The PC Fascisti* Ride Again

Every so often, political correctness takes over someone's brain and they seem to completely take leave of their senses.

Such was the case in Morgan Hill, California when some students showed up for class yesterday in clothing bedecked with American flags. They were sent home, because it was Cinco de Mayo, and this show of American patriotism was deemed "incendiary." Mexican-American students, it was reasoned, would become so angry that it was feared that fights would break out on campus. Meanwhile, some Mexican-American students played the role of aggrieved minority to the hilt, incensed not at the fashion crime the tacky patriot-wear represented, but at the unconscionable insult of an American student daring to wear the American flag at a school in... America.

"I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day," Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. "We don't deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn't do that on Fourth of July."

Right. Something tells me that if I go to Mexico on the Fourth of July, and find someone with a Mexican flag on his shirt, I doubt that he'll feel that he's disrespecting me by doing so.

White Americans are often portrayed as unreasonably touchy about the whole PC thing, but this, honestly, earns them my sympathy. While Fox News is no doubt salivating over the chance to raise the hackles of their audience by blaring this story from the rooftops, there is a point here. A group of American students (the children of ex-pats) living in a foreign nation, who insisted that the natives refrain from wearing their national flag on the Fourth of July would be branded as Ugly Americans, and half the planet would be disapprovingly clucking their tongues at us. Such behavior would be considered completely unacceptable, a sure sign of Imperialism and American arrogance run amok.

I understand that Mexican-Americans may hold Cinco de Mayo to be important, but for most other Americans, it's little more than an excuse to drink Corona and tequila half the night. That's part of the deal one signs up for when living in a foreign country.

* This is an inside joke. The PC Fascisti was a group consisting solely of a friend's answering machine: Guido - the voice of oppressed small appliances everywhere! As you may have guessed, Guido could be relied upon to regale one with a tale of woe concerning a fellow small appliance whenever his masters weren't present to answer the telephone. Usually in a laughably bad pseudo-Italian accent. But he did offer some amusing insights into his owner's views of political correctness.

Let Us Fray

For those of you that feel deprived because of not having had a "War on Christmas" last year, you may console yourself with the knowledge that a pointless and religiously-themed argument has broken out over The National Day of Prayer this year.

"This makes us who are not religious feel excluded," [Annie Laurie] Gaylor[, who runs the Freedom From Religion Foundation] says. "It makes us political outsiders. It makes me feel like the president is telling me that I'm supposed to believe in a God, and there's something wrong with me — and even if I don't believe in a God, I'm still supposed to pray."
Day Of Prayer Becomes Culture War Skirmish

I expect that the answer to Mrs. Gaylor's dilemma is to not give the President such power over her emotions. Not to be flippant, but if the President calling for a token (and yes, it is a token) day of prayer "makes" you feel that there's some sort of obligation to believe, and that you're a broken person for not doing so, perhaps you care a little too much about what the President thinks, and whether or not he might approve. It's also worth noting that there is an interesting intersection between language and mentality here. While it's common to refer to things as "making" us feel a certain way, this isn't true in a strictly literal sense - no one really has the power to force certain feelings on someone. Granted, our emotions often seem completely outside of our control, but I think that the world would be a completely different place were emotionally manipulating others such a trivial exercise.

This isn't to say that there are no issues. Being an admitted atheist is a nation of believers can sometimes feel like painting a bull's-eye on your back - you can easily become a target for the fears and insecurities of the religious. And there is a strain of religious thought that aims to have the Establishment Clause interpreted in such a way that it would effectively outlaw atheism.

"The Constitution never says there was a separation of church and state. It is the freedom OF religion, not the freedom FROM religion. And that's why we're fighting so hard." Reverend Ken Hutcherson, Antioch Bible Church, Redmond, Washington. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 October, 2004.)

(And lest you think I'm reading some insecurity into the reverend's words where perhaps none was intended, you could be right. But this is the same man who proclaimed: "God hates soft men. God hates effeminate men. If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I'd rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end." A model of security and self-validation he is not.)

But - that said, the answer to that is not to play up one's own fears and insecurities.

"[...] we are offended and injured when our government tells us that we have to pray and when to pray and why to pray."

When the requirement for personal prayer is codified into law, and refusal to participate is a crime, let's talk. But if the "coercion" comes simply from the disapproving stares of snobbish believers, even those who happen to work for the government, perhaps the FFRF and like thinkers should just tell them to get bent. (It's very therapeutic, I'm told.) By the same token, it stretches the definition of the word just a bit too far to presume that atheists (or simply those people whose belief system doesn't allow for a personal deity that can be propitiated with prayer) are "disenfranchised" by the idea of a National Day of Prayer. I'm fairly certain that I've never been asked to prove attendance at any sort of religious function to obtain my voter registration card and absolutely certain that I've never perjured myself by attesting that I've been to one on a registration form.

Of course, I'm leaving aside the idea that this very fine public whine is simply a means of attention seeking, using that new American standby of the victimization sob story. That's a post for another time.

And, In Other News‏

I’ve been learning how to use a fire extinguisher. My Irony Detector redlined, then spontaneously combusted.

Well-Kept Secret

Despite the fact that Expo 2010 Shanghai China seems to be a big deal in other parts of the world, it had more or less started before I heard word one about it. I know that there are a lot of other things going on in the world, I was still surprised at the lack of buzz around this event.

It seems that the United States isn't as concerned with such things as we used to be. China, on the other hand, sees events like this and the Olympics as their chance to really impress the rest of the world with their progress and modernity. One wonders if they're disappointed that the U.S. seems too busy to notice.

Spam On Lie

I must be big in the Far East. I keep finding comments in Chinese on my posts - normally followed by a number of periods - each one being a link to some site that likely sells pornography, cut-rate pharmaceuticals or knock-offs, designer goods or stolen property (wonder if I could get a hot new phone that way...).

If I've heard once, I've heard a million times that comment spam and similar stuff persists because it's so cheap. You fire up your automated Blogspot 'Bot, and have it create a few dozen accounts, and then have it simply crawl around to various weblogs and create some random comment filled with links that you hope that some complete idiot encounters and clicks on. And that's the part that confuses me. I get the comment spam that I tend to see on more commercial sites, like newspapers or more formalized weblogs and commentaries that makes no effort to hide the fact that they're selling something. While this up-front approach makes them easy to ignore, you might actually find someone who wants a knock-off Coach bag, and thinks that embedding an advertisement in the comments section of a news story about a quadruple-homicide is a clever marketing scheme. Hey - it could happen.

But who, realistically, is going to click on some random link embedded in some random dot at the end of some random comment on some random posting on some random weblog, and hope for the best? I mean, yeah, it's cheap, so cheap in fact that you only need one hit in a few hundred to make some small profit for your efforts, but do people really even get that? And if you're simply pushing malware, don't you still need something that a potential target with half the sense that dogs gave to cabbage would actually click on? "Hey, look, I found a link to SomeSexSite.com on a blog posting, cleverly disguised as a blue period! This must be my lucky day!" Trust me, anyone that dim likely doesn't have any room left for your malware on his computer.