'accuse!" Turning people against each other. Taking seeds of fear, anger and hatred and planting them to grow a new crop. In effect, many "movement conservatives" have much more in common with Maximilien Robespierre than Edmund Burke. Their policy prescriptions often have a remarkably Robespierrian quality about them, the sort of reckless radicalism than Burke had so famously criticized. By comparison, Obama seems Burkean, a cautious reformist. Look at the sort of "research" that many "movement conservatives" do: Quote: Conservatism has also historically emphasized empiricism. Joe Friday of "Dragnet" must have been a conservative: "All we want are the facts, Ma'am." When President Reagan famously said, "Facts are stupid things," he meant to quote President John Adams' observation that "Facts are stubborn things." But how much fact was there in Heartland's billboards, whose shock purpose has been likened to tactics of the hard-left animal activist group PETA, with whom I've repeatedly locked horns. Or in West's assertion? Or Breitbart's tirades? Rush Limbaugh compared Breitbart, who never wrote a single investigative report, to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the dynamic duo who brought down the thoroughly corrupt presidency of Richard Nixon. He actually said Breitbart's work was superior. Oh, dear!

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