by Carl Schwensohn

OpEdNews.com

There are three kinds of Republicans today: the Believers, the Bewitchers, and the Bewitched. The Believers are few, but they pronounce the catechism to be used by the rest. They are those who are so patriotic that they believe that America has a right, a duty, to remake the world in their vision of laissez faire free markets and democracy. They are those who believe that government is so wretched it must be starved and drowned in the bathtub. They are those who believe supply-side economics will deliver its promises. They are those who believe that children deserve protection until they are born. They are those who believe that the environment needs no protection at all. They are those that believe that guns don't kill people, people kill people. They are those who are convinced they have an absolute moral right to be right.

The Bewitchers are more numerous, and they exercise the power. They are those who proselytize the message of the believers. They may not always believe the message, but they are more pragmatic and understand their power to bewitch. They are those who profit by the message. They are those who receive the no-bid contracts. They are those who grow wealthy from privatization as it follows the dictum: privatize the gains, socialize the losses. They are the politicians who recognize that lies can inure to advantage if told boldly enough. They are the pundits who lament the loss of civil discourse, unable, or unwilling, to recognize that they never gave any.

The Bewitched are numerous, and they gave away the power. For the Bewitched to have been captured completely, they need only have been pulled in by part of the believer's message. The Bewitchers guilefully redefine patriotism, religion, and economics in their siren call to the Bewitched. Once captured, the Bewitched are those who can no longer discover inconsistency, can no longer recognize hypocrisy, can no longer think independently. They are those who believe Weapons of Mass Destruction have been found. They are those who believe in trading freedom for promised safety. They are those who will mortgage their own and their children's futures to make the very wealthy even wealthier. They are those who will call for the dismantling of society's safety net in the belief that they are actually part of the tenth of one percent who will never need it. They are unable to recognize their own self interest and they are dangerous.

The Believers would be harmless without the Bewitchers, but without the Bewitched, the Bewitchers would be harmless as well. Our task is to interrupt that spell, to free the Bewitched. We must continue the growing trend to not only confront the lies, but to follow them back to the liars who tell them. This is best done calmly, with facts, but we must not shy away from indentifying the liars as well as the lies. We must try to break the spell, even though that may well be impossible, since the Bewitched don't seek out independent verification of where they have been led. Even so, the three B's are not actually a majority in this country, not even a majority of citizens who vote. If Democrats and like-minded progressives and liberals can unite rather than divide themselves, we can still take back this country. We can still stop the Three B's from selling off what's valuable to this country like a giant fire sale.

Carl Schwensohn lives and works as a small business owner in urban Minneapolis, Minnesota. A father of five, he laments the declining ability to think for one's self in America. cschwensohn@netscape.net  This article is copyright by Carl Schwensohn and  originally published by opednews.com but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit paragraph is attached.