I’m Worried

After class this past Friday I happened to catch the last half of the The View (my mother PVRs it regularly).

I enjoy The View from time to time.  It’s entertaining more than enlightening, but still a fine way to pass an hour or so.  Things are said that I disagree with (and find stupid), but most political discussions are usually enthralling in these paranoid and hysterical times of clashing ideologies and wild conspiracy theories.

Last week, that woman who (I think) is famous for having a fight with her friend and marrying some sleazy camera whore-turned born again Christian, was co-hosting.  Her name is Heidi Montag, and she said something that I could hardly laugh at I was so appalled.  She, along with fellow (but permanent) co-host Sherri Shepherd reacted positively to a stunningly ignorant political ad made by Christian media darling Kirk Cameron decrying the atheist takeover of post-secondary education.  Cameron claimed that non-religious professors were brainwashing students to abandon faith and embrace, well, godlessness.

Shepherd praised him for telling the public that God is, indeed, being cast out of schools.  Montag agreed that Cameron was speaking truth to power and reminding the public that there’s discrimination brewing against faithful folks.  Shepherd said she was horrified to learn that a friend was told by a college professor that she couldn’t use the bible in a research paper.

I’ll bet you dollars to fucking donuts that that friend wanted to use it for a science or history class.  If that’s the case, then the bible should not have been used as supporting evidence.  The bible should never be used to prop up an academic argument unrelated to theology.  The bible could be helpful in the analytical discussion of historical literature, particularly medieval material, but it would not enhance a discussion of politics or history or science.  Just as one could not reference King Lear in a physics paper, the gospel of Matthew is not relevant to a discussion about biology.

Montag said that creationism should be taught alongside evolution.  Others, shockingly, nodded their heads in agreement (not Whoopi or Joy Behar or Barbara Walters).  Walters responded by saying that the debate has been going on for a long time.  Whoopi Goldberg said that science is science and creationism is religion, and religious studies can be pursued on any college or university campus.  No one said, outright, that Cameron, Shepherd, and Montag were talking nonsense.

Creationism is the Christian belief that God waved his hand and created one man, one woman, the planet, and the animals in seven days.  It has no basis in fact, it’s not scientifically sound, and it doesn’t resonate with billions of other people who subscribe to different theories (some of which are actually upheld by facts).  It does not belong in a secular class.  Keeping it out of a post-secondary science curriculum is not discrimination.  It’s not a scandal or a thumbed nose at intellectuals desperately seeking balance in their studies.  It’s a way to preserve logic.

There seems to be reluctance to tell ridiculous people “no!”

All of those fringy conspiracy theorists who blog about Obama’s communist/fascist/muslim/Kenyan background? They’re mocked on Comedy Central and HBO, but not in the mainstream media, and certainly not by the politicians they seek to discredit and, quite possibly, endanger.  We’re told that they’re just angry and misinformed, that they represent just the tiniest minority of the GOP base.

However, conservative websites that are politically active and influential are posting or linking to far-right websites with articles “confirming” the right’s greatest fears about Obama.  Concerned Women for America frequently links to WorldNetDaily, a site that calls upon “experts” to show “new” evidence that Obama is, indeed, an African rebel usurping the now-denigrated White House throne.

CWFA also links to “respected” websites that prove, somehow, that the health care reforms are secret ploys to destroy the elderly and disabled and cripple America’s economy so the czars can rise and recreate the glorious Mother Russia of the Stalin years.  They also have an unflattering picture of a scowling Obama that’s accompanied by rolling text that reminds viewers that he kills babies (and probably eats them in the same hut where he practices Islam-inspired witchcraft).

A conservative website recently removed an inflammatory article that said that a military coup to remove Obama might not be so bad.

How long has this been going on?

Some say that this is a consequence of lingering racism.  It probably is, but I think it’s about more than that.

In 2004, anti-Bush sentiment was on the rise and conservative supporters were getting their backs up about criticism of their president.  He was protecting them from another terrorist attack.  He was taking WMDs away from Saddam, and even if they weren’t there, well, they were giving oppressed people a chance at American prosperity.  He was a good, God-fearing man with the best interests of good ol’ America in his heart.  He was narrowing contraceptive rights, pushing back progress on sexual education and stopping the gay marriage movement in its tracks.  He was feeding antibiotics into a bloodstream poisoned by Clinton-era liberalism.

Ah, those liberals.

In Europe, liberal often means right of center.  In Canada (my neck of the woods), liberal means center.  In the U.S., liberal (to some) means criminal and depraved.

Perhaps some traditional types see America as an untouched, slender young white woman.  She’s blonde and fair and delicate.  She goes to church with her parents, babysits the neighbour’s children, pets dogs, helps her mama cook and sew, reads the bible with her pa, wears a pink ribbon in her hair and never, ever thinks about boys.  One day, while she’s gathering flowers in a meadow, a hulking, snarling, drooling liberal wolfman emerges from the forest in torn jeans and fucks the ever living shit out of her.  He fills her pristine body with lecherous semen.  He makes her want to destroy free enterprise and poke fetuses in the eye with paperclips.  In a few short years, she’ll covered in tattoos and spending way too much money on tofu and sex clubs.

Perhaps some of the vitriol aimed at Obama has to do with his supposed liberalism, not only his race.  He’s the embodiment of that feral monster threatening to destroy a noble land from the inside.  He’s going to turn people away from their values, and he’ll laugh and dance while churches burn and capitalism falls (nevermind that Christ probably never envisioned Wall Street when he praised the Golden Rule).

When will someone – someone powerful – say that this president is not out to get the working class? When will he or she say that this outrage is nonsense, this childlike impudence abhorrent, and this online flame-fanning unacceptable? When will people admit that sometimes one “side” is wrong and should be shunned by silence until they’re willing to play nicely?

I like compromise, and I like fairness.  Letting these people trample debate by giving credence to their cause is counterproductive.  Don’t take away their right to express themselves, but counter their arguments with stern assertions that their ranting and raving is illogical.

This is worrisome period in time.  Not as bad as others before it, but bad enough that something needs to be said about honesty, integrity, and worthwhile debate.  No more shrieking about police states and white men concentration camps.  Seriously.