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On Republican Political Strategy: Using Kids As Human Shields

We’ve all seen movies where a bad guy finds himself in a situation where he really doesn’t have a way to escape so he grabs some innocent bystander and uses them as a human shield, putting them directly in the line of fire, in order to save their own miserable hide. Bad guys grab another guy. Really bad guys grab a woman. Really, really bad guys grab an elderly woman. However, the worst of the worst are those that grab a small child. Whenever this happens in a movie, the visceral, correct response is, “Fuck that guy!”

Putting someone who is the most vulnerable between you and the consequences you brought upon yourself is pure cowardice. Using a child as a human shield is as cowardly as one can get. This is EXACTLY what Republicans are currently doing when it comes to their strategy to attack Democrats regarding abortion, Critical Race Theory, crime prevention, transgender issues, etc. All the arguments Republicans are using rest almost entirely on, “Think of the children.”

Abortion-”Dems want unlimited abortion, on-demand, to kill as many babies as possible. Think of the kids.” (This belongs in a special, “Think of the children,” place because it isn’t really about thinking of the children but thinking about the possibility of a child. It is a meta-bullshit argument.)

Critical Race Theory-”Dems want to teach your precious little white children they are racists. You don’t want that, do you? Think of the children.”

Crime Prevention-”Dems are defunding the police and crime is out of control. It isn’t safe for your precious young ones to ride their bikes, walk to school, play in the part. Think of the children.”

Transgender Issues-”Dems want men to share the bathroom with your precious daughters. They want men to humiliate them in sporting events. They want men to be able to prey on them. Think of the children.”

“Think of the children,” is the go-to move right now when it comes to just about every Republican political attack. There are two main reasons why this is the case: 1-It works; And, 2-They are moral cowards.

“Think of the children,” works because it is a natural inclination to want to protect children, whether they are our own or others. Children are vulnerable and dependent on adults to keep them safe. Risking your well-being and possibly your life to protect and save a child from harm is socially viewed as an act of heroism. Rightfully so. This line of attack also works because just about every single parent wants to believe they are a good parent, whether this is true or not. Buying into a “Think of the children,” attack allows someone to do the very minimum possible and feel they are being a good parent/person.

“Think of the children,” is the “thoughts and prayers,” of political involvement. It takes no real effort, no real commitment, no real anything other than voting for the people who use it as a political cudgel. Like offering up thoughts and prayers when there is a tragedy, buying into the “Think of the children,” arguments and voting for the candidates pushing them is literally doing nothing other than trying to make you feel better about yourself. It’s as useless as it is intellectually lazy.

Even though, “Think of the children,” works, that is only part of the reason Republicans are using it with such intensity and frequency right now. The other part is they are moral cowards. They know they can’t go to the American public and say what they really believe, what they really want to do because they’d be politically exiled for the next fifty years. They know they can’t go out on the campaign trail or on Tucker Carlson’s show and say, “We want to undo the Civil Rights Act. We want to put women back in the home where we believe they belong. We want minorities to be second-class citizens. We want Christianity to be the national religion. We want fewer people voting and those who do must meet our criteria. We want the LGBTQI community to be viewed and treated as degenerates and cast from society. We want fewer nonwhites in the country and we really don’t care how we achieve this goal because we believe whites are naturally superior to other races and it is our God-given right to have this view. We want private businesses to be in charge of everything because making a buck is more important than things like rights, public good, democracy. In fact, we really don’t believe in democracy at all.”

This is what they really want. This is what they hint at all the time. This is what the laws they propose at state and federal levels imply. This is what they’ve been talking about in articles, conferences, blog posts, online for decades. To anyone who has paid the slightest bit of attention the past fifty years, none of this should be surprising. It should be self-evident. That they don’t come out and be honest about what they really want but instead hint around the edges is cowardice. That they hide their true intentions behind, “Think of the children,” is cowardice combines with immorality with a poison cherry on top.

No one with any sense of politics or history of modern-day conservatism can possibly believe Republicans give a single fuck about kids, in general. Sure, Ted Cruz cares about his kids. That’s why he sent them to Cancun when Texas was hit with a cold spell that resulted in some Texans freezing to death. His kids needed protection. His kids needed to be safe. However, Ted didn’t give a flying fuck about the children of Texans who weren’t part of his social network. He didn’t give a fuck about them so much, he fled the country to “protect” his own kids at the posh resort where they were staying instead of lifting a single finger to help those people and children in Texas who really need it. He offered “thoughts and prayers.” Meanwhile, Beto O'Rourke and other Democratic politicians, many who don’t even come from or represent Texas, were organizing shelters, food, medical care…for those affected by the cold.

Republicans don’t give a fuck about children, in general. They have time and time again cut or denied funding for programs that actually help children. They have time and time again pushed to roll back or outright get rid of healthcare for children, especially those who need it the most. They have time and time again refused to do anything about paid maternity leave or pre-K schooling or daycare…things that really matter to and benefit children. They’ve refused to do anything about environmental issues that negatively impact children like lead pipes, contaminated drinking water, lax food inspection, etc. They’ve refused to do anything to address the real problem of child sexual abuse and/or the cover up by churches. They have done everything possible to damage public education, especially in areas that need it the most.

Don’t talk about how important it is to, “Think about the children,” if you aren’t willing to do things that actually help them. Don’t grab a child and use them as a human shield when everybody knows full well, you don’t give a damn about that child. Don’t use, “Think of the children,” when doing so is intended to protect yourself from people really knowing what you are up to.

If you really care about children, then support people and policies that are designed to promote their health, education, well-being, safety. If you think a law school graduate-level topic like Critical Race Theory is more important for the safety and well-being of children than clean water or well-funded schools, you are delusional and a huge part of the problem. If you think transgender women are preying on your daughters/grand daughters and this is a bigger concern than kids having access to good, quality healthcare, you have serious problems and no real capacity to understand issues and risk assessment.

“Republicans DO care about kids!” No. Republicans care about select groups of kids and by coincidence, their kids always end up belonging to these groups. They do not care about children in general. There is no history of this in any meaningful sense from the GOP for the past half century.

I live in Michigan. I watched the Republican governor and Republican-led legislature watch the children of Flint suffer for a long, long time with high levels of lead in their water. Lead in the bloodstream of a child causes long-term, permanent physical and cognitive damage. What Republicans did was offer up thoughts and prayers and didn’t really lift a finger to help the children of Flint. Meanwhile, if a white kid from Bloomfield or East Grand Rapids claimed they were psychologically harmed by a teacher who showed them “12 Years A Slave,” the entire Michigan GOP would have written, passed, and signed a bill in twenty-four hours not only condemning what happened but making it punishable under law. They would have passed this bill under the guise of “Think of the children,” but the fact is they passed it to prevent their precious white kids from learning anything that might pop the bullshit bubble that is their belief in white superiority.

This is what the entire Critical Race Theory is all about-making sure white kids don’t learn the history of white people’s beliefs and behaviors towards nonwhites in America. It isn’t about protecting little Barron and Tiara from being called “racist.” It is about them learning their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents sometimes believed, did, and said racist things. The attack on CRT is holding kids hostage to protect white people from talking about and owning up to their histories.

Whenever a Republican pulls out the, “Think of the children,” line, you should have the same reaction as when a bad guy in a movie snatches up some child and uses them as a human shield to protect themselves-”Fuck that guy!”


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On Dumbassery: It Is Only Going To Get Worse

Two months ago, I took myself off of social media because after a decade or more of constant bullshit and stupidity, I’d finally reached a breaking point. I’ve watched people, sometimes family and friends, who I used to think were level-headed, rational people, lose their minds. People I once considered reasonable, even if I disagreed with them politically, seem more than willing to believe and pass along absolute nonsense without the slightest hesitation or speck of shame.

In the past two months, there have been some things happening that really have brought out the dumbassery. The doesn’t even include all the pre-existing dumbassery of the 2020 election or the pandemic. Two-thirds of Republicans still don’t believe Joe Biden fairly won the election and to a lot of this group, having to wear a mask is equivalent to the Trail of Tears, The Bataan Death March, and Dachau all rolled up in one freedom-killing, complete waste of time. Never mind there hasn’t been a single example of voter fraud from any state and how every time mask requirements are put in place, cases of COVID go down and every time they are relaxed, cases go up. Fucking facts getting all uppity and pretentious with their truthfulness.

So, what has happened in the past couple of months that have raised the Dumbassery Threat Level?

Let’s start with Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine and all same people who were election and viral disease experts perfectly pivoted without hesitation to their foreign policy and Russian/Ukrainian historian bona fides. You know, the same people who claimed the COVID vaccine contained a microchip and who willingly drank bleach and ingested animal deworming medicine to cure a virus they claimed was a hoax. Those same people are now experts in all things Russian and Ukrainian. What could possibly go wrong?

It is a thing of beauty to watch the “Party of Reagan” become Putin and Russian aggression apologists. Putin is a thug. Ukraine is a democracy and not a democracy like Iran and Russia are democracies. They aren’t Nazis. The role of fascists in this tragedy is being played perfectly by the Russians. This isn’t debatable. The only “sin” Ukraine committed is being next door to Russia. This has been their “sin” for centuries and the only people who deem this a sin are the Russians.

It doesn’t matter the people on the right who are defending Putin and Russia couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if it was highlighted in neon pink and had a pin in it with a bedazzled flag that said, “HERE IS UKRAINE!” sticking out of it. It doesn’t matter they know absolutely no one scintilla about Ukraine or its history with Russia. It doesn’t matter that Russia is intentionally bombing hospitals, schools, food storage supplies, places of refuge… All that matters is Putin is a white nationalist, anti-gay, autocrat that Trump idolized and spoke highly of. I mean, Thomas Jefferson is the one who said, “The tree of white nationalism must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of civilians who get in the way of a dictatorial oligarchy.”

Of course, you can’t talk about Russia without bringing up how badly Biden is screwing hard-working Americans with high gas prices and inflation. America is the only county experiencing high gas prices and inflation, right? Wait. Do you mean every other country is experiencing the very same things? Doesn’t matter, we’re America dammit. We didn’t stop after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. In a world economy, if we had a “real leader,” we could fill up our tanks for pennies and prices would never go up. On anything. Ever.

This economic idiocy comes from the same crowd who talks about and praises “the free market,” like they are vegan Mormon missionaries who do Crossfit. Yet, the most basic concept of their beloved economic theory-supply and demand, somehow is a complete mystery to them. “What do you mean, when more people want something the price goes up?” “What do you mean, when production can’t meet demand, prices go up?” “What do you mean, I couldn’t spell ‘cat’ if I was spotted the 'c’ and the ’t’?”

Speaking of that mysterious, elusive concept of supply and demand having an impact on prices, the people bitching the loudest about the cost of gas are the same ones who refuse to drive a vehicle that gets good gas mileage, who refuse to do anything to increase renewable energy, who won’t use or invest in public transportation, who drives a huge SUV even though the only things they “haul” are a couple of kids and bags of takeout food.

“Fuck you! You don’t know what it is like for a hard-working, blue-collar guy who needs a gas-guzzling monstrosity to carry the tools of his trade.” One of my jobs is painting houses. I have lots of equipment in two large, plastic bins, two ladders, a six-foot step ladder, and a multi-positional ladder that can open up to twenty-two feet. I can fit all of this into my Chevy Trax along with my photography equipment, bags of groceries from the store, and my daughter. BTW, I get 30+ miles a gallon. There are some people who legitimately need larger vehicles to do their jobs. However, a huge section of owners of such vehicles doesn’t need them. Not one damn bit. It’s a status symbol for some. It is an ego thing to others. It is not, however, necessary in so, so, so many instances.

If you want lower gas prices, use less gas. It is that fucking simple. Stop acting like there is some Manifest Destiny where Americans who make up 4.5% of the world’s population but are the largest consumers of oil, in the entire world, are entitled to not only be the beneficiary of such a grotesque imbalance but immune to the basic laws of economics. The arrogance to think and demand this is only topped by its sheer stupidity.

These same economic geniuses are the ones saying things like: “Gas would be less expensive if the Keystone XL pipeline has been allowed to be built.” “There are thousands of idle oil wells because Biden is stopping them from being operated.” “America is “energy independent,” the only reason gas prices are high is that Biden sucks.”

Sure, John D. Crockafeller. That’s exactly what is going on. Never mind the simple facts that the type of oil the Keystone XL pipeline would have carried isn’t the kind that is processed into gasoline and would be sold on the open market or the reason thousands of wells are idle is that private businesses who own them have calculated it would be more expensive to operate them than not or “energy independent” is a meaningless term when your country imports 8.5 billion barrels of oil A DAY. America is oil independent in the way a thirty-year-old living in his parent’s basement having “Mommy,” make him breakfast every morning and cut the crust off his bologna sandwiches is independent. This might sound good when you say it to yourself or to the woman at the end of the bar who keeps trying to not make eye contact with you and begging to cash out but in reality, it is a bullshit statement that isn’t supported by facts.

Also, if you take the current annual oil consumption rate of the U.S. and divide it with ALL the known U.S. oil reserves, we’d run out in 5 years if we were truly, “independent.” Just to put it into perspective, the U.S. ranks 11th in the world when it comes to known oil reserves. Even this ranking is misleading when you consider the leader, Venezuela, has 8.5 TIMES more oil reserves than we do. The U.S. has 2.1% of all known oil reserves in the world. 4.5% of the population. 2.1% of the oil reserves. Uses the absolute most oil of any country. Yeah, we’re “oil independent.”

Russia, gas prices, inflation…these are certainly leading contenders in the Dumbassery Bracket but the two number one seeds are Critical Race Theory and Transgender Rights.

The anti-trans bullshit from people is really ire-inducing. As if most of the people bitching about a trans athlete competing gave a single fuck about women’s sports or fairness for women. The Venn Diagram of people bitching about lack of fairness in women’s sports wrt transgender competitors and those who are against equal pay for women for equal work or equal say over their healthcare decisions is an almost perfect circle.

Also, enough with the phrase, “competitive advantage.” Lebron James has a competitive advantage by being Lebron James. Michael Phelps’ biology gave him an incredible competitive advantage over his competitors. I don’t hear anyone bitching about “competitive advantage,’ when Lebron backs down a smaller defender and dunks on him or when Michael Phelps was winning gold medal after gold medal.

Since we’re on the subject of trans athletes competing in women’s sports, the idea that there will be an onslaught of men going the trans route, in order to compete in and win women’s athletic events shows a complete lack of understanding a whole lot of things but mostly, social pressures. Do you really think some guy is going to go through all the physical changes and social pressures/ridicule, just to win a game/match/event? If you do, you really don’t understand men in general and what being a trans person is specifically.

I grew up a white, Christian male where those traits were the desired, viewed as the best-of-all-possible-worlds traits. Yet, I never felt I belong or was allowed to be myself. This didn’t come until I moved away to grad school when I was twenty-five. Being able to be me for the first time in my life was revolutionary and life-changing. I cannot even begin to imagine how it must feel to not be able to be yourself, how you really know yourself to be and be at the bottom of the social value chart. Trans people, especially kids deserve every single bit of love and opportunities other people get. If a trans person loves swimming and is good at it, they should be encouraged, not berated because they may beat some other person who also loves swimming.

What is outrageous is all these people who don’t have kids in sports adding their two cents of stupid to the conversation. THE ONLY REASON they are doing this is they are hooked on outrage like an addict is hooked on heroin. In no possible way does some trans woman competing in a sport truly impact these people’s lives. In the same way gay marriage being legal didn’t impact a single non-gay person’s life, trans people doing anything, including sports, doesn’t affect 99.9999% of the population.

Another thing that angers me is those people who placed 14th and 15th in the latest swim meet where a trans woman won bitching about how unfair it was. Really? Is there some universe where bragging you placed 13th or 14th in the prelims carries more weight, opens more doors, has more meaning for your life than 14th or 15th place? If so, you have many, many more problems than being a mediocre competitive swimmer.

Speaking of mediocre, watching Republican Senators roll out every single possible racist, misogynist, bullshit trope about blacks, black women, Critical Race Theory, liberals being “soft on crime,” especially child pornography, during the confirmation hearings of Kentanji Brown Jackson’s SCOTUS nomination, is something to behold. Not something to behold like seeing a double rainbow at Angel Falls. More something to behold like watching a drunk Mel Gibson go on an anti-semitic tirade or listening to Alec Balwin leave a drunken message for his daughter. The idea that a black person, let alone a black woman is qualified and really, really good at her job doesn’t even enter the minds of these Senators because they deep down, to the core of their very beings, believe minorities are inferior to whites.

KBJ’s confirmation hearings are not just a chance for Republicans to spew their racist bullshit but to throw out every single possible conspiracy theory about liberals they can possibly come up with. Liberals hate God-loving Christians. Liberals are soft on crime. Liberals are cool with child pornography. Liberals hate America. Liberals want to kill babies. All these attacks are de rigueur for today’s Republicans. It is neither unexpected nor surprising. What is interesting is in their attacks on Justice KBJ, they’ve exposed some of their true beliefs and goals. Their own words show they want to not only roll back the protections of Roe-v-Wade but make all abortion, for any reason, a criminal offense. They want to undo the personal freedom’s of Griswold-v-Connecticut, especially when it applies to birth control. They want to undo Obergefell-v-Hodges and make gay marriage illegal. They want to undo Loving-v-Virginia and make interracial marriages illegal. They want to undo NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp and bring back child labor. These are all things Republican Senators have directly brought up this week. All of these are couched under an argument these civil rights cases should be left to individual states. Rights don’t work like that, especially civil rights. They can’t be given/taken away at a state’s border, something that is as arbitrarily created as it gets.

State’s rights was the main argument for slavery and for segregation. It was bullshit and on the wrong side of history and ethics then and it is now. Conservatives HAVE TO construct a world where the things they believe and the thing they do are at the top of the social/cultural pyramid. Being white HAS TO BE given top billing. Being Christian HAS TO BE deemed better than not being Christian. Being married to someone of the opposite sex HAS TO BE given priority for no other reason than for conservatives to have another thing they do and believe in be the special/preferred thing.

There have been a lot of dumbass, “gotcha” questions from Republican Senators to Judge Jackson. My personal favorite was Sen. Buy-a-Fucking Comb Blackburn’s trying to box Judge Jackson into some imaginary corner where the “far-left agenda” is finally exposed by asking her if she knew what the definition of “woman,” was. As a student of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, I would have told the idiot Senator from Tennessee that meaning comes from use. Words are tools. And, like tools, how you use them gives them their definition. I can use a hammer to hammer nails or prop open a door. In one case the definition of hammer is “hammer.” In the other case, the definition of hammer is, “doorstop.” It all depends on how it is being used. Words are the same.

This isn’t a controversial or difficult to understand concept. “White,” when used to describe race, has been used to exclude certain groups of people that are now included under the same definition. The Irish were not considered, “white,” at one time because the powers that be didn’t want the Irish to have the rights white people did, at the time. This is why race is an artificial construct. Words like “white” are intentionally used to denote the privileged group and terms like “black,” “immigrants,” “minorities,”… are intentionally used to denote “does not belong to the privileged group and the rights that group are granted. All words are made up. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. From “man” and “woman,” to “one” and “two.” Sometimes, for convenience sake, we maintain a strict adherence to a particular definition. It would really fuck things up is the definition of “two” fluctuated or was flexible.

If we use “woman” to mean whoever identifies as a woman, does it really fuck up anything? If Meryl Streep won the Best Actress Oscar for portraying a man no one would raise as much as an eyebrow. If she won Best Actor for the same role, would it really matter? If the Oscars went away from Best Actor and Best Actress categories and just came up with a different category, would it make a difference? To whom? Why? Whose lives would really be changed? Would Ma and Pa Liberty in Texarkana’s lives be altered in any real way if this happened? Of course not. If a trans person identifies as a woman or a man, does it really impact a single person other than her/him/they? It shouldn’t.

At this point, some dumbass will bring up, “I don’t want a man in a public bathroom when my daughter is in there.” First, it isn’t a man, it is a woman. Second, just like gays, trans folks are not sexual predators. Those would be your run-of-the-mill heteros. I’m a million times more comfortable having a trans person or a gay person in the bathroom with my kids than I am a youth pastor, Scout leader, or Republican politician. There is a huge pile of evidence that shows these people are sexual predators and a nonexistent pile that supports the fear of the LGBTQI community. Watching Republicans attack transgender individuals is like watching a horror movie where the innocent outsider stops in a strange town to ask for directions and the locals end up killing them because they are “different.” It is morally reprehensible.

Of course, no conversation about dumbassery would be complete without talking about Critical Race Theory. “How am I going to explain to my innocent, beautiful white children they are evil and racists because they are white?” I’d start by telling your kids you are a complete dumbass who doesn’t understand what CRT is and have no passable understanding of U.S. history. The next thing I’d do, if I was you, is call CPS and have them take my kids away because I’m too stupid and too reactionary to be a parent.

NO ONE. NOT A SINGLE FUCKING LIVING SOUL has ever said the mere fact of being white makes someone a racist. What is said, and supported by four hundred years of our history, is being white is the default position when it comes to status, power, economic prosperity, legal protections, rights… What is said is the mere fact of being white in America affords you certain things non-whites don’t get with the same intensity, frequency, authority. What is said is being white in America is like having an American Express Card-membership has its privileges.

As a white male in America, when I go to a bank to apply for a loan, I am much more likely to get it and at a better rate than someone who doesn’t have my traits.

When I am out driving, I am much less likely to be pulled over by the police because of the color of my skin. If I am pulled over, I am much less likely to be given a citation.

If I am arrested, I am much more likely to be presented in a positive light, both with a picture and description of who I am.

If I commit a crime, I am much less likely to spend time in jail and have a lower bond.

If I am found guilty, I am much less likely to be jailed and my “potential future” will talked about and used to lighten my sentence.

If I am jailed, I am much less likely to spend as much time as POC who committed the same crime.

If I go to a doctor, I am much more likely to be believed when I describe my symptoms and pain.

If I apply for a job, I am much more likely to get it over equally or more qualified candidates of color. If I assault someone, my story of events is more likely to be believed by the police.

If I am an academic and submit an article, my article, if not presented anonymously, will be more positively received because of my male Anglo-Saxon name than someone who doesn’t have this trait.

When I was in school, my outbursts, insubordination, breaking the rules, etc. would have resulted in much less punitive consequences.

If I am wandering around in an area where I don’t live, I am much less likely to have the police called on me.

The schools I attended K-12, were much more likely to be properly funded and staffed with more qualified teachers.

When I attended schools, I was much more likely to learn about my history taught to me by people just like me than not.

If a new highway is being planned, my home, my business is much more likely not going to be negatively affected by its construction.

If I plan on voting, I am much less likely to wait in long lines that last for hours, have old voting machines that break down, and have my district constantly gerrymandered, in order to make my vote count less.

My wealth is going to be considerably more than POC who have the exact same education level and even those with much higher levels. My family’s wealth going back generations is much more likely to have contributed to the economic status in which I was born, the schools I was able to attend, the help I was able to get, the connections I was able to make…

I could go on for pages. From the economic situation I grew up in to currently enjoy, to the schooling, financial, health, political…advantages I AUTOMATICALLY get for no other reason than being a white, Christian male, to say these are not privileges and somehow, I don’t benefit both directly and indirectly, is asinine. All of these things are true, regardless of my personal, individual views of race. This is how systemic racism works. This is what CRT addresses. Not whether little Billy or Tammy are racists because they are white. This, “what about the children,” Republicans hide behind to justify their horrid beliefs and actions when it comes to minorities and the LGTBQI community is not just dumbassery, it is intentional dumbassery that is morally reprehensible. It is also an entirely different topic for its own separate essay.

Just know that the dumbassery that has been on display the past few months is just the beginning. It is going to get a lot worse between now and the 2024 election.

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On Information In The Internet Age: The Good, The Bad, And The Very Ugly

I’m an information junkie. Have been for as long as I can remember. Whether it was consuming pop culture through countless hours of watching television or falling asleep, well after midnight every night, reading a volume of the encyclopedia or some other reference book series, information was my drug of choice. Information was just that, a drug. It was something I craved. It was something I had to have. I didn’t know anything different than consuming information, especially facts. It wasn’t until I was in an American Lit class my first year of college that I realized I hadn’t read just about any popular, critically acclaimed novels. I knew about them and could tell you lots of facts about authors, plots, characters… However, I had never read any of them. If it was fiction, I had no real use for it.

This constant diet of information made me a really good Trivial Pursuit (Original Edition) player and it provided me with very useful, specific tools when it comes to searching for, evaluating, and mentally organizing information. Way back in the Paleozoic Era of information, before everything was available 24/7 to anyone with access to WiFi or a phone in their pocket if you had a question about something, you had to spend real time and energy finding the answer. Sometimes, this meant nothing more than getting off the couch, heading upstairs to the bookshelf where the collections of encyclopedias, the Time-Life Books series, and other reference books were kept, searching through which book(s) were relevant, and finding the answer. At other times, it meant doing some serious work by going to the local library, searching through possibly relevant sections, thumbing through card catalogs, and winnowing the options down to the one(s) that would give you the right answer. Finding an answer could take days, weeks, even months.

If you haven’t spent hours at home or in a library going through volume after volume searching for the answer to a particular question, it is impossible to describe the effort and time involved. It is impossible to describe the frustration that often came from searching. It is also impossible to describe the joy of finally finding the answer after so much effort. For me, it was like being Indiana Jones finally discovering a gold statute in some ancient temple in South America after months and years of analysis and hard work. However, instead of a physical object, my reward was a fact-a fact that was hard-earned, unassailable, and to me, as precious as any golden idol.

Growing up, information was a drug. A drug that forced me to go out constantly looking for a fix. Before the internet, getting a fix took a lot of time and energy. Once the internet took off, it allowed my drug of choice to be pumped directly into my brain with little to no effort whatsoever. It takes no effort to access information using the internet. Sorry, but sitting on the toilet, touching your phone’s screen a couple of times and scrolling doesn’t take effort. It is convenient and accessible. Convenience and accessibility should never be mistaken for effort or quality or anything other than convenience and accessibility. For someone like me, the internet was like a heroin addict having a never-ending supply of 100% pure China White in an IV drip being pumped into my veins non-stop. It was nirvana, ambrosia, and Shangri-La all wrapped up in perfectly for me at my fingertips. Did I also mention, I have an addictive personality?

Hopefully, you see where this is going. If you give an addict an unlimited supply of what they crave, a few things happen. First, they dive into whatever they crave like Scrooge McDuck into a room full of money. Second, they NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES want the edge they feel to stop. There is no dimmer switch if you are an addict. Addicts don’t ever say, “That’s enough. I’m good.” If they could do this, they wouldn’t be addicts. Finally, if at all possible, addicts want the good stuff. They don’t want a water-down, cut version of their drug of choice. The purer the better.

For a while, when the internet was new, it wasn’t a problem for me. In fact, it was about as perfect a situation, as I could ask. Non-stop information that I could search for and discover from the comfort of my own home whenever I wanted. And, since I had developed really good research skills, I knew what questions to ask and how to search in ways that mostly avoided nonsense, half-assed opinions, and the garbage that often passes for knowledge… Going back to my Raiders of the Lost Ark analogy, it would be like Indy being able to discover the golden idol without being almost killed by a gigantic boulder, being betrayed by Satipo, or eventually having the idol taken from you by the Hovitos and Belloq. No trauma. No drama. Here is your prize. No one can take it from you. And, you never have to leave the comfort of your home.

Having grown up in an ultra-religious fundamentalist area around people who, for the most part, weren’t/aren’t driven by intellectual curiosity but quite the opposite, I know all too well what it is like to be overwhelmed with bullshit and beliefs so flimsy they make gossamer look like titanium. For the first twenty-one years of my life, this is pretty much all I knew. For reasons I’ve discussed elsewhere, arbitrarily signing up for and walking into an Intro To Philosophy Class at USU was the universe throwing me a life preserver. For the next twenty-five years, things made sense and I felt a peace I didn’t when growing up. The frustration and anger I’d felt for so long and so intensely, were gone.

These feelings of contempt and happiness lasted until the internet was “democratized.” Once this happened, the very same people I’d worked so hard to distance myself from and ignore were brought right back into my life and they brought tens of thousands of their idiot friends with them. For many years, I was fairly successful in getting my information drug fix from the internet and either ignoring the stupid masses or at least not letting them negatively impact me. However, in the past decade or so, one thing after another has happened that has made it harder to keep the stupid at bay.

The financial crisis in 2008/09, the election of Barack Obama, the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Black Lives Matter and Me Too Movements, the election of Trump, and the COVID-19 pandemic have been the milkshakes that brought all the stupid to the yard. The internet, for all its wonderful potential, also created an environment where every racist, bigot, misogynist, fear-monger, hate-monger, and all-around jackass not only got their opportunity to scream their bullshit in the public square but were rewarded for doing so with confirmation via likes and/or with money.

The internet just didn’t just dummy down information, it weaponized and monetized something that should not be monetized. It didn’t/doesn’t matter how accurate the information is. The only thing that matters is can it turn a profit, can it be used to harm someone. Facebook absolutely knows it has/does allow misinformation about elections, vaccines, etc. to be spread on its platform. No matter what Zuck says in Congressional hearings, he really doesn’t care about truth and accuracy because Facebook makes a ton of money from this misinformation. Facebook, to a lesser extent, followed the FOX News model of information where the goal isn’t truth or good information. The goal is selling advertising. Facebook is a free service. Yet, Facebook is valued at $128 billion. The difference between free and $128 billion was created by pushing the idea that beliefs are as factual as knowledge. The difference between free and $128 billion was created by treating the dissemination of facts as something that can/should be democratized, consequences-be-damned.


The “democratization” of information, like political democracy, only works if the citizenry is properly educated. Thomas Jefferson was absolutely right about this.

“All beliefs are valuable and should be given equal time and weight in a public forum and may the best beliefs win,” might sound good on the surface, but in practice it is atrocious, border-lining on sociopathic. The ONLY way this view works is if everybody has a sound, working skill set where they can properly process and assess information. It is an idealistic view of humanity that is completely invalidated by humanity. Agent K in “Men In Black,” said it best-“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” Our brains are still pretty primitive in many ways. This is especially true when it comes to our Fight or Flight responses. We can be easily manipulated by fear, hatred, anger… Every propagandist knows and exploits this aspect of humanity.

This “Golden Age of The Internet,” didn’t last very long. Once the Libertarian-minded dudebros in Silicon Valley decided the “smart” and “just” thing was to “democratize” and monetize information and open up the gate-keeping of “knowledge” to any Chad, Billy Bob, and Neo-Nazi, the Golden Age of the internet was officially killed. Say what you want about the past when news and information were controlled by gatekeepers, as many potential and real issues there were with this, there were, for the most part, at least smart, experienced, dedicated people in charge. Now, any moron with access to the internet can dictate, control, and change public perception. This isn’t healthy. In fact, as we’ve seen during the last election and the pandemic, it is literally dangerous.

When what Joe Rogan or the multitude of talking heads on FOX or AM radio says about a topic, any topic gets more clicks, views, listens…than actual professionals who have spent years, sometimes decades, carefully researching their various fields, it’s a big fucking problem. People like Rogan are the kind of drug dealers who cuts their product with baby powder, bath salts, oregano…to the point, it isn’t just a crappy product but causes real harm. People like this have no problem selling bath salts as top-shelf cocaine and don’t give a damn how many people it kills because they make lots of money and they have lots of people telling them how smart they are.

Personally, I want my drug of choice to be as pure as possible. I don’t trust just anybody or get my supply from a shady character who has no qualifications. If I’m going to buy meth, it is going to be from someone like Walter White not from the guy driving a rusted-out Ford panel van, wearing mismatching shoes who can’t string two coherent sentences together or someone whose previous job was that of an unsuccessful comic.

I’m fortunate enough to have grown up when there were gatekeepers. More importantly, I learned how to properly search for, assess, and process information. My kids have never had these opportunities or really been able to learn these abilities because the entire bedrock of what constitutes information has shifted. Information is no longer presented and viewed as something that, when properly studied, is pretty solid and accepted. What passes as information now is something that basically boils down to, “I really believe it.”

Knowledge is now being equated with belief. “If I really believe X is true, then it is.” I don’t even know how to teach my kids how to view and research information the way I learned because the systems of how information is accumulated and disseminated are completely different. More importantly, the foundations of what counts as legitimate evidence and sound arguments in the public square, which wasn’t rock-solid but fairly solid, have been turned to sand. Belief has replaced knowledge as the standard as to what is true and what isn’t. We’ve entered the George Costanza era of knowledge-“It isn’t a lie if you believe it.”

All of my life, I’ve heard conservatives wail and gnash their teeth about the perils of moral relativism being pushed by the left. “If gays can get married, what’s next, people can marry their pets?” “If women are allowed to control their reproductive health, what’s next, they’ll demand men get impregnated?” “If we allow sex education in schools, what’s next, field tips to brothels?” If anything is allowed, then everything is allowed. There are no standards of morality. Of course, none of these dire outcomes have ever happened, let alone even suggested. However, when it comes to information, the right is more than happy to push relativism. This is exactly what elevating beliefs to the level of knowledge is-relativism. There are no longer standards of truth or what counts as evidence or valid arguments. There are feelings as beliefs. However, this “standard’ only applies to themselves. Their feelings and beliefs and only their feelings and beliefs are allowed the status of factual, truthful.

Of course, anyone with two functioning neurons knows there is a massive chasm between knowledge and belief. I can believe I’m the last Russian Tsar and believe it with every fiber of my being. Yet, no amount of emotional investment makes this true. All it really shows is not only I am wrong, but delusionally so. This is how it should work in a just and perfect world. This is how it sort of worked pre-internet where actual arguments and evidence mattered much more than they do now. We used to live in a world where facts mattered to some degree. We now live in a world where this is rarely true. Beliefs and feelings have replaced evidence and knowledge at the top of the Truth Pyramid.

There are many reasons why this has happened. First and foremost, is the "democratization” of information. Second, is the influence of fundamental religion in all aspects of American culture. Under any reasonable Truth Pyramid, religions can never attain the top levels because they are not founded on or maintained by facts. They exist almost entirely on the concept of faith. “Trust us, X is true because we say it is and at some point, most likely after you die, the "real truths” will be shown to you.“ Religions are not built on facts or arguments. They are built on statements that all too often, have the same merit as when I claim, "I’m the last Russian Tsar.” For a system of knowledge, based mainly on beliefs, feelings, and faith to exist and function, it can only really do so if it has some built-in mechanism that prevents actual evidence/facts from entering the system and gumming up the works.

Don’t get me wrong, all of our knowledge systems rely to some degree or another on belief and faith. How much and who/what they are tied to is the difference between people who get vaccinated during a pandemic and those who go drink their own urine to prevent being infected. It is the difference between rushing your kid to the ER when they have a fever of 105 and hoping thoughts and prayers will make it go away. It is the difference between thinking Comet Ping Pong in Washington D.C. is a mediocre pizzeria and believing it is a front for child sex trafficking. The more someone centers and relies on faith and beliefs for their knowledge, the less tethered they are to facts. The more someone trusts untrustworthy, unqualified people for their knowledge, the less tethered they are to reality.

Beliefs being treated as true have always been a problem. It has become a much bigger problem in the past few years because, thanks to the internet and the concerted efforts of Evangelical Fundamentalists, the Republican Party,  and a whole lot of justices who have been placed on the courts. These justices have started to legally legitimatize the concept of “deeply held beliefs.” If you really believe something, then how you act on it cannot/should not be prohibited. If you believe The Pill is an abortifacient, no matter how absolutely not true this is, it doesn’t matter, you can stop your business’s insurance plan from paying for contraception. If you really believe people who are gay or trans or whatever are subhuman and not entitled to basic rights, then your discrimination is legally protected.

Of course, it is only the “deeply held beliefs” of conservatives that are allowed to be elevated to the status of truth. It is apparently just fine for a “Christian” doctor to not treat someone who is gay, trans, a drug addict…because they don’t approve of their choices/lifestyles. However, the first time an atheist doctor refuses to treat someone who is an Evangelical Christian, for the very same reasons, the gates of Hell will open up and every single conservative “deeply held beliefs” defender will be screaming how outrageous, unfair, ridiculous it is that someone’s beliefs are allowed to override anything they want.

This convergence of dumbass Libertarians in Silicone Valley “democratizing” the internet and the push by evangelical fundamentalists to elevate beliefs over facts has created the Perfect Storm of Stupid. Having actual knowledge of something takes time and effort. Anyone can believe anything and it takes no effort whatsoever. I go back to something my mentor in the Philosophy Department at Utah State University said to me one night at his house while drinking gin and tonics and discussing a wide range of issues, “Being right and believing you are right are not the same thing. It is more important to be right than believe you are right. Being right takes a lot of time and effort. Believing you are right takes no time or effort, at all.” I kind of always knew and appreciated this growing up. It is the reason I felt pride in discovering a new truth or finding the answer to a puzzling question. You can’t Participation Trophy and orange slice your way to knowledge. There are no shortcuts.

This is where the cries of “elitism” come in from the peanut gallery accusing me of being arrogant and condescending. Okay. I guess that is one way of looking at it. Another way is gaining real knowledge is a skill and you don’t learn and master a skill without putting in serious time and effort. Pointing this out shouldn’t be controversial. We used to not question someone who was at the top of their field because Barbara down at the deli said they were wrong. Yes, there have always been those on the lunatic fringe who wouldn’t believe the most decorated, revered person in a particular field but they were just that-the lunatic fringe. That lunatic fringe has been mainstreamed and given a place at the adults’ table by the Libertarian internet dudebros, by conservatives, by fundamentalist Christianity because these groups know they cannot compete if the knowledge playing field is level if there are actual standards of what counts as good evidence and arguments if knowledge is treated more importantly than beliefs.

I don’t want this to come across as if I have all or even a lot of the answers, I don’t. There are certain things I know a lot about and am very confident in my knowledge about them because I’ve spent countless hours making sure I’m not wrong and if I am wrong, I’m wrong on the fringes, not core concepts. There are a bunch of other things I think are really true but if counter-evidence comes up that would make me question these beliefs, I would be very surprised but not upset. I’d adjust my belief system accordingly and move one. Then, there is a whole other set of things I really don’t have much knowledge about, and rely on people who have earned my trust to tell me what is true and what is not. Sometimes, one of these people turns out to be a scam artist or for whatever reason, sells out their previous views, mostly for money or prestige, and every belief tied to them needs to be reevaluated. The entire point of science/knowledge is to make the best decisions based on the information you have and if new information comes along that either better explains something or completely overthrows what you previously thought was true, you go with it because that is how it works.

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
―Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

There are two sides to every argument/debate is true but not really useful, especially when it comes to evaluating truth. In most cases, this is used to elevate beliefs to facts and blur the line between fact and fiction. It is one of the go-to moves used by propagandists.

What’s the point of all of this? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. Like too many important things, I understand the problem, can explain it in great detail, make interesting connections and analogies about it but when push comes to shove, I have no idea how to solve it. Not because there aren’t solutions but because the solutions rest on a more educated society. Without this, every real solution seems to be nothing more than hypothetical wishing. However, even without tangible solutions, I feel not trying is unforgivable. Searching out, finding, and advocating for truth are things that should always be primary concerns and goals.

I’m not going to lie to you, this isn’t easy. It takes a lot of work and mindfulness. And, the more things you want to really understand, the more work it takes. I understand why a lot of people, at some point, become content with the “knowledge” they have and basically shut down the learning and critical analysis functions of their brains. This doesn’t make what they do right, just understandable. I also understand why people who put knowledge at the forefront of their priorities become disenchanted and despondent by the overwhelming amount and veracity of bullshit that is passed off as “facts.” Oh, boy do I relate to this. I’ve always related to this. As a kid, I was always complaining to my mother about how unbelievably stupid a whole lot of people seemed to be. Not just stupid, but arrogantly and defiantly so. She would sympathize and empathize with me, pat me on the head and say, “There are a lot more of them than there are of you so you need to learn how to pick your battles and stop fighting against every injustice, every stupidity. Otherwise, you’ll always be angry and exhausted.” Another way of putting it is from “The Wire,”- “There you go, giving a fuck when it ain’t your time to give a fuck.”.

Obviously, I’ve never really learned this lesson. I want to. I’ve tried to. But, I’ve never learned how to turn it off. To turn it off, I feel I have to be apathetic to it all and I can’t do that. At least, I haven’t figured out how to do it. I think part of the reason why I find this so difficult is trying to figure out what counts as a “good fight” and what doesn’t. Aren’t truths to be told and defended all the time? Shouldn’t misinformation and lies always be corrected, regardless of where/who they come from? To paraphrase a famous quote-“The only thing necessary for the triumph of stupid is for smart people to do nothing.”  Basically, I don’t know how to not give a fuck. I still believe it is important to have standards for knowledge, evidence, arguments, facts… The problem I am having is how to continue to care about this in any meaningful way, when so many people don’t give a damn about any of this

I guess all of this is nothing more than putting my frustrations in writing. I’m worn down. I feel like the masses of stupidity have overwhelmed me like zombies in World War Z and no matter what I do, my brain is going to be eaten by a horde of idiots with a side of ketchup, mayo, and ranch, then washed down with a room-temperature Coors Light. If this is what eventually happens, so be it but I won’t be going gently into that that good night. They’ll have to pry my copy of “Logic and Philosophy,” by Howard Kahane from my cold, dead hand.


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