Fundies and Arch Conseratives: "It's really closed- loop, reinforcing kind of culture."

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"...agree with the comments that these folks are totally driven by fear and rage. But fear is their first and deepest emotion.

...I may have posted about this before, but about eight years ago, my Baptist minister cousin sent me a letter saying he was praying that all liberals like me be eliminated but a few left alive and put in cages on the Capital Mall, so that people could walk by the few caged survivors and point at them and say they never want to allow those people to "return" to America.

I don't know what set my cousin off. He was fund-raising for a Bible college at the time, so I suspect he had just spent long hours driving around in a car, listening to Rush Limbaugh and working himself into a rage. (Which is pretty much like masturbating while driving all day.) Got to the hotel at night and needed to pound his way to his glorious release. I'm probably the only liberal he actually knows, so I got the letter even though I barely know him. I've only see him every few years at family reunions or weddings when we were always friendly to each other.

My cousin is about 60, so he wrote me this piece of hate mail in his mid- 50s. In many ways, his bio fits what you’ve all been saying about right-wingers: he was a sensitive, pudgy kid who was often teased, he didn't do well in school, went to Bible college, became a Baptist minister, always serving at small rural congregations. He was not a great success as a pastor, so he switched over to fund-raising and has done okay. Not super. Just okay.

So by almost all cultural standards of success, he’s pretty mediocre. But he married a good, smart fundie woman and raised three nice kids who are now adults---albeit adults who went to Bible colleges, got married, attend conservative megachurches and are now homeschooling their kids or sending them to Christian "academies." etc. It's really closed- loop, reinforcing kind of culture.

In short, I think my cousin is a right-wing conservative because i it appeals to all his rage and fear. But also because right-wing Republican stufff is emotionally engaging in a way that liberal stuff is mostly not. My cousin is not a thinker. He's all emotion.--especially darker untapped emotions.

Both fundies and Republicans know how to directly appeal to people’s emotions. In fact, that’s their main appeal, since their actual policies and theology aren’t particularly sane or even attractive.

I come from a fundie family. I'm convinced a lot of fundies struggle with undiagnosed clinical depression. Fundies talk obsessively about Joy and Victory Through Christ and praising God. But God is not to be questioned and any anger at God is immediately shut-down. God is like the ultimate Bad Date or Bad Boss: a needy, egotistical, rageaholic Deity who needs needs constant adoration and is too fragile to handle the least bit of criticism. So we always had shut-up, suck up and give God lots of praise. You know, the old Praise Jesus Or He'll Torture You To Death in Hell.

As a fundie, once you've accepted Christ as you personal saviour and Lord, you're saved. You're a new person who puts on a happy face and talks about the joy, joy, joy, joy down in your heart.

But of course, all your old rage, fears and loathings don't go away. They just lie there in the dark. Which is why it's so easy to get fundies whipped up about liberals and gays and brown hordes coming across the border. It’s just redirected rage."