Conservatives tend to be extremely hierarchy-oriented. They seem to crave a leader

[KoKo]

What is this new movement?

By Matt Stoller

Over the past nine years, a series of shocks to the country have radically changed the contours of our political debates. In the 2000 election, the Presidential debate involved sweater hues and snowmobiles, ‘lock boxes’ and ‘fuzzy math’. Virtually nothing in that election prepared any but the most cynical political observers for the massive security failures, electoral fraud, the creation of the beginnings of a police state, the loss of two wars one of which was sold under false pretenses, and the destruction of a major American city – all tragic events which have not only occurred on the watch of some very bad people without adverse consequence, but have all increased the power and wealth of those same people. America is a very different place in 2007 than it was in 1999.

This series of events has done something specific to a relatively apolitical white liberal class that had been somewhat absented from the public debate since the early 1970s. It made us angry, and has created a movement.

http://coffeehouse.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jan/15/what_is_this_new_movement#comment-195872

{REPLY TO MATT STOLLER's POST ABOUT NETROOTS ACTIVISM)

On January 15, 2007 - 8:39pm Rick B said:

Conservatives tend to be extremely hierarchy-oriented. They seem to crave a leader and a chain of command before they believe anyone will tell them what to do. Without directions from the hierarchy I suspect that their anxiety rises rapidly. People become conservatives because they see the world around them changing rapidly so that the changes threaten their established lives. They don't know who to trust or how to deal with the changes. People in a situation of total chaos they cannot cope with as individuals like soldiers in wartime have to grab onto the hierarchy because they know nothing else will protect them.

The Internet is the essential "anti-hierarchy." So are Liberals and Progressives. They tend to make their own decisions regarding what they are going to do. Individual autonomy works with people like this, because they don't need to have someone give them permission to do things. They just need (reliable and accurate) information they can use to make their own decisions. Working without much specific guidance does not increase their anxiety, but working without information does. The internet is a tool for getting information, not orders. Those of us who don't like what we are told are pretty good a using Google. Give liberals the info and they trust their own abilities to make their own decisions. Like cats. They trust their own decisions and they don't feel constrained to follow the herd or ask permission to do things. Guidance helps, but the individual has the final decision what to do about it. Doing something they feel is stupid just because someone orders it or everyone else is doing it is not the Liberal way.

I don't think that people can learn to use the internet the way we do and still remain conservative. Without guidance and permission from on high, conservatives will become paralyzed by anxiety. If they cease to be tied up by anxiety they will either become leaders of conservatives or they will become liberals. Most of them will not be able to do it.

That's my best guess regarding the difference between conservatives and liberals who use the internet.

http://coffeehouse.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2007/jan/15/what_is_this_new_movement#comment-195872

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Not so much I think THEY need a leader. They like the idea of

their leader pushing the rest of us around.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

2. The vast majority . . .

. . . were never taught how to think for themselves, period.

They don't even know what that is.

[StClone]

3. "Conservatives Without Conscience"

By John Dean and Lakoff's book "Don't Think of an Elephant" both investigate the history and psychology of this phenomenon.

http://www.amazon.com/Conservatives-Without-Conscience-John-Dean/dp/0670037745

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Think-Elephant-Debate-Progressives/dp/1931498717

[tom_paine]

4. You mean: A Fuehrer

Of course the Busheviks want that. They always have.

Look at history. Time and time and time again, monsters rose to the head of many nations in many times.

The Founding Fathers designed our system to be proof against monsters seizing power, and even if they did, preventing them from consolidating it dictatorially.

But they failed, at least partially, but by and large a nation that had been "monstrous ruler-free" for our entire history, now has some of the very worst human beings ruling us. As a result, that system of checks and balances has nearly been dismantled to the point of extinction.

There will ALWAYS be people...ordinary people...who can commit extraordinary atrocities with just the tiniest nudge from authority. History bears witness to the millions of examples in many nations, many ages.

There will always be those who crave to be dominated by their "bettors". It would seem to be hardwired into us as human beings that a percentage of the population always will be like that.

Ultimately, the Founding Fathers, who stood at the pinnacle of the Age of Enlightenment looking backwards at the Dark Ages, when one could say "Bushevism was king", though it wasn't Bushevism but simply Monarchy, which is Bushevism's "Homo Habilis", if you catch my meaning, they looked back and said "Let's create a system were the Common Folk have a chance to taste what we Rich Folk have been living all along," and thus the idea for freedom for Filthy Little Nobodies (not just People of Substance) was born.

They said, "Let's create a system of checks and balances that insures that no one party, no one branch, can gain dictatorial control. Let's create a system in which it would be IMPOSSIBLE for the citizenry to EVER be ruled by a congenital idiot, a liar, a criminal and a fraud."

But they were wrong. For now we have that.

They said, "let us draw up a Constitution that would make it IMPOSSIBLE for a tyrant to shred and ignore."

That one is still up in the air. All is not irrevocably lost. But we inch closer. Time will tell.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

5. yes.

The Age of Enlightenment has receded forever from view.

We need heroes right now. Lots of them. Right now. Not next month.

Hope against hope, that there will be 700,000 souls on the Mall this weekend.

And that somehow, it gets televised . . .