The Seductive Power of the Dark Side

A friend of mine posted an item on Facebook today touting the 2009 Citizen's Continental Congress, a political gathering taking place later this year. Its manifesto is a hodgepodge of causes ranging from the paranoid to the legally dangerous to the just plain loony. And it does it all not just while wrapping itself in the flag, but while grafting it to its skin as much as possible.

This thing veers all over the political map, embracing ideologies from the birthers to the conspiracy theorists. It claims that the United States is a Communist nation (it isn't), Barack Obama never released his birth certificate (he did) and we're living under tyranny (we're not).

Since my friend apparently accepts this silliness as is, it got me thinking: why do so many otherwise sensible people fall for this sort of stuff?

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker asks Yoda if the dark side of the Force is stronger than the light side. "No," the Jedi Master replies. "Quicker, easier, more seductive." And so it seems to be with so many of these wild claims.

Take the current debate over health care. Few would argue that our present system of health coverage is the best there is. Fifteen percent of Americans have no health insurance at all; when they get sick or injured, they must either pay huge sums out of pocket or go to the hospital emergency room for free care, in which case the taxpayers pick up the tab.

The rest of us have insurance, either through one's employer, through the government (military, VA, Medicare or Medicaid) or bought privately. But in far too many cases, people still find themselves in desperate straits, losing their coverage through "rescission." This euphemism masks the noxious practice of yanking coverage just when it's needed the most, usually for the flimsiest of reasons.

I can hear people out there saying, "But that could never happen to me." Don't be so sure. Last month, the American Journal of Medicine released a study with some frightening conclusions:

• 62% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were at least partially caused by medical debt (up from just 8% in 1981)
• 78% of people who went bankrupt due to medical costs had health insurance when they became sick or injured

Think about that. Even if you have health insurance, it may well not protect you from financial ruin.

That is more than appalling. That is obscene.

But the current Democratic proposal for reforming the system (the Republicans didn't bother to offer any proposals of their own) is being attacked by people who don't want the system reformed. They call it "socialized medicine" or "medical fascism" and spread scare stories to frighten people into knee-jerk opposition. You will be forced to accept government health coverage! Government inspectors will enter your home to monitor your parenting! The government will mandate euthanasia for seniors!

Of course, all of these are nonsense, as can be quickly learned from actually reading the legislation text. (Secure that their rhetorical targets either cannot or will not look for themselves, writers of the aforementioned scare stories helpfully provide the exact page numbers, making debunking a snap.)

But my point is this: Even when something is clearly in their best interest, people can still be suckered into opposing it. People can and will believe the most ridiculous things possible. After all, look at how many still think the moon landings were faked, or that Jews control the world, or that 9/11 was an inside job.

But why? Perhaps it's because, as Yoda said, it's simply easier. Sometimes people are all too willing to let someone else do the thinking for them. Sometimes people are so scared of change they will grasp at anything, no matter how insane, which promises normalcy, even if that normalcy will hurt them. It's always a distressing development when people embrace this lunacy, and it's even more distressing when a friend does so.

When Luke asks how he can distinguish the good side of the Force from the bad side, Yoda answers, "You will know. When you are calm, at peace."

Maybe all that's required is to slow down and think with a clear head.

Birther Backfire

For the last few days, birthers far and wide have been tickled pink by the tale of one Stefan Frederick Cook, a major in the Army Reserve who received orders to go to Afghanistan. Rather than comply, Cook sued the Army, claiming his orders were illegal because the commander-in-chief is not eligible to be president. His attorney is Orly Taitz, the California dentist-turned-birther-lawyer who is in trouble with the state bar association for a whole host of unethical practices, including soliciting clients, improper communication with judges, threatening violence, and so on.

After Cook sued, the Army withdrew the orders, whereupon Taitz ran to WorldNetDaily (where else?) and declared victory:

"We won! We won before we even arrived," she said with excitement. "It means that the military has nothing to show for Obama. It means that the military has directly responded by saying Obama is illegitimate - and they cannot fight it. Therefore, they are revoking the order!"

Um, no. It actually means the Army realized that sending a publicly insubordinate officer to a war zone is not a good idea. Rather than run the risk of said officer spreading sedition through the ranks, they took the smart route.

But it now looks like there is far more to Cook's story than was first apparent. On February 1, 2009, he contacted Taitz to sign up for her (now dismissed) class-action lawsuit challenging President Obama's citizenship status. He is also a frequent blogger on the Free Republic website under the user name "roaddog727" - specifically, he posted one item, titled "WHITE PAPER, Obama's Eligibility to be President of the United States," on March 25.

Why are those dates important? Because on May 8, three months after signing onto Taitz's lawsuit and six weeks after posting his blog entry, Cook volunteered for a yearlong tour in Afghanistan beginning on July 15.

That's right, he asked for orders from a chain of command he does not recognize as lawful.

After his requested orders were issued on June 9, as a volunteer reservist he could have asked for their revocation at any time - but he didn't. Instead, he waited until just one week before his deployment date to file suit on July 8.

In a nutshell, this stinks to high heaven. It has all the hallmarks of a hoax, and a particularly messy one at that. It sure looks like Cook asked for the posting only because he wanted to use it as a vehicle to propel his birther claims onto front pages across the nation. (It is as yet unknown what role, if any, Taitz played in his decision to sue the Army.) But the plan exploded in his face, with bad consequences.

You see, Cook's civilian job is at a Pentagon contractor called Simtech. Not surprisingly, the Defense Department took a very dim view of someone who abuses the reservist system as part of a blatant political stunt and yanked his security clearance, thus barring him from DOD facilities. Since he was unable to do his job due to his own willful actions, Simtech fired him. So he has now lost his job, and by this point is probably wishing he had never heard of Taitz.

The Army Reserve will probably take an equally dim view of his actions. I see a court-martial in Cook's future, and a malpractice lawsuit in Taitz's.

We Must Keep the Master Race Pure

"Leave it to the Finns and Swedes to come up with something. Because that's a - we are, we're a, we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other - I mean the Swedes - the Swedes have, uh, pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes. Because that's the rule. Finland - Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody."

Fox & Friends anchor Brian Kilmeade, bemoaning the fact that Americans have a habit of breeding with people outside their own racial and/or ethnic groups

Palin's Puzzler

Well, that was unexpected.

When Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who was touted as the "Thrilla from Wasilla" before doing so much to sink John McCain's presidential ambitions, abruptly resigned yesterday, the big question was, "Why?" Palin supporters immediately pointed to her popularity in the Republican Party (or at least the know-nothing-and-damn-proud-of-it wing) and speculated that she's setting herself up for a presidential run in 2012.

But if a first-term governor is considering a White House bid, she does not up and resign with a year and a half left to go in her term. Especially when the next presidential election comes two years after the end of her term. Pre-announcement buzz was that she would not run for re-election, which would have made a lot more sense.

Her rambling speech, veering from attacking the media for reporting on her many ethical problems (you could almost hear her snarling, "and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids!") to comparing her time as governor to a basketball game, did not impress. Perhaps it was designed to appeal not to rational and thinking adults, but to mindless dittoheads. She is, after all, in a race with Rush Limbaugh to lead the ignorant wing of the GOP.

But why did she time her resignation speech the way she did - on a Friday right before the Fourth of July? Experienced politicos know that bad news is always dumped into the press on Fridays, where it will get lost in the much-less-watched weekend news coverage. That goes double for news dumps right before a holiday, and triple right before a weekend holiday. You just don't announce something under such circumstances unless you want it to vanish without a trace.

So it certainly sounds like Palin resigned to head off something bad. All indications are that she made a spectacular mess of the governor's office - e.g, being largely absent from Juneau ever since accepting the VP slot and alienating the GOP-controlled legislature to the point where her nominee for Attorney General was soundly rejected. And let's not even get into her murky ethics, from charging the state for living expenses in her own home to firing the head of the state police for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law arbitrarily.

Rumors are flying that she is about to be indicted on federal corruption charges. As mayor of Wasilla, Palin awarded a contract to build a sports center to a company which raked in the cash while leaving the town almost broke. In exchange, the company gave her free supplies to build her house, sponsored her husband's snowmobile team and hired her to do one of their TV ads.

And if all that isn't enough, Palin has threatened to sue anyone, including media outlets such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, for defamation if they report on said rumors. She (or her lawyers) surely cannot be this stupid. As a public figure, Palin must prove actual malice in order to make a defamation case stick against anyone, and in the case of news reporting or blog commentary, this is virtually impossible.

She must be doing it purely as an intimidation move, to try and shut up her critics - but she seems to have no idea what the First Amendment says. At a time when she needs every friend she can get, this is not a smart move.

We'll have to see what happens. But suddenly announcing her resignation on a political take-out-the-trash day does not bode well.

Maggie the Monster

Frank Lombard, an official at Duke University, was arrested last week and accused not only of molesting his five-year-old son, but of offering him up as a plaything for other creatures like himself. It's a horrible story, and one that should turn the stomach of any parent. But since Lombard is gay and his son was adopted, homophobes near and far seized on the case as "proof" that gays should not be allowed to adopt.

It should go without saying that gay people are no more likely to molest children than straight people are. It should, but unfortunately some people just don't get it.

But that's not what moved me from sickened sympathy to boiling anger at this situation. What finally did the trick was a column by Maggie Gallagher (of National Organization for Marriage/Carrie Prejean infamy) in which she depicts adoption as a Stalinist good ol' boy network which turns a blind eye to pedophilia:

But adoptions are government acts. What did [Lombard's] fellow social workers who approved this adoption know? What did they overlook? What questions didn't they ask because, well, he was "in the club" - one of them?

Adoption is the way we strip a child of his or her natural protection - his mom and dad - and the government steps in to give this baby a new and better father or mother. Preferably both, I say. But I'm old-fashioned.

Does Gallagher even know anyone who was adopted, or any parents who adopted their kids? I highly doubt it, otherwise she would never have written such a thing.

Adoption is not a punishment for the birth parents. It is not some sort of Big Brother intervention. And it definitely is not some kind of secret society, reserving special benefits for those on the inside.

Both our children were adopted. Our son's teenage birth parents voluntarily placed him as a newborn. Our daughter's unknown birth parents abandoned her as an infant. Were they seized from their birth parents and handed over to us willy-nilly, "stripped" of their "natural protection?"

Of course not. But by depicting adoption as she did, Gallagher shows herself to be even more woefully ignorant, not to mention just plain stupid, than she already is.

In her rush to smear all gay parents (and single parents, too) by connecting them to this one loathsome person, Gallagher also smeared me. And my wife. And our kids. And all families formed via adoption.

She should be ashamed of herself.