Everything I need to know I learned from scary conservatives

I have a confession. Many of you who know me in real life already know this, but here goes: I love conservatives. Scary ones. Yes, I know, in a very condescending, pat-on-the-head-aren't-you-cute kind of way. The KKK? Awful, evil, horrible. But kind of funny. I feel kind of like a bad person, but there it is. Now, people who are racist/sexist without knowing it, they make me sad/mad. "Colorblind" racists, "personal responsibility" racists, etc. (I am not saying that colorblindness or personal responsibility are bad things, in themselves. They have, however, become codewords for a particular brand of conservatism that doesn't amuse me in the slightest. Mostly because I can see people taken in by the rhetoric, people who wouldn't at all consider themselves racists.)

With sexism: I love Phyllis Schlafly and ladiesagainstfeminism.org (which, by the way, is wonderful. You should check it out.). I hate Katie Roiphe and Naomi Wolf. You getting the idea? Pat Robertson's argument that feminism causes women to leave their husbands, get abortions, and become lesbians is funny. Roiphe's pseudofeminism that uses a tactic similar to the "colorblind" racists just grates.

So, you can understand why watching videos and listening to clips on mediamatters.org would make a good time for me. I have spent the last few hours combing through Media Matters' archive and learning new and exciting things about the world. I will share some of them with you.

First off, I learned that the reason I have time to type this up is that, like most liberals, I clearly have no family or church responsibilities. That's okay, though. I won't cry over it. However, "somewhere Jesus is weeping" over the charges and media discussion about Bill O'Reilly's sex scandal. Speaking of God's concern over media whores, apparently God talks pretty regularly to Pat Robertson. And Pat takes notes. I do often wonder, and I'm entirely serious here, if God gets pissed off when people like Robertson purport to not only say, "I feel God is saying that..." but actually read something that he claims is word for word what God actually told him. First person and everything. What's funny, though, is that it was from the beginning of the year. And God (or Pat?) was kind of wrong.

When it comes to feminism, I learned that it was actually "established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society" (Number 24 on Limbaugh's 35 Undeniable Truths). Also, women still live longer than men do because they have easier lives. Oh, and Harvard's fund set up to bring more women on to the faculty? The point is that they give them 100 pairs of shoes. But why do that? Just hold more dances.

Now we get to race. A black conservative group says that blacks who curse America are actually cursing God. God was good enough to allow them to be sold into slavery so that they could end up in America, the land of opportunity. Now that they're here, though, "they" have the problem of crime. And it's not a result of poverty. Crime results from a "lack of moral character." We can see this by looking at Katrina: "Look what they did to the Dome. In three days they turned the Dome into a ghetto." Pat Robertson reminds us that Dems need to carefully choose who they put up for nomination because "Black folks aren't going to vote" for a Democratic nominee not nicknamed "Bubba."

Why are people poor, anyway? In this country, poverty can only mean irresponsibility and laziness. Or stupidity, mental illness, and/or addiction. Because in America, anyone who wants to can make it. All you have to do is want it and work hard for it. This is not a new lesson, and it's one that to me is more annoying than amusing (considering its, um, convincing untruthfulness), but I thought I'd share it anyway. Also, in the event of a terrorist attack or natural disaster, we should totally save the rich people first. The poor people are just a drag on society (but we should try to get them, too, if we can).

Finally, I learned a lot about homosexuality and gay marriage. Not only does David Brock have "the lisp," ("I don't like guys who sound like that, they give me the creeps. I don't trust 'em, that's all"), but he also wants to rape your son. As do all gays (lesbians, too??). They are also "self-absorbed narcissists." But, fear not, homosexuals can be cured by exorcism.

Cure or not, though, they have an agenda. They are responsible for no fault divorce and abortions-on-demand (amazing, considering that they can neither marry nor procreate biologically with their chosen partners). Beware, lest they infect you via screen. This is for you, mom: apparently gays and lesbians are all over HGTV. Speaking of infections, some believe that gays should apologize to straights for introducing HIV/AIDS into society. Lesbians, however, are jealous and pissed because "they don't have an AIDS epidemic that they can cash in on."

Finally, there were many warnings (most coming from Bill O'Reilly: he seems obsessed by this) that the legalization for gay marriage would cause all sorts of odd marriages, such as "marriage between daddies and little girls...between a man and his donkey." Also, we hear from Falwell that saying that you don't support gay marriage but you do support civil unions is "like saying 150 years ago, 'I'm opposed to slavery, but if my neighbor wants to own one, that's all right.'" It's funny 'cause 150 years ago he totally would have been all about the slavery. That's why conservatism is fun.