Isn't it about time to admit the fact that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are not only phenomena of Islam, or the Middle East? Afterall, we have our own terrorists: anti-abortion killers and white supremacists are the vanguard of our religious, right-wing evil organizations. Of course, the right gets all bent out of shape with the left-wing "terrorists" - Ayers, Enivronmental Liberation Forces, and so on. The big difference is that the lefty terrorists may blow stuff up, but are known to value life - pains were taken to avoid killing people. The right - they don't care. In fact, they are happy to kill - human life is not valued, unacceptable people are effectively Othered and then killed.
American conservatism, despite its rhetoric, promotes a culture of death. The social values that it upholds, rigidly maintained from the past, have little bearing on modern society. Because conservatism refuses change, by definition it refuses life. To paraphrase a colleague: the only thing that is constant in life is change. Life itself is change itself. To resist change is to resist life. Ultimately, it is this closed-mindedness that defines conservatism and that allows conservatives to participate in actions or rhetoric that lead to violence.
The American right-wing . . . our locally grown Taliban.
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