It's well established that rank and file conservatives are functionally stupid. Witness this quote from an article about right wing evangelists in the NY Times Magazine:
But just as many people ruled out Obama because they suspected that he was not Christian at all but in fact a crypto-Muslim — a rumor that spread around the Internet earlier this year. “There is just that ill feeling, and part of it is his faith,” Welsh said. “Is his faith anti-Christian? Is he a Muslim? And what about the school where he was raised?”
“Obama sounds too much like Osama,” said Kayla Nickel of Westlink. “When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!’ ”
Or watch the stupid, if you dare, in this video via TBogg.
Yes, stupid they undeniably be, but our understanding of why they have become so stupid is incomplete.
We know all about the conservative leanings of the Washington Post and the New York Times. We are familiar with Fox News and their stable of demagogic blowhards. We have second or third hand knowledge of the big fat fool infested hate radio. We know that hate spewing right wing evangelists are out there spewing right wing evangelism. And those things explain a lot, but they do not explain all of it. There are plenty of people out there in the heartland who don't read the Times, who don't have cable, who don't listen to the radio, who don't go to right wing nutzo churches, yet they are just as functionally stupid, if not more so, than their more conventionally indoctrinated brethren.
As I've noted before, there is an anonymous organization working down deep in the conservative cesspool that crafts sophisticated screeds and distributes them through email networks throughout the heartland. You can see it referenced in the Times Magazine quote above - a rumor that spread around the Internet earlier this year. Yes rumors spread about the internet. This much is true. Where do they come from? No one knows, or at least no one says.
Actually, I think the more interesting question is "who do they come from?" The best of the right wing internet chain mail is very well-written, poisonously sophisticated rhetoric. I've seen a lot of them and believe that they all come from the same writer. It is strange, very strange if not unprecedented to find a conservative with both high level writing skills and rhetorical sophistication. Personally, I don't believe that the writer is actually a conservative. It's possible they are paying someone with incredibly low moral values to do it. Or there are darker possibilities. They could be blackmailing some poor creative sap to produce these emails, or they may have even kidnapped someone who they waterboard until they cough up an email. I don't know, and I don't want to speculate. It will, however, be interesting when the true story is finally told.
In the meantime, here is another one. Witness and learn:
I know it doesn't mean anything yet but....................
By the time you read through this YOU WILL UNDERSTAND 'TENJOOBERRYMUDS'...
In order to continue getting-by in America (our home land), we all need to
learn the NEW English language! Practice by reading the following
conversation until you are able to understand the term 'TENJOOBERRYMUDS'.
With a little patience, you'll be able to fit right in.
Now, here goes...
The following is a telephone exchange between maybe you as a hotel guest and
call room-service somewhere in the good old U S A today......
Room Service : 'Morrin.. Roon sirbees.'
Guest : 'Sorry, I thou ght I dialed room-service.'
Room Service: ' Rye. Roon sirbees...morrin! Joowish to oddor sunteen???'
Guest: 'Uh..... Yes, I'd like to order bacon and eggs.'
Room Service: 'Ow July den?'
Guest: '.....What??'
Room Service: 'Ow July den?!?... pryed, boyud, poochd?'
Guest: 'Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. scrambled, please .'
Room Service: 'Ow July dee baykem? Crease?'
Guest: 'Crisp will be fine.'
Room Service: 'Hokay. An Sahn toes?'
Guest: 'What?'
Room Service: 'An toes. July Sahn toes?'
Guest: 'I... don't think so.'
RoomService: 'No? Judo wan sahn toes???'
Guest: 'I feel really bad about this, but I don't know what 'judo wan sahn
toes' means.'
RoomService: 'Toes! Toes!...Why Joo don Juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we
bodder?'
Guest: 'Oh, English muffin!!! I've got it! You were saying 'toast'...
Fine...Yes, an English muffin will be fine.'
Room Service: 'We bodder?'
Guest: 'No, just put the bodder on the side.'
RoomService: 'Wad?!?'
Guest: 'I mean butter... just put the butter on the side.'
RoomService: 'Copy?'
Guest: 'Excuse me?'
RoomService: 'Copy...tea..meel?'
Guest: 'Yes. Coffee, please... and that's ev erything'
RoomService: 'One Minnie. Scramah eg g, crease baykem, Anglish moppin, we
bodder on sigh and copy ... rye??'
Guest: 'Whatever you say.'
RoomService: 'Tenjooberrymuds.'
Guest: 'You're welcome'
Remember I said 'By the time you read through this YOU WILL UNDERSTAND
'TENJOOBERRYMUDS' '.....and you do, don't you!
Now go out and hate some foreigners!
On a side note, people are starting to catch on. But what needs to happen is for someone to use these right wing hate networks to spread truth. The people creating this shit are immoral twats, but the people spreading it are not. They can be co-opted.
Update: Via comments on this article at Making Light, here is a blog that collects those emails.
