re: #150 MandyManners

I know—I grew up around a few of them. The real scary part was that some of them were very intelligent and educated people with a frightening ability to rationalize their hatred.

You know, I did not want to get into this right now as I’ve not been able to meet my quota at the salt mine and am behind in my work. But this touches on what we have been talking about—playing on people’s fears. The klan and other hate-groups took bigotry and justified that hatred as a reaction to unwarranted intrusion by big government into their lives. I know that is a generality, but the gist is this; we cannot let others play on our fears. We cannot let ourselves be manipulated, especially now.

I have stopped watching Fox and I do not listen to talk radio because I am, basically, being told that I should be scared or angry or both. That, my friends, is demagoguery—and that is very dangerous. There is the very real possibility that who shouts the loudest might end up leading the party, and the graveyards are filled with the corpses of those who followed such men.

We cannot afford to take counsel of our fears—not now—not ever.

Sorry for going on so long.