'Conservative' Tribalism Revisited

Salon reports  on a recent Fox News' morning show, "Fox and Friends." Brian Kilmeade, the show's host, and two colleagues were discussing research done in Finland and Sweden, showing people who stay married suffered less from Alzheimer's. Kilmeade was skeptical, saying, "We are -- we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other ..."

His co-host tried to shut him up, but failed.  Kilmeade explained "See, the problem is the Swedes have pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes .... Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society."

Ignorance and bigotry on such a scale gets you big bucks on Fox News.  Lots of people watch this show and call themselves 'conservatives.'  Not all would agree with him, but a lot would.

Then there is 'conservative' NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard, who refuses to allow the word 'torture' to be applied to American actions identical to actions by other governments which she defends calling 'torture' because by definition, Americans are different from other people.  Glenn Greenwald explains  that during an interview

She also said -- when the host asked about the recent example I [Greenwald] cited  of NPR's calling what was done to a reporter in Gambia "torture" (at the 20:20 mark) -- that NPR will use the word "torture" to describe what other governments do because they do it merely to sadistically inflict pain on people while the U.S. did it for a noble reason:  to obtain information about Terrorist attacks.  That's really what she said:  that when the U.S. did it (as opposed to Evil countries), it was for a good reason.  Leaving aside the factual falsity of her claim about American motives,  Shepard actually thinks that "torture" is determined by the motive with which the suffering is inflicted.

For a 21st century American to say this is idiocy, tribalistic idiocy.  I know of no more accurate words to use.

Finally, since 'conservatives' claim to love our country, defend democracy, and all the rest of the good stuff, here's Rush Limbaugh on American democracy:

The Monday after the recent military coup in Honduras. Rush Limbaugh said:

"So we've got hell breaking loose in Honduras. You know what we learned about Honduras? We learned the Obama administration tried to stop the coup. Now what was -- the coup was what many of you wish would happen here, without the military."
 
Then on Tuesday, describing Obama talking to troops about the withdrawal from Iraq, he said:

"This is a guy who sought their defeat."  

Limbaugh is one of the only people the Bush administration gave the right to regularly broadcast to our troops in Iraq.  So he is a significant force in influencing how they see the world.

On Wednesday, he elaborated:

"This is Barack Obama, who led from the United States Senate his party into doing everything he could to ensure the defeat of the U.S. military. ... This party was doing everything it could to impugn and dishonor the military." 

On Thursday Limbaugh was more explicit:

"And if we had any good luck, Honduras would send some people here and help us get our government back."

Anyone remember how critical 'conservatives' were of the Dixie Chicks when Natalie Maines said she was ashamed George Bush was from Texas? 

with thanks to Dave Neiwert's wonderful work exposing the problems we have with a disloyal opposition.  These people are moral thugs, fortunately usually without the courage to act out their fantasies, but unfortunately more than willing to encourage those who do.

UPDATE
The overt racism of Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh are discussed today - Friday - by JoeConason at Salon.