Concerning Scott Fyfe, a right-wing Texas nut-job

The following is from an email I wrote in early 2006 in response to this sad fellow my sister got me involved in emailing with...


Scott, it's obvious, is the more ignorant and hateful of He and Ken, but ignorance and hatefulness are typical character traits of people who believe what Scott believes (or what he appears to believe as he has done nothing but forward fringe right-wing media for weeks now.) It's hard to tell why either of them believe what they do, as we get nothing but reactionary, second-hand criticism of people who have concerns about whichever Bush policy happens to be news-worthy that day.
It's not as though Ken and Scott acually have any thoughts of their own lately either; they simply forward extreme-right-wing "news" blogs and such, and then put semi-witty subject headings, along w/ maybe an insulting note or two to begin. I simply scan over their forwardings, but mostly ingnore them, as most are reactionary interpretations of similar actions by Dems of the past, or are Rush Limbaugh-esque hate-speeches dressed up as critical thinking, instead of being thoughtful and current analyses of real issues from a conservative perspective. These guys seem to miss the fact that most traditional conservatives are displeased w/ Bush policies as well. Ken and Scott and their like are so reactionary that they are incapable of even grasping the concept of examining Bush policies as they are today without seeing conspiracies from the "America hating liberal media."
I could as easily forward around a bunch of extreme left-wing conspiracy rhetoric picked up from fringe news sources, but to what end? they don't really represent the facts as I've analyzed them, and any info. that might be legitimate would be missed by Scott and Ken because all they want to see is the bogeymen they are convinced are out there.
People believe what they want to believe (on both sides), and then find a news source to back up their opinion. Unfortunately, due to deregulation of major media conglomerates (on Clinton's terms as president) the media is now much less tightly regulated, and the phenomenon of media flooding is having the same effect as media black-outs have had during various times in history (in England and Germany, for example, during WW II) The result is the same; people are kept in the dark because conflicting news opinions are taken as news facts, and news media (esp. TV) is much more about entertainment and ratings than it is about providing a vital social interest. On top of this, few people are equipped to think critically about the evidence presented, as it is often minimal and colored w/ personal politics (on both sides of the liberal/conservative scale.)
So for me it comes down to this: Neo-cons like Scott and Ken think and operate from a frame of mind where America is right in its actions at home and around the world, and those who disagree either hate America and its social make-up, or are ignorant and manipulated by the "liberal media." They think and speak in the language of great generalities, and refuse to even acknowledge the fact that most issues are quite complex, and as a result they view things as being quite simple; either you're with them (as True Americans, which they view themselves as) or you're against them.
On the other side, there are people like me; We see most actions of our government, and of our larger society, in a matter of degrees, and we give weighted importance to issues dependent upon how strongly they violate principles of democracy. We operate from the frame of mind in which we see imposing our will as a nation on others as to varying degrees wrong. We are on constant alert, wary at all times of our government, looking to keep them in check when they overstep the bounds of their power. Why? Because we love the democracy we have, and we want to keep it and expand it. We don't believe this can be done by compromising things like civil rights; by ignoring treaties like the Geneva conventions; by using the UN when it suits our business interests and ignoring it when it doesn't. We don't believe that ignoring anti-democratic behavior in our allies but not our enemies is acceptable. We want our democracy to thrive by making the right choices, which are not usually the choices that flaunt our power, or secure our wealth, or give us the temporary feeling of security while jeopardizing it in the long run.
That's the difference between Us and Them, and in debating, or conversing, or whatever, we play by different rules and with different tools, because we value different things.

Tyson