Feeling Minnesota

If you're like me, maybe you've wondered how it is that the most lunatic fringe of the "we must win the war on terra and libruls are a threat to national security" gang resides in a state that--bless its Paul Wellstone soul--is in a climate so cold and locale so out of the way it couldn't attract a terrorist to it if it elected Walter Mondale to the U.S. Senate.*

I won't bother to link to or directly quote the wildly bizarre, fascist comments by some Minnesota lawyer-bloggers we know in addition to some professional columnists types who claim they used to be libruls but now just have to be conservatives because of the war on terra and the Democratic party that "left them". But you know the ones I mean: Democrats are against America. Democrats are on the "other side". Democrats aren't committed to "winning" the "war on terra". Former President Carter is on the other side. Yada Yada Yada.

The "rocket" got so upset the other day he launched an online, profanity-laden tirade against someone who had the temerity to email his site and disagree with his ostrich-head-in-the-ground defense of a pseudojournalist attending WH press conferences under an assumed name with access to secret CIA documents who also wasn't the master of his domain. Nah, why should anybody be concerned about that if the powerline trio isn't.

And it isn't as if a concern for the suffering that may happen to innocent Americans as a result of "terrorism" means anything to them. This gang couldn't care less about the sanctity of life. They joked about Rachel Corrie being killed by Israeli tanks. They didn't want the names and faces of Americans killed in Iraq shown on Nightline. They joked that the OKC perpetrators should have bombed the NYT. They advocate the killing of journalists. They don't care how many Iraqi civilians die in the cause of their war. They pretty much want to incinerate the whole Middle East. They place a higher value on symbolic things, like a three colored cloth flag, and silly jingoist pledges and songs than they place on people. They want to imprison or at least disenfranchise Americans that oppose any U.S. military action or disagree with them.

So living in the mid west means they have no realistic physical fears from terrorism (aside from the homegrown variety) and they don't give a fig about human life, American or otherwise. So what is it that incenses them so much about this so-called war on terrorism that they feel the terms of it can't be debated?

Bulworth says that what incenses mid-western wingnuts on the web, and wingnuts everywhere, is pride. Their identity is as an "American". Not the people mind you. Just the American image. If America is powerful, they feel powerful. If American is vulnerable, they feel vulnerable. Add that to the fact that they just don't like it when anybody disagrees with them and you have the makings of a vitriolic, militant-nationalist web of hate

* The unholy trinity at Powerline and Lileks.