Conservative America-haters

Gail Collins wrote a brilliant analysis of the Teabaggers, and one of their sycophants, Texas Governor Rich Perry (not to be confused with Lindsey Graham). Her central point is this: Why do people who claim to own the rights to patriotism want so fervently to leave our country?

It's a damn good question. And it's one I've wondered for a while now. So much of what today's conservatives stands for is at least un-American, if not anti-American. Take their "activist judges" mantra. What conservatives would like you to believe is that courts have no right to judge whether legislation is constitutional, which calls into question the entire concept of checks and balances in our government. Courts also, they say, have no right to overturn the will of the majority. So that means that when 71% of Americans thought blacks should not be allowed to marry whites, the court should not have ruled against the majority of Americans, and in favor of interracial marriage in the Loving v. Virginia case. The scary part is that a lot of conservatives, at least the extreme conservatives controlling the Republican party, may even secretly agree with what I just wrote - that the court shouldn't have legalized interracial marriage. Thus, they find no contradiction at all in their opposition to "activist judges" and the fact that activist judges are behind many, if not most, of our key court cases granting civil rights to African-Americans. They don't believe in either.

Read Collins' opinion piece. It's brilliant. And scary. It exposes modern-day conservatism for the angry, intolerant, anti-American extremism it really is.