“Populists believe that everything is a matter of opinion–-there are no objective facts–-and their opinion is just as good as, say, that of a scientist who’s studied a question like climate change all his life. Populists are universally intellectually lazy and don’t think you should have to work for your knowledge–-received wisdom and paranoia are good enough.”

Now that is frigging hilarious.

I don’t like inflexible, I can’t give an inch or they’ll take a mile atitudes and that is what every organization represented by an acronym is all about.

Letting it be known that you will give an inch allows you to charge more per inch.

This is just one clue. All of his so called proof was questionable. I don’t doubt the allegations against the NOPD. They are the most corrupt PD in the nation, but police officers out of control does not have anything to do with gun confiscation.

The NG troops appeared to be entering homes thoight to be unoccupied and breaking in when no one answered.

The old woman had a gun in her hand for christ’s sake, and once again this was a typical excessive force incident by NOPD.

They never showed the guy getting his shotgun taken. I don’t recommend advertising your gun in those situations, but again I didn’t see it taken away from him.

Basically they always show you enough to make an implication but never enough to prove anything. My nutty boyhood friend told me a lot of this kind of stuff several years ago, including the “fact” that a UN international military force is already stationed somewhere in Arizona to facilitate the gun confiscation.

It is also wise to avoid frothing at the mouth reactions in any venue.

It is all bull shit. It is not conservatives, not liberals it is nut cases, reading out of context information. Publications by the government are worse than the Bible for being able to prove anything you want to prove. It is living proof of the million monkeys and a million typewriters parable.

It doesn’t require vomiting up political hate.

At this time in our history, populism is represented by the Tea Party, and so it has a distinctly rightwing flavor. But in the past populist movements have pushed progressive agendas too. Some populist movements have pushed agrarian land reform, others pushed back against big capitalism (in the 1930s and again recently with Occupy).

I was recently challenged to define my beliefs, and it’s not so much a matter of being a progressive, or being an anti-conservative. I think the truth is that I’m an anti-populist.

You can recognize a populist at any time in history by the anti-intellectual, anti-elite rhetoric; and a ridiculously exaggerated egalitarianism: Populists don’t just believe that they’re equal under the law, they believe that they’re the equal of anybody in every respect, most especially them pointy-headed intellectuals. Populists believe that everything is a matter of opinion–there are no objective facts–and their opinion is just as good as, say, that of a scientist who’s studied a question like climate change all his life. Populists are universally intellectually lazy and don’t think you should have to work for your knowledge–received wisdom and paranoia are good enough. And Lord knows that populists love their conspiracy theories.

Populists are drawn to small ideas that fit on a bumper sticker. For example: If you can balance your checkbook, you can balance the Federal budget. Populists prevented the US from adopting the metric system, because if furlongs and pecks were good enough for Jesus, they’re good enough for Americans. Populists are often actually proud of ignorance, believing that the ignorant are somehow “purer of heart” or in touch with divine wisdom because they’re unsullied by knowledge.

Populists are the voters who think that their job is to elect the candidate most like themselves. They’re the ultimate narcissists. Populists were drawn to George Bush because he’s the one they most wanted to have a beer with (populists apparently also think it’s funny to give alcohol to alcoholics). Bill Clinton’s another politician who evoked a similar populist sentiment; the disease of populism is nondenominational.

Populist Republicans are having a hell of a time accepting Mitt because he’s the ultimate elitist. And populists being the ultimate class warriors, it must be driving them nuts to hear Romney denouncing class warfare and “class envy”. He’s not one of them.

So, Jody, I share your unease at all the diseased minds out there. I think the reason America’s circling the drain isn’t the increased popularity of the conservative ideology, so much as it is the epidemic of populist brain-rot. I’m less worried about what Americans think than I am about how they think. Scared shitless, if you want to know the truth.

If you put on your ‘money goggles’, proposed gun control legislation is the NRA’s bread and butter. It brings in membership fees. It drives the organization to find and fight every attempt to even just refine gun laws. It’s probably what makes them so successful.

You need to find tune your bullshit filter