In Today's Edition of 'Right Wing Authoritarians are Assholes'

Well, belated by a day or two. 


"[W]e have to be careful not to allow this to get any legitimacy," he warned. "I'm taking this seriously in that I'm old enough to remember what happened in the 1960s when the left-wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and it ended up shaping policy," he said. "We can't allow that to happen.
 Rep Peter King: Long Island

Well, the thing about beliefs, Rep. King; they can be rational or irrational, beneficial or harmful, right, wrong, or even evil.  But when it comes to opinions and beliefs, there is no standard for 'legitimacy'.  They only actually exist or not, and in regards to the Occupy wall Street folks, well they certainly seem to be sincere, which is only for the best, considering that they're right and all.


You, congressman, are one of many people throughout history who indulge in the great authoritarian masturbatory pseudo logic.  Start by defining yourself as the walking essence of decency, normality, respectability, declare whatever you tell yourself to stroke your ego and justify your privilege to be universal, indisputable truth, appoint yourself as brave enforcer of these truths you made up for yourself, and than give yourself the right to decide whether or not those who oppose your invented truths are 'legitimate' and worthy of acknowledgment. 

It isn't a matter of 'I am right because... and they are wrong because...', but 'I am right because I am I.'  And such a mindset can certainly gain a great amount of power when embraced by a majority of the common people, 'we are right because we are we' or, more commonly, a strategically-placed minority of influential people.   The thing about it though, it is becoming harder and harder to hold such a mindset without willfully isolating oneself to an extreme degree and believing increasingly fantastic bullshit.  We have worldwide media these days.  We make routine contact, if you can call it that, with folk from various distant cultures and subcultures, and they tend to be indifferent to our own standards of status and respectability. People like you seem to consider this simple indifference to be a sign of enmity, a mortal threat.  But no, it isn't that at all.  People of my generation have always taken it for granted that our own goodness wouldn't be assumed out of hand because of how we look, where we're from, whether what we believe is the locally proper norm.  I find this invigorating, myself, and I don't claim to be special in this.  I would say that it's generally how people of my generation feel.  We like scrutiny.  We like to be scrutinized by others.  we even like the scrutiny of The Other.  And if the thought of facing the same yourself does fill you with mortal dread, makes you feel the need to demonize the citizens you have sworn to serve in defense of your imaginary, masturbatory One True Way, simply know that we will still be here after next years election, no matter what happens.  We will still be here ten years from now in greater numbers, and in greater numbers still ten years from that, and none of your false bravado or claims to moral arbitration can do a thing to stop that.  We exist.  You have absolutely no power to 'allow' us to do so or not.