5th
It Stops Being Funny When it Starts Being Timothy
I don’t really think this is funny anymore. I did at first. Who wouldn’t? I mean, are you serious?
“WHERE’S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE????”
“It’s right here.”
“WHERE’S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE????”
“Seriously, it’s right here. See? Right from the state of Hawaii.”
“WHERE’S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE????”
“Uhhh…it’s right HERE. State seal? Official document?”
“WHERE’S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE????”
There is no sort of concrete evidence that will change anyone’s mind here. It’s pretty obvious what these folks are on about. There is a black president. They can’t stand it. There has to be some kind of scam going on. There has to be something sinister going on. He has to be from Kenya, or Indonesia, or somewhere, and he has to be a Muslim plant, or a communist agent, or..or.. something. Something really bad. Americans certainly wouldn’t have voted this guy in of their own free will, right? Not in my America.
Ordinarily I would feel sorry for these folks. It’s usually the nobody who believes in the big conspiracy. It’s the recently fired security guard. It’s the laid off plant worker. It’s the guy who cleans up the rest areas. It’s the forklift driver. Those folks usually find it entirely plausible that there are wheels within wheels within wheels, and that’s what makes their lives so awful. It has to be the big conspiracy.
But it turns out that it isn’t really just the fringe. There is a significant portion of the country that actually believes this nonsense. Psychos are showing up at town meetings. Farty old Lou Dobbs at CNN is still claiming that “questions have yet to be answered” when they all most certainly have been. One poll shows that 58% of Republicans are either not sure that he’s a citizen or convinced that he isn’t. Congressmen are shamelessly playing up to the psychos in their base by sponsoring legislation that requires all candidates for office to submit birth certificates.
Of course, there are conspiracy freaks and assorted nut jobs on the left. The right wing doesn’t have a monopoly on that sort of thing. I remember having quite a few conversations with lefties during the W Administration that left me completely dumbfounded. But the main difference between the right and the left wing is that, by and large, the left wing doesn’t have any guns, while the right wing has all the guns in the damn world.
It seems like nobody on the right is being reasonable now. The political talk shows are as hyperbolic as ever, so much so that these guys might as well be doing their shows wearing wrestling masks. All I hear is “socialist,” “weak,” “appeasement,” “traitors,” ”Un-American,” “kill granny,” “radicals,” “hates capitalism,”“hates our military,” “hates the police,” “hates white people,” “hates America.” I don’t think any of these hosts actually believe any of these things. But the need for ratings turns otherwise bright people into complete parodies of themselves.
I’m going to make a prediction here, and I really hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I will be. I think the next act of terrorism in this country isn’t going to come from a Muslim extremist. I think it’s going to come from some paranoid “Red Dawn” type with a grudge and a gun collection. He’ll blow something up, or shoot a bunch of people, and he’ll leave some addled manifesto lying around, in which the words “taking my country back” or “striking a blow for liberty” will be mentioned. In his apartment will be all the books that the right wing media hosts crap out every six months, his radio will be tuned to the right wing radio station, and he will have spent a lot of time posting on Free Republic, or the message board at Sean Hannity’s web site. And he’ll be convinced that the President is a plant from Kenya, or that the government is coming for his guns, or…or…something. Something really bad.
Like I said, I hope I’m wrong, but I know I’m not.
