Well, apparently the GOP has a glorious new plan to fix all that. They've set up a new website to collect ideas from the public. Unfortunately, Republicans don't seem to know the public all that well. According to this column in The Washington Post (registration required, though it's free), many of the suggestions offered so far are "pretty far out."
"End Child Labor Laws," suggests one helpful participant. "We coddle children too much. They need to spend their youth in the factories."
"How about if Congress actually do thier job and VET or Usurper in Chief, Obama is NOT a Natural Born Citizen in any way," recommends another. "That fake so called birth certificate is useless."
"A 'teacher' told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish!" a third complains. "And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story."
To me, the really funny thing is that it's hard to tell which suggestions are meant seriously and which are sarcastic jokes. After all, if you listen to tea-baggers, you have to wonder if some of those people are just putting us on. Are they really that crazy, or are they just pretending to be crazy in order to pull off some elaborate prank? It's really hard to tell.
"Build a castle-style wall along the border, there is plenty of stone laying around about there." That was in the "national security" section of the new site.
"Legalize Marijuana, cause, like, alcohol is legal. Man. Also." That was in the "traditional values" section.
"I say, repeal all the amendments to the Constitution." ("American prosperity" section.)
"Don't let the illegals run out of Arizona and hide. . . . I think that we should do something to identify them in case they try to come back over. Like maybe tattoo a big scarlet 'I' on their chests -- for 'illegal'!!!" (Filed under "job creation.")
The GOP using the Internet always seems bizarre, anyway. How can you effectively use 21st Century technology when it's the 13th Century you yearn for? Isn't a certain amount of cognitive dissonance inevitable?
Obviously, anyone would expect a certain number of prank postings. There were certainly plenty on Barack Obama websites. But it's far worse for Republicans, because their real supporters are at least as likely to post crazy stuff as any amateur humorist.
Can you really tell which of these were meant seriously and which were not? OK, some of them, yes. But certainly not all, maybe not even most. And what happens if the GOP dismisses some seriously meant lunacy from the tea-baggers? After all, you really can't be too extreme for the right-wing these days. Moderation is fatal.
When you can't tell your own supporters from gag posters, I'd say that means you need some new supporters. But maybe that's just me.
"Let kids vote!" recommended one. "Let's make a 'Social Security Lotto,' " proposed another. "What dope came up with the idea of criminalizing a parent's right to administer corporal punishment?" a third demanded.
Some contributors demanded action to uncover conspiracies involving the 9/11 attacks and the "NEW WORLD ORDER." One forward thinker recommended that we "build the city of the future somewhere in a non-inhabit part of the United States, preferably the desert."
Some of the uglier forces of the Internet found their way to the House Republican site. "I oppose the Hispanicization of America," said one. "These are not patriotic people." Another contributor had parody in mind (we hope): "English is are official langauge. Anybody who ain't speak it the RIGHT way should kicked out."
But Republicans might want to take a hard look at the suggestion that "we need to reframe the discussion" about the BP oil spill to counteract the "environmental whackos" worried about wildlife. Republicans, this person proposed, should argue that "BP is creating a new race of faster dolphins. These fish are unable to compete against the fish of other countries, but now their increased lubrication will allow them to fly through the water. Faster fish = good."
That's bizarre, Bill. I'd like to think those posters were pranksters, but I sometimes meet people like that, so I don't know. It's scary that people can even think up those ideas, much less beleive them.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if there are any studies on population and IQ distributions or education levels. I wonder how many high school drop-outs are writing those posts? I'm reading that some school systems have 50% dropout rates for high school graduates.
Yes, Jim, I meet people like that, too - and see them interviewed at Tea Party rallies. But I'll bet that most of them are high school graduates (at least). That's the really scary thing, that you can get through high school while maintaining that level of ignorance.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I know that many of those comments were from pranksters. But its scary how hard it is to know for sure. It can be difficult to spoof the right-wing, because the real stuff is crazier than anything you can invent.
I did see that only 6% of scientists are Republicans (from a Pew Research Center poll). That might be because scientists are trained to detect error. Or maybe it's just because the GOP is aggressively anti-science these days.