FEAR ITSELF.

Digby and Maha articulate today what I haven't been able to. First, Digby:

[Late 20th century Republicans] won elections in the west and the south by swaggering around extolling the blessed Bill Of Rights and the need to keep the federal government at arms length because Real Men and Women don't need no Democrat sissy nanny state and her Big Brother taking away their rights.

9/11 changed everything. Suddenly the he-men of WalMart and the NRA leaped into Big Brother's arms and shrieked "save me, save me! Do what ever you have to do, they're trying to kill us all!" They now look to Daddy Government not to discipline the children, but to check under the bed for them every night, reassure them that the boogeyman won't hurt them and then read them a nice bedtime story about spreading freedom and democracy. It turns out that underneath all this swaggering bravado, the Republicans aren't the Daddy party --- they're the baby party.

And Maha:

But what the hell does “confronting dangers with new resolve” mean? What has actually been asked of us? With the exception of the sacrifices made by our soldiers and Marines … nothing. We go on with our lives just as before. We are not buying liberty bonds, growing victory gardens, knitting socks or rolling bandages for the troops. As illustrated by the World War I-era posters, in past wars citizens were asked to at least give up some extravagances for the war. Today the president and the Republicans in Congress won’t even consider raising taxes to pay for their war. Instead, they’ll shift the burden to the future. Our children will thank them, Im sure.

So what is Bush asking of us, except to trust him? Is that what we’re supposed to be “resolved” about?

All over the Right Blogosphere today the righties argue that Bush must be allowed unprecedented presidential powers because we are fighting terrorists. And terrorists are scary. They killed people on 9/11. They might kill more people, like me. I’ll gladly trade some civil liberties for safety.

Honestly, what in the goddamn hell is wrong with these pantywaists? The swagger that Digby attributes to the Gingrich Republicans was really a brief phenomenon -- the pants-pissing fear that these people have experienced and expressed every minute of every day since 9/11™ destroyed their Gary Condit hard-ons is exactly the same as the fear that empowered McCarthy, Hoover, Nixon and the various Reagan underlings who were tasked with replacing "communist" with "terrorist" to create "new" talking points for the current Administration.

Memo to those who can't submit to executive power fast enough: Grow up, you fucking babies. Some of us on the left like to cite federal policy decisions when explaining our rejection of national pride, but really it's the thought of being associated with pussies like you.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra ::: 2005:12:21:21:08