Nationalist dogma: Right Wing Watch!

 Right Wing Watch

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/


Every time I want to know what the Right Wing nutjobs are up to, I put on my brave face and head over to this website. You can be sure there will be several absolutely bat-shit crazy people spouting pure, unadulterated and uninformed drivel. It is shocking that such bigotry still exists in the world today.

Just a few of examples from TODAY. Imagine the volume of pure bovine excrement emanating from the jaws of these right wingers over the course of a full year!

Anti-gay activist Robert Lopez has claimed gay marriage leads to human trafficking. That is disgusting. How dare he - and it's complete nonsense of course. But, even if he were right, he could make even that problem go away by making it easier for gay couples to adopt. But I bet he's not really for that either - the root of his "concern" is of course, homophobia, not children's human rights.

In the US, the Family Research Council (FRC) are basically a right-wing think tank that come up with all sorts of meaningless and unfounded claims. That fact that they call for prayers, for example in this bonkers article, should tell you the value they put on actual evidence.


LOL. It's all one big conspiracy for these people, isn't it? BIG GOVERNMENT BAD is about the extent of their vocab. If only we could trust that the "local government" advocates were competent to manage their own areas!


Now THIS sounds like real "Islamophobia" to me. Unclean spirit indeed! 'Cos praying to Allah is so much inherently worse than praying to the Abrahamic god ;)



Nationalism and Dogma
One of the features that I commonly encounter from the Right Wing is their ardent nationalism. It's really easy to label people with the "un-nationalistic" tag, which carries its own stigma and can rapidly lead to accusations of "treachery". I've recently been thinking about the ethics of nationalism from a consequentialist or egalitarian perspective, and asked myself the big question: can I be a "patriot" and also care about people all over the world on an equal basis?

The problem with caring too much about your own country is that it becomes hard to determine where to draw the line. We all automatically focus our attention on matters close to home, be it our own families or our own country. The UK is most important to me, for example. Most people want their own country to succeed, from an economic and cultural perspective. Knowing that this often results in another rival nation suffering from this success in some way, for example in terms of economic growth - so at what point do we decide to stop pushing our own success and think about helping our neighbours?

At the end of the day, I decided, I attribute my most important moral duties to humanity in general, and not only the citizens of one country. If the country I live in does wrong, it needs to answer for its crimes - it can't just assume to be in the right and be worthy of unflinching support. This is not treachery, it's fairness. To me, the All Things Considered approach is usually best.



"You'll have to prise my gun from my cold, dead hands"
The right wing are fond of their "slippery slope" arguments. One of their common forms of discourse could be summarised as:


"I'm concerned about X. Traditionally, we haven't allowed X. If we let X happen now, then it surely follows that Y will happen and then before you know it, we'll have Z."
The problem with small-government, right-wing nationalists and the "slippery slope" argument, is that rampant nationalism is eventually subject to the ultimate "slippery slope" argument itself: Continuing devolution of power can lead to parochial absurdity ad-infinitum. Consider the following.

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We start with raising our country up on a pedestal above others. This, and the fear and distrust which characterises the heart of right-wing sentiment, will lead to growing suspicion of outside influences ("foreigners") and pressure to become more isolationist. So certain ties are cut. But such old habits die hard.

Soon it will be intra-national concerns. It's the northerners now, for example. They are bringing the tone of the country down. Let's split into a two-tier system. We want to preserve the southern way of life.

Next, it's those weirdos in the next town. What a dump that place is. I refuse to shop there, we want nothing to do with it.

And finally, it's the neighbours across the road. They were always the real problem. They are NOT being a part of OUR group.

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UKIP
We can see the influence of excessive nationalism everywhere. In the UK, the UKIP political party want to pull us out of the EU.

Scotland are having a national debate and referendum on separating from the UK and becoming an entirely separate country.

It seems to me that this sentiment most often tends to be rather regressive.

Here is an example of extremist nationalism and dogma from earlier this month. The left-wing are hardly free from blame either where it comes to nationalism:

Communist dogma in Cuba is strictly nationalistic, eschewing any free market trade or private enterprise. I'm not a huge fan of unbridled capitalism, but jeez...

In fact, I've asked myself the question: can we even justify pulling out of the EU from the standpoint of moral responsibility? A great many people's livelihoods and wellbeing may depend on the continued survival of the EU. It seems callous to think that we would just leave it as a rat might jump from a sinking ship. I've heard some people even say that they actually want the EU to fail. Wow. Now that's heartless.

I want the EU to survive and prosper, but in doing so, it must take this opportunity to clean up its act. The whole institution needs to become less profligate, more accountable and preferably, financially auditable. The "fat-cat bureaucrat Eurocrat" culture must end.

In support of EU exit, the right-wing often push two ideas: that 1) foreign workers are coming to our shores, taking our jobs; and that 2) foreign families are coming to our shores as benefit and health care tourists. Aside from the vaguely racist overtones here, my objections to this are summarised below.

Firstly, it is most likely that statements 1) and 2) are mutually exclusive. Most families with decent jobs shouldn't ideally need to be on benefits (which is another argument for the living wage).

For 1), I'd say that those jobs are just that: jobs. They are not "ours". Anyone who perform them can be employed to do so. The real concern is that companies are not able to undercut prices too much by hiring overseas workers for too little pay. Also, we are equally able to go to their country and work as well. In fact, this is the obvious solution.

By demanding higher pay than their country normally offers its own workers, we can improve the state of the economy and drive social cohesion at the same time. Although this might require political lobbying to the companies present, it is part of the wider capitalist agenda and can work in both countries simultaneously.

Synergy can also work to all our benefit. When some of the foreign workers return home, they should have a positive image of our country, and strive to emulate that attitude in theirs.

For 2), aside from the evidential burden for this "problem" not being met to my satisfaction, we can't just deny health care to those who need it. The burden is on all of us to ensure that the apparent "gap" in wealth between our country and theirs is minimised. Then we might not feel so bad about going over there and using their health care system. And all these unfounded fears of eastern Europeans can be allayed.