It's been about a week since Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) insisted that members of House Progressive Caucus are secretly "members of the Communist Party." The unhinged congressman began fundraising off his tirade soon after.
Some pesky journalists continue, however, to ask West what in the world he was thinking. Here was an answer the right-wing politician offered yesterday (thanks to our pal James Carter for posting and passing along the clip):
The video is worth watching, in part because it's a peek into the mind of someone who's simply gone around the bend. West's explanation for why congressional progressives are part of a web that features Woodrow Wilson and the Communist Party has all the sophistication and coherence of a comment left on a Glenn Beck message board.
What's more, as far as the Florida lawmaker is concerned, if you question his twisted view of history and ideology, then you've failed to do sufficient "research." He actually seems to believe this nonsense.
But my favorite part came towards the end, when West presented a new argument I hadn't heard him make before:
"This whole argument that the liberal left is trying to take you down, talking about women's contraception is really about a federal government that is reclassifying religious organizations -- for them to be able to manipulate them however they wish. So that's what I wish people would focus on."
Got that? There's a health care law that guarantees free preventive care for Americans, and the Obama administration wants contraception to be considered preventive care. But in Allen West's strange mind, this birth control measure is really a fiendish plot that would allow big government to "manipulate" America's churches. It's this conspiracy that people should "focus on."
My friend Steve M. argued the other day, "[T]he unreported story of our times is that birtherism isn't an isolated example of paranoid lunacy taking hold of a disturbingly large segment of the population -- in fact, modern conservatism is driven by multiple lunatic theories that are precisely as delusional as birtherism."
Steve M. wasn't talking about Allen West, but he might as well have been.
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Now this is one of the biggest jokes yet and especially when Republicans talk about prosecuting the GSA people for over spending. Far worse crimes such as torture and war crimes have been done by the Bush and Chenney administration. If we want true justice, then start prosecuting the real criminals. Republicans can talk so big and are the worst criminals out there. Let’s start getting some real justice and not some corrupt bums in our government. Republicans again acting they are really doing something and it is a big farce.
What Mr. West says and believes is exactly what Mr. Beck said and pushed on his show...up to the 'do some research' bit... Maybe one could check Mr. West's reading list and see that includes all the sources that Mr. Beck has recommended. Everyone has their right to opinion, but if it is based on 'selective' research....those opinions can be far out there. It is sad that he can't think for himself and just profess from the Beck playbook.
Yes this is very weird. Beck also stated that any church that teaches social justice or economic justice should be abandoned. Which...of course...is a prime doctrine of the Catholic church. The idea of social/economic justice isn't a new idea. Mr. West (who laughably talks about how people should read up on their history) does not realize that the idea of social and economic justice has been around since the Renaissance era.
He also states that Wilson was a communist, but was called a progressive administration. 2 things. 1) this is a logical fallacy. West is asserting that because some communists are progressive this therefore means that all progressives are communists. I think West needs to go back to basic high school logic/math class. 2) Mr. West apparently has no earthly idea of when the term 'communist' came into existence.
Lastly- I still cannot, for the life of me, understand how asking that a church ran hospital or school exercise responsibility is somehow denying them freedom. I think MM explained that in Republican land you want freedom from the wrong choices and maybe that's what he's talking about, but it just makes no sense to me. If you don't want to provide contraception to your employees or students then do not bring anyone into your institution that isn't a representative of your faith. SCOTUS has already stated that this applies. If you are a nun you are officially representing the faith. So if you don't want to give out contraception and you're, say, a Catholic institution then only hire nuns. How hard is that? Really?
This isn't sad it's frightening, this man is supposed to be in a position of leadership and he's absolutely "coo coo for cocoa puffs"! The more I listen to these twisted, distorted, false equivalences, just stuff they've made up - I don't even know whom to be angry with: the politicians that don't have a clue as to what they're saying, the sheeple that elected these psychopaths, the educational system for the massive failure to teach these sheeple, the media because they don't ask the right questions or good follow-up questions - and they let these politicians get away with blathering like Charlie Browns teacher!!
I'm mad at all of the above! Help US all!
All of the above!
It infuriates me to no end that the media have been so lax, unconcerned & treats everything as if it is BAU (business as usual). It's not. So suffice to say Iam angrier with the press. Nonetheless it is the combination thereof that has gotten us to this point.
I don't know what we can do to change this predicament. Something has got to give and soon!
I'm not sure what West is talking about, he was so all over the place. In West's case, maybe it's all just simple foil-on-the-windows paranoia. I don't know. I read papers on right-wing thinking, and I can walk myself through what a given right-wing individual or group is thinking or what they are motivated by if it seems straightforward enough, but it doesn't make any sense to me either. A big part of what I say about this stuff is just me using comments to try to work things through in my own mind. Talking or writing helps, sometimes. But right-wingers really do have a very different cognitive style, and I get brain cramps trying to figure it out.
JEOPARDY Politics for $500.00
The Answer is -Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Congressman Allen West, Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum
Answer - Who are insignificant politicians that still have a fan base
but but but...we have to concentrate on the GSA and the whore dogs in Cartagena...NOT on West or the other loons or the CONGRESS and their 'drip in the bucket' 4.7 billion a YEAR against those nasty civil servants...
I hope that was sarcasm - cause you realize West & those others in Congress - are nasty civil servants.
Lit's flip this to the opposite view. Think health care reform, churches, taking over....then think ALEC. There is a thread in there somewhere.......think about it.
His theory just has too many holes in it , There are a lot of women from all different religions who use birth control. Women have made the choice about their own bodies for years. A priest cannot tell a women what to do with her body neither should any man. And they haven't been successful at trying to doing this.
Alan West is definitely nutty and wrong. But since we are talking about church’s, personally I don’t have anything wrong with church’s, except when they are outright wrong about some of the things they do. Like helping to deny women and men their right’s, freedoms and choices. And if you were to ask is there people including LGBT people that are one with the light? You know that light that is brighter than the sun that answer would be YES. Is there people including LGBT people who do not know they have that light connection? Yes that is an absolute fact. And will these people stand up against any church and political party if they see that they are wrong? Yes that is an absolute fact. And will the light tell you things that have been wrong? Yes that is an absolute fact.
The Light? Lights talk. Who is the Light? The Light has a name do you know Him, Hello!
Let's just flip this to the other side. Think controversial health care changes, religious motivations, turning accusations around to be the opposition's, hidden agendas. Now think ALEC. There's a thread in there to be pursued.... Here West's claims of the Dem's ideas are more in line with what the Repub's actions suggest.... Let's focus on that thought, Mr. West.
Alan has his head in a duffle bag that's planted deeply in his fourth point of contact!!
there are 8 points of landing, one being the feet eight being the head, he has done way to many 8,4,1 landings.
Crazy like a Fox network! It's all about fund raising and not his or anyone else's real beliefs though I am sure he has a few beauts (likely fluoridation of the water is a red plot). Note that he has tapped into Glenn Beck's base.
Before you dismiss him as merely a nut, read his fund raising material. I'll bet he gets bags of checks from the trailer park set.
We must consider that by definition, half the people in this country are below average intelligence. Why are we suprised that occasionally one of them is elected to office by the masses
It's to your detriment that you underestimate Allen West's intelligence. He may say moronic things but he is not stupid...and that's what makes him scarier.
Will Rogers said "never miss a good chance to shut up." He was imagining Alan West.
Allen West is not a conservative, and neither are any of the rest of them. They have hijacked the term. They are far right radical revolutionaries. And yes, there's an easy one-word term for those four words. As a German friend of mine who lived through the Hitler years once told me, "The Nazis didn't elect Hitler, the good conservatives who believed him when he said he was a conservative elected him; of course, they found out too late he'd lied to them."
As for Allen West himself, I have wondered how he got as far as Lieutenant Colonel before being cashiered for torturing prisoners. He was an "affirmative action" hire. No, not for his race, the Army needs to demonstrate that drooling morons can be good cannon fodder too, and can even have careers.
cannon fodder.
LOL good call think he was a Artillery Office.
Avowed homosexual Allen West makes no sense.
Why are people afraid to listen to him? Don't dismiss him, without listening to what he has to say. Check out YouTube "lincoln dinner allen west". I didn't know much about him, but he is impressive and he make me feel proud to be an American. He loves this country, is brave and won't back down. He deserves to be heard.
He is all those things. He is also delusional and he LIES. 'Deserves' to be heard? I don't think so.
Are you being serious? Nobody is "afraid" to listen to the man we are afraid others will take what he is saying seriously. What if Democrats in congress started telling people that consevatives were really Nazis and they had secret plans to destroy America?
He's a crazy person who was forced out of the Army in disgrace.
That's awfully presumptive on your part. When did someone say they were afraid to listen to West or that they are dismissing him w/o listening to him??
Conservatives are all about fear. If you laugh at them, if you disagree with their demonstrably wrong policies, if you point out that one of them is a nutcase who was thrown out of the Army for abusing prisoners, they'll always yell that it's because you're "afraid." They're motivated by fear, and since they tend to have a marked inability to put themselves in someone else's shoes, you must be motivated by fear, too. Since they're sure they're right, it couldn't possibly be that you just disagree.
We're not mindlessly nodding our heads while West speaks. Ergo, we're afraid of his righteous, um, rightness. Or something. It's like when West implied that all of his interlocutors and critics have failed to do their homework. Accusing us of being afraid is just another way of avoiding the obvious fact that West is as mad as a box of frogs.
Most of those who post here show a great deal of insight and intelligence and the people who follow Allen West's line of thinking have neither and that is the scary thing. People with very little intelligence or insight into the real problems we face still have the right to vote and they exercise that right, often far better than we who possess insight and intelligence. It is fine to comment on these idiotic rantings of the lunatic fringe but if they vote and we don't who has the last laugh? Right now I am not laughing.
This would be funny if having lunatics in Congress wasn't such a serious matter. While we're laughing in disbelief, the neo-cons are raising money to fund West's next campaign. Think Joseph McCarthy and all the people whose careers were destroyed in the 1950s because of his distorted view of the world. There are people in Florida voting for West or he wouldn't be a Congressman. Nut jobs have a way of always making it to the polls; people who recognize crazy need to make sure they vote in November.
West is another Republican Chicken Little. Sadly, there are people who are supposed to be well educated that vote for this idiot. Demagogues would be funny if people didn't take them serious.
More wisdom again from oreo mc carthy, 3wasn't thrown out of the military for war crimes
McCarthism lives.....
Allen West is nuttier than a squirrel's nest.
I think West is truly mentally ill. He needs medical attention not media attention!
Word!!!
Er, yeah! Don't focus on me! I want to focus on blah bu-blah-blah!.
I'm eagerly awaiting the next Badlipreading.com installment.
Visions of "Dr. Strangelove" and Gen. Jack D. Ripper with the "water flouridation" communist conspiracy! I just watched it again two weeks ago. What a great movie. When I heard Allen West speak, I immediately thought of Gen. Jack D. Ripper.
Jimmy
That's what I said in another post about Allen West. He's Brig Gen Jack D. Ripper! I love Dr Strangelove too. Favorite quote:
"Gentlemen you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"
You cannot argue with "crazy". Best to juse smile and walk away.
More like 'back away...slowly.'