Most people - even those as politically-aware as FReepers - are not aware of how long Progressives have been working to deconstruct Western society nor do they recognize how pervasive has been their influence.
I was thinking along the same lines this weekend as I visited my relatives in New Jersey. All of them (with one exception) are hard-core liberals. They love Obama, and don't think he's gone far enough. Yet they castigated me for calling him a "socialist" and for pointing out how the man has surrounded himself with communists, as though the terms were Right-wing invectives void of true meaning.
And, oh yes: they hate Hate HATE Chris Christie, even though he is rather socially liberal himself - they think that because he has cut the state budget and refused unlimited state salary and pension fund increases, he wants to destroy unions. They are terrified of Michelle Bachmann and think Sarah Palin is (and here are some actual words used to describe her) "trailer trash", "an idiot", and "stupid".
I endeavored to remain calm and thoughtful in discussing issues, but noticed (as I have before) that no matter my reasoning or use of example, the discussion always reverted back to accusations of favoring the rich, wanting to starve the poor, not caring about the disadvantaged, denying people their "rights", etc., ad infinitum, ad my-third-glass-of-Scotch.
The problem is that, simply stated: everything they know is wrong, right back to first principles, including the proper role of government, economics, history, and especially philosophy. Explaining such things takes a long time, far longer than it takes a liberal to make a smugly self-satisfied accusation based upon conceit: "everyone knows that... (fill in the blank)".
And that is why we are at the present pass in America: we have two fundamentally opposed visions of reality - one held by the dominant and Progressively-miseducated mainstream, and another by insurgent conservatives seeking to restore ideas that were once recognized as both common sense and accumulated wisdom.. These visions are fundamentally incompatible and only one can prevail in the end. I'll leave you and others to ponder what events that condition might presage.
Yes, I, too, can definitely use a 3rd glass of Scotch to help when trying to “reason” with the brainwashed relatives.
That is what the KGB Yuri Bezmenov talked about in the 70’s when he defected. How all American schools were propaganda mills putting in cognitive dissonance—this, he said, will make it impossible for any logic or truth to be recognized by most brainwashed people. You can hit them with facts that they can see and they will still not believe it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoaS6Tt6ODY