I and my Lovely First Wife are at Grand Canyon for the week. This afternoon we will motor into Tusayan, the little village right outside the south gate to the park, for a quintessentially American 4th of July parade, the kind you can only get in a village of a couple hundred people. There will be a about a dozen kids with their decorated bicycles, couple of floats, and an ambulance, and horseback riders, and of course Smoky the Bear, and it will be glorious.

(They also have a kick-ass party afterwards, culminating this year in a drone show!)

As we’ve explored the now-familiar haunts — this is our fifth trip to the Canyon — we have as usual enjoyed all the people watching, and I have some thoughts. We see, in no particular order, …

• young families corralling their rambunctious offspring, coaxing the toddlers back into their strollers
• Harley-Davidson types, bushy white beards + branded t-shirts + big bellies
• tattooed, nose-ringed young persons, smiling as they serve you breakfast
• a not-small Hispanic family, women with children, “illegally” “camping” in a rented RV in the parking lot
• a busload’s worth of teenage girls, all uniformly dressed in their religious sect’s idea of modest clothing, chittering like a flock of magpies like teenage girls do, later praying at the rim, davening over their prayer books
• completely Caucasian families from the Midwest, slowly turning pink in the southwestern sun
• the taut, fit hikers, tall and sleek
• sullen, disaffected teenagers, immune to the awe of their surroundings, glued to their phones
• Native-American silversmiths and artists selling their crafts
• a Pakistani businessman conducting his business, loudly, on his phone
• dyed-in-the-wool southwestern cowboy/farmer types, knives + phones + tools strapped to their belts
• the older gay couple, pushing their elderly chihuahua in its stroller
• the young man, Tongan perhaps, with a glorious crown of thick curls, excited to show his African-American girlfriend her first view of the Canyon
• the middle-European college students, here on J-1 visas, working for the summer at the lodges and restaurants
• the elderly couples able to travel at leisure, even if they won’t be hiking the Bright Angel rim-to-rim trail (which is closed for repairs on the north end in any case and that’s our excuse)
• the aging hippie in his Utilikilt and his tolerant Lovely First Wife
• the developmentally challenged adult who, perhaps astonished at my kilt, impulsively told me “hello” (and whom I greeted in return, but now wish I had stopped in my trek to chat with him)
• mixed-race families, showing in the best possible way that “race” is a spurious concept
• pretty young Asians, doggedly fashionable even as the general American public dresses down
• burly, bald, bearded guys, intently helping their little girls select their Grand Canyon t-shirts in the gift shops
• bus drivers, from crusty retirees with their dad jokes to young Micah giving off  “Chris in the Morning” (from Northern Exposure) vibes (we half expected him to launch into a trademark “As Kierkegaard mused…” meditation as we approached the next stop)
• the constant ear-soup of accents and languages from around the world, people who have traveled to our country to see this unique wonder
• even the middle-aged lady wearing a Trump 2020 t-shirt, to whom I wanted to say, “Isn’t this amazing? I’m so glad we got to see it before the corporations tear it up looking for uranium, aren’t you?” [viz: the recent Supreme Court decision reversing the Chevron ruling]

My point — and I do have one — is that this is what the United States is and should be, and to those who would turn WE THE PEOPLE into a crabbed, restrictive shibboleth embodying violence and exclusion, I’d just like to say: FUPP YOUR FOURTH, you Christofascist, racist, nationalist thugs.

This popped up on an associate’s feed^[1] on the FaceTubes today:

I don’t have many rightwing nutjobs on my feed these days; I suspect they’ve weeded themselves out because of my relentlessly liberal posting of facts (which have a liberal bias, alas). It’s always a bit of a shock, therefore, when I see stuff like this.

This particular blob is of the sneering-at-POLITICALLY CORRECT/WOKE variety, and it’s a particularly stupid one. Let’s see if we can follow its logic.

• Bald people don’t need to use shampoo.
• People with hair do need to use shampoo.
• Bald people are offended if people who do need to use shampoo, use shampoo.
• THEREFORE, KENNETH, THE WOKE CROWD WILL cAnCeL SHAMPOO, KENNETH!

::sigh::

This is what passes for snark on the other side of the aisle.

(I am also perturbed by “At the rate we’re going” and “they’re,” implying that the whole PC/woke thing is an organized conspiracy against the Righteous, but we’ll let that pass for now.)

The problem with this blob is not its logical shambles. The problem is that the speaker/poster chooses to embrace the fact that it is not kind, it is not generous, it is not — dare I say — Christian to use terminology that demeans a marginalized person. It’s essentially a really dumb way to say, “We can’t even say n****r or f****t any more!” They’re mean, and they mean it, and they’re genuinely angry that the rest of us think they’re shitheads just because they’re mean to people.

I felt like replying with something like:

At least my snark punches up, even if it’s no more true than my “associate’s” snark.

—————

^[1] I can’t bring myself to refer to these people as “friends.”

Here’s a story I didn’t expect to see:

Biden-Harris Administration Announces $7 Billion Solar for All Grants to Deliver Residential Solar, Saving Low-Income Americans $350 Million Annually and Advancing Environmental Justice Across America

We can now expect to see Republicans melting down over what is clearly an unmitigated good not only for the low-income citizens it affects directly but also for the nation (and the planet) as a whole.

And why would they go all splodey with fake rage over this? For the same reason they always go splodey with rage when a Democratic administration does anything that benefits average Americans: “THEY’RE JUST DOING IT TO BUY VOTES!!!!”

So, Republicans, let me see if I’ve got this straight. If the government does something that benefits the average citizen, and said average citizen thinks, “Hey, you know what, this is a good thing, I think I’ll vote for these guys” — as opposed to the government doing things like banning water or rest breaks in the summer heat for outdoor workers or lowering tax rates on the richest people at the expense of the poorest or driving OB/GYNs from the state because of vague laws criminalizing healthcare, or… — then that’s “buying votes.” Got it.

Have you guys ever thought about doing that, just going with policies and laws that protect and enhance the lives of most of us rather than the corporations and the ultra-rich who are currently — quite frankly — buying your votes?

I guess not. Carry on.

See you at the polls.

update: More of the same at Wonkette.

I was all geared up to deconstruct the vicious rhetorical fuppery used by the appallingly incompetent Katie Britt, an actual Senator from Alabama, in her official GOP response to President Biden’s State of the Union address last week, but Gary Legum did a great job over at the inestimable Wonkette, so I’m going to take a different tack.

For those who are not going to click over to Wonkette, Legum’s analysis of Britt’s Big Lie about the 12-year-old girl who was sex-trafficked is spot on: what Britt did was a) mention Biden, b) tell horrific story [that had nothing to do with Biden or his administration], c) punctuate the story by mentioning Biden again, thus tying him in the listener’s mind to this woman’s sex trafficking nightmare.

This is not an anomaly. It is the go-to rhetorical structure for almost all of right-wing discourse, as I’ve covered before here and here. That was brought home to me yesterday when yet another Imprimis^[1] from Hillsdale College arrived in my mailbox. For those who are unaware, Hillsdale is a rightwing cesspit, dedicated to keeping the amygdala-based lifeforms fed with fear and anger.

These things come every now and then, addressed to my late mother. I don’t disabuse them of their mistake, because it’s costing them money to mail this thing to someone who skims the main essay, snorts, then throws the thing in the trash (disregarding the mail-in ‘give us your money’ envelope as part of the process), and I’m on board with that. Vive le résistance.

Because I’m in that kind of mood, I red-penciled the thing and flunked Todd Bensman. Let’s see what I found.

First of all, the thing is loaded with panic words, disgust words, and weasel words. Keep those categories in mind.

It is chock full of post hoc, propter hoc fallacies, i.e., putting factoid after another and allowing the reader to infer that the first is the cause of the second.

Finally, the rhetorical trick of elision is a constant issue.

The whole thing is a vector of ooga booga, designed to inject panic and fear directly into the veins of the reader. Check out the front page there: beyond imagining, tsunami, unfathomable, smashed every record, stair-stepping fashion. The rest of the pamphlet sustains that with phrases like public outrage, some may commit acts of terrorism, and the like. Its whole purpose is stir outrage.

To make it easier on both of us, let’s go with bullet points. I’ll quote the essay, then explain the issue with it.

• “Of the over 7.6 million illegals encountered by the Border Patrol since 2021…” First of all, illegals is a disgust word, a trigger for the amygdala-based lifeforms. Elision: What, exactly, constitutes an “encounter”? Is it an arrest? What? Also, since 2021: that was three years ago. I know, they’re trying to pin it on the Biden administration. I should note here that there are no footnotes, no references, no sources cited.
• “But with the percentage of those allowed to stay now approaching 100 percent, if current trends hold, the total allowed to remain in the U.S. under the Biden administration will reach ten million by next January.” Weasel words: “approaching” and “if the current trends hold.” This is their get-out-of-lying-free card.
• At no point does the estimable Todd Bensman dare to explain why so many people are desperate to come to the U.S., probably because the U.S. helped cause the conditions in their homeland that makes them want to get the hell out of there. And you think he’s ever going to acknowledge climate-change as a cause, either now or in the future? Pfft.
• He does ask “Who are these people?” at one point, but then just gives numbers, not details about who they actually are. Todd Bensman does not give a fupp about the humans whose lives he is so cavalier about.
• “More than 330 as of November 2023 are on the FBI’s terrorist watch list.” Did you catch that? Elision: as of — in other words, in total, ever. Mr. Bensman wants you to think that at least 330 terrorists are admitted to the U.S. every year, when in fact that number is a total number (since when, he does not say) — and clearly, the total number of people on the terrorist watch list who were caught, not admitted.
• “Many are murderers, rapists, kidnappers, and violent criminals.” Weasel words: “many.” How many, Todd? Are these the ones who are allowed into the country? How do you know?
• “More than a million have been lawfully ordered deported by judges in the U.S. but remain in our country regardless.” Elision: Possibly because of due process? Also a bit of panic: “regardless” — THEY’RE STILL HERE, KENNETH!
• “Never before have the Border Patrol’s 19,000 agents been ordered to abandon vast stretches of the border to conduct administrative intake duty. Elision: “administrative intake duty” = what the rest of us call “legal immigration process.” Also, Todd, check with your congressional team to see how they voted on the recent immigration bill, which would have increased funding for border security, exactly like you’ve been screaming for. Panic: “never before”!!!!!1!! KENNETH!
• “And never has there been anything like the current conveyor-belt policy to distribute millions of illegals through the American interior.” Panic words: OMG, KENNETH, NOT THE AMERICAN INTERIOR!!!!1! (It’s also a lie.)
• “One can only assume that the reason for this is partisan bias…” Weasel words: Any time you see the words “assume” or “probably” or “may,” the writer is going for plausible deniability of an untruth.
• “It is probably not coincidental that hospital systems across the nation have fallen deep into the red since the great mass migration crisis began.” Yeah, it’s probably those filthy illegals who did that, not the red states’ refusal to expand Medicaid in their domains. And it couldn’t possibly be the grotesque for-profit healthcare system we continue to inflict on ourselves. It has to be the immigrants, right? Also, panic words: “great mass migration crisis.”
• “…to care for the hundreds of thousands showing up with hands out.” Disgust words: “hands out,” because those filthy illegals are only coming here for the freebies, right?
• “Some percentage will commit crimes…” Weasel words: “Some percentage.” What percentage, Todd? At this point in time, data shows that the crime rate for non-citizens in this country, “illegal” or not, is far below the crime rate of actual citizens. (See Alabama, to pick one state at almost random.)
• “One prays not, but some may also commit acts of terrorism.” Panic words: Honey, please.
• “…this great influx will increase joblessness and put immense downward pressure on wages for American workers.” We now await Mr. Bensman’s call to rigorously prosecute companies that illegally hire undocumented workers at less than minimum wage, resulting in stiff criminal and financial penalties.
• In a paragraph about determining whether a political action will increase or decrease the chances of immigrants taking the risk to try to come here, we get “… in the ongoing standoff in Texas, placing razor wire at the border as the Texas Governor ordered done will clearly decrease the odds…” Since this is a family blog, I cannot transcribe what I scrawled over that, but suffice it to say that this one sentence encapsulates the rightwing’s attitude towards the lives of the less fortunate, and my reaction was righteous if obscene.
• Finally, he lists five steps that we could take to reduce all this illegal immigration. None of them do anything to fund and improve the immigration process itself, but rather are all punitive and destructive, i.e., rightwing values.
• He concludes with “Too many of our elected leaders have selfish reasons to let the border crisis continue…” Panic words: “selfish reasons” — If, as Todd is bluntly stating, we are faced with a tsunami of immigrants, most of whom are terrorists and rapists, what “reasons” could any politician have for wanting this to continue?? This is just a dog whistle to those who want to believe in conspiracy theories among the powerful.

That was a lot, and I haven’t begun to do any kind of deep dive on the actual problems with our immigration policy, which are many, and this post is already too long. I will just say that a major solution to the problem is to go big on actual immigration: make it clear, make it easy, make it fair. You want to keep terrorists and rapists out? Great! Show me how you would do that without just shutting the door and stringing razor wire across our back yard.

Here’s the deal: If the rightwing — Katie Britt, Todd Bensman, et al. — could construct a rigorously logical argument to support their ideas, they would. But they can’t. All they can do is scare the amygdala-based lifeforms into supporting their agenda with rhetorical fuppery. Stay alert and count the silver.

—————

^[1] Imprimis translates from the Latin as “first of all,” which is what rightwingers see their rightful place in society as.

I’ve been reading back through this blog, specifically my Liberal Rants, and 1) I write good; and b) it’s probably time for me to pick up my sword and once again do regular battle with the unfortunates who swarm our public discourse with their petrified, yappy-dog lack of understanding of the realities of life.

In checking my spam filter this morning, I was intrigued by this subject heading:

Elon Musk TERRIFIES Church Leaders!

PROOF INSIDE!

THE FINAL COLLAPSE, KENNETH!!!

What the hell are we talking about here?

The spam filter on this blog’s server out in California has an excellent option where I can go peek under the hood, so to speak, of an email without having to invite it into my inbox. What did I find under this particular hood?

Mercy. This is all so vague that I’m not at all sure what I’m supposed to be terrified about. Sure, AI is from hell and is going to drag us all back to the netherworld when it goes home, we all know that. But I have not seen any news or social media suggesting that it might target Xtians in some specific way.

Needless to say, I did not click on those links to the “short independent documentary,” even though it seems clear that The Great International Conspiracy to Be Evil is going to “take it down”… PERMANENTLY! So I guess we’ll never know just how dark and sinister this threat is until it engulfs us all, presumably starting with the Xtians.

Okay, so we can laugh at this feeble crap, but here’s the deal: the target audience for this is exactly this fearful. A lot of my other spam these days is from rightwing cesspools like BuildingOurMovement — and those emails are deliberate cluster-bombs of fear-inducing buzzwords to get the amygdala-based lifeforms riled up against, well, YOU KNOW.

Yes, you do know what they are getting riled up against: things they don’t understand and have no experience with — minorities, LGBQTIA, vaccines, SOCIALAMISM KENNETH — and they go and vote for the Big Strong Daddy who can SAVE THEM and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. The fact that they are voting for people who will let the rich and the corporations do whatever the fupp they want while the amygdala-based lifeforms find themselves without healthcare, pensions, roads, schools, or jobs — that never filters back to their brains.

I do not have a solution for any of this. Once an amygdala-based lifeform is duped, they cannot be unduped. All we can do is gently point out to them that crime is actually at its lowest in decades, immigration reform is possible, taxing the rich is necessary and good, gay people are just people, and this great nation of ours is the only industrialized nation without universal healthcare.

Light a candle for me as the election continues to ramp up and I will be forced — forced, I tell you — to write more Liberal Rants as the fascists continue slouching towards Bethlehem.

Today in 1659, Massachusetts Bay Colony executed two Quakers. For being Quaker.

Let that sink in.

This is the framework for those who screech that the United States was FOUNDED AS A CHRISTIAN NATION, KENNETH: The Puritans were not seeking religious liberty when they came to this continent — they were seeking a place where they could establish their own theocratic state. They had no intention of allowing anyone else to exist who did not follow their restrictive, mean-spirited dogma.

And this is what those who screech that the United States was FOUNDED AS A CHRISTIAN NATION, KENNETH actually want. They want to be able to tell everyone how to believe, how to live, how to exist. And they mean to expunge anyone who doesn’t believe as they do.

When I was a wee child, it was drummed into my head that Baptists had their beginning in revolting against this theocracy. Roger Williams established Providence Plantations (now Rhode Island) as a haven for actual religious freedom, allowing all faiths to operate freely. We Baptists didn’t want to be allied with the government, because we had seen the evil that came from that arrangement. “Be not of this world” etc etc. (It was also drummed into me that the First Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the establishment of a state religion because we didn’t want a situation like the Church of England — but I’m thinking it was just as much in response to the Puritans as the Anglicans.)

Baptists now? Not so much. Separation of church and state? BuT wE wErE fOuNdEd As A cHrIsTiAn NaTiOn, KENNETH!

Do not vote for these people, neither for Speaker of the House or for any other office.

I just finished reading James Shapiro’s The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, and I highly recommend it, especially if you are like me a huge fan of Lear.

A passage near the end jumped out at me:

[discussing the declining fortunes of the boy companies of London at the time] Another and now nearly fatal blow to [the Children of the Revels’] fortune came in November 1606, when they were ordered to stop recruiting boy players from among the ranks of child choristers, since “it was not fit or decent that such as should sing the praises of God Almighty should be trained up or employed in such lascivious or profane exercises.”

Well.

Here are some modern day choristers of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, the same group that fed into the theatre company Paul’s Boys back in the day.

Who could possibly want to train up or employ these precious innocents in lascivious or profane exercises? Everyone’s moral alarms should be blaring CODE RED at such an idea.

Why, it’s outrageous — it’s disgusting — it’s… GROOMING, KENNETH!

Dale, I hear you ask, are you claiming that today’s handwringers and Moms for “Liberty” and rightwing screechers are pulling the same stunt as the god-bothering Puritans from 400 years ago?

Yes, yes I am.

That is a link to coverage of the high school in Fort Wayne, IN, that had its production of Maid Marian canceled because the god-bothering Puritans of that fair city objected to its LGBQT characters. LASCIVIOUS AND PROFANE, KENNETH! (The kids are all right: They rallied support and $84,000 to put on the play independently. The house was packed.)

I get it. The god-botherers have sincere religiousy beliefs about what is LASCIVIOUS AND PROFANE, KENNETH,^[1] and they are determined that the rest of us are not going to celebrate Christmas be anything but righteous, upstanding Puritans ourselves. Because otherwise… well, I’m not sure what they think is going to happen, other than that great fear of Puritans everywhere, that someone, somewhere, might be happy.

At any rate, they’re still wrong.

Happy Pride Month!

—————

^[1] I do not include the scum and villainy now known as the Republican Party as having sincere religiousy beliefs. Those people do not believe in anything except using divisive topics to scare the amygdala-based lifeforms into voting them into power.

Here, have a stupid: Bill Would Ban the Teaching of Scientific Theories in Montana Schools

You should go read the article — it’s not long — but you can probably guess what it says without clicking through. Some idiot in the Montana legislature has taken it into his head that we should not be infecting our children with mere theories about how the universe works.

No, insists our Big Sky State Gradgrind, away with these so-called theories; what we want is facts.

::sigh::

It’s pretty clear from the article that this nonsense isn’t going to make it out of committee, much less pass on the floor — opposition from teachers and students has been fierce, and I have to think that there are saner heads in charge. (I know, but let me have this fantasy.)

The sponsor of this bill is one Daniel Emrich:

He just got elected last November, and that is basically all that I can find about him on the intertubes. His campaign (barely) had a Facebook page last year, and it’s about as gooberish as you might think. I find it very weird that there’s nothing anywhere about his background, education, experience, or even just his marital status. It’s almost as if he’s trying to evade detection or something.

So it’s no surprise that this person is under the impression that a mere theory in science is just, you know, like, your opinion, man, and ought not to be taught in the Montanan schools as if it were anything close to being true. You know, like the theory of gravity or cell theory or germ theory. All just wild guesses.

From the article: “If we operate on the assumption that a theory is fact, unfortunately, it leads us to asking questions that may be potentially based on false assumptions,” Emrich said.

My wild guess is that Emrich is a christofascist who is by G-d going to make sure that the boys and girls in his state are not led away from the One True Biblical Truthiness by these radical liberal teachers who think that “asking questions” is a good thing. Why, it’s practically grooming!

Jebus, what an idiot. There is no common ground with this ilk. Their blinkered worldview will never allow them to see beyond the walls they’ve constructed around themselves, whether it’s scientific theories or LGBQT issues or social justice or universal healthcare or even the homeless in their community. They fear the world — they’ve been taught to fear the world — and their amygdala-based lifeform brains thrive on that fear.

Just the facts, ma’am.