Supremacist ideas.

Editor,

I recently read a racist screed by a right-wing religious leader that provides insight into how fruitless argument with Republicans is based on Enlightenment ideals embodied in the American founding documents.

The gist of this guy's argument is that to be born a white American is the highest privilege, earned in a pre-existential spiritual realm, and to be born anything else is punishment for performing inadequately in this spiritual proving ground.

It is not hard to generalize this racial argument to class, and it is not hard to realize that Republicans do not understand society as a joint project undertaken by many different kinds of people.

For a Republican there is a great chain of being, with Republican "job creators" -- a master race, superior beings, literally, cosmologically -- on top and a vast mass of miserable inferiors whose purpose in life is to serve them below.

These ideas are not rare. They have popped up again and again throughout history all over the world. But it is important, I think, to recognize who you are debating with when you are confronted by Republicans and that the premises upon which your arguments are based mean nothing to them.

Republican arguments are riddled with subterfuge precisely because they understand they are dealing with people who do not grasp the true nature of reality as Republicans understand it and they realize only trickery will get their opponents to agree to policy based on their supremacist ideas.

Re: "A Simpler Tax Plan, Not a Better One" (2/27/2014)