They’re afraid.

That was Richard Blair’s two-word answer to a question we all have — What  is wrong with these conservatives who believe and repeat the lies and misrepresentations of their leaders?

OK, maybe the question is closer to What the fuck is wrong with these nutjobs? But again, the answer is Richard’s: They’re afraid.

They’re afraid that everything they know is going to change. They’re afraid that they’ll soon be the minority in this country. They’re afraid that the big bad blacks are going to treat them the way they were treated. They’re afraid they’ll have to give up their privilege. They’re afraid teh gay is going to infect their children. They’re afraid the Mexicans are gonna take over and get free health care to boot. They’re afraid they might have to actually think for themselves.

Well, it is, they already are, not bloody likely, you betcha, teh gay is not a virus, no and they are — from their own government — and they really should be doing that already.

Fear is an all-powerful emotion. It clouds thinking, deludes those experiencing it into believing all manner of things untrue. For those unwilling or unable to acknowledge the fear, it transforms into anger, into rage, into violent rage. It completely stops rational discourse and divides us into an impenetrable “us vs. them” mentality.

It leads to places we do not want to go.

Those people out there on the Mall Saturday — the ones carrying signs about the Democrats’ “evil plans” and such — they are people. Humans. Fearful humans, terrified people expressing that fear without a thought in the world about what they’re really saying.

A Colleague  traveled across the country on the Tea Party Express (why do they keep calling these bus tours “express”? There’s nothing “express” about them) and reported that 25 percent of the folks at the rallies were the real crazies with the Obama as Hitler signs and all. That’s a pretty sizable number, especially if there are considerably more who didn’t carry the wacky signs.

During this health care debate, some of that group have openly carried weapons at rallies, including one held outside a venue where the president was speaking. They have said openly that they are willing to spill blood to “take back our country.” They liken themselves to the patriots of the Revolutionary War.

But there’s one teeny-tiny little difference there that they seem to not recognize. The patriots of the War for Independence were battling a hereditary king. We have a democratically-elected president.

I could get with the notion of taking back the country, but I don’t think that I’d see eye-to-eye with our modern-day patriots. Me, I’d like to take the country back from the lobbyists who make sure that no meaningful reform can be enacted about anything. For them, it’s status quo all the way.

But our 21st Century revolutionaries do see the lobbyists as a threat, likely because the lobbyists are the ones behind them.

Nope, when these guys see themselves as patriots out to secure the country from tyranny, it is we, the progressives and liberals and independents who voted this government into power, who are the despotic monarchs. We, after all, “installed” this usurper into the Oval Office. In effect, these right-wingers are loudly and proudly telling us that our votes don’t count.

Jesse Taylor at Pandagon relates a thread at some right wing site — and a relatively benign one at that — talking about Saturday’s Glenn Beckathon, where one commenter noted the total lack of “t-shirt uniforms, mass-printed signs and obvious orchestration by extremist groups — all prevalent at leftist demos.” The commenters were all big on talking about how “their” demonstration was filled with millions of clean-cut, polite, mainstream Americans all of whom had jobs and children and left not one scrap of trash on the Mall at the end.

The qualifier “with jobs” is the kicker. Leftists and liberal protestors do tend to be filthy, unemployed hippie types, and low-life minorities. Please let us not stop calling a spade a spade. If the shoe fits, you wear it. Sorry if anyone is offended, but trying to deny that the barbarians are past the gate and among us is foolhardy and did not work for the Romans. New Orleans during and after Katrina shows us what savagery awaits us if we continue in our denial. The D.C. protestors reaffirm my faith that decent, civilized citizens still dominate our country.

But not all agreed that we progressives are dirty, miscreant hippies, as I frequently call myself. That fella who wrote the previous bit got a quick answer from another poster.

That’s not true. If it was, they wouldn’t be dangerous. Instead a lot of them are well but miseducated upper income and highly articulate and persuasive individuals who believe themselves on a sacred mission to save the rest of us from our own worse natures.

That’s what makes them dangerous.

And we have horns and long, sharply pointed tails. Also cloven hooves instead of feet.

They’re afraid, all right, and they don’t even know what they’re afraid of.

I’m afraid, too, and I know exactly what I”m afraid of. I’m afraid it’s too late to stop our descent into madness. I’m afraid of what may happen. David Sirota, who writes for OpenLeft and the Campaign for America’s Future and has been as hard on Obama as any teabagger with much more informed concerns — received a death threat Sunday, a threat he called “full-on.” The threat stemmed from an appearance on CNN in which he addressed the “racial undertones” of some of the recent craziness.

David makes some pretty salient points about that threat and what it was about (as well as noting some of the “willful ignorance” from the left) here.

At the same time, I almost feel sorry for those regular joes out there who have been pushed so far to the edge since November 4 that they no longer make much sense. They’ve been bamboozled by their leaders and have no clue what’s happened. They were afraid long before November 4, but since that date those leaders have gone out of their way to stoke those fears and even invent a few new ones. Death panels anyone?

I know from experience how difficult it is to push through, to move past deep-seated fears. And I know it’s impossible when those you’re supposed to trust, to respect, tell you that you’re right to be afraid. And when those same supposed leaders tell you that something must be done, well, you’re gonna try to do something, because your fears are coming true and you just don’t know how to cope.

There’s that saying that the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes. But that’s not true — there’s one more thing that’s certain. Change. Progress.  In a nutshell, that’s what our brothers and sisters shouting “hell no” to the heavens really fear. Makes sense to me. I don’t like to move, change jobs, change hairstyles. Imagine what it must be like for a group of people who have lived their whole lives with a particular mindset, a particular set of “values,” when the world’s constant revolution makes those ideas archaic and out of step.

Terrifying.

But that doesn’t excuse the behavior. It cries out for someone, somewhere to come to their aid, to help them move into the 21st Century.

They’re afraid. Hell, we’re all afraid, if for different reasons. We’re all angry too, on some level — my anger goes to those conservative “leaders” who dispassionately throw gasoline on an already blazing fire and to those liberal “leaders” who won’t stop it.

We need more than health insurance reform here. We need to rediscover our humanity. And quickly.