Two inflictions that affect conservatives (actually most people at some point and in some way, but in US politics these are two fallacies held by many conservatives); moral clarity and moral absolutism. I'll -- indirectly I suppose -- attack conservative moral clarity this weekend, and in coming weeks, in a series of posts I've been working on. Moral clarity is related to moral absolutism (when combined together, as they have before, the result is a scary concoction from last century), which is highlighted here in comments by an Iowa Republican (h/t Sully):

"You've heard of IslamaFascists -- I think we now have Christian fascists. What is the definition of a fascist? Not only do they want to beat you, but they want to destroy you in the process."
...
"if things keep going the way things are going locally and statewide, it is going to be more and more difficult for Republicans to recruit candidates. We have elements of the party who are moral absolutists, who take the approach that if you don't take my position every step of the way, not only will I not support you, but I will destroy you."

Briefly, what is moral clarity? To me, it's when you ignore truths because they go against your current direction or hopes for higher goals.

Example: some conservatives refuse to believe that US policies (which lead to fragile states, anti-Americanism, et cetera) breed terrorists (at a greater rate than we could ever hope to capture or kill them, minus genocide). They do this because recognition of this fact would call question to things like our tariffs on ME goods (e.g. Pakistani textiles) that benefit US businesses; or they would have to admit that we have been taking the wrong course in the WoT (actually we've just paid less attention to two parts of the "4D strategy"). Instead of debate, they fall back on the belief that they are somehow omniscient and perfect, they demonize the opponent, and avoid debate altogether.

Stay tuned...