The Tea Party’s Embarrassing Irony: Its Ideal Nation Rejects Basic American Beliefs, Elias Isquith, Salon, via AlterNet, June 23, 2014
What I’d argue…is that the Tea Party’s philosophy of government (again, as understood by [conservative pundit Reihan] Salam) has embedded within it an aversion to basic democratic principles that goes far beyond a typical contempt for Washington, politicians and pundits. When Salam writes that Teatopia is founded on a commitment to a “robust federalism” intended to let “different states … offer different visions of the good life” and allow citizens to “vote with their feet” by moving to whichever state best reflects their values, he’s not describing a common aversion to corruption or a distaste for political theater. He’s describing a childish and essentially anti-political belief that a return to an Articles of Confederation-style U.S. order — in which each state is more of a sovereign unto itself than a member of a larger American whole — will produce 50 mini-nations where everyone basically agrees.
Have Conservatives Abandoned Rationality, Skepticism and Truth? Amanda Marcotte, AlterNet, June 19, 2014
The possibility that rationality itself has become a partisan issue is disquieting to many who prefer to believe that “both sides” have topics that they are irrational about and irrationality is evenly distributed among all political stripes. That may have been true in the past, but increasingly, Americans are rearranging their political views and their views on empiricism so that liberals are putting much more of an emphasis on rationality. Indeed, many of the irrational notions floating out there that are assumed to be “liberal” are, in fact, becoming more associated with the right as this reshuffling takes place.
Why Boarding Schools Produce Bad Leaders, Nick Duffel, The Guardian, via AlterNet, June 16, 2014
Boarding children invariably construct a survival personality that endures long after school and operates strategically. On rigid timetables, in rule-bound institutions, they must be ever alert to staying out of trouble. Crucially, they must not look unhappy, childish or foolish – in any way vulnerable – or they will be bullied by their peers. So they dissociate from all these qualities, project them out on to others, and develop duplicitous personalities that are on the run, which is why ex-boarders make the best spies.
