Moral Vacuum, Part ??

Here's a post by Ed Brayton that illlustrates the complete moral lack on the far right. Be sure to read the comments, as well.

Note particularly the assumptions implicit in the whole smear campaign against the DoJ lawyers who have in the past provided legal counsel to detainees. We are dealing here with people whose ideas are distinctly contrary to the foundations of our society and, in fact, in direct opposition to the ideals expressed in our foundational documents. In their own parlance, they are "anti-American."

It occurs to me that one problem on the left is that we assume that those involved in public debate are basing their arguments on reason and scepticism -- two characteristics that are fundamental to the heritage of the Enlightenment, on which our society was founded (the Texas Board of Education notwithstanding), and noticeably absent from the mindset of the right. We have to get used to the idea that we are confronting people whose world view is based on superstition, obedience to authority, and the idea that belief always trumps empirical evidence.

The problem is, as we've learned from the gay civil rights struggle, they won't accept defeat. If we out-argue them, they just ignore the fact. If we defeat them at the polls, they come back in the next election, repeating the same lies over and over again until people believe them. (And this is an across-the-board phenomenon, applying to everything from global warming to health-care reform to DADT repeal. The lying is OK because you're doing God's work.)

(Sidebar: The collusion of the media, both national and local, in this process is beyond shameful -- can someone explain to me why Tony Perkins, the head of a major anti-gay group, is constantly on the air opining about gay civil rights? Or why James Dobson, of all people, was invited to write an OpEd for Time about Mary Cheney's baby? [In which, as is his habit, he distorted and misrepresented the work of legitimate researchers to support his own agenda.] Or why it was published without a rebuttal until two weeks later? I don't think "collusion" is too strong a word.)

The question is, how do we save America from these self-designated "patriots"?