I’ve just finished reading Al Franken’s “Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them”. I read this book after considerable internal debate. I know I pretty much agree with Franken’s point of view, since I’ve read snippets of “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot”, and I really don’t see the point of reading books that preach to the choir. In fact, I’ve seriously considered reading either Anne Coulter or Bill O’Reilly on the basis that one should “know one’s enemy”, but both of them just make me feel angry.
In general, it seems to me that the media treat Al Franken as being the “liberal equivalent” of Anne Coulter (a woman who claims all liberals are traitors to the USA, while conveniently forgetting that Ronald Reagan broke his oath of office and then perjured himself about it — or was simply unfit for office — and all in the interests of Hondurans and Nicaraguans having the right to work for $0.10/h in sweatshops). Aside from technical differences — e.g. Al Franken is funny; Anne Coulter isn’t — I really don’t think they’re similar at all. The real difference is that Al Franken is actually quite “fair and balanced” — he is reasonably well-informed (with a definitely liberal viewpoint) and has a grip on reality — while Anne Coulter is either a bald-faced liar or completely nuts. Or both.
So where are the liberal liars? Or if liberal liars are less common or less popular, why is this so?
I have a theory!
The really nutty right wingers in the US seem mainly to be a peculiar form of Christian who thinks that Jesus Christ was in favor of tax cuts for the rich, upholding the establishment, and that anyone they consider socially undesirable should be locked up in overcrowded prisons. In other words, people whose core beliefs involve willful ignorance or self-deception. To paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith, part of the popularity of the Bible stems from its inconsistencies: it’s possible to read into the Bible almost any set of prejudices. For example, it’s easy to find excuses for sexism and racism and slavery and exploiting animals in the Bible (and many have). But there’s really no way to read tax breaks for the rich into the teachings of Jesus. Jesus doesn’t say “That thing about a rich man getting into heaven and a camel getting through the eye of the needle, well I was exaggerating.” The only way to be a right wing Christian is to be (a) utterly ignorant of the Bible, or (b) self-deceptive. Or both.
It’s just a theory.