I did get answers to one of the lesser mysteries of life. I don’t know many right wingers. I just find that amount of bile and hatred distasteful and damaging to my mental health, but I do wonder if they are really so paranoid or if it is all some sort of posturing. Well, I wonder no more thanks to Johann Hari from the Independent. He did what I would never have stomach (or cash) to do. He boarded a cruise ship full of eager National Review readers, editors, patrons and assorted riffraff and spent a few days listening to conversations among the right wing elite when they think no pesky liberals are listening. You can read the entire Ship of Fools piece for yourself if you are in the mood for that kind of stuff (it IS entertaining), but here are a few choice morsels:

A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. 'Is he your only child?' I ask. 'Yes,' she says. 'Do you have a child back in England?' she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. 'You'd better start,' she says. 'The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe.'

[...] 'A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country,' she says. 'Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get.' She squints at the sun and smiles. ' Then things'll change.'

Oh, I do love film... this was made on some miserable February day, but I got to scanning it today...