Monday, April 26, 2010

Ancient Ignorance: Arizona Ups the Ante

P.M. Carpenter on the passage of the Arizona racial profiling law:

It -- the Tea Party, Republican Party, whatever -- is a sorry collection, wrote Robinson, that "encompasses gun nuts, tax protesters, devotees of the gold standard, Sarah Palin, insurance company lobbyists, 'constitutionalists' who have not read the Constitution [my italics], Medicare recipients who oppose government-run health care, crazy 'birthers' who claim President Obama was born in another country, a contingent of outright racists ... and a bunch of fat-cat professional politicians pretending to be 'outsiders.' "

To that description we can now add this: It's an oddball collection that further claims to idolize individual, don't-tread-on-me freedom but in reality adores "papers-please" police states.

Adores, as in Adorno, as in The Authoritarian Personality -- that ubiquitous species that aggressively asserts a fidelity to freedom yet longs to submit to a strong authority; that which patriotically brays about law and order but inwardly warms to a destructive, anarchic vigilantism.

But only for white Repuglican'ts and teabaggers. Hitler is smiling.

No comments: