10. You’re always telling people not to believe their lying eyes. What they call ‘facts’ or ‘proof’ is just an attempt to elicit a confession, to get you to give up the fight. You will never confess, never surrender! They will pry the truth from your cold, dead hands.
9. You love mankind, it’s people you can’t stand: especially when they try to be funny. Or worse, ironic. You know that ‘jokes’ are a subversive way of tearing down everything you believe in. Comedians used to be funny before you found the one true, pure way, but now they’re all subversive, propogandistic hacks.
8. You save money by boycotting everything – You shop along political lines, boycotting supermarkets, newspapers, and fruits and vegetables that offend your ideological sensibilities. You haven’t seen any movies for years. You don’t like music or art either, since most artists are deluded, self involved hypocritical puppets who can’t keep their wrongheaded opinions to themselves. Even the weatherman has an agenda.
7. You’re surrounded by frenemies – Your thoroughly vetted friends appear to be following the one, true way, but what are they really up to? They could be splitters, or ‘concern trolls’, operatives for the enemies, trying to gather evidence to destroy your reputation and discredit your movement. You never let down your guard – you keep your friends close and your enemies closer – especially the enemy of your enemy, who is your friend. And this all makes perfect sense to you.
6. You know that two wrongs make a right – Your enemies and their evil minions have done bad things, and that gives you the right to be badder. Why limit yourself to two wrongs? Many wrongs = even more rights. That’s what your enemies do, and it works for them!
5. No publicity is bad publicity: If all of your comrades jumped off of a bridge, would you jump too? Yes, if the media were there and if it would force people to get their heads out of the sand and fight the real fight! You’re willing to create any sock/paper mache puppet, compare anyone to Hitler or Osama bin Laden, carry any weapon and/or sign, shout any nonsense at the top of your lungs, trash anyone’s reputation or appear nude at any time or place just to make them see the truth. Which is out there.
4. You told them so! – Every tragic, disastrous, odd or mundane event is the fault of your enemies and therefore proof that you’ve been right all along. You never miss a chance to say “I told you so”. So why are they still not listening? Where is the outrage??
3. Cui bono? You know there are no sneak attacks, no accidents, no goof ups and no enemies other than your own. You never stop asking ‘who benefits?’ because you know it’s always THEM.
2. The Underpants gnomes were right! You firmly believe in the underpants gnome theory of political action:
A. make extreme statements and attack anyone who disagrees with you
B. ???
C. victory!
Your plan should work – but you can never figure out what step B should be.
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Anyone who has ever been politically involved in currently hyper-partisan political action has probably held one or two of the attitudes listed above. If you find yourself agreeing with most of these attitudes, and if you’re not being paid large sums of money for your ‘activism’, it’s probably best for your and everyone’s sanity to find something better to do with your free time.
If you are a highly paid political pundit, please don’t take it personally if I cross the street, turn off the tv and radio, never hit your website and cross the street to avoid you.
And now, last but definitely not least, the long-awaited number one sign that you may be the lunatic fringe…
1. You’ve organized a large-scale campaign to threaten someone’s life or livelihood because they said something that you don’t agree with.
This does not fall into the category of normal political lunacy. This is the kind of fringe behavior that demands immediate treatment and/or jail time – even if you are being paid to do it.
* Post inspired by Cynthia Yockey, who organized the “Fire David Letterman” campaign that has now morphed into a “Boycott the Boycotters of Glen Beck” effort.
Mary P. Madigan 
Quite good – thank you for sharing. Have placed this on Stumbleupon, where it should get a few more visits.
The only thing I might quibble about is the place of “comedians” – while I’m not very happy with many on the Right currently, I can’t say that I approve of the snark of the Left entirely. Not when The Daily Show can have Jon Stewart say one second “Afghanistan is where we should be” and then the next be discussing with his fellow travelers how “it’s all about empire,” without skipping a beat. Laughing at oneself from time to time is a sign of rationality; laughter itself is not rationality, and I wonder about what confusion all of us have had regarding our political attitudes and beliefs that allowed the craziness we see now to fester and then emerge.
Interesting.
Of course, the guy with the “Obama as Hitler” poster is a LaRouchian, so he’s of the same persuasion as the guy with the Bush-Hitler poster. But don’t let facts get in the way of your crusade!
My crusade? I didn’t know I was part of a crusade..
Laughing at oneself from time to time is a sign of rationality; laughter itself is not rationality, and I wonder about what confusion all of us have had regarding our political attitudes and beliefs that allowed the craziness we see now to fester and then emerge.
I’m not sure what causes fringe-y behavior, but political entities tend to be more polarized when people generally feel threatened – and when they see political ‘action’, not individual action, as the only solution to their problems.
Sometimes, political action is the solution to some problems. There’s currently a campaign to give micro-loans to small businesses in third world countries. The people who are promoting this effort see political action as the solution to this problem, but they present it in a positive way. They don’t shout down, sling mud at or denigrate anyone who opposes them.
If a cause can only be promoted by the loony, bullying tactics described in this post, maybe the cause is flawed.
There is something grimly fascinating about far-right ideologies though, right?
trustyourtechnolust.wordpress.com
Since I’m repelled by all forms of authoritarianism (I didn’t even like Catholic school), I’m also repelled by far-right ideologies.
But trying to figure out why anyone finds them attractive is grimly fascinating. What flaw in human nature makes demagogues so appealing?
lol. and also if you belive in theory of conspirancy…you described pretty paranoid type.