When Did Conservative Morph to Bat Crap Crazy?

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by: Konola

There is an old saying, credited to British historian Lord Acton. In an April 3, 1887, letter written to Bishop Mandell Creighton, Acton wrote, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” He went on to say that great men are almost always bad men. I’ve been pondering this quote over the past few months as I’ve been watching the local Republican Party implode.

I first heard this quote from Carlton Nadelhoffer, a cousin of my ex-husband. At the time Carlton was the Chairman of the DuPage County, Illinois, Republican Party, and the local spokesperson for the Nixon presidential campaign. I honestly don’t remember the context of the discussion when Carlton made that comment, but it stuck in my mind, and I’ve heard it many times since.

Carlton was a Republican I could respect. I didn’t always agree with him politically, but then neither did his own brother. He was on the first Advisory Committee of the DuPage Community Foundation. Their work was centered on raising the quality of life in DuPage County by “fostering philanthropy, connecting donors to area needs and building community partnerships.” This organization supports grants to further education, health and human services, arts and culture, and the environment.

Fast forward to 2012 in Mesa County: We have three county commissioners who rarely utter the words that guide the DuPage Community Foundation. Absent Janet Rowland, who truly is devoted to health and human services, especially when it comes to preventing domestic violence impacting children, the commissioners are focused on their own self serving interests. I’ll step back from that extreme statement and comment that I do trust Steve Aquafresca to look out for western slope water.

Craig Meis, however has reached the point of absolute corruption. He attended a meeting in Vernal, Utah that skirted the intent of Colorado’s Sunshine Laws. Meis didn’t get Mesa County involved in the lawsuit brought by environmental groups against Garfield County because the two other commissioners stayed home, making him in compliance with the letter of the law. Meis has demonstrated his corruption in multiple ways over his term as commissioner. The events range from trying to get a boating ticket fixed, to trying to get out of a speeding ticket, to ignoring a fire ban when the entire western slope was a tinder-box. He is famous for refusing to allow constituents to place their concerns into the public record. The most recent example was when he first snickered, and then gaveled to a close, comments by Benita Phillips, President of Western Colorado Congress of Mesa County, a Registered Nurse, and fellow Republican, because she mentioned an internationally renowned scientist in the context of health care concerns about the unfettered development of oil shale.

While easy to point at the in-office foibles of elected officials, that does not tell the whole story of the seedy underbelly of the current “movers and shakers” in the local party. Western Slope Conservative Alliance, closely aligned with the Republican Party, has slipped into madness. Their primary spokespersons are GOP Vice-Chair Kevin McCarney and Marjorie Haun, who have gone out of their way to smear and stop any individual who disagrees with them. They have fallen for every whack-a-doodle conspiracy theory, spouted lies, and involved law enforcement officials in order to further their paranoid delusions.

They truly believe that the UN, and the environmental agreement known as Agenda 21, is a plot to take over the government of the United States. They truly believe that Democrats are out to take their guns, despite the local Democratic Party sponsoring gun safety courses for underprivileged kids who might not otherwise have the resources to attend these training sessions. They slandered Dan Robinson and waged an on-line war against Barbara and Garry Brewer. You may recognize Barbara Brewer as the Republican elected Mesa County Assessor. WSCA members have filed bogus charges against members of GJResult/TeaParty, most noticeably the activist known as American Patriot, because of his demands that WSCA be accountable to their membership by holding elections for officers.

When you cast your vote this fall, think about how nuts all of this sounds and remember that these are the people choosing the GOP candidates on that ballot.

8 thoughts on “When Did Conservative Morph to Bat Crap Crazy?”

allyncooper says:

September 25, 2012 at 6:30 pm

“I thought I’d never miss Nixon”

And believe me, it pains me to say that, but it’s true.

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dukeco1 says:

September 25, 2012 at 7:32 pm

of western slope politics, I can certainly support Konolas’ assertions about the Mesa County republican party, and Craig Meis in particular.

There is a meanness of spirit and a bullying mentality that pervades the MCGOP…and it has been that way a long time. Progressives (and Democrats) are treated as unwelcome interlopers in “their” domain, as though we have no right to exist, much less inhabit “Happy Valley”.

The characteristic nastiness and belligerence was recently displayed by a Pols poster who called himself “Junk Town Junket”…regulars will recall our dust-up last week.

Craig Meis is the personification of the Mesa County republican autocrat (or should I say “oil-ocrat”?)…but he is only one of many.

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Gray in Mountains says:

September 25, 2012 at 10:20 pm

without having proof of it having no negative effects on water quality then he is not “look(ing) out for western slope water”. It can’t be just about keeping water on the W Slope, it also has to be about water quality

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Diogenesdemar says:

September 27, 2012 at 1:08 am

into Bat [Shit — c’mon you can say it here] Crazy?”

Nationally, I peg it to just post-Reagan — when the conservatives saw that his proscriptions against unions, top-tier taxes, government as any solution, etc. just weren’t working out as advertised in the real world (. . . because they’re the wrong answers for a democratic country that’s progress has always been pegged to middle class growth and advancement.) When these myths failed to keep the first Bush in office, despite all the Atwater shenanigans and the obligatory war, the dam that used to hold the crazies back and give Republicans any semblance of rationality was busted to smithereens.

But, since this diary seems to be more about our Colorado West Slope conservatives, my response would have to be:

Morph? When did they ever come any other way?

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1. gertie97 says:
  
  September 27, 2012 at 3:14 am
  
  most Mesa County Republicans weren’t this nuts. Many, many contributed money to Bernie’s campaigns. The crazies tried to pass a party by-law change to toss anybody from the central committee who failed to support the GOP candidate. It failed.
  
  Two years later, moderate Republicans were so disgusted when Buescher was ousted by oil-and-gas-funded Laura Bradford that they just quit being active in the party.
  
  That’s where it stands today. The crazies are in charge and have brought us Meis and legislative duds Steve King, Ray Scott, and soon-to-be Rep. Jared Wright.
  
  Scott McInnis made himself fair game in the governor’s race, but as a congressman he was nothing if not accessible. Many Saturdays he’d shake hands up and down Main Street in Grand Junction, and other communities, and just talked to people. Anybody who wanted to see him could. Now Tipton’s whereabouts are some sort of secret, known only to the insiders.
  
  The GOP as a whole has moved crazy right. It just isn’t Mesa County, where reasonable conservatives like former Reps. Gayle Berry and Matt Smith couldn’t make it out of the GOP county assembly.
  
  But it wasn’t always this crazy.
  
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notaskinnycook says:

September 27, 2012 at 8:53 am

The word you’re all looking for was coined by an acquaintance of mine.The word is “guanopsychotic” = batshit crazy. Let’s see if we can get it to catch on in Pols.

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1. Meiner49er says:
  
  July 19, 2013 at 8:25 am
  
  This is a neologism worth promoting!
  
  As for the guanopsychotics, I think you have to look to their "last bastion" mentality in the face of changes around the country. Living in Larimer, I see some of this too. When one sees no way out, the animal within tends to come out.
  
  That said, at least in CO I lay this squarely on the GOPs unwillingness to negotiate a shared future in the previous legislative session (2012). "Never surrender" is great rhetoric, but the more they "defend their islands" the higher the "rising tide" around them. And this time, it's not going to lift their boats, but swamp them until the party is transformed by a flood of Biblical proportions.
  
  In the end, it's not that "power corrupts" as Lord Acton said, but that it magnifies personalities. When the GOP thought that they had a permanent majority nationally in the 00s, they went for it ALL and lost that majority. I think the same thing's about to happen in Texas, and I think it's a point that Dems would do well to remember, too, or we may find ourselves on similar islands around the country in a decade or so.
  
  Contra Acton, I prefer John Donne: "no man is an island." The same principal applies to parties.
  
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ClubTwitty says:

July 19, 2013 at 9:29 am

Guanopsycosis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GuanoPsychosis

Guano (via Spanish, ultimately from the Quechua wanu) is the excrement of seabirds, cave-dwelling bats, pinnipeds, or (in English usage) birds more generally.[1] Psychosis (from the Greek ψυχή "psyche", for mind/soul, and -ωσις "-osis", for abnormal condition or derangement) refers to an abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality".

Guanopsychosis is a particular form of political deranement and reality impairment prevelent among United States Republicans in the early 21st century, on Planet Earth [2]

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