Swimming in a sea of insanity

Abraham Lincoln must be rolling over in his grave. This is what the 'Party of Lincoln' has come to.

But the GOP has been busy trying to rewrite history, so I suppose, in their version, Lincoln owned slaves and fought for the Confederacy, huh?

Of course, in their version of reality, the United Nations has a giant military force, too! But don't worry. All those gun-totin' hicks will fight them off. The county sheriff and the county judge will stand in front of that UN armored personnel carrier and fight them off. Thank God for the NRA, huh?

But just think about it. This isn't some random loon, standing on a soapbox in the park. This is a county judge, speaking on the local Fox 'News' affiliate. And that interviewer is nodding his head and agreeing with this nutcase: "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right, right."

How would you like to have that judge deciding your fate? How would you like to be in his power, especially if you were a minority? (You know that it's Barack Obama being black that has these loons frothing at the mouth.)

Cenk Uygur gets pretty worked up here, but it's understandable, don't you think? How crazy can these people get?

Cenk: "Because once you say, 'I don't live in the reality-based world - I believe in, you know, vacuum cleaners in the sky' - then there are no bounds. There are no bounds. Then, of course you believe in the blue beanie attacking the hobbit homes, 'cause you don't believe in logic. Once you don't believe in logic, it's over. Then anyone can get you to believe anything."

That's the point I keep trying to make here. This is faith-based, rather than evidence-based, thinking. With faith-based thinking, there's no limit to the crazy stuff you can believe, because you're not constrained by reality.

If you're faith-based, you just believe whatever you want to believe. And frankly, fantasy is often a lot more interesting than reality. In his mind, Judge Head can be an American hero, bravely facing down the UN hordes. Which of us wouldn't want to star in his own fantasy, whatever it might be?

Even logic isn't enough. I disagree with Cenk about that. It's a lot better than nothing, true. But even logic has to be backed by evidence. Evidence is what keeps us tethered to reality.

Unfortunately, the entire right-wing has become untethered to the real world. They're all floating off into their own fantasies. And they're determined to take the rest of America with them. As Cenk says, "We're swimming in a sea of insanity."