Why super-patriots scare me more than evil leftists

I'm in a bit of a foul mood tonight, because this morning I went to the bookstore and saw this book about how the Supreme Court is resorting to tyranny to thwart the will of the people. Whatever - I haven't read it, so I don't know if it's cogent or not, but the fact that the foreword was written by Rush Limbaugh does not bode well for me buying it. On the jacket, however, the question is raised: Do you ever wonder ("you" being the good American, one presumes) why, despite whatever government is in power, American society always seems to drift to the left?

Digest that for a bit. In April of 2005, with the Patriot Act worming its way into every aspect of life, with unions all but dead (except for that cozy one they have for Major League Baseball), with abortion access declining everywhere, with gay marriage bans being voted in to law everywhere (even Oregon, which is a relatively liberal state), with Republicans wanting to end filibusters so that they can cram through any judge they want (presumably because the Supreme Court is packed with raving liberals), with laws being passed that say pharmacists don't have to dispense birth control pills because it's against their conscience, and with thousands being held illegally in Guantanomo Bay, this book (with the author's permission, one would think) has the gall to suggest that American society always drifts to the left. And the sad fact is, the target audience for this book will believe it.

Now, I'm liberal. I'm not ashamed of this fact. I also know that being a conservative does not automatically make you evil. I can also look at history a bit objectively, something that seems to elude our top officials (when they bother looking at history at all). I read somewhere, some time ago, that what is fascinating about the United States is that in over two hundred years of history, the people have NEVER voted in a leftist government. Digest that for a bit. "But," some would say, "Clinton was a Democrat!" Please. Clinton was a Republican who smoked pot. It's true, if you think about it. We have never elected a leftist government - really not even close. The closest we got was perhaps FDR or LBJ, but even that is pushing it. I mean, France has had socialist governments. England has. Europeans like those wacky political movements, don't they? Even at the height of the socialist movement - prior to the Soviet Revolution - we weren't even close. So to suggest that the country is always drifting to the left is absurd. We have always been conservative. Even the Founding Fathers were conservative. They were mad about the wacky British liberals turning everything topsy-turvy and creating new taxes. They were tax-and-spend liberals, Pitt and Townshend and George III!

This is why we should be scared of super-patriots. Not because they're patriotic, even though I'm always suspicious of people who are blindly patriotic (or blindly anything). I'm scared of super-patriots because they HAVE to be right, and if anyone disagrees with them is a traitor. No, it's not the most original thought, but it's worth re-stating occasionally.