Sounding Off:

Conservatism has been transformed into a kind of fundamentalist religious movement, one marked by the absolute certainty of religious belief. It’s not “religious belief” literally, but more of a function of a belief in one’s own rightness, so unshakable that reason, truth or public opinion won’t sway it.

Indeed, it has built a wall of fantasy around itself, utilizing impossible lies, ancient religious beliefs, and hate and rancor to assist its agenda. Like most fundamentalism, achievement of its goals is so sacrosanct that its precepts become more important than the real world. Thus, truth or the common good becomes unimportant in a world many believe will end in 2012.

A case in point: Many Republicans of the 21st century are not too embarrassed to embrace the primitive belief, based on the literal Old Testament, that the world was created some 6,000 years ago. Outrageously, science and those who believe in it are mocked and demonized as elitists, which perhaps explains our last president’s satisfaction with his own lack of learning.

Some 400 years ago, a Church of Ireland archbishop, James Ussher, estimated the date of creation to be the night preceding Oct. 23, 4004 BC. It was based on Old Testament stories and the ages of named biblical figures.

Since then, science, with its analytical tools, first studying the earth’s strata, then ancient rocks, estimating the radio-carbon decay, has determined that the earth itself is 4.6 billion years old and that ancestors of humankind date back more than 4 million years.

The mindset of many Republicans is still immersed in the biblical account of creation. Willful ignorance still dictates this stance and was brought to an apex with George W. Bush’s presidency.

His presidential tenure was reminiscent of the Catholic Church’s suffocation of new ideas during medieval times, when science-minded people were persecuted for overturning church dogma — for example, that the Earth is the center of the universe.

Even Bush professed that his decision-making was based more on faith than reason.

Though his entourage pushed an image of faith and piety, Bush consciously used religion to justify wars and a plutocratic agenda. Whether he did it with candor or not, it most likely damaged our future, while his policy led to the murder of millions of innocent people.

The faith-based decision-making is still a stellar feature of Republican dogma, but faith is an excuse, and policy is a mockery of Christian principles. It condones rebuffing the poor and bearing false witness against enemies, and it enables emotion, fear and loathing to dictate attitude and policy. Thus, the irrational and wrathful montage of birthers, deathers and tea-baggers can readily eschew truth and reason for what they think is faith and principle.

Using religion is nothing new. But while progressives rightly separate themselves from religion, according to the Constitution, the whole Republican Party claims its own righteousness, even unto the planet’s death.

The God-on-our-side assertion still clings to Republicans and impresses conservative followers. While Democrats grabbed an overwhelming majority in Congress last year and Barack Obama was elected president, Republicans are currently grabbing headlines and waxing lies that demonize Democrats and scare constituents.

It is now more than 11 months since the election, and even the brink of economic Armageddon did not grow a heart or a brain for the Republican Party, nor did it grow a backbone for Democrats. Indeed, according to Bill Maher, “Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital.”

Their world of insanity embraces fantasy and rebukes truth, for Republicans have touted a political fundamentalism that beggars a belief in their own rightness that no amount of reason or public opinion will shake off.

It is no longer a politics of reason but instead a politics of blind faith. Indeed, faith and fundamental principle provide an excuse for doing the bidding of their rich benefactors while rejecting all change that reduce the profits of their sponsors.

For decades, you could count on our democracy to be a process of conflict resolution, based on give-and-take, negotiation and compromise — all accepting the fact that the majority rules and minorities are respected.

Many Republicans and even the so-called “blue-dog” Democrats use political fundamentalism to paint their enemies as pagans and egalitarian reforms as pagan rites. In this way, they can justify immoral rejection of real reform, even though it directly contradicts the will of their constituents.

For the right-wing representatives, appearances everywhere are not so much discussion as they are a repetition of lies, diversions and talking more and louder than their opponents.

And the right wing has help. The corporate media no longer has a citizen conscience, and its profit base cannot sell conflict resolution in politics. Rather, the media gives credence to Republican lies by presenting itself as an umpire, as if both sides had evidence behind them.

Democrats have lost recent elections because they are fighting religion, the corporate media and monolithic corporations who fund political fundamentalism.

But corporations don’t need political fundamentalism. They had a friend in the White House under Bush with Goldman Sachs’ Henry Paulson as treasury secretary. Now they have Timothy Geithner in the same position under Obama. Geithner is a proven friend of Wall Street.

So if political fundamentalism fails, the plutocrats can still rule — if we let them.

JIM HOOVER is a Huntington Beach resident.