So, I’ve had an interesting experience this week with a conservative insane website. Oh, thanks tumblr, how did you know I needed a strikethrough button??

Anyways. My mom asked me to read some “reasonable” articles by “reasonable” people who “make sense” at americanthinker.com (WARNING: MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR SANITY, SMALL OBJECTS NEARBY, AND PEOPLE WHOSE HEADS GET IN THE WAY OF SAID OBJECTS). First she sent me the one entitled “Obama’s Karmic Freight Train”, to which I responded (as nicely as possible) as the last poster “Pondering”. 

Then I started reading random articles from their front page. On reading the Sept 3 article on Global Warming, I couldn’t resist a quick quip at one of the commenters saying “hey, let’s dial back the Nazi rhetoric a few thousand notches shall we?” but somehow my post never posted. I couldn’t remember my internet suddenly going out for the few milliseconds in between when I started and finished clicking “Post” so I posted a protest at the moderator for censoring me. Then I made some other quick posts about my critical observations of the article and of what the other posters were saying. 

Just now, I tried to post that the author of the Sept 5 article on Dr. Emanuel is ignorant and doesn’t seem to understand what the field of bioethics is for. Somehow, that post never shows up either… so I figure, maybe if I join and sign in I can post more easily. 

Turns out the moderators blocked me (or at least my IP address) for good. 

Oh well… at least I have visual proof for my mom that I am being censored by her favorite publication for offering critical thoughts. Apparently you’re only allowed to comment on this site if you’re praising the author or calling Democrats names. 

squashed:

Robot-Heart Politics writes about her mother’s experience regarding Obama’s upcoming speech on education. I am very hesitant to attribute extreme or unpleasant reactions to racism—but I honestly can’t think of better explanation for this absurdity. If you think I’m wrong, please shoot me an email and explain what’s going on.

My mom is a principal at an elementary school in a small town in Texas. Since the announcement about the speech, she’s had some…interesting things happen. For one, she received a forward from someone out at the army depot (a major employer where I grew up), which basically called Obama a socialist, a communist, a fascist, Hitler, Mussolini, and pretty much everything in between. My mom called it “vile,” and then made the obversation—and this is completely unlike my mother to say something like this—“What this is really about is race. That’s all there is to it.”

I think economics is part of the problem.

Unfortunately, my parents have recently been deep in the crazy camp. They have always been staunch Reagan Republicans, my dad is a Veteran, my mom works at a middle school. Neither goes to a church. My dad is agnostic, while my mom is roughly “protestant” but doesn’t seem to mind that I’m an atheist. Growing up, I always thought they were very reasonable people. I can’t remember even one instance from my childhood that would lead me to believe they were racists, or one instance where they did not express deep sympathy and respect for other religions. Politics is another story. 

During the Clinton years, I can remember my parents’ outspoken disdain for President Clinton. He was a slimeball. What kind of person could go on TV and shake their finger at us, declaring “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” to the American public? The man had no character. It didn’t matter what he did in his job, they just couldn’t stand the guy.

The Bush years and the 9/11 attacks brought a shift in tone - suddenly my mom revered the office of the Presidency. She would speak cheerfully about President Bush, “I like him! He’s a nice guy!” Much better than that snob, Al Gore, who tried to “tear the country apart” by running against George Bush. My mom would occasionally listen to Rush Limbaugh on her lunch break. After the terrorist attacks and for the rest of Bush’s terms in office she would say things like “we have to get behind the president!” I remember my parents’ disdain for Hans Blix when it looked like he wouldn’t find WMDs in Iraq. President Bush says they are there! This guy is not looking hard enough. He’s a stupid European elitist. He has no idea what he’s doing! 

I wasn’t around my parents much in 2008, so I haven’t really got a good idea of what happened leading up to the Election. But I can tell you that they were shocked I had voted for Obama - how could I? He’s a socialist! Now they both listen to Rush Limbaugh every day. They always watch Fox News. When I visited recently, my mother said, with much emotional stress in her voice, that “things are happening to this country that I never thought I would see….” My father, who hates protestors, is talking about making a cross-country trip to Washington to protest. I told my mom I think Rush Limbaugh is an evil demagogue, the most evil one I have ever heard, and she responded “well, that’s what I think of this president.” My dad truly believes the president is collecting all their information and using the internet to spy on all us good Americans.

I would like to think that this is what happens when a power vacuum leaves Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Glen Beck in charge of the Republican party, combined with my parents’ prolonged economic stress. They probably feel powerless, and politics is an outlet for them to vent their frustrations about life. So unless “Democrat” is a race, my parents aren’t racists. They’re just religiously Republican. 

Whether the propensity to believe everything they hear from Rush Limbaugh comes from some deep, unintentional racism on their part, or whether it’s because they are so distressed by an economy that has completely failed them, I can’t say for sure. They will deny that they’re racist in any way until the day they die… but it does look mighty suspicious. I can’t imagine them being so hysterical about a “socialist” President Joe Biden. Maybe if the president was anyone else they would still direct their anger at China/Iran/North Korea. Obama’s “otherness” makes him an easy target. I don’t think they would care so much about what’s going on in Washington if they felt they were self-sufficient, if my dad had a job to occupy most of his time, if my mom felt she had a stable home base to build on and wasn’t spending all her time and effort on making sure things don’t fall apart. They seem to think evil forces are attacking them.