...but that doesn't help understand what gets people into these situations.
It's also tempting, when the reasons aren't clear, to ascribe the worst possible motives to people. They're not just crazy, they're evil and malicious. They get off on hurting us. But you describe people who walk right up to that line without being noticeably crazy. Crazy probably isn't a sufficient explanation.
But maybe at the core of what motivates these extreme "patriots" is something actually rather noble, though dangerously deluded. Call it "Founder Envy", or "Revolutionary War cosplay"...but maybe these are people who identify very strongly with the American colonists, while finding the modern world devoid of meaning and value, and in a paroxysm of extreme romanticism, want to live out the Revolution themselves. If that's the underlying, probably hidden goal, then a lot of the rest makes sense. Like having to condemn modern America as fallen from grace, impure, besieged by foreign ideas...substituting the imperialism of modernity for British imperialism. You can't have a revolution without something to rebel against.
This is pretty much just an exercise in amateur psychoanalysis, and I could be imagining it. I can't read minds.
Maybe they are just crazy?
Current Events » in reply to Just now reading more about the Bundys
It's tempting to just say they're crazy
The whole thread (45 posts)
- Terrorist attack in Oregon...
- In taking over a bird sanctuary...
- Colbert's take:
- "Why aren’t we calling the Oregon occupiers ‘terrorists?’"
- Navy SEALS know how to handle pirates
- That's just not smart.
- Bet you can't say "white right wing terrorists" three times real fast.
- Time to call in a drone strike.