Ideas on how to talk back

-- by Dave

So the other day I was musing about the Dog the Bounty Hunter video tape and I observed:

Here's one thing about being a white guy: You hear a lot of "private" talk from other white guys who assume you're on the same side of the fence as they are and feel free to start spewing, especially when they've had a few drinks, or they're (ahem) "angry," and this is the kind of shit they spew.

Unfortunately, the only thing I ever seem capable of expressing to them is my utter bafflement why they think I would ever be on their side.

After this sparked some discussion in the comments thread, I went on to add:

I said this, of course, as an acknowledgement that this kind of response really is inadequate. It doesn't come close to conveying the depth of my feelings about this kind of talk and what it reveals. In my youth, of course, I was much more likely to get up on my higher moral ground and lay into someone, but I also found that did more harm than good. So my default response now is milder and more hopeful of keeping the conversation going, but, I think, too tepid. Besides, this is usually the point when conversation becomes fruitless.

So I asked for some suggestion from others who've experienced something similar to talk about how they've handled it. It made for a very lively comments thread, including the somewhat predictable appearance of one of our regular racist trolls (pretending to be a damsel in distress). Aside from that, it made for some great commentary.

I've culled what I thought were some of the best responses and am posting them here. Please feel free to chime in here, of course, and I'll again post some of the best commentary.

See also the onrunning discussion at Slacktivist.


LongHairedWeirdo:

Well... one thing I think helps is to establish the difference between an outraged, angry "that's not funny!" and a puzzled, troubled, "uh... that's not funny...".

I've seen a few rightwingers who, when the stupidity or nastiness of their position is revealed, fall back on the tired, old "it was a *joke*" defense.

One of those times was Glenn Greenwald questioning someone who had called one of the SCOTUS judges the biggest "nancy boy" (I think that was the term), and the response was "It. Was. A. Joke."

Well, it wasn't funny. I mean, what, are the words "nancy boy" so ridiculous and fun to say that you could laugh, like "whoop-de-doodle-doo!" Well, no. Was it directed at a big, rough, tough, ceegar-chompin' brute, who always called less "manly men" disparaging things like "nancy boys" so it was funny by contraries and irony? No.

It was an attack, plain and simple. It wasn't a joke, it wasn't intended to be laughter producing. Even if one could argue that it was deserved, it was not a joke.

And it should earn a person some mild contempt... if you've got a bug up your butt, say you've got a bug up your butt. Don't claim you're just trying to keep the bug warm for winter.

If you're going to attack, stand your ground and be proud; if you can't, maybe the attacking behavior is something you shouldn't be proud of, you know?

Anyway... I think one part of a comeback is to steal the cover of "it's just a joke!" when it clearly isn't.

Major Woody:

This wouldn't work in every context, probably, but once I got into a game of pool in a bar with one of the other patrons, who I had never seen before. He started ranting about "The Jews", how they were greedy, owned everything, you know the drill.

After a couple of minutes, he realized I wasn't really responding, and said, "You're not Jewish, are you?" to which I replied, "Actually, I am."

Well, his jaw dropped, and he started literally stammering, saying that he didn't mean anything, and he was only joking. I said, "That's OK, I was joking too, I'm not Jewish," at which point he became angry and called me an asshole. If I'd really been thinking, I could have just dropped the old schoolyard jibe "it takes one to know one," but I missed that opportunity.

odanu:

I have had to deal with openly racist in-laws throughout my marriage (goodness knows how my husband survived his childhood, but I'm glad he did). After the umpteenth spew of racial slurs at a family gathering, I informed my husband that the next time it happened I would gather our sons and he had five minutes to join me in the car or he was walking home.

After doing this the in-laws got the hint and at least I don't have to hear it as often any more. My oldest son, whose grandfather is full-blood Cherokee, once amused himself at his step-grandmother's expense by pointing out after a rant about "dirty, long-haired, drunk unemployed Indians" that his grandfather had always to his knowledge had short hair, he's not been unemployed in forty years, he doesn't drink, and he both swims and bathes every day. Amazingly, she didn't get the hint. Son gave "the signal", and we all left.

lilorphant:

Racism...if I reflect long and hard enough, shapes so much of our culture, at least in my view of it. Even when you think you are "white enough", it can pop up unexpectedly. So my red hair and freckles give away the Irish in me, and I remember dating back in the day, in the late 80's and the father of one guy made a comment that i had "farmer's hands" and wasn't I Irish? Another guy's dad made a similar comment, and we dated a bit on the sly. Fast forward, twenty G-D years, and when I married my current husband and was pregnant with our first child, my Father-in-law (Dutch-American) lamented the children would look Irish. For the first couple years he mentioned how blond they were, and cute. UGH!!!

My adopted stepmom is Italian-American and her mother told me stories about how she quit school in sixth grade because of the merciless taunts that she was a "wop". My (step)mother has spent her entire life self-conscious of her dark Italian features, and my sister, going to a private high school in Philly was too white for the Italian cliques, and too dark for the white girls.

My Dad's side of the family is all from Mississippi. This brings us into contact with all manner of talk, it is sad, really, it goes too deep for words. Some people are good, and that is where you have to go for positive nourishment of anti-racist development. Forget about saying things in social circles, but there can be some headway.

There is a certain Japanese Restaraunt along the Coast that I had heard rumored not to serve blacks. One night, we happened to take our family there, and while we were waited on i notice a couple black women come in and wait to be seeted, which took a while, but I chalked it up to a busy night. Once they were seated, no one came to get their drink order, no one came to take their order at all. Although other patrons came and were seated and their orders taken. When our appetizers came, i mentioned to the waitress that the ladies had been waiting a while, and she barely nodded. Still no one came to get their order. When she came again I mentioned it again and asked her not to bring my dinner until they had been taken care of. They still sent no one and brought our tables dinners. At that point, in a loud voice, I said I am not eating this here, I don't want it if you cannot serve those ladies who have been waiting forty minutes to be waited on.

The women at the table watched all this and got up and went to ask for management, they smiled at me as they went, and tried to sort it out, but they knew darn well what was going on, I knew it, and my family was patient, however a bit uncomfortable about the situation. All in all they know how I feal about the situation.

I was born here, I didn't come back just to see the same old South that can't get it's head out of it's ass long enough to see that all their racist tendencies and impulses keeps us all in poverty of mind and spirit, not to mention in body, and I damn well can't stand that a Japanese family first generation who wasn't here for slavery, wasn't here for Jim Crow, and all that can co-opt all that racist shit just to make brownie points in Biloxi Mississippi.

themann1086:

I find that the puzzled, troubled "that's not funny", coupled with an eye-roll and an exasperated sigh, works wonders. Your mileage may vary.

prunes:

I straight laugh at people, call them "Strom Thurmond" and "David Duke", tell them to go down to city hall and have a fruity-ass white pride parade in front until they feel good enough about themselves to not spout 150-year old stereotypes.

This kind of thing makes regular people pretty uncomfortable, but fuck 'em! I'm not gonna let their backwards-ass 1903 attitudes make me or any of my friends uncomfortable!

Candy:

I had a friend I'd know for many years, who became wingnuticized after 9/11 and began sending me all these racist jokes and emails, usually targeting Muslims but also hitting Mexicans pretty hard, which was really stupid, as my partner is Latino as she well knew.

I originally just deleted these things and went on about my life. I must note here that she and her husband had done me many favors and helped me out a lot when I was a struggling single parent, and I owed them some debt of gratitude. So I tried to condition her not to send me this stuff. When she sent me an actual funny non-racist email, I would respond with an email saying "That was funny!" or something along those lines. I would reply to egregious false emails by pointing out the obvious problems with them, politely but firmly. This didn't work. Finally I sent her an email saying, "Please don't send me racist, bigoted emails." She responded by saying, you guessed it, "Didn't mean to offend. Sorry, just a joke." Not two weeks later she sent me another. I blocked her email address, and haven't spoken to her since.

Often the problem with dealing with this sort of thing with friends and family is that they've done good things for you. They've been there through dark times. It's easier to get tough with people who, as my mom used to say, "Ain't buying your beer." You have to take a stand, of course, otherwise it's hard to live with yourself. Still and all, it isn't easy. I don't know that there is a good way to do it. It's better to change hearts and minds than to simply ban people from your life, but sometimes you just can't reach them. It's sad. I have no close family and alienating people who in every other way have been good friends is not a decision to be taken lightly.

Dr. Loveless:

We do need to come up with the right way to parry "It was a joke." If it is, they've got a juvenile sense of humor, and need to grow up. Because, as it is, they're not acceptable in adult company.

I once had the presence of mind to say, "So is 'pull my finger,' but that stopped being funny when I was 12."

The "only joking" gambit is a hard one to parry, for several reasons. First, it immediately puts you in the defensive position of being "too politically correct" or "not having a sense of humor." Second, attempts at rebuttal too often devolve into nitpicking metadiscussions about what constitutes humor. Third, and last, sometimes people really are only joking, and folks who live and breathe progressive activism sometimes do have trouble finding their funnybones. (As an example, I personally found Al Franken much funnier before he became so deeply political.)

That third point has burned me on many an occasion, actually. I admit to having a sense of humor that is often warped and tasteless to many; however, if someone takes serious offense at something I've said, I do make an effort to re-examine it and make apologies if necessary. Nobody's perfect.

So ultimately, maybe the best way to combat the "only joking" meme is to keep our own comedic skills fine-tuned and using them proudly. My acquaintances all know that I enjoy making people laugh, so none of them would ever try to cover up their own bigotry by telling me it was only a joke. They know that shit won't fly.

BCBuddy:

I found that a simple "I'm really surprised that you would say something like that." worked wonders for my boss who loved a good racist "joke". Might have been why he didn't give me my raises as promised, but that was a small price to pay for no longer listening to his filth.

Didn't do a thing for his racist ideology,however. He'd take the good old boys into the other room, making pointed remarks about "somebody doesn't have a sense of humor."

Might have been why he lost me, the best office manager he ever had.

JustJack:

I was a little behind the curve after not-work today (WGA strike) so I posted my lame comeback over on the original comments.

The updated version: setting: donut shop (no, not for me, for Ms. Jack's personal day), full o' white dudes GenX and mostly older, topic was immigration (hooboy).

When I came in they wanted to include me, knowing the strike was on, and somehow this was the fault of the "damned wetbacks" and "beaners." I know, completely bizarro-land crap. Now, the owner who included me is a neocon-lite but honestly I hadn't ever heard him speak like that before, ever in nearly eight years knowing him.

I gave him a 4 count stare (I was fed up and it was all I could think of, other than throwing the goodies at him). He got quiet. I said, "you need to think before you open your mouth." then I left. Even quieter place than during my stare-down.

The comeback totally sucked but, I just am not going to be quiet anymore around that kinda shite. I'm taking notes here... thanks for the comebacks so far.

DrDick:

As I mentioned in the earlier thread I hear all kinds of racists comments, mostly about Indians, here in Montana. I have never understood why they think that an anthropologist who works with American Indians would be sympathetic to their views, but it always comes as a surprise to them when I object. I sometimes get it from students, which means I have to be diplomatic and simply point out their errors of fact and logic. In other contexts, I am less restrained. My standard conversation stopper is simply to tell them that my son is Indian. Tends to end the conversation rather abruptly.

abject funk:

Gotta say, the best comeback of this thread is..."You are proud to have that opinion? Please explain."

Racists, while not self-aware in general, are generally conscious enough to know when they have been called an asshole and yet have no reasonable recourse to violence in the face of a normal and polite question.

"You want a piece of me?!" simply will not stand up in the face of this simple question. It is brilliant because it is non-violent, and also because it requires the person to offer some reasons in order to further the discussion. Finally, it make abundantly clear that the racist attitude is messed up, and if any other like-minded non-racists are around, might offer them a bit of courage to back you up on "purely intellectual" grounds.

bbrugger:

I fall back on a two stage response.

Stage one requires the blankest most uncomprehending stare you can manage. Practice in front of a mirror if you need to.

Now say "I'm sorry? I'm not sure I understood what you just said."

It's interesting how many people will back and fill to get away from the bigoted thing they just said if they suspect you won't join the amen choir.

In those cases they don't take the offered out and DO repeat it I just say "I don't care to listen to such language." Then walk away.

I have a firm rule that racist language is not ever used in my home, and I've actually asked offenders to leave. It's not open for debate.

"We do not use that kind of language in this house. I'm going to have to ask you to leave now."

One night it was the husband of a very good friend. When he started to try to defend himself I said "I'm sorry, I'm really too upset to discuss this right now. I'm asking you to leave. We can discuss this another time."

He went storming into the next room and told his wife what had just happened. To her credit she promptly turned and asked another party guest if they would give her a lift home and handed her husband their car keys.

I have no idea what was said once she got home but he called and apologised profusely the next day.

I got one person to stop forwarding those 'the country's going to hell and it's all because of all the damn Mexicans' rants to an email list I'm on by mentioning that my grandchildren are half Mexican-American. And the Mexican American side of their family has been here for four generations.

travis:

The only times where I think I really got through to the person is where I wasn't angry, but generally amused and rational about the offensive statement. In both case, I was able to rephrase what they were saying so they could hear how ridiculous it seemed. In one case, I had a sympathetic audience, so there was a great deal of laughter, which was shaming. In the case without an audience, I was able to remind him that they worked with black and white men in a factory, and he knew for certain that there were people he could trust, and people he couldn't, and that didn't have a damned thing to do with race.

It doesn't always work. I lost a casual friend forever after she decided to confide in me how the Jews were in control of everything. I couldn't hide my horror, but my quiet attempts to persuade her that this just wasn't true had no effect on her.

I'm blue-eyed and blond-haired, and it's more common than not that people believe I share their racist beliefs, especially about Jews and blacks. Usually it's just taxi drivers and the like, so I don't spend the effort to persuade them. I have noticed the frequent pattern that people will fervently apologize if you identify yourself with the group being attacked (e.g., "my wife is Jewish"), but I haven't been able to use it successfully to persuade them. It only triggers some kind of politeness reflex.

In truth, I haven't tried that hard, either: these are highly emotionally charged conversations. It takes a lot of energy to pursue this topic. Even if a person deserves insulting or shaming, it is hard to insult or shame someone to their face. In modern times, no one, racist or not, wants to be thought of as a racist or bigoted.

palamedes:

1978.

I'm working the counter at our local McDonald's. (I could switch hit back then - make the burgers and run a cash register while not looking like a combo of sweat and grease - it's a talent age hasn't always allowed me to retain as the years pass on.)

Bubba comes to the counter, comes straight to me. I'm the only white person working at the counter. I take his order, special order so we have time to wait (quiet time at work, not too many customers).

He starts looking at the black workers, almost all ladies, and gives me a "they think they're so cool" look. I know what he's doing, and I cut him cold. "These are good workers here", I say, straight at him. He knows what I'm implying, because he has on his telephone company jumpsuit - "They're just as good as you are, and I know people treat you like shit more often than not just because of what you do - you wanna be accused of the same thing?"

I can hear him mentally backpedal back just a step or two, but then he brightens up and says, "Maybe, but you wouldn't want one to marry your sister, would you?"

And since my oldest sister was dating a black guy, I just smiled and said, "Well, that may actually be happening in a year or so..."

He was pretty stunned after that - my acceptance of it all, whith a smile on my face.

Praline:

With the parrying 'It was only a joke' thing, here's my view:

That 'only joking' strategy works on a simple principle: people who are trying to get away with acting offensive rely on the fact that nice people are frightened of being rude. And it's rude to call someone a liar.

Hence, saying 'It was a joke' puts your nice listener in an awkward situation: rudely calling them a BS-er, or accepting their version of reality.

To my mind, demanding that somebody accept something ridiculous is ruder than saying they're lying when they are. And here's the other thing: you don't actually have to call someone names or insult them to make your point, not when they're that much in the wrong. Neither do you have to get angry; in fact, it works better if you speak calmly and politely. All you have to do is accurately describe what they're doing; it'll be plenty strong enough.

The conversation goes like this:

'I find what you just said very offensive.'

'Oh come on, it was just a joke.'

'No, I don't think it was. I think you said it because you assumed I'd agree with you because we're both white/male/Christian/upside-down, and now you find that I don't, you're back-pedalling because you don't want to hear me tell you I'm offended.'

Just flat-out describe what they're doing to them. Let them hear how they look from the outside.

Ecks:

Someone over at Slacktivist made a pretty good point about the joke thing. Their argument was that in the mind of the idiot telling it, what they've said really IS a joke, so if you tell them it isn't then maybe they'll shut up, but they've written you off as a crazy who doesn't get it. I thought there was something in that, so I had another idea I wanted to share with you all.

How about coopting them, and acting like they're on the side of goodness the whole time. "Hey, that's pretty funny, but there's all kinds of backwards idiots around here who actually believe this shit when they hear it. You tell a joke and in their heads they're going "right on," and assume everyone supports them in this crap. Don't give aid and comfort dude, even just being funny." The only really graceful thing for them to do at this point (assuming they're not the type who feels at liberty to just punch you) is agree or change the topic. If they agree, you actually have a win, which is way better than any of the outcomes you have possible from the icy stare, or the "that's not funny".

Also while I'm shooting my mouth of here [waves hello everybody], there's an online magazine which some social psychology grad students have set up that explains a lot of what we've found in a way that's meant to be entertaining for a lay audience. There's a couple on prejudice. this is a pretty fun one about why we hate and why we THINK we hate (not so much always the same thing), and this one is a video of a Scientific American Frontier program with Alan Alder, in which he talks to a Harvard prof, Mazarin Banaji, about hidden implicit prejudice.

Thanks to those who participated, especially those whose comments I didn't manage to put up but who played a big role in keeping the conversation rolling.

Awareness Week indeed

-- by Dave

Max Blumenthal strikes again. In which we get to watch David Horowitz remind us once again just who the scariest threat to American democracy really is.

Ron Paul and his followers

-- by Dave

I think Atrios, Markos, and Glenn Greenwald are quite right about Ron Paul's recent fund-raising prowess -- it's truly a remarkable feat, and it shows once again the real power of the Internet. As Markos puts it:

This is the single biggest example of people-power this cycle. And as annoying as it is that we're seeing it from a Republican -- and a crazy one at that -- it's nevertheless a beautiful thing to behold.

I think all of us have been wondering when Republicans were going to figure out this netroots fund-raising thing. A lot of it has to do with conservative top-down politics, which is very hierarchical and all about message control -- which is the kind of organizing you see on the right blogosphere. But the Web works best as a free-flowing information medium that taps into individuals' creativity and energy, and the left blogosphere has that trait in spades, which means they've proven much more capable of tapping into the Web's fund-raising potential.

Still, someone from the right was bound to figure this out, and it was almost certainly going to have to be someone from outside the Republican establishment. So Ron Paul it is.

Of course, I can't say I'm too surprised. Anyone who has been critical of Paul online has become well aware just how organized online he and his followers are. Mention his extremist background and the flying monkeys descend en masse.

But unlike, at least, Greenwald in his post, I'm not so sure that this is a largely positive development. In fact, taking in the longer-term picture of where the Republican right is heading, it seems to me a genuinely ominous development with dangerous ramifications.

Let me note, first, that I'm a great admirer of Greenwald's work, and I think the initial thrust of this post was essentially correct -- the Paul story is being absurdly overlooked. But when he writes:

Regardless of one's ideology, there is simply no denying certain attributes of Paul's campaign which are highly laudable. There have been few serious campaigns that are more substantive -- just purely focused on analyzing and solving the most vital political issues. There have been few candidates who more steadfastly avoid superficial gimmicks, cynical stunts, and manipulative tactics. There have been few candidates who espouse a more coherent, thoughtful, consistent ideology of politics, grounded in genuine convictions and crystal clear political values.

Well, we have to part company. Because as I've been explaining in some detail (along with Sara), Paul has so far managed to pull off something of a neat trick: Appearing thoughtful and principled, even though his beliefs and principles are largely derived from the extremist far right -- a fact that he's wisely muted in the campaign. You don't hear Ron Paul talking about the New World Order a lot in the press, largely because no one is asking him about it -- but in reality, he hasn't changed his beliefs appreciably since the days he was touring the militia K-ration banquet circuit.

That is to say, Greenwald is right, so far as it goes: Paul is consistent and coherent within the realm of his belief system, but those beliefs aren't simply the benign libertarianism that Paul has erected as his chief public image, and which Greenwald appears to have absorbed. Paul's beliefs, in fact, originate with the conspiracy-theory-driven far right of the John Birch Society and Posse Comitatus. He's just been careful not to draw too much attention to that reality, even though he has occasionally let the curtain slip.

I would say the vast majority of "Patriot" movement followers and similar far-right extremists, in fact, are actually very wonkish in the same fashion as Ron Paul about their beliefs, and construct arcane and fairly rigorous rationalizations for them, very consistent within their universes, many of them to an impressive degree. But that overlooks, of course, that their founding premises are almost entirely bogus.

Greenwald is hardly alone in missing this element: I think a large number of voters have managed to do so as well.

In one of his updates, Greenwald notes:

I want to clarify what I think is one critically important point in response to some of the comments. Paul's opposition to having the Federal Government involved in things such as education and health care is constitutional in nature. His argument is that the Constitution only permits the Federal Government to exercise explicitly enumerated powers in Articles I and II and, pursuant to the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution . . . are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Thus, his argument, at least on this level, has nothing to do with whether there would be good or bad results from having the Federal Government exercise powers in these areas. His argument is that the Constitution does not allow the Federal Government to do so, regardless of whether it's desirable. If one wants the Federal Government to exercise specific powers which the Constitution prohibits, then the solution is to amend the Constitution, not to violate it because of the good results it produces.

While there are certainly arguments to dispute Paul's constitutional view (the Supreme Court, for instance, has had to reach to Congress' Article I authority to "regulate Commerce . . . among the several States" in order to "justify" many of these Federal Government activities), the argument that there are "good results" from having the Federal Government do these things -- or that there would be "bad results" if it didn't -- isn't a coherent or responsive reply to Paul's position.

First, it should be pointed out that Paul's positions regarding public education aren't simply relegated to federal concerns -- Paul's position is that there should be no publicly funded education at all. He is, after all, a leading supporter and associate of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State, and is one of the signers of their petition proclaiming, "I favor ending government involvement in education."

More importantly, it needs to be pointed out that the reasons for accepting the courts' reasoning regarding Commerce Clause-based federal oversight of various matters are not simply that the outcome is desirable, but that the government's interest under the clause is quite real. It's frankly hard not to see that there is a real interstate interest in federal involvement in civil-rights, labor, and environmental law. Moreover, revoking that involvement in fact would be a genuinely radical step that would overturn years of established law and practice regarding such matters as civil rights.

The far right has been railing about the expansion of government powers under the Commerce Clause since the days of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, when the Clause was used to uphold the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (though there was an animus toward this reasoning dating back to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938). As such, it has been a constant target of various far-right conspiracy theories regarding the structure of American government for many years.

Mostly, so-called "constitutionalists" -- embodied originally by the old Posse Comitatus and various tax-protest groups led by such anti-Semites as Martin "Red" Beckman, and in later years by such "Patriot" groups as the Montana Freemen and various militias scattered around the country -- have been whipping on every example of Commerce Clause-based regulation and federal involvement, because they understand that schackling the federal government's powers is a fundamental part of their larger strategy of returning all political powers to localities, allowing for a return to the "organic" Constitution -- you know, the original Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which conveniently omits the prohibition of slavery and the equal-protection clause and the federal income tax and women's suffrage.

At least, that's what a lot of "constitutionalists" think, though it's not clear to what extent Paul concurs with them -- he seems to accept, at least, the legitimacy of the 14th amendment. But if you run through the broad array of kooky theories about the federal government promoted on the far right, you can find any number of Ron Paul's positions -- particularly regarding the gold standard, the Federal Reserve, the IRS, and the United Nations -- floating about there. Notably, Paul also played a significant role in Congress' ongoing failure to confront the growing problem of conspiracy-driven tax protests by diverting the blame to the IRS itself.

But that's who Ron Paul is -- a "constitutionalist" who deals in conspiracy theories and extremist anti-government beliefs. It's who he always has been, and who he is now. It isn't just an accident that Paul very recently spoke to a group with troubling racial ties, or that he attended a Patriot Network banquet in his honor in 2004, or that he gave an interview to a conspiracist magazine the same year. Hell, he's been operating within those same circles since 1985.

The real problem with the success of Paul's candidacy is not only that it helps to legitimize and mainstream his extremist beliefs, but that it also dramatically empowers the very extremist elements that Greenwald dismisses as an insignificant faction of his support.

Glenn writes:

The most illegitimate argument against Paul is the attempt to tie him to the views of some of his extremist and hateful supporters. I referenced that fallacy above, and elaborated on it in this comment.

Therein he writes:

I'm really uncomfortable with judging someone by the support they attract. When The NY Sun wanted to discredit Walt/Measheimer, they did it by asking David Duke if he agreed with their book, and when he said that he did, they published a big article about it, implying that Duke's agreement must mean the argument is racist.

And, of course, a lot of the money that has been donated to Clinton and Obama -- A LOT -- is from the largest corporations that many of their supporters blame for most of the nation's ills. Should Clinton or Obama be responsible for the actions of their corporate donors?

Paul is out there arguing against worldwide organizations as well as clearly oppposing our unbending support for Israel. That is going to attract some anti-semites and other assorted crazies and haters, but that is most assuredly not the same as saying that Paul himself is anti-semitic or hateful.

Connecting a candidate to the views of some of his supporters without more smacks a little of guilt by association (not say you're doing that), and I doubt any candidate is really immune to that sort of thing.

But this isn't "guilt by association" -- first, the argument isn't that Paul is a racist per se, but that he is an extremist who shares a belief system held not just by racists but other anti-government zealots as well. Paul is identified with their causes not simply because he speaks to them, but because he elucidates ideas and positions -- especially regarding the IRS, the UN, the gold standard, and education -- identical to theirs. This is why he has their rabid support. There is an underlying reason, after all, that Paul attracts backers like David Duke and the Stormfront gang: he talks like them.

Second and perhaps most importantly, there are legitimate reasons for anyone to raise objections to Paul's associations, speaking before the Patriot Network, the CofCC, and similar groups -- he's a public official, and he is lending the power of his public office to legitimizing radical-right organizations like this. Think of why it would be wrong to appear before the Klan, or the CofCC, as Trent Lott and Hayley Barbour have done in the latter case.

It's not merely what it implies about your own beliefs and standards -- it's that you've lent the power of your public office to empowering and raising the stature of racists. You of course have the right to do so -- but the public has every right to criticize you for it as well, as it should. After all, what this comes down to is not so much beliefs and values but judgment. One expects, after all, a congressman to display better judgment than to appear before a group of nutcases. Ron Paul didn't, and hasn't, for a simple reason -- he's one of them.

And just as his associations with far-right extremists have empowered those groups -- a favor now being returned in the form of their avid support for him even as he attempts to strategically distance himself from them -- his recent stunning successes mean the further empowerment of these groups. And that is why, over the long term, we ought take much greater pause in considering the value of his success.

So far, Ron Paul has been cagey about his larger agenda and his core belief system, and I think that's helped him tremendously in deflecting talk, in large part because most of the questions have been about racism, which he can readily deflect. I do wonder when someone is going to ask him about the New World Order, though. The response might help open people's eyes to the Ron Paul Reality.

___

Here are links to our previous reportage on Paul:

The trouble with Ron

Ron Paul vs. the New World Order

Man of the Hour

Six impossible things before breakfast

Return of the New World Order

The real Ron Paul surfaces

No fault of his own

The implications of legal torture

-- by Dave

Digby notes the tortuous illogic that has reigned so far in the Bush administration's ongoing defense of the use of torture on American prisoners:

He goes on to quote at length from this speech, in which this high level legal counsel finds it impossible to condemn this torture even if inflicted on American soldiers.

That, alas, has been one of the little-observed but overwhelming reasons to oppose any kind of torture for these prisoners, and has been all along, ever since it was outlawed internationally and nationally: that condoning any kind of abuse provides a pretext for our enemies to do the same, or worse, to American prisoners held abroad.

Recall, for instance, that we prosecuted a number of Japanese officers after World War II for committing torture -- including waterboarding -- against American prisoners.

Moreover, even the slightest hint of abuse of American prisoners during the war brought the house down upon anyone thinking of it. For instance, during the efforts to ascertain the loyalties of Japanese prisoners incarcerated during the war -- a subject explored in great detail in Eric Muller's superb new book, American Inquisition: The Hunt for Japanese American Loyalty in World War II, -- it happened that some of the interrogators at the Fort Missoula internment camp, where a couple thousand suspect Japanese nationals were being held, began applying abusive techniques, and nearly created an international incident in the process.

Carol Van Valkenburg, in her book An Alien Place: The Fort Missoula, Montana, Detention Camp, 1941-44 describes this in some detail:

While Alien Hearing Boards were investigating the loyalties of the hapless Japanese, Immigration Service immigrant inspectors were busy interrogating many Japanese at Fort Missoula who they suspected were in the United States illegally. Those interrogations created an incident with international repercussions considered so potentially severe the United States government kept information about it under wraps for more than forty years.

The incident began when Herman Schwandt, an inspector in charge of detention and deportation, came to Fort Missoula from Seattle in late March 1942, bringing with him some Japanese who were to be detained in the compound. While in an office building at the fort, he overheard these shouted remarks: "You lying yellow son-of-a-bitch, you have been lying long enough! If you don't tell the truth now I am going to knock your teeth down your throat!"

Schwandt reported what he had overheard and the Justice Department immediately launched an investigation. What caused apprehension in Washington, however, was a formal complaint filed with the State Department in June 1942 through the Spanish consulate in San Francisco. The International Red Cross had been told of claims of mistreatment when a representative visited Fort Missoula. It was reported to the Spanish ambassador, whose embassy acted on Italy's behalf since diplomatic relations between the United States and Italy were severed when war was declared. The United States government was particularly concerned that any mistreatment be stopped because it feared reprisals against Americans held in enemy countries if word of the mistreatment spread.

Eventually, the Justice Department investigation showed that a number of Immigration Service interrogators, trying to determine whether certain suspect prisoners were in the United States legally, took to slapping, punching, pushing and otherwise physically and verbally abusing their subjects. In the end, two inspectors -- both Koreans who were fluent in Japanese -- were fired and several others reprimanded, and the matter was all hushed up.

But now we have an administration that claims it can torture prisoners because we've given them an extralegal "enemy combatant" designation. Yet what no one seems to have noticed is that, in the process, they are implicitly giving the green light for our enemies to do the same -- which they no doubt will do, and worse.

And they just don't seem to care. So much for "support the troops".

Village of the Damned Idiots

-- by Dave

Now, I know all this talk about "the Village" is probably a reference to the psychotically self-enclosed culture envisioned in M. Night Shymalan's film of the same name, though naturally the reference springs to mind a multitude of other icons.

But after watching this weekend's latest in village idiocy, I was suddenly reminded of yet another movie. Indeed, it seems like we're living through it.

I mean, haven't we seen this before?

As the movie opens, all of the inhabitants (including the animals) of the sleepy American village of Beltway suddenly fall unconscious, and anyone entering the village also loses consciousness. The military arrives and establishes a cordon, and sends in a man wearing a biological isolation suit, but he falls unconscious and is pulled back by a safety rope. The man awakens, reporting a cold sensation just before passing out. At nearly that very moment, the villagers regain consciousness, seeming otherwise unaffected. The incident is referred to as a "senior moment," and no cause is determined.

About two months later, all women and girls of childbearing age who were in the affected area are discovered to be pregnant, sparking many accusations of infidelity and premarital sex. The accusations fade as the extraordinary nature of the pregnancies is discovered. All of the women give birth on the same day, and the doctor doing the bulk of the deliveries reports on the unusual appearance of the children, who all have to be taught to breathe and in general are unusually stupid. As they grow, it becomes clear that they also have a powerful telepathic bond with one another. They all know exactly what each other is thinking and, above all, it becomes imperative that they all think exactly alike, including patently false information. This ability to know each others' minds leads them into the unbreakable delusion that they know what the rest of the country is thinking.

Three years later, the village mayor, Bill Clinton (Owen Wilson), attends a meeting with the National Security Agency to discuss the children. There he learns that Beltway was not the only place affected, and followup investigations had revealed similar phenomena in other areas of the world.

In a township in northern Australia, thirty infants were born in one day but all died within 10 minutes of birth for failing to figure out how to breathe.

In an Inuit community in Canada, there were ten children born. Irretrievably stupid children born to their kind violated their taboos, and all of them were killed.

In Irkutsk, Russia, the men murdered all of the children and their mothers.

In the desert plains of north-western China, the children survived and were being employed as food- and toy-quality manufacturing inspectors.

The Beltway children, as we see, have become quite sinister. Although only three years old, they are physically the equivalent of children four times their age or more. They use a lot of big words that make everyone believe they're actually adults, but in fact they are blindingly, unfathomably idiotic, and their powers only make the stupidity exponentially greater. Not only that, their very presence and mental manipulation powers make anyone who sees or hears them be overcome with stupidity themselves.

Their behavior has become increasingly unusual and striking. They dress impeccably, always walk as a group, speak in a very adult way, are very well-behaved... but they show no conscience or love and demonstrate a coldness to others. Moreover, they begin to display powers of media manipulation that allow them to assume control of the village. All of this has had the effect of most of the townspeople fearing and being repulsed by them. They begin to exhibit the power to read minds when expedient, or to induce people to do incredibly stupid things they'd never otherwise do, the latter accompanied by an alien glow in the children's eyes. There have been a number of villagers' deaths since they were born, many considered unusual (such as the suicide of a top adviser to Mayor Clinton). It is the opinion of some that the children are responsible. This is later confirmed when they are shown convincing the public that Clinton (whom they dub "the Clenis") is the source of all evil in the universe and a child molester to boot; they further use their mentat powers to convince the village to replace Clinton with an incompetent, spoiled frat boy whose eyes make a similar glow, and then convince them he's a bold and fearless leader when disaster results, and further make them declare war on another village that had nothing to do with the disaster.

Clinton's wife Hillary, comparing the children's resistance to reasoning with a brick wall, decides to try to rescue the village from their madness by running for mayor. In the climactic scene, she confronts the children in a public debate where they attempt to convince the public that she's hiding her advice to her husband when he was mayor and the center of all evil in the universe. The evil Maureen accuses her of being a vile woman and a feminist to boot. "You came in and wrecked this place before, and it's not your place to wreck!" shrieks Sally, one of the children's leaders. Their sheer blinding stupidity finally tears open a temporary hole in the universe and the village collapses in upon itself.

The final scene is ambiguous and could be interpreted as the survival of the children in non-corporeal form. Their eyes are superimposed over the smoking black hole where the village once stood and move out of shot.

Boy, talk about deja vu all over again.

Talking back

-- by Dave

A couple of days ago, while musing on the fall of Dog the Bounty Hunter due to the racist rant revealed in a video tape, I remarked:

Here's one thing about being a white guy: You hear a lot of "private" talk from other white guys who assume you're on the same side of the fence as they are and feel free to start spewing, especially when they've had a few drinks, or they're (ahem) "angry," and this is the kind of shit they spew.

Unfortunately, the only thing I ever seem capable of expressing to them is my utter bafflement why they think I would ever be on their side.

I said this, of course, as an acknowledgment that this kind of response really is inadequate. It doesn't come close to conveying the depth of my feelings about this kind of talk and what it reveals. In my youth, of course, I was much more likely to get up on my higher moral ground and lay into someone, but I also found that did more harm than good. So my default response now is milder and more hopeful of keeping the conversation going, but, I think, too tepid. Besides, this is usually the point when conversation becomes fruitless.

I know I'm not alone in experiencing this. Sara noted in the comments: "It might be worthwhile to pick at this and see what others Really Good Comebacks might look like."

Perhaps we could have a discussion here, and I can post some of the more useful responses.

'The politics of the personal'

-- by Dave

The latest installment in my running five-part series at The Big Con is now up: "The Politics of the Personal: The Turning". The opening:

There were two crucial turning points in my relationships with conservatives: December 12, 2000, and September 11, 2001.

When the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Bush v. Gore, it became clear to me that not only had the conservative movement grown into a dogmatic ideology, it had metastasized into a power-hungry, devouring claque of ideologues for whom winning was all that mattered. I also knew, of course, that not everyone who participated in the movement was like this -- but they were all too willing to let those who were run a steamroller over every basic principle of democratic rule -- especially its core of equity and fair play -- in the name of obtaining the White House.

I remember rather vividly, like the day JFK was shot, where I was and what I was doing, the evening the ruling came down. I was in a small harbor town in western Washington, staying with the parents of some close friends (who are themselves good friends) while I covered a manslaughter trial in a nearby town. He is an accountant, she a homemaker, good moderate churchgoing Democrats. We all sat together and watched the bulletins come over the newscasts (I think we were tuned to MSNBC).

And I remember she turned to me and said: "I feel sad. Because I can't vote a mixed ticket anymore." He nodded.

So did I. I knew exactly what she meant.

As I mentioned when the series began, longtime readers will recognize some of this: It's a rewrite/update of a post I wrote back in 2003, which I'm reworking as part of putting my work at Orcinus together into book form. Hope you enjoy.

Who's Your Daddy?

-- by Sara

Back in August, I wrote post called Leering Old Men: Another Take that sparked a fair amount of discussion around the lefty blogs. The gist of the thing was that authoritarianism -- religious, political, or otherwise -- seems to stunt people's mental, social, and emotional growth; and this is why we see so much stunningly juvenile behavior on the right wing.

While I've done other posts along these lines, this one specifically related Conservative Arrested Development Syndrome (CADS) to the way the Macho Men Dave discusses in the post just below fetishize the outward trappings of masculinity -- even as they're driven to tear down anyone who exhibits the robust inner confidence and character that define a mature adult. Our media kingmakers are nothing more than little boys playing dress-up, I argued, because they have no concept of what it means to be a grown-up -- and being around people who do makes them feel so shamed and humiliated that they can only respond with spiteful derision.

That August piece has turned out to have an extraordinarily long tail, as various other bloggers touch back on it to poke at the wide-ranging implications of this idea. In recent weeks, Paul Rosenberg over at OpenLeft has been working this same territory in a fascinating series I've been meaning to point y'all to. While I described the publicly visible symptoms and effects of CADS, Rosenberg (who obviously has some background in developmental psychology) is digging into the theories of Piaget, Kohlberg, and others to describe, in great detail, the cognitive structures and processes that conspire to produce this whole system of behavior. It's an important contribution, because knowing why they act this way will give us the insight we need to counter them more effectively.

But Rosenberg isn't just dissecting conservative mental processes. At almost every step, his explanations compare and contrast conservative thinking in ways that also explain the liberal cognitive style -- in other words, he also gets at the reasons behind both the real and perceived fecklessness that characterizes so much of the liberal response to conservative misbehavior. We have plenty of bad habits of our own -- habits that the conservatives have deftly learned to exploit to keep us perpetually in lose-lose situations. Until we start choosing to respond in other, better ways (and quite a few alternatives flow easily out of Rosenberg's analysis), nothing is going to change.

It's a tour de force, and I've been absorbing each new installment eagerly. So it was delightful to tune in yesterday for part 6b of the series, and discover that it was almost entirely arranged around the observations I'd made in the Leering Old Men post, which he quoted at length.

And it got me thinking about some other things, too. The issue of conservative sandbox behavior is a longstanding joke; but it's now evolving into a wide and serious discussion here on our side of the blogosphere. We talk about what it will mean to put the grown-ups in charge again; but an important part of being a grown-up is knowing how to effectively motivate and discipline children and keep family life from degenerating into The Lord of the Flies. We're starting to realize, at long last, that our country -- and perhaps the planet -- cannot survive with this pack of tantrum-throwing moral six-year-olds in charge. Yet we've been consistently, remarkably, frustratingly unable to muster the authority necessary to set strict boundaries and make them stick.

And that is, unfortunately, what's required here. Conservative brats are brought up to expect spankings -- and they don't respect any adult who they've decided isn't capable of dishing them out. In the conservative world, for reasons Rosenberg explains, respect equals fear. Unfortunately, being liberals, we don't parent that way. In our world, respect equals trust; and our methods -- docking allowances, grounding, heart-to-heart chats, and time-outs -- only work where that basic bond of respect and trust between parents and kids already exists. They make no impact at all on kids who are in open defiance (or are openly sociopathic), and thus really don't care what happens to themselves or you.

The conservatives don't respect or trust us, because they've reckoned we're not willing or able to give them the kind of strict discipline they crave. Rosenberg's series shows us what's going on on both sides of the dynamic, and how we might alter our behavior and begin to set limits in ways that they will begin to understand and respect.

Go take a look. The linked page is a round-up of all of Rosenberg's work for OpenLeft, but if you scroll down, you'll easily find all the parts of the series. It's brilliant stuff, and a fine advancement on one of the most important conversations we can be having right now.

Macho Men

-- by Dave

Digby has up a great post about how the boys in the Village are all hopping aboard the GOP Que Es Mas Macho Train. She observes:

Indeed, the entire Republican campaign strategy can be said to be one big gender card --- the only people they believe matter in this country are delicate, insecure creatures who are so sensitive that they have to be pampered and pandered to like a bunch of overfed princes who like to play cowboy and don't want to share their favorite binky.

Aw, c'mon, Digby. Dontcha know that these really are a bunch of macho men? Just watching them in action takes me back to the '70s:

Body...wanna feel my body?
Body...such a thrill my body
Body...wanna touch my body?
Body...it's too much my body
Check it out my body, body.
Don't you doubt my body, body.
talkin' bout my body, body,
check it out my body

Every man wants to be a macho macho man
to have the kind of body, always in demand
Jogging in the mornings, go man go
works out in the health spa, muscles glow
You can best believe that, he's a macho man
ready to get down with, anyone he can

Hey! Hey! Hey, hey, hey!
Macho, macho man (macho man)
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man
I've got to be a macho! Ow....

Macho, macho man
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man (yeah, yeah)
I've got to be a macho!

Body, its so hot, my body,
Body, love to pop my body,
Body, love to please my body,
Body, don't you tease my body,
Body, you'll adore my body,
Body, come explore my body,
Body, made by God, my body,
Body, it's so good, my body

You can tell a macho, he has a funky walk
his western shirts and leather, always look so boss
Funky with his body, he's a king
call him Mister Eagle, dig his chains
You can best believe that, he's a macho man
likes to be the leader, he never dresses grand

Hey! Hey! Hey, hey, hey!
Macho, macho man
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man
I've got to be a macho! (all right)

Macho, macho man (yeah, yeah)
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man
I've got to be a macho! All Right!

Ugh! Macho..baby!
Body, body, body wanna feel my body,
Body, body, body gonna thrill my body,
Body, body, body don'tcha stop my body,
Body, body, body it's so hot my body,

Every man ought to be a macho macho man,
To live a life of freedom, machos make a stand,
Have their own life style and ideals,
Possess the strength and confidence, life's a steal,
You can best believe that he's a macho man
He's a special person in anybody's land.

Hey! Hey! Hey, hey, hey!
Macho, macho man (macho man)
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man
I've got to be a macho! (dig the hair on my chest)

Macho, macho man (see my big thick mustache)
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man
I've got to be a macho! (Dig broad shoulders)

Macho, macho man (dig my muscles!)
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man
I've got to be a macho!

Macho, macho man
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man
I've got to be a macho! HEY!

These same Village People are the "wise men" whose macho seems to require that we nuke Iran or something similar. To live a life of freedom, machos make a stand. A wide stand, evidently.

Of course, I think Sara has had few words about these fellows before.

When the cameras are off

-- by Dave

Pam Spaulding has a nice rundown on the racist rant by Dog the Bounty Hunter released by his son for public consumption this week.

The cable "reality show" star was taped at a time when he thought the cameras were all off:

Duane "Dog" Chapman: I'm not taking the chance on some motherf**ker. I don't care if she's a Mexican, a whore, whatever...it's not because she's black. It’s because we use he word n***er sometimes here.

I'm not going to take a chance ever in life for losing everything I've worked for for 30 years because some f**king n**er heard us say n***er and turned us into the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over. I'm not taking that chance at all, never in life. Never. Never.

If Lyssa [his daughter] was dating a n***er we would all say F*ck You. . .and you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home ya da da...it's not that they're black, it's none of that. It's that we use the word n***er. We don't mean you fucking scum n***er without a soul. We don't mean that shit. But America would think we mean that. And we're not taking a chance on losing everything we got over a racial slur because our son goes with a girl like that. I can't do that Tucker. You can't expect Gary, Bonnie, Cecily, all them young kids to [garbled] because 'I'm in love for 7 months' - fuck that! So, I'll help you get another job but you can not work here unless you break up with her and she's out of your life. I can't handle that shit. I got 'em in the parking lot trying to record us. I got that girl saying she's gonna wear a recorder...

Of course, once it got out, the Dog was very remorseful and claimed he was taped "out of context":

My sincerest, heartfelt apologies go out to every person I have offended for my regrettable use of very inappropriate language. I am deeply disappointed in myself for speaking out of anger to my son and using such a hateful term in a private phone conversation. It was completely taken out of context. I was disappointed in his choice of a friend, not due to her race, but her character. However, I should have never used that term. I have the utmost respect and aloha for black people – who have already suffered so much due to racial discrimination and acts of hatred. I did not mean to add yet another slap in the face to an entire race of people who have brought so many gifts to this world. I am ashamed of myself and I pledge to do whatever I can to repair this damage I have caused.

Here's one thing about being a white guy: You hear a lot of "private" talk from other white guys who assume you're on the same side of the fence as they are and feel free to start spewing, especially when they've had a few drinks, or they're (ahem) "angry," and this is the kind of shit they spew.

Unfortunately, the only thing I ever seem capable of expressing to them is my utter bafflement why they think I would ever be on their side. Mind you, guys like this are in the far minority, but there are more of them floating around out there than you'd think.

I'm reminded of how the Washington State Militia, who were in the process of building pipe bombs and planning their deployment before they were busted back in 1996, were captured doing so on videotape. The kind of hate talk that flowed freely when they thought no one was watching was remarkable -- especially for a group that was trying to sell a public image of being a big "neighborhood watch" operation. Hmmm. Where else have we heard that claim?

Those Weblog Awards

-- by Dave

Well, Orcinus is included in the Weblog Awards' finalists for "Best Liberal Blog" this year, the first time we've been so honored. When I look at the rest of the list (one of which, Firedoglake, I also post at), I feel really very honored. Though to be honest I'm not sure popularity contests like this matter much (I think the Koufaxes, which seem to have faded away, were much more meaningful), but it's still fun to be included in the action. I certainly won't blame my readers if they're torn.

Vote early and often! And have fun.

Max strikes again

-- by Dave

Speaking of the Values Voters, our intrepid friend Max Blumenthal paid them a visit:

On October 20 and 21st, I attended the Value Voters Summit, a massive gathering hosted by the Colorado-based Christian right mega-ministry, Focus on the Family, and its Washington lobbying arm, the Family Research Council. With the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani leading in the race for the Republican nomination and the threat of another Clinton presidency looming, the stakes for the Christian right were high.

As you can see from the footage, it seems clear that the overtly political faction of the religious right is becoming more and more like the fanatical conspiracist right of the militia/Patriot movement of the 1990s. Max notes this too:

If anything, the movement seemed more extreme and paranoid than it did four years ago. Rev. Lou Sheldon, dubbed "Lucky Louie" by his former paymaster Jack Abramoff, told me that homosexuality is a "pathological disorder" and "a groove" that is difficult to escape from. He proceeded to passionately defend his friend, Senator Larry Craig, from allegations of homosexuality.

Star Parker, a former welfare cheat who had multiple abortions, claimed to me that abortion is the leading cause of death among African American women between the ages of 25 and 34. Then she described her wish for the forced quarantine of all "sodomites." Parker was not a lone wacko milling around in the hallway; she was a speaker invited by the Family Research Council.

Neoconservative activist Frank Gaffney appeared at the Summit as well. Before a standing room audience, Gaffney exclaimed that "by not being bigoted and not being racist, [George W.] Bush has embraced Islamofascists on several occasions." Phyllis Schlaffly echoed Gaffney's comments, declaring that there are too many mosques in America.

You'll note, of course, the obvious eliminationism coursing through all this talk -- yet another clear indication of the political religious right's increasing fanaticism and xenophobia.

The spiral tightens

-- by Dave

When guys like Lou Dobbs go spewing their racist venom on national television, I'm sure it never crosses their minds that there might be consequences for the hate they spew. First, they deny adamantly that it's hateful, sort of like "who you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

But most of all, they don't care. This is about ratings. Lou Dobbs is selling outrage on his broadcasts, by God, and too bad for anyone who's the target of it.

But it ripples, you know. And while no one can ever make a direct connection, you know that this environment they're creating is also creating people like this:

A Casper man who threatened to kill illegal immigrants coming into Arizona will spend six-and-a-half years in federal prison for firearms violations, according to court records filed Tuesday.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge William Downes on Oct. 23 sentenced Richard Serafin to 18 months imprisonment for possessing unregistered firearms, another 60 months for possessing firearms in furtherance of a crime of violence.

Downes also sentenced Serafin to three years supervised release with conditions that include paying child support, participating in substance abuse treatment, abstaining from alcohol and being submitted to searches.

On Aug. 3, a jury convicted Serafin of one count of possessing firearms in furtherance of a crime of violence after a week-long trial in federal court in Casper.

The week before, he pleaded guilty to the possession of unregistered firearms -- two AR-15 type rifles with barrels less than 16 inches -- and desired to go to trial on the other charge.

It's one thing when they start forming vigilante border-watch outfits like the Minutemen; even when they start making videos in which they act out their fantasies about shooting a Mexican.

It's quite another when they start stocking up on silencers:

In March 2006, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began investigating Serafin after the Atlanta office of the agency learned he illegally bought a silencer over the Internet from Germany, Special ATF Agent Steve McFarland wrote in court documents.

McFarland found Serafin's last known address was in the 2200 block of South Richard Street in Casper. The agent conducted a Google search, which indicated Serafin was a member of an anti-government militia type group.

McFarland, operating undercover, contacted Serafin via the Internet and expressed an interest in learning more about militias.

The two met on Nov. 2, and Serafin explained his racist views and how he ran a militia, McFarland wrote.

They met again on Dec. 12 at his house in the 1200 block of West 13th Street, whereupon Serafin sold McFarland a handgun and showed him some other weapons including two sawed-off AR-15 .223-caliber rifles, and a fully automatic Fabrique Nationale, FAL, .308-caliber assault rifle, McFarland wrote.

In January, he told the undercover agent he intended to travel to the Mexican border and harm illegal immigrants after drug runners allegedly burned down his brother's house in Arizona, McFarland wrote. "He added that he has a 'bad feeling' about what might happen in Arizona, once he gets there. Serafin also said that there may be fewer illegal Mexicans coming into the U.S. after he is there."

He was arrested on Feb. 7 after selling one of the AR-15 rifles to McFarland while armed himself.

This is the second militia-related bust in which the plan was to kill Mexicans; the first we're aware of was the arrest of five militiamen in Alabama last May who were planning a terrorism spree against Latinos.

It looks like this character was a militia of one. But you know that if some of them are taking steps like buying silencers, there are going to be some doing likewise who aren't caught. Again, just tiny numbers of people. But as Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols proved, you don't need a lot to wreak hell on earth.

Hope those ratings are worth it to Lou. Because he's not only making a living parody of himself, but his karmic payback is gonna be a bitch.

The Two Evangelical Futures

drawing by Art Spiegelman

--by Sara

Over the past year, my maunderings on the fate of the Religious Right in America have gone off in two apparently opposite and contradictory directions. On one hand, I've been making the argument that Evangelicals are undergoing a significant cultural shift, which is changing the face of fundamentalism as we've known it for the past 30 years; and that this may be an occasion for some sunny optimism concerning the future of our democracy. On the other, I've been writing dire reminders that religious authoritarians have been with us from the beginning, and will be with us always -- and these posts have been clouded with warning, caution, and despair.

Contrary to appearances, this is not evidence of incipient schizophrenia on the part of your loyal reporter. Rather, I presented both scenarios because both of them are substantially true. And the future they point to is not one that's either/or. We're now entering new era that's going to be increasingly both/and for a while; and if we're going to read the signs properly, we need to understand the dynamics of the new dialectic that's emerging.

One The One Hand....
On the "new day dawning" side, there's been a lot of buzz this week over David Kirkpatrick's article in the New York Times about the changes that lie ahead for Evangelicals. It's a well-researched, insightful article, and essential reading for anyone who's concerned with the interplay between religion and politics. And it strongly supports the best-case scenario. Kirkpatrick points out that the old guard is passing, and the new guard isn't interested in governing their flocks by manipulating the same old hot-button issues. He's mostly right, and we need to understand why. Taking the long futures view, there are a couple large-scale forces at work that will continue to support this trend.

The first is simple demographics. The existing far-right religious coalition first congealed around people's fear of the social changes brought by the 1960s and 70s. Many of those changes were centered around gender roles, sexuality, and family structures -- which is precisely why the religious right's backlash aimed very specifically at issues like controlling sexuality, shoring up rigid gender roles, and limiting the definition of "family" to one tight script with no deviations (or deviants) allowed. These topics were deliberately chosen as a calculated response targeted to the passions of that moment in time.

These messages are losing their impact for one simple reason: that moment is over. It's all ancient history now. Nobody under 40 remembers the '70s; increasingly, the old-style culture war is an obsession that's only shared by the aging members of the congregation. After all, you can't scare the kids with a boogeyman they grew up living next door to, and learned to get along with better than their elders ever did. As the recent Barna study revealed (and Obama is learning the hard way), over 80% of them see the old anti-gay crusades as simply hateful. While they may never come to terms with abortion, and some are still quite committed to traditional family structures, they're understandably reluctant to throw their energies into the ancient, narrow political battles that have left their elders feeling cynical, defeated, and used. Their generation has its own challenges, and Kirkpatrick notes rightly that they're far more eager to engage those instead.

This is an old and familiar cycle in American Protestantism. Any number of firebrand sects, from the Quakers to the Methodists, have emerged in a blaze of theological passion tailor-made for the issues of the day -- only to find their relevance dimming as times changes, and other issues emerged. It's very typical for these sects to either go mainstream or vanish entirely within three or four generations. The core ideas that made their voices so essential in one moment make them irrelevant in the next. They reach a point where they either re-invent themselves and find some new and more compelling messages, or they die.

A second force at work here is the natural lifecycle of fundamentalist movements. Karen Armstrong writes that, throughout history, fundamentalisms end in one of two ways. The vast majority of movements fall apart due to internal schism, or are betrayed by their (what we would now identify as high-SDO) leadership, long before they ever achieve their goals. But the handful that succeed in acquiring real social or political power face another problem. These movements are, by definition, based on utopian idealism rooted in a literal interpretation of ancient scripture. Unfortunately, when they're finally put in charge, reality bites back hard: there's always a day of hard awakening when they realize those old texts provide almost no useful advice for governing a modern society.

I've said before that the surest cure for fundamentalism is a big, healthy dose of Life In The Real World; and Armstrong corroborates that this same principle works for governments and movements as just well as it does for individuals. Historically, putting fundies in charge always forces them to moderate their positions and reconnect with the complexities of the reality-based world. Suddenly, you hear die-hard Biblical literalists talking about how important it is to interpret scripture in light of the cultural context of its time. People who thought they were going to rule by the word of Jesus suddenly realize just how many of those words were about taking care of other people, including non-believers. They realize that good policy requires good research (and good science, and good history); and that responsible, accountable people don't have the luxury of behaving like emotional six-year-olds. Armstrong says that a big sobering dose of reality moderated the politics of post-revolutionary Iran within just three or four years. People expected the mullahs to actually govern, not just pontificate. And they realized, quickly, that they had to stop being so heavenly-minded if they were going to be any earthly good.

Here in the US, history will remember the Bush years as the explosion that resulted when a wide variety of right-wing utopian fantasies collided with reality. Within the religious right, they're now having to make serious choices about how they're going to wield their new-found power; and work through complex moral arguments about what those scriptures mean in dealing with real-world issues. Nothing, it turns out, is remotely as black-and-white as they thought it was. Learning to see reality in all those messy shades of gray is, in the end, how all successful radical movements eventually calm down and join the mainstream.

On The Other Hand....
It's not all happy news, though. While the softer core of fundamentalists will likely be swept off into the mainstream, we're still left with Bob Altemeyer's bald fact: at any given time, about 25% of the population has right-wing authoritarian tendencies. And the harder core of those people -- the 12% who organize their whole lives around their addiction to anger -- are not going anywhere. Indeed, some of the old-line leaders already working overtime to install some new Pavlovian drool bells on these people, buttons can be pressed at will to stimulate the two-minute hate that gives their followers their daily buzz and keeps those donor checks rolling in.

Over at Talk2Action, Rob Boston of Americans United argues that reports of the demise of the old-line religious right are greatly exaggerated:

One recent poll found that 27 percent of Republican voters would bolt the party if a pro-choice candidate is nominated. It's a good bet these are Religious Right voters, and their defection from the GOP could not help but alter the dynamic of the race.

The recent "Values Voter Summit" is further evidence of the Religious Right's continued power. The turnout of more than 2,000 activists rivaled the numbers the Christian Coalition brought to Washington during its heyday. Every Republican candidate was there, pledging fealty to the Religious Right's pet issues. One wonders why they came to woo a dead movement.

We must also look at resources. A recent report by Americans United found that the nation's top Religious Right groups are better funded than ever. James Dobson's Focus on the Family took in $142.2 million in 2006, a $4.4 million increase over the previous year. Tony Perkins' Family Research Council took in $10.3 million in 2006, an increase of over $900,000 over the previous year.

It is true that some Religious Right leaders have died recently, notably Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy. But movement leaders come and go. Falwell's son, Jonathan, is already working to take his place. (The younger Falwell is mobilizing pastors on behalf of the GOP in state elections next month.) Behind the scenes, figures like far-right pastors Rick Scarborough and Rod Parsley are working to build a national presence.

The money will always be there, as long as there's a Reverend Moon, a Howard Ahmanson, and a Richard Sciafe to fund them. Selling authoritarian hate is a big business in America; and those who do it well will never want for backers.

But money is only half of the survival equation. The other is finding a new red-meat issue. The right wing needs a new boogeyman: it cannot survive without one. The ghosts of their ancient failed campaigns against blacks and gays (and, occasionally, Asians and Jews -- either of whom, for good measure, can also be read as code for "Communist") will always be invoked -- but since those fights are over, they don't generate the emotional heat required to keep the country's current authoritarian leadership in power. They need a fresh target that's worthy of a renewed chorus of eliminationist rhetoric -- some group that can reliably keep those rallies full and those checks rolling in.

For a while, fronted by the Minutemen, they tried to declare war on Mexicans. Unfortunately, they forgot one important criterion for the any hate campaign: you need to pick on someone that the target audience doesn't actually see every day. Too many Americans actually live or work among Mexicans, which makes it much harder to mass-market cartoon stereotypes about them. And (perhaps more importantly) too many of our high-SDO authoritarian class make a handsome living by exploiting them, and don't want that fact to become part of the public discussion. As an issue, Mexican-hating has some limited potential; but it's doesn't generate hysteria and panic on the vast scale that race-baiting and gay-bashing did. Compared to those past campaigns, it's small potatoes. They need something bigger. Much bigger.

And it appears that they've found it. It turns out that there are a billion people to hate -- and even better, they're all way over on the other side of the world where there's no danger that RWA followers will ever meet up with them (unless they're sent as soldiers to kill them) and have their stereotypes challenged. Building on post-9/11 insanity, religious and political authoritarians are working overtime to cement the frame that the entire Muslim world constitutes the new existential threat to America. You can hear it in the pulpits; you can hear it on Fox News. Muslims are the New Frontier in American hate, the coming investment in the authoritarian future, the place where today's ambitious hatemongers are now staking their claim to glory in the decades ahead.

It's a powerful narrative, with a lot of potential for future mischief -- the best bet for a big, gnarly, long-term enemy they've had since they lost the Commies. And there's a significant portion of the younger generation for whom hating ragheads, whom they don't know, has far more appeal than hating gays, whom they do.

This sales job is going to be big trouble if it succeeds. It will justify endless war in the Middle East, which will, very soon now, bankrupt America and destroy any hope we may have for future greatness. (Disaster capitalists, on the other hand, stand to profit handsomely from this meme.) Tagging all Muslims as terrorists not only results in humiliating gaffes and massive injustices; it also blinds us to the fact that people of other races, religions, and nationalities can be terrorists, too -- a wrong assumption that may someday prove fatal. Fanning a white-hot fear of Muslims now will add extra fury to the "stabbed-in-the-back" argument when it's used to persecute liberals at war's end. The more Muslim-hatred they can foment now, the worse this "treachery" will appear to be. So it's very much in our interest to strangle this idea before it takes hold.

But there's even more at stake. It's possible that the ultimate success or failure of the new, re-directed authoritarian right will directly depend on how well they can sell the fear of the Muslim boogeyman in the months ahead. Without it, they will have no control over their followers -- and hence, no political leverage. Right now, they're still rolling it out; it hasn't spread too far even within far-right circles yet. If we can contain it while it's still a fringe idea, the implications for our future political discourse will be truly world-changing.

Americans are notorious for succumbing to the appeal of the boogeyman as a means of self-identification; sometimes, it seems our entire sense of ourselves has always depended on having an enemy to contrast ourselves with. It's time to recognize that this soul hunger for an enemy to hate is a classically authoritarian instinct; and throughout our history, nobody but authoritarians have ever profited from indulging it. If the dominant culture confidently rejects the new enemy they're offering now, we'll go a long way toward cutting off the right wing's ability to influence our future.

Kirkpatrick is right. The soft core RWA followers are finally melting away (as I predicted they would a year ago), finding ways and means to re-join the real world and re-engage with American society. But Boston's right, too: the hard core is going nowhere. It will be smaller -- and without the soft-core to keep them in touch with real-world concerns, it will be far more rigid and angry, too. Ironically, our best hope may be that the more extreme they become, the more anathema they'll be in the eyes of the rest of America. Nobody serious will want to be seen with the crazies.

This discussion about "whither the religious right" will keep unfolding over the next several months, as people look for signs and wonders indicating the arrival of one predicted future or the other. But the clear-eyed course is the one that refuses to pick. Both stories are true. Both factions are in the process of re-negotiating their places in American society, and both will inevitably undergo large-scale changes as a result. It's in the way those re-negotiations unfold, and the choices that get made, that the real future of the religious right will be written.

That sinking feeling

-- by Dave

Somehow, considering that Exxon has managed to avoid paying damages still, 18 years after the Exxon Valdez disaster -- and despite the lingering damage -- you just knew this was going to happen:

Top Court to Hear Exxon Valdez Case

By MARK SHERMAN – 15 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether Exxon Mobil Corp. should pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages to victims of the huge Exxon Valdez oil spill that fouled more than 1,200 miles of Alaskan coastline in 1989.

The high court stepped into the long-running battle over the damages that Exxon Mobil owes from the supertanker accident in Prince William Sound that was the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef, cracking its hull and spilling 11 million gallons of oil.

Hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine animals died as a result.

It is a case filled with superlatives. The award, even after it was cut in half by a federal appeals court in December, would be the largest punitive damages judgment ever. A jury in Alaska awarded $5 billion in damages in 1994 and the company has been appealing the verdict ever since.

Exxon Mobil, based in Irving, Texas, is the world's largest publicly traded oil company and last year posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company — $39.5 billion. That result topped the previous record, also by Exxon Mobil, of $36.13 billion set in 2005.

Arguing against Supreme Court review, lawyers for the plaintiffs, some of whom have died, said the damages award is "barely more than three weeks of Exxon's net profits."

The plaintiffs still living include about 33,000 commercial fishermen, cannery workers, landowners, Native Alaskans, local governments and businesses. They urged the court to reject the company's appeal, saying, "After more than 18 years, it is time for this protracted litigation to end."

Gee, wonder how they're going to rule on this one:

Exxon said that even if the court finds some money is due, it should rule that the $2.5 billion award violates the Constitution because it is too large. The justices said they would not consider that argument when they hear the case early next year.

Justice Samuel Alito, who owns between $100,000 and $250,000 in Exxon stock, did not take part in the decision to accept the appeal.

Here's the full story behind the original $5 billion ruling.

This is a court that's already overturned an $80 million judgment against Phillip Morris. Indeed, the court in its current composition is weighted heavily toward corporate interests. It's largely a Bush court, after all.

This is one of the things that most angers me about conservative rule. In a healthy system, this case would be decided purely on the merits of the law. That's how most of us expect our court system to work.

But under conservative rule, with the courts now dominated by the Federalist Society, the whole system has become rigged. We know the outcomes even before they're officially issued. It's impossible to have any reasonable faith in the integrity of the Bush courts.

Just another reason to boot them out next year. Who knows, Alaskans might even vote Democratic.

The war criminals

-- by Dave

A lot of people are distressed by the realization that the traditional remedy for a presidency as misbegotten as the one we're currently enduring -- impeachment -- simply isn't going to happen, at least not as a political reality and given the time frame remaining.

But I like to cheer them up by reminding that while impeachment may be off the table, but a war-crimes trial is not.

We got a little reminder of this yesterday:

NEW YORK - Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. secretary of defense, is facing criminal charges in France for ordering the torture of prisoners in Iraq and at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Last week, some of the world’s leading human rights law groups filed a complaint before a French court charging Rumsfeld with authorizing and ordering torture.

The complaint was registered at the office of the prosecutor of the Court of First Instance in Paris when Rumsfeld was in the city for a talk sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine.

“We will not rest until those U.S. officials involved in torture are brought to justice,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a non-profit human rights law firm in the United States.

In filing the complaint against Rumsfeld, Ratner’s group received full support from the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the French League for Human Rights, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

“Rumsfeld must understand that he has no place to hide,” Ratner added in a statement after filing the complaint. “A torturer is an enemy of all humankind.”

The charges against Rumsfeld were brought under the 1984 Convention against Torture, ratified by both the United States and France, which has been used in France in previous torture cases.

The criminal complaint states that because of the failure of authorities in the United States and Iraq to launch any independent investigation, it is the legal obligation of states such as France to take up the case.

Ratner and his colleagues in France’s legal community contend that Rumsfeld and other top U.S. officials are subject to criminal trial because there is sufficient evidence to prove that they had authorized the torture of prisoners held on suspicion of involvement in terrorist acts.

“France is under the obligation to investigate and prosecute Rumsfeld,” said FIDH president Souhayr Belhassen. “It has no choice but to open an investigation.”

Of course, Rumsfeld can just do a Kissinger and avoid getting into situations where he might ever actually be hauled before one of these courts. But eventually, the pressure is going to mount for some accountability:

This is the fifth time Rumsfeld has been charged with direct involvement in torture stemming from his role in the Bush administration’s global response to the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and other parts of the United States.

Two previous criminal complaints were filed in Germany under its universal jurisdiction statute, which allows Germany to prosecute serious international crimes regardless of where they occurred or the nationality of the perpetrators or victims.

The first case was filed in 2004 by CCR, FIDH, and Kaleck, who is an attorney in Berlin. That case was dismissed in February 2005 in response to official pressure from the United States, in particular from the Pentagon, the plaintiffs said.

The second case was filed last fall by the same groups as well as dozens of national and international human rights groups, Nobel Peace Prize winners, and the former UN special rapporteur on torture.

Of course, we've known since early in its tenure about the Bush adminstration's hostility to the international courts. It's not hard, in retrospect, to see why that was.

But then, very early in the "war on terror," the issue of war crimes and torture was being raised. It only reached the public eye after Abu Ghraib, at which time it was becoming apparent that this went far up the food chain at the White House.

Of course, we can't even count on our Congress to stop the torture of prisoners in our hands. But I still hear the wheels of justice churning, and I can't help but believe they will catch up to these characters some day.

'The politics of the personal'

-- by Dave

I have a new post up at Rick Perlstein's place, The Big Con, with an opening a lot of you will find familiar:

There's one thing about growing up in a place like Idaho: If you can't make friends with conservatives, you won't have many friends.

And as my oldest friends can tell you, once upon a time I was myself fairly conservative politically. I come from a working-class Republican family -- my mother's side of the family was in road construction, and my dad's was mostly a farming family, though his father actually was an auto mechanic. Dad himself worked at the local airport for the FAA, and I remember well the Goldwater bumper sticker on the red ’59 Ford Fairlane that was our family car in 1964.

What you're reading, of course, is a reworking of my old post "The Political and the Personal," which when it first appeared in November 2003 caused something of a stir, and it wound up being the runner-up for Best Post in the 2003 Koufaxes. But though it has fallen somewhat out of date since, the themes I remarked upon remain very current indeed.

I'm in the process of putting together a lot of the work I've done at Orcinus over the years into book form -- using the blog work, essentially, as a rough first draft, which is how I've tended to view my work here anyway. Mostly, it's entailed a lot of editing, rewriting, clarifying (it's a little horrifying at times going through your old work and realizing how sloppy first-draft work can be) and updating, which has been the most intriguing and satisfying aspect of the work so far -- things right-wingers are doing today illustrate vividly the disturbing trends I was pointing out four years ago.

So "The Politics of the Personal," which is running as a five-part series, is essentially the book's introductory salvo, largely wrapping together some of the themes the book will try to tackle. And my old post from 2003 has been a perfect launching pad for this.

I hope you enjoy.

The working title of the book, incidentally, is The Eliminationists: Newspeak and the Rise of the Pseudo-Fascist Right in America.

Those 'illegal' people

-- by Dave

This summer as I was riding a ferry to the San Juan Islands, I found myself going up the stairs to the main deck from my car behind a couple of middle-aged white women who were talking about immigration.

One of them was talking to the other about the immigrants she had seen on television marching for progressive reform. She said: "One of them was holding up a sign that said, 'Illegal does not equal criminal.' And I'm thinking: 'What?'" The other woman agreed that it just made no sense.

If I were a nosier busybody who didn't mind letting people know I was eavesdropping, I'd have piped up: "When you get a speeding ticket, does that make you a criminal?" Ah, but I'm not, so I didn't. L'esprit d'escalier, indeed.

But this is one of the real problems with people like Lou Dobbs, who get all bent out of shape when you point out to them that calling undocumented immigrants "illegal aliens" is a crude form of demonization.

Lawrence Downes in the New York Times has penned the consummate retort, titled after one of the nativists' own favorite sayings, "What part of 'illegal' don't you understand?"

America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.

“Illegal” is accurate insofar as it describes a person’s immigration status. About 60 percent of the people it applies to entered the country unlawfully. The rest are those who entered legally but did not leave when they were supposed to. The statutory penalties associated with their misdeeds are not insignificant, but neither are they criminal. You get caught, you get sent home.

Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. People are often surprised to learn that illegal immigrants have rights. Really? Constitutional rights? But aren’t they illegal? Of course they have rights: they have the presumption of innocence and the civil liberties that the Constitution wisely bestows on all people, not just citizens.

Many people object to the alternate word “undocumented” as a politically correct euphemism, and they have a point. Someone who sneaked over the border and faked a Social Security number has little right to say: “Oops, I’m undocumented. I’m sure I have my papers here somewhere.”

But at least “undocumented” — and an even better word, “unauthorized” — contain the possibility of reparation and atonement, and allow for a sensible reaction proportional to the offense. ...

Meanwhile, out on the edges of the debate — edges that are coming closer to the mainstream every day — bigots pour all their loathing of Spanish-speaking people into the word. Rant about “illegals” — call them congenital criminals, lepers, thieves, unclean — and people will nod and applaud. They will send money to your Web site and heed your calls to deluge lawmakers with phone calls and faxes. Your TV ratings will go way up.

This is not only ugly, it is counterproductive, paralyzing any effort toward immigration reform. Comprehensive legislation in Congress and sensible policies at the state and local level have all been stymied and will be forever, as long as anything positive can be branded as “amnesty for illegals.”

We are stuck with a bogus, deceptive strategy — a 700-mile fence on a 2,000-mile border to stop a fraction of border crossers who are only 60 percent of the problem anyway, and scattershot raids to capture a few thousand members of a group of 12 million.

The biggest problem with insisting on labeling other people as "illegals" is that it utterly begs the question -- which, with 12 million people now fitting the description, becomes acute -- just how appropriate and workable are the laws that make them so in the first place.

But that's an easy question to overlook when you're firmly on the other side of the divide.

Five Million

-- Sara

At some point late last evening, Orcinus welcomed its five millionth visitor.

There will be s'mores and 18-year-old scotch around this evening's campfire to celebrate.

Thanks, Dave, for taking on the job of creating this place and keeping it running. (And also for letting me hold forth from your porch now and again.)

And the rest of you -- we're glad you're all still here, and hope you'll stick around to help make it ten!