Fairy Tale Conservatives
From dKosopedia
Contents |
Description
Captures two ideas: 1) A conservative worldview that is well known, 2) Stresses progressives as the parties of science, evidence and reality.
Fairy tales are what parents spin to their children to get them to go to sleep. Fairy tales are what right-wing politicians spin to their consitutents to keep them from waking up.
Diagram
- A belief in a world of "monsters and heroes"
- A belief in romantic worlds past
- Preference for simplicities that sound nice rather than complexities that sound difficult.
- A position of wishing for something to make it true. "Don't say things are not going well, because that will make them not go well", it's not just superstition, it's a plea not to break the spell of the fairy-tale.
- A "...and they lived happily ever after" (non)view of the future that doesn't consider anything beyond the "end" of the story. It is the erroneous idea (antithetical to progressivism) that things should/will stay the same way forever.
Examples
- " Reagan won the Cold War." (Through great courage and fortitude, standing up to attacks from liberals everywhere, he single-handedly brought down the evil empire. And we all lived happily ever after.)
- Supply-side (trickle-down) Market-based (unregulated) monetarist (banker's welfare) economic theory gets tried over and over and always results in the economy going in the tank but concentrates wealth (its real purpose). They tell the people the fairy tale and the wicked step-mother waltzes away with the dough.
- Once upon a time, a greedy villian set out to kill the innocent damsel-in-distress, Terri Schiavo. Never fear, the Republican Congress rode in on their white horses to save the day. But they were thwarted at the last second by evil activist judges (eek!)!! All appeared lost. Until... our hero (Sir Frist Dobson) arrived to vanquish the evil and restore order to the land. And they (who?) lived happily ever after.
Advocates
Detractors
Ohwilleke 19:46, 11 Aug 2005 (PDT) The idea is a bit subtle for the average person to pick up. It is sort of like using a reference to the Punic Wars. Insiders know what your talking about, but outsiders don't know in what sense you are making a comparison.
- Insider memes play a valuable role, comic relief and the creation of a shared language.
