Popular rightwing thinking is ego-driven, causally autistic, and thus premised on a series of double standards. Hypocrisy and selective forgetfulness are among the defining features of the rightwing mind.
Conservatives are, after all, people who talk in quasi-religious tones of enterprise, hard work and entrepreneurial drive, while rewarding capital gains over wages and salaries.
As the US election nears, Conservative websites are aglow with visions of an uninterrupted Republican future stretching out for all posterity: One world, one operating system. There is, however, another possibility. Centuries from now, assuming we survive this eerily psychotic era, Republicanism, Conservatism and the rightwing mind in general could well be regarded not as a political movement, but as a mental health issue.
David Thompson is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Times and The Observer.
to read his important 2004 article, click on
http://www.3ammagazine.com/nonfiction/2004/apr/rightwing.html