I have spent 40 years debating John Birch Society members. Like any large organization it is composed of different types of people, and, yes, there is a percentage which may fairly be described as “wackos” (as is the case in left-wing groups too). But there are also some very principled and thoughtful people who just don’t understand how liberals can review available data and come to conclusions different from those of the JBS.

Interestingly, the most potent critics of the extreme right have NEVER been “the usual suspects”, i.e. it has never been ADL or SPLC or People For The American Way, or from any other assorted liberal organizations. Instead, it has come from principled conservatives.

It might be helpful to discover, for example, that even J. Edgar Hoover and senior officials within the Bureau’s Domestic Intelligence Division described Robert Welch and the Birch Society in FBI memos as “extremist”. “irrational”, “irresponsible”, “lunatic fringe” and “fanatics”.

Those persons in this thread that immediately resort to the notion that they are discussing “fascists” or “fascism” are just as irresponsible and irrational as the objects of their bile — and such lowest-common-denominator reasoning will always undermine a principled critique.

For anyone interested in my reports concerning the extreme right, see:
http://ernie1241/googlepages.com/home

I was working at a right wing echo chamber eight months ago, and I am still punchy. Trying to swing a BFH hard enough to start a crack to let the light in for these Sad Sacs does get frustrating. In respect to long
term solutions, we should be slow to sophmoric hubris. The people we are
talking about here though are wanna-be Republicans, that believe this country had, and has a manifest destiny, they are victimized by the very pary they vote for, and they usually never served a day in the Military,
or if they did, they were armchair warriors, or just plain old boy net-
work – world owes me a living, I’ll take your inventory Israel, forget
what we did to our Native Americans. They want simplistic answers!

Sorry I missed being here.

So my argument is that we need to let go of the heroic. We need to see the people aligned against us not as the demonic enemy but as human beings.

Otherwise, we’re doomed to keep this heroic dragon-chasing-its-own-tail dynamic alive.

I’m not talking about compromising. I’m talking about letting go of our own hubris and trying to engage the people who’ve declared themselves our enemies as people. Some of them, of course, are lost. But not all of them are. And I think pursuing that kind of course is more of a long-term solution.

Thanks so much Dave for this perspective.

I’m trying to engage my conservative brother-in-law, of whom I am most fond, but I cannot comprehend the implications of his positions that he’s struggling to articulate. When I ask him for the functional implications of any of his principles, he has no response, (as of yet)and I find myself in the horrid trap you’ve so brilliantly stated above.
I despise those parts of me that are saturated with hubris, intolerance and
enemy creating.

I grieve over the occasional sophomoric pandering found here at FDL that epitomizes the enemy creating, loathing dynamic you describe. I thank God that that is not the only material found here, but I don’t need to read that the c..p. I desperately need to read the reasoned, rational, ethical thinking that both exposes the insane and offers positive, functional routes for corrective actions. I desperately need that to help me find a way out of my moral dilemma to be a righteous one who seeks to affirm the humanity of “my enemies” and the knee jerk group think of those who are also eliminationists as well. Lord have mercy.

Thanks Dave, Digby, Jane, and Christy/ Blessings to all

Have just gotten American History X with Edward Norton about his converstion from white supremacist values/actions etc. and subsequent effort to save his younger brother from that world. Am anxious to view it in the context of our guest’s book and work, and Digby’s fabulous introductory analysis.

Wish I were up to reading the book, but am very grateful for the commentary here at FDL on this and many other critical issues facing us with our ongoing impotence to make a difference.

Blessings to all