hi clo,
fear? i agree.
i think it also has a lot to do with a sort of thoughtless prejudice.
it doesn't matter what the evidence says. the principles survive even when they are free-floating and unmoored from the evidence.
individualism is a dogma for wingnuts, just as collectivism is for socialists.
such folks don't notice that, for instance, markets need regulating (eg to avoid negative externalities) and that this fact implies an admixture of individual and social forces to derive optimal results.
leaning away from government intervention isn't destructive. treating any government involvement as evil is. it restricts a society from constructing the kinds of mixed solutions that actually work.
wingnuts do a great deal of harm to the world.
if only american conservatives could find a path towards the kind of conservatism that values and incrementally improves the structures it inherits, rather than adopting the algal bloom ideals created by folks like limbaugh.
funny thing is, although they parrot his philosophy, you can't find one of them that admits they listen to him. limbaugh is the republican equivalent of pornography.
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