It's often the case that I come across a story that reminds me of a previous post. Normally, I just post a follow-up to my short-form blog, but occasionally, the subject is too long for that -- it requires a second full-length post. In this case, the point that needs to be made is that the love for logical inconsistency isn't the only problem with modern Republican thinking. There's also xenophobia. This xenophobia often manifests itself as racism or homophobia or sexism, but it's all from the same source -- fear of people who aren't exactly like you. We tend to think of this as hatred, since it usually comes across as irrationally angry, but it's clearly fear.
The story that caught my eye was a John Avlon article at The Daily Beast that involves Facebook, racism, and the Young Republicans -- a branch of the GOP that confusingly includes people as old as 40. It also involves another common Republican mistake -- the belief that Republicans are invisible to everyone else.
On Wednesday, [Audra Shay, vice chairman of the Young Republicans and the leading candidate to be elected its chairman] -- a 38-year-old Army veteran, mother, and event planner from Louisiana who has been endorsed by her governor, Bobby Jindal -- was holding court on her Facebook page, initiating a political conversation by posting that "WalMart just signed a death warrant" by "endorsing Obama's healthcare plan." At 1:52, a friend named listed as Eric S. Piker, but whose personal page says his actual name is Eric Pike, wrote "It's the government making us commies... can't even smoke in my damn car... whats next they going to issue toilet paper once a month... tell us how to wipe our asses..."
Two minutes later, Piker posted again saying "Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist... Muslim is on there side [sic]... need to take this country back from all of these mad coons... and illegals."
Eight minutes after that, at 2:02, Shay weighed in on Piker's comments: "You tell em Eric! lol."
Of course, the proper response to such a comment would be "WTF are you even talking about?" but it's really hard to go wrong with any response short of applause. Shay applauded... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
