from digby

At CAF:

It's hard to imagine how something like gay marriage or women's rights could even come close to undermining morality the way it is undermined when a society dives this deeply into sanctioned authoritarian sadism.

It is hard to imagine, isn't it? And yet conservatives have some disconnect in their heads when it comes to hurting people...they can't figure out that it's bad. they think, "It's ok because they're different", or "It's OK because it saves lives", or "It's not OK, but it's heroic, because it must be done"(Call it the "Jack Bauer Syndrome". Does anyone else find it kaa-reeepy that the conservative heroes are often fictional? Creepy or appropriate, I guess).

I read a book on the Algerian War for Independence called A Savage War of Peace, and the French went through this as well...they engaged in torture to extract information. When it was revealed the entire nation was horrified, more so than our nation has been thus far, to our shame. The torturers and tortured tell tales of losing their humanity. It's a pit best not stared into, and right now we're pinned back A Clockwork Orange-style, strapped down in a chair leaning over that abyss. Thanks to Bush, and Cheney, and the disgusting monsters they brought with them, who okay'd the whole thing.

I can't see some lesbians or gays getting married causing our civilization to collapse. I can't see any of the bullshit those cons spout doing it. But I can see a deluded nation, half believing its own exceptional fiction, half full of rage and shame, tearing itself apart. Maybe it all comes down to..."we're better than this". The deluded fools think "We're better than these dirty protesters, we're better than these Arab mothers screaming in those just filthy streets over dead rended babies, we're just better than everyone", and the dirty hippies saying "We're better than this...why are we failing?"

Try to keep a lot of canned food and fresh water on hand.