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A few months ago, for God knows what reason, I recieved an invitiation to join the Yahoo!Group Moral_Conservatism. I signed on and requested the once-a-day email of all postings for that day. In doing so, I ensured that my auxilliary inbox will always be full…full of INSANITY, that is.

Usually I just delete them without reading them, because each and every update contains either a) an example of rasicm so naked and hateful I’m embarassed to have the liquid crystals in my computer screen aligned in such a way as to make it decipherable, or b) a joke, urban myth, or rumour that is ALWAYS the very first result on snopes.com when you search for the obvious keywords in the anecdote, and it is ALWAYS debunked, usually by a call to the people or corporations involved.

The postings on M_C aren’t really all that special. Take your drunken, paranoid reactionary uncle, remove all of his endearing qualities through the magic of the psuedo-anonymous internet, and feed him copious amounts of urban legends*:

September 11th, a Budweiser employee was making a delivery to a convenience store in a town called McFarland. He knew of the tragedy that had occurred in New York. He entered the business to find two Arabs whooping and hollering and really cheering it up. It was obvious they were elated with what had happened earlier. The Budweiser employee went to his truck, called his boss and told him of the very upsetting event. He didn’t feel he could be in that store with those horrible people. His boss told him, “Do you think you could go in there long enough to pull every Budweiser product and item our beverage company sells there? We’ll never deliver to them again.”

(Oh, my hero! Buy Budwieser! Really, the fact that it wasn’t the Heiniken driver or the Sam Adams driver speaks volumes in and of itself.)

…and every once in a while, reactionary “humor” attributed to a man who would never, ever, ever be such a douchebag as to think this is cutting edge humor:

YES, I’M A BAD AMERICAN

by: George Carlin

I Am Your Worst Nightmare. I am a BAD American. I am George Carlin.

I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some mid level
governmental functionary be it Democratic or Republican!

…
I believe that if you are selling me a Big Mac, try to do it in English.

I believe everyone has a right to pray to his or her God when and where they want to.
…

And, no, I don’t mind having my face shown on my drivers license. I think it’s
good….. and I’m proud that “God” is written on my money. I think if you are too stupid to know how a ballot works, I don’t want you deciding who should be running the most powerful nation in the world for the next four years.

I believe that it doesn’t take a village to raise a child, it takes two parents.

And what is going on with gas prices… again?

Now, multiply your uncle x 1000, mix in some stark racism, plenty of evenaglical Christianity and the latests neocon talking points and there you go, a mailing list.

Today’s mailbag, however, inspired a contest. I found the responses to McBoing’s roll call a little weak, so this time we’re going to make it fun. Ready kids?

Here we go:

From the latest list I obtained this edifying summary of the beliefs of the mysterious Islamics:

[Email and name omitted]

If all this is true, and all Islamics believe this, then isn’t liberty out of reach? How can
the war in Iraq yield liberty?

How many ppl in Iraq believe this?
(-Name)

—– Original Message —–
[Identifing information omitted]
Subject: [Moral_Conservatism:] teachings of Islam

Here are a few examples of the teachings of Islam: All can be found in Sharia Law or Islamic
Law:

Men are superior to women. (Surah 2:228)
Women have half the rights of men:
In court witness. (Surah 2:282)
In inheritance. (Surah 4:11)
A man may beat his wife. (Surah 4:34)
A man may marry up to four wives at the same time (Surah 4:3)
Muslims must fight until their opponents submit to Islam. (Surah 9:29)
A Muslim must not take a Jew or a Christian for a friend.(Surah 5:51)
A Muslim apostate must be killed.(Surah 9:12)
Stealing is punished by the amputation of the hands. (Surah 5:38)
Adultery is punished by public flogging. (Surah 24:2)
No separation between Church and State. (Surah 2:193)
No opposition party allowed. (Surah 4:59)

Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to scour the internets for examples of North Americans (bonus points for Canadians that are not Adam Yoshida) espousing the very same beliefs under the banner of religion or patriotism. There are two catagories for you to compete in:

Catagory A: Insane people: you know the type.

Catagory B: Intellecutally dishonest people who should know better.

Participants recieve honor, glory, a sense of smug superiority over those who we shall mock in the comments, valuable practice for future participation in the professional contests over at World O’ Crap, and possibly a handsome mention in a future post. Include links in your submissions, and good luck!

*Not that belief in urban myths is limited to crazy people in ultra-conservative internet groups. Just yesterday at work I recieved for the second time in three years that Snatch ‘n Sniff warning; I get these things from otherwise intelligent, rational, professional women. Drives me insane.