Great Jumping "Reality-Based" Butterballs!

Glenn points out that ERIC SCHEIE of Classical Values has some choice comments about the "reality-based" community. But you rarely see a consecutive string of quality comments like this on a blog. Jaw gaping kudos to Eric's readers! Check this out:

My sister considers herself to be in the "Reality Based Community." I consider her delusional. I present as evidence the following exchange. My sister has refered to Bush as Hitler. In a series of e-mails I patiently explained that Bush couldn't be Hitler since Hitler was dead. He also couldn't be a "new Hitler" since the two men have policies almost diametrically opposed. Most significantly, Bush is attempting to replace genocidal dictatorships with secular democracies. Hitler did everything he could do to destroy democracies and replace them with genocidal dictators. I thought my sister might understand the difference. I also pointed out that Hitler was a starving artist who joined the National Socialist Party, supported gun control, abortion, government control of corporations, was an athiest with an affinity for paganism, hated Jews and allied himself with radical Muslims. I then noted that the Democratic Party, not the Republicans, had a platform which came closest to Hitler's. In other words, using objective reality, not delustional rantings, Hitler is closer politically to the Democrats than to Bush. My sister sent me this in response:

"Bush is backed by goups I wouldn't affiliate myself with because they are not conservatives...they are radicals with a philosophy similar to fanatics worldwide. That is, intolerence for all things different then themselves. Wow, sounds like similiar behavior...don't we hear about all the radical muslims that are fighting a holy war killing everyone that is different. Holy shmoly...I think we are doing the same thing. You're either with us or against us. No room for differences and we'll just kill all those that don't agree or put you in jail or deny you your civil rights or make it very difficult to live a good life. Sounds like a return to the dark ages just disguised as "good for us" and a little more high tech than the radical islamists that are throwing bombs and rocks in the desert. Like here in the US...yelling GOD at the top of our lungs.

I thought here in the US we took the constitution seriously and did not willfully choose to violate it's tenents. There is movement alive that has been working on it since before our constitution was written. [I can't quite figure this one out. I think she means that a secret cabal has been working to undermine the constituion, even before it was written, but I'm not sure. - David] Because this current administration and those "behind the scenes" neo conservatives and theocrats are working towards eroding what I believe is a profound document I cannot in good faith and conscience vote for or support them. I find The Bush/Cheney ticket hard to swallow and huge portions of the GOP population as fanatical. I am saddened to find so many references to Kerry and the democratic party as Nazis, even from you. It is apparent that historically the GOP much closer resembles the Movement leading up to and including the Nazis."

I'll let you decide who is a member of the Reality Based Community.

posted by: David on 11.05.04 at 08:31 PM [permalink]

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I had no idea!

This is the hep way to say what was in 1990s jargon "politically correct" or in the Soviet Union was termed "the sole progressive world view".

posted by: Harry Forbes on 11.05.04 at 08:36 PM [permalink]

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"Faith" in the context of having a vision of what the would could and should be is critical to achieving anything.

Consider Europe in the late 1930s. Chamberlain, member of the "reality-based community" opted to appease Germany, while Churchill (with a vision of Hitler's Germany defeated and his nearby neighbors freed) recognized the need to confront and defeat tyranny to make England safe.

Ditto for Reagan vs. Carter. One saw the "reality" of malaise, the other had a vision of greatness. One thought the US had to live with Soviet domination in the world, the other defeated Communist tyranny across the globe. I'll take a positive vision of economic and political liberty over "realistic" status-quo tyranny in the Middle East. We've seen the fruits of the Scowcroft / Kissinger approach the past 25 years.

posted by: Matthew Cromer on 11.05.04 at 08:42 PM [permalink]

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So you're telling me the people who, not more than two months ago, were saying that a man in Texas - a man who didn't know how to type, mind - acquired and used a *four thousand dollar* typesetting machine to compose terse, secret memos to himself; that this man made a dozen or so highly technical adjustments to that machine, all of which *just happened* to line up perfectly with the default settings on Microsoft Word, a program which didn't even exist until several years after his death; and that these memos, which contained the bombshell revelation that Bush missed his mo-fo-ing PHYSICAL thirty years ago, yes, these highly charged *dynamite* memos would grip the electorate with such fiery passion that it would rush to the polls like an hoard of keening devils and swing the entire election out of pure vengeance; you're telling me that the very people who believed EVERY WORD of this utterly ridiculous narrative and who tried to convince others of its truth, ignoring raised eyebrows and helpless laughter; these very same people are now calling themselves the farking "REALITY-BASED community"?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Great jumping butterballs!

It IS to laugh.

I was feeling a bit let down by Eric's denouement. Then I realized that the commenters provided just the completion Eric needed -- and then some!