Giving a Voice to The Voiceless...Republicans?

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"Psst!" The voice came from a dark alley down a side street. If the voice hadn't sounded like someone I knew, I would have quickened my pace and walked on. But I stopped.
 
"What's going on, dude?" I asked the familiar figure in the shadows.

"Have you heard the latest?" he said, his voice glum.

"Can you be a little more specific?" I said.

"It's the General Assembly," he said.

"Oh, Lord," I sighed. "What have they done now?"

"Where do I start?" he said. "They've decided to monkey around with the state's divorce laws and require couples to wait two years instead of one to get a divorce. And they have to get hours of counseling in the meantime."

"Oh," I said, "I can't think of any way THAT could possibly go wrong. And don't tell me - let me guess. Whoever came up with this bill hasn't provided any way all this counseling's going to get paid for."

"Of course not," he said. "You and I both know it's going to be a disaster. Having the state keep couples together who don't want to be is just asking for more domestic violence. Not to mention the fact that it's more government intrusion in people's lives. We're supposed to be the party that's against that." He shook his head. "Every time we get in and have a chance to do some real good," he said, "we go and pull something like this."

"Hey, that's right," I said. "Aren't YOU a Republican?"

"Shhhh!" he said frantically. "They can't know!"

I was going to ask who, but I knew. "Don't worry," I said resignedly. "Your secret is safe with me."

OK, it didn't happen in a dark alley, but his dramatization is a reflection of actual conversations I've had in the past few weeks with at least three Republican friends (yes, I do have them) who are aghast at what our new GOP overlords are doing, but who, for one reason or another, don't feel like they can go against the current Republican Jihad.

It's not just the cockeyed proposal for the government to force divorcing couples to stay together when they've decided to part. It's nonsense like the attempt to suppress votes among college students by denying their parents the state tax deduction if the kids vote where they're going to school.

That's right: The people who supposedly are against any and all tax increases are perfectly willing to raise yours if your college-age children vote where they live the majority of the year. Note that it doesn't matter how much actual support you provide them; their status as dependents is entirely determined by where they vote. Yes, they can vote absentee, but why should they have to?

What problem is solved by this, other than the pesky problem for the Republicans that college students tend to vote Democratic, and if you make it more inconvenient for them, the Democrats may lose some votes in the next close election?

It seems to me that the Republicans spend a lot of time and energy, not on the economy or job creation, but on trying to make it more difficult for traditionally Democratic-leaning groups to vote. Makes you wonder just how confident they really are about their ideas, if they have to try and rig the election to win.

Or how about the bill introduced in the General Assembly to make any "public servant" who attempts to enforce a federal gun law guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor? Or the one attempting to exempt North Carolina from the First Amendment by establishing an official state religion?

Another frustrated Republican friend asked me, when we were discussing the above, "What the heck does this have to do with jobs or the economy? How is this going to make this state more of a draw for business?"

It's the classic GOP bait-and-switch: They say they're about growing the economy, easing regulation, creating jobs, etc. You know, the "doing real good" that my Republican friend mentioned. But as soon as they get in, it's all about the radical right-wing social and theocratic agenda.

And now, it's not just liberal democrats feeling as if N.C. voters have been hoodwinked. And yet, for one reason or another, the people I call the "sane Republicans" feel like they can't speak up. In fact, one of them was the one who suggested that I write a column on this subject - so long as I didn't use his name.
Well, giving a voice to the voiceless is part of my mission in life. I just never thought the "voiceless" would include members of the ruling party.

April Fool's Day Can't Keep Up

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This past Monday, as you know, was April Fool's  Day. And, as always, jokers and pranksters everywhere tried to pull the wool over the eyes of their fellow citizens with straight-faced claims of outrageous events and plans.

In the age of the Internet, April Fools' jokes seem to have gotten bigger and more elaborate, certainly more widespread.

The message service Twitter, for example, announced that from now on, users would be subjected to a two-tiered system: You could pay $5 a month for the currently full level of functionality, or you could keep using Twitter for free - but you wouldn't have access to vowels, so yr twts wld lk lk ths.

Google claimed to be introducing "Google Nose," which would allow users to search for smells online. Lindsay Lohan announced that she was pregnant. Alas, this last joke fell rather flat, because (a) it's too plausible; and (b) no one really cares about Lindsay Lohan anymore.

As I've said before, however, one of the hardest things about spoofs, satire and cons in this modern world is keeping ahead of a reality that's becoming increasingly more bizarre. Some stories that you could swear were pranks turned out to be true.

So, just for fun, see which of the following stories from last week were true, and which ones were April Fools' jokes:

- NASA announced plans for a mission that would send a robotic spacecraft into deep space to capture an asteroid and tow it to the moon, where it could be more easily studied and, possibly, mined for raw material. The asteroid would be trapped inside a giant bag deployed from the spacecraft and towed back to lunar orbit.

- Airline Samoa Air announced that it was going to start pricing tickets by the weight of the passenger and their luggage. "The rates range from $1 a kilogram (or about $2.20 per pound) for the weight of the traveler and their baggage - on the airline's shortest domestic route to about $4.16 per kilogram (or about $9.17 per pound) for travel from Samoa to the neighboring nation of American Samoa," according to a story in Time magazine.

- A Turkish Muslim group claimed victory after iconic Danish toymaker Lego announced that it was withdrawing one of its playsets depicting Jabba the Hutt's palace from the "Star Wars" movies, after complaints from the group.

The Turkish Cultural Association claimed that the palace itself closely resembled the Hagia Sofia Mosque in Istanbul. Further, they said, the figure of the galactic underworld kingpin Jabba was shown as a "terrorist who likes to smoke hookah and have his victims killed," and the playset was thus insulting to Muslims.

Lego originally insisted that it was only "following the film," but announced this week that it would discontinue the product as of 2014.

- A professor at the University of Rochester in New York who described himself as a "hard-core libertarian" caused a stir when he published an online essay proposing that it shouldn't be illegal to have sex with people who are unconscious, "in a way that causes no direct physical harm - no injury, no pregnancy, no disease transmission."

The professor went on to ask, "As long as I'm safely unconscious and therefore shielded from the costs of an assault, why shouldn't the rest of the world (or more specifically my attackers) be allowed to reap the benefits?"

- Two North Carolina lawmakers introduced a resolution in the General Assembly last week calling for North Carolina to declare itself exempt from the "no establishment of religion" clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
If passed, the resolution would state that "the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion." Further, the resolution states, North Carolina would "not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the state of North Carolina, its public schools, or any political subdivisions of the state from making laws respecting an establishment of religion."

Give up? All of the above stories are real.

Truth: It's not only stranger than fiction, it's also more foolish.

COVER STORIES

 Blogging today about the evolution of my latest cover over at the Thalia Press Authors Co-Op Blog.

Are Google And Sweden Going to War?

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Sweden. Pearl of Scandinavia. It's one of the richest countries in the EU, also known for its beautiful women, excellent meatballs, and a liquor called aquavit that'll strip the enamel right off your teeth.

The Swedes are, by all accounts, a nice people, a peaceful people, at least since the early 1800s. But now, it seems, the Swedes are threatening an epic tussle with the American Internet company Google. The point of contention? A single word.

We all know how big a player Google is when it comes to the Internet. The search engine that gave the company its name has become the default term for "looking something up on the Internet." ("Wait, let me Google that.") In addition to its mighty search engine, Google's Android operating system runs more than 32.9 million smartphones and tablets, making it the leading platform for mobile devices. 

Yes, Google bestrides the Internet like a colossus. So when the Swedish Language Council's end of the year list of "new words" in the Swedish language included the word ogooglebar, meaning a word that can't be looked up on Google, the California company got tough.

First, a bit of background. It seems that Swedes are mighty fond of coining new words, words that take a few syllables to sum up concepts that other, clumsier tongues like our own require whole phrases to describe.

Take, for instance, the word livslogga. The word literally means "life logging," and it describes the annoying habit of "continually documenting one's life in pictures," according to the online Swedish-American journal "The Local." A Swede, for instance, might say, "My friends are always livlsogga. It's driving me crazy," except he'd, you know, probably say the whole sentence in Swedish.

Other new Swedish words include nomofob, which describes someone pathologically afraid of being separated from his or her cellphone, and fulparkerare ("ugly parker"), which describes those who park their vehicle in particularly inept or inconsiderate ways.

Enter the Swedish Language Council, which Wikipedia describes as "the primary regulatory body for the advancement and cultivation of the Swedish language." Every year, the council publishes its list of new words being officially "admitted" into Swedish. But when it approved ogooglebar, the people at Google apparently felt as if their trademark was being encroached upon. It appears they sent the council one of those dreaded Stern Letters, the generation of which appears to be a primary function of trademark lawyers.They "wanted the council to specify that the word's definition only covered searches performed using Google, and not searches involving other search engines," according to The Local.

This may seem silly, but such is trademark law. One of its quirky principles states that if you don't vigorously defend your right to exclusive use of a trademark, you lose it.

The council backed down without a fight. It announced that it was going to take the word off the list entirely, with only a weak statement expressing "displeasure with Google's attempts to control the language."

But then the Swedish people found out about it. As is true with most very nice people, when the Swedes finally decide to get their back up, it gets way up. Swedish social media exploded in a storm of invectives, including lots of vowels with those little dots and circles over them.

The Swedish Academy, the people who award the Nobel Prize for Literature and, as it happens, publish the official national dictionary, entered the fray by announcing that Google had "shot itself in the foot" and that they might very well decide to put the word into the next edition of the dictionary. "Then let Google roll out its cannons," said permanent secretary Peter Englund of the Academy, "because we have cannons too."

OMG, as the kids on the Internet say. Did the Swedish Academy just throw down the gauntlet? Will this blow up into the next major international crisis? Are Swedish commandos readying a lightning strike on Google's Mountain View, Colo., headquarters? Will Google attempt to pressure the plucky Swedes by cutting off access in that country - rendering, I suppose, everything ogooglebar for them?

And, I have to ask, why isn't Secretary of State John Kerry on this? Do we really have enough strategic meatball reserves to withstand a Swedish embargo? It's a scandal. A scandal, I say! It calls for a couple of hundred hours of congressional hearings, at the very least.

It's too bad the liberal press is so far in the pocket of the Obama administration, or this coverup would be exposed. It's time for the right-wing blogosphere to step up and do its part in exposing Ogooglebar-Gate.

The Closed Loop of Ignorance: A Case Study In Wingnuttery

Actual online exchange I observed today: 

Commenter #1: "Lower gun violence= no gun free zones"

Commenter #2: " I'd sure like to see proof that getting rid of gun-free zones reduces crime. Give it your best shot."

Commenter #1: "heck I'd love to be able to prove that theory of mine about gun free zones. But the liberal media and the liberals in D.C. will never let that happen."

So the fact that there is no evidence is evidence of the conspiracy to suppress the "facts" that you have no evidence for. 

Right. Got it.

Let’s examine this exchange because it illustrates so much about the wingnut “style” of argument.

First, there’s the bold assertion of so-called “facts” which are really just prejudices, half-baked notions, and/or “gut feelings” raised to the status of truth.

Then there’s the admission, when challenged, that no, there isn’t any evidence of the assertion but that that just proves the point, because  there’s a liberal conspiracy to hide the “truth”. This combines several of the central tenets of wingnuttery:

(1)    The insistence that the person speaking is part of an oppressed and eternally put upon class of people who are, despite their oppression, smarter, harder working, and more enlightened than their imagined oppressors. Ironically, the person claiming this oppression is almost always white, Christian, and heterosexual, and the majority are male—by far the least “oppressed” and best advantaged group in the United States, possibly in all of human history. 

(2)    The angry and bitter attitude that it’s hopeless that the truth will ever be known because of a vast conspiracy by the oppressors.

(3)    The rejection of any idea that they need to support their claims because the data they need to do so is forever unavailable, and

(4)    The unshakable conviction that their “facts” are, nonetheless, true, despite the lack of evidence, because their innate “common sense” (really just the above-mentioned prejudices, half-baked notions, and “gut feelings”) is more important than proof.This is the core of the anti-intellectual, chip-on-the shoulder resentment that marks a certain class of wingnut.

You have to admit that there is a certain twisted genius to this sort of "argument." It basically frees the speaker  from ever having to actually justify even the most outrageous claims, and creates a perfect protective force-field around the ignorance they cling to as if that ignorance was a gift  from God.

Unfortunately,  that’s not where ignorance comes from.

The Best Show On Right Now

     Today's column (once again, not online at the paper's website until probably tomorrow)

    I heard the rumble of the truck in the yard, followed by the squeal and hiss of air brakes. I was up out of the recliner and ready to meet the delivery guy when he knocked on the door.
      “Hey,” I said, “you got here just in time. I was about to run out.”
     He looked at the clipboard in his hand and his brow furrowed in confusion. “Wait, this isn’t a movie theater?”
     “Nope,” I said. “This is my house. What made you think it was a theater?”
     “Well,” he said, “you’ve ordered an entire tractor trailer load of popcorn. And it says here, you got another one last week.”
     “Yep,” I replied.
     “You really eat all that popcorn?”
     “Buddy, if you were watching a show like I’m watching, you’d be chomping down a lot of the stuff too.”
     “What show?” he said. “Survivor? Duck Dynasty? House Hunters International?”
     “Nope, nope, and nope. Much bigger than that.”
     “American Idol?”
     “Even bigger. I’m watching the civil war in the Republican Party.”
     “The what?”
     “Remember last year? The election?”
     He grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”
     “Remember how the Republicans were so sure they were going to win? And how shocked they all were when Mitt Romney got his butt kicked by a guy they insisted nobody liked?”
     “Yeah.”
     “Well, ever since,” I said, “they’ve been sniping at each other, pointing fingers, trying to make someone else take the blame. One wing of the party demands change, another demands that they double down on the crazy.”
     He looked dubious. “And you’re enjoying this.”
     “You bet I am!” I said. “The Tea Party blames the ‘establishment’ for not nominating candidates bat-spit crazy enough to make them happy. The ‘establishment’ big shots like Karl Rove blame the Tea Partiers for driving away women, gays, lesbians, Latinos, African Americans, and pretty much anyone not a right wing nut case. Rove even started a new political action committee called the ‘Conservative Victory Project’, to try and boost non-Tea Party candidates so the Republicans wouldn’t have another debacle like the ones they had with Richard Mourdock. Or Todd Akin. Or Sharron Angle. Or Christine O’Donnell.”
     “Come on,” he said, “I can’t believe it’s that bad. Didn’t Ronald Regan used to say that the 11th Commandment was not to speak ill of other Republicans?”
     “I see you know your history, my friend. But that principle fell by the wayside long ago. Come see.” I stepped aside and let him in. “Check this out,” I said, sitting down at the computer and calling up a website. “Remember Sarah Palin?”
     “Didn’t she have a reality show?”
     “No, before that. She ran for Vice President.”
     “Oh, yeah. So what’s she doing now?”
     I clicked on a YouTube video. “Watch.”
     An image of Governor Palin appeared, standing behind a podium. “This is a speech she gave at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week.” I turned the audio up. 



     “If these experts who keep losing elections and keep getting rehired and raking in millions,” Palin said, “if they feel that strongly about who gets to run in this party, then they should buck up or stay in the truck. Buck up and run.” The audience cheered. She smirked. “The architects can head on back." The cheers redoubled.
     “Wait,” the delivery guy said, “Wasn’t Karl Rove called ‘the architect’?”
     “You’re quite well informed for a deliveryman,” I observed. “But yes.”
     “Nice slam there. So what did Rove say?”
     I clicked on another link. This one showed Rove on “Fox News Sunday,” saying “If I did run for office and win, I would serve out my term. I wouldn’t quit mid-term.”
     “Ohhhh, SNAP!” the delivery guy said. “He just burned her, but good.”
     “See what I’m saying?” I said. “Is this a great show or what?” 
     “I get it,” he said. “But really, is this infighting good for the country? I mean, sure, it’s entertaining, but don’t we need at least two viable parties?”
     “Hmmm…” I said. “You might have a point, Mr…what was your name again?”
     “You tell me,” he said. “I’m a figment of your imagination.”
     Suddenly I sat up in my chair, blinking. I realized I’d been dreaming. I looked at the computer screen, where I’d been looking at a news story about a website called primarymycongressman.com. It was sponsored by the conservative Club For Growth “to raise awareness of Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) who are currently serving in safe Republican seats.”
     I looked at the empty bowl on the table beside the computer. This called for more popcorn.
    
     Dusty Rhoades lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage.