Rightwing Lies
About
"Liberals"

The Rightwing Lie

If a person who had never visited the United States were to spend a month or so here, traveling around the country, reading newspapers and magazines, watching television, listening to radio programs, and generally getting the sense of this place, the visitor would no doubt reach conclusions something like these:

• There are in the U.S. two groups of people:  conservatives and liberals.
• Conservatives :
  • Are dedicated to the common man;
  • Have an intense work ethic, prizing manual labor over all;
  • Are devoted to their families and to solid, till-death-do-us-part marriage;
  • Physically brave, always the first to enlist for wars;
  • Fiscally conservative, mindful of the public purse, watchdogs of the public treasury;
  • Are dedicated to individual freedom;
  • Are a minority, constantly fighting for their lives against the liberal majority.
• Liberals:
  • Are a snobbish, elite group who despise the masses of people;
  • Look down on anyone who works with his/her hands;
  • Are immoral and wicked in every respect, have the morals of an alley cat;
  • Are cowards through and through -- physically, morally, and spiritually;
  • Wildly tax and spend on their favorite loony causes;
  • Subvert individual freedom to political correctness;
  • Are the majority, they control the press, TV, and radio, and hunt down conservatives at every turn.

The Truth

This conclusion would be wrong -- totally, absolutely wrong.  The facts are dramatically different from the perception.

• The basic liberal values are political equality and economic opportunity.
  • Liberals hold that the governed are capable of governing themselves and that the freedoms in the Bill of Rights are essential to our form of government.
  • Liberals support and promote capitalism while, at the same time, believing in a government strong enough to prevent the abuses of unrestrained concentration of economic power in too few hands.
• Liberal policies have made the U.S. the most free, most progressive, wealthiest, and most successful nation in history.
• Whenever conservatism has seized power, it has threatened all previous progress and has been defeated only by the basic honesty, humanity, and decency of the American people.
• Liberals are brave and patriotic.  Neither liberals or conservatives has a lock on patriotism and heroism.
• Liberals work for a living.  It is liberals that have fought for the rights of working people to have a safe workplace, decent working hours, decent pay, compensation for injuries on the job.  Conservatives have steadfastly opposed these fundamental rights and protections.
• Liberal Democrats have been the most competent and careful stewards of the public purse and the national economy.

Why  Does the Lie Dominate?

If liberals are decent people -- with a few cranks and dingbats in their midst -- why, then, are the lies about them so prominent?

Because Lying -- the Big Lie -- has been a central element of political strategy for the rightwing of the Republican Party since the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  During and after World War II, the popularity of Roosevelt and Truman kept the Republican lies at bay.  However, in the late 1960's, as many of the "old truths" were called into question, the radical reactionary wing of the Republican Party discovered the power of the Big Lie.  In the last three decades of the 20th Century, they perfected the Big Lie as a political strategy.

Today, the radical reactionaries who control the Republican Party enjoy a virtual monopoly over political discourse in this country -- they define the terms of the discussion.  Why do they enjoy this monopoly?  For several reasons:

• They have paid a lot of money for it and they intend to keep it.  For example:
  • The deep pockets of Richard Mellon Sciafe financed the "Arkansas Project," a relentless pursuit of President Bill Clinton that produced more liars, trash, and scam artists than have ever been in one place at the same time.
  • "Reverend" Sun Young Moon uses his multi-millions to finance the Washington Times newspaper with its reputation for paying little attention to fact.
  • Well-financed foundations support radical reactionary crackpots who spin out books, magazine articles, think pieces, and who appear as talking heads on every available cable channel
  • Regnery Publishing, an old-line conservative publishing house now owned by a radical reactionary crackpot, cranks out "book" after "book" by such discredited "authors" as Gary Aldrich, Anne Coulter, and Laura Ingraham.
• The radical reactionaries do not even pay lip service to being fair and balanced.   While proclaiming that they want to hear all sides, in fact they do everything the can to shout down, belittle, and stifle any opposing view.
• The radical reactionaries of the right intimidate anyone who disagrees with them by launching personal and professional attacks on anyone who attempts to take a balanced approach.
• The radical reactionaries of the right make use of the dark side of humanity.   
  • They play upon racism, religious zealotry, xenophobia, and other divisive, destructive forces in this nation. 
  • George Bush's claim to be a "uniter, not a divider" is one of their biggest lies -- the radical reactionaries of the right play upon fear and division.

This web site will expose the RightWing Lies and the liars who tell them.  It's a huge task because there are so many RightWing Lies and so many RightWing Liars.   Return to the Table of Contents and start reading.   Bookmark this site and return often -- I will post new articles often.