Random Thoughts

     A thought came to me last week as I was moving my collection of Our Town pennysavers from one side of the room to the other.  It occurred to me that in the three years I've been chronicling the bloviation of Mr. Robert Beierle of Creative Insight, LLC, he's gone from being just a seditionist, racist, homophobic, misogynist with a piddling "magazine" to something of a community leader, speaking at these new "Patriot Connectors" meetings.  It drew a disturbing parallel in my mind, one that I hesitate to make for several reasons, not the least of which is that it's made so often and so erroneously as to make it almost impotent, but I'm going to put it out there anyway.

      Bob reminds me of another man, a man who called himself a patriot, who spouted anti-government rhetoric and blamed the problems of his society on competing political ideologies and minority religious groups.  A man who published his thoughts and spread them throughout the community with great fervor and fanfare.  A man who used violence, threats, propaganda, and fear to further his political goals.  A man who promised prosperity and unity if only people would adhere to his extremist philosophy.  A man who talked about how acceptance of foreign cultures and lesser peoples were destroying his country and society as a whole, who railed against what we today would call "political correctness" and socialism in all forms.  A man who preached liberty and freedom, but only for people with the "correct" skin color, gender, sexuality, political affiliation, and religion.  If you read this and can not figure out who Bob reminds me of, then I suggest you pick up a history book. After all, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and believe it or not, this man has appeared dozens of times throughout human history.

     Now, I don't think that Bob has the charisma or smarts to become the kind of totalitarian dictator these other men did.  Then again, I also thought that George W. Bush was literally too stupid to make it through the primaries, so it shows what I know.  I would also like to think that the American people are smart enough to see Bob for what he is and stand up to a man like that before he can infect others with his anger, hate, and ignorance. It seems, however, as if he's becoming more popular and gaining more followers.  I'm not sure if others hear what he's actually saying or if they simply hear "freedom" and "liberty" and cheer mindlessly in some kind of Pavlovian response.  Either way, I find it incredibly disturbing.

    

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (February 23, 2015)

     This week's entry into the saga of Robert Beierle's Creative Insight proves that even in the Happiest Place On Earth, our man Bob can still find a way to be an ignorant, racist curmudgeon.  Bob's essay this week starts with a letter from his wife, Dorothy, explaining how Bob surprised her with a trip to Florida and Disney World for Valentine's day.  How sweet!  Dorothy's bit is the most competently written and least objectionable thing Our Town has ever printed.  Too bad it's only a few sentences long.

     No sooner does Dorothy's letter end than Bob gets into his usual "creative insights," for lack of a better term.  He starts with "the bad" things about Disney: having to be around people of other cultures and nationalities! Apparently, there was a woman in a burka who offended Bob and Dorothy.  She smelled bad, like all Muslims.  Bob knows, because Bob has been around a lot of Muslims and knows they all smell bad.  But he didn't say anything, because he just knew she would charge him with a hate crime, because that's what all Muslims do in Bob's world.  The PC liberal media can attack white Christian men all they want, but don't even think about mentioning that the woman in a burka smells bad, HATE CRIME! After all, where is the outrage, Bob wants to know, when Muslims are killing good innocent Christians and Jews? Why aren't THOSE hate crimes? No, really, he wants to know, because he finds that offensive, and I guess FOX News doesn't report on the people who are outraged over Muslim extremists, probably because if they did it would take up all 24 hours leave no time for them to blame Obama or find more ridiculous accusations about Hilary's email.

     Then comes the ugly: apparently there was a child running around on one of the lines while his "mama-San and papa-San" just sat there and watched.  Now, I don't know why Bob feels the need to point out that the child is Asian or use those derogatory terms to describe his parents, but I don't think that Bob is truly seeing the ugly in this tale.  He thinks the ugly is the woman who farts in the child's face when the child tries to squeeze past her.  Isn't that just so funny! Personally, I think the ugly is the racist telling the tale, but what do I know?

     Finally there's the good.  Bob's little black charcoal heart is touched when everyone waiting in line for the Seven Dwarfs ride starts singing "Heigh Ho" together.  Wow.  Disney World is truly a magical place.  Is it any surprise that Bob holds Walt Disney in such high regard?  A man who famously worked against unions, hated Jews and Communists, sympathized with the Nazis, and worked so many racist and sexist tropes into his films? That's Bob's kind of entertainment, the kind that reminds minorities to stay in their place and stop insisting on political correctness and fair treatment.  The kind that reminds everyone that America is a Christian nation built by white men, for white men, so you can just take your tolerance and go back to Russia you dirty red commie!

A Love Lost... (January 23, 2015)

     Well.  Here we are again.  I bet you thought I gave up, since I've been quiet for so long.  No, I haven't given up.  I won't give up, because to do so will be to surrender reason, common sense, and intelligent discourse in America, and I still believe we can have those things, if enough of us stand up to people like Robert "Bob" Beierle of the derisively named Creative Insight LLC.  So, you may ask, why have I been quiet for so long?  We'll I've been away from home, traveling for work if you must know.  See, that's why I have hope and that's how I know that people like Bob are dead wrong: I've been all over this great country and all over the world, and I've talked to Americans and gotten to know them and I know for a fact that the Bob Beierle's are far outnumbered.  He and his Fox News / Alex Jones / Glenn Beck type of rhetoric does not represent America but is held by a small, hateful, angry group of people who have determined to resist change, progress, and the American way to their dying breath. They wrap themselves in the flag and call themselves "Fellow Patriots" when they're nothing but ignorant, racist, misogynist seditionists. The thing is, nobody likes these people.  They're tolerated, which is a problem, because as long as we tolerate this type of hate speech and inflammatory sedition we allow it to perpetuate and infect civil discourse like a cancer.  I refuse to give up because I will not tolerate this sort of discourse; I will not suffer it silently and I will not allow theirs to be the only voice in the debate.

     Now, on to Bob's latest "creative" endeavor: this month, Bob tells us about how he has been flying his flag at half mast in memory of the Constitution.  See, when President Obama (at least he's using the President's real name again, instead of his usual slander) signed his executive order granting amnesty for illegal immigrants, that apparently signaled the death of the Constitution.  Bob so loved the Constitution that he's been in mourning ever since, which is kind of like a wife beater saying he misses his dead wife. 

     The next chunk of insight Bob excretes is a comparison of America to an anti-drug ad.  See, in Bob's narrative, America is like the girl in one of those don't-do-meth ads, once beautiful and vivacious but only a few years later destroyed and decrepit, because she's been on a horrible drug: liberalism!  Yes, liberalism, that terrible canard that foments such horrors as political correctness, equality, and even empathy! Oh, the horrors! Why, a person on liberalism might even try to help another human being, what terror!  Bob goes on to rant and rave against such liberal horrors as religious freedom, freedom of speech, and even due process.  Where could the liberals possibly come up with these perversions, these disgusting and thoroughly un-American ideals? (That's sarcasm, Bob, see, because those ideals are guaranteed in that little document you love so much, what was it called? Oh, right, the Constitution of the United States of America!)

     Bob spends several hundred words ranting about some fever dream he had (should have gotten that measles vaccine, Bob) where "countless numbers" of Muslim Islamic extremist terrorists are walking across the Mexican border after being released from Guantanamo to destroy America. It's truly disconnected from anything resembling reality, so much so that one wonders if Bob shouldn't be on lithium or thorazine or maybe something stronger.  How else can he connect Islamic terrorists coming into America illegally to take refuge in the "many" compounds harboring them to his being audited by the IRS in two sentences? Yes, that really happened. Bob believes he is being targeted for IRS audits by ISIS, through the office of the President of the United States of America.  This would be hilarious if he wasn't serious.

     This whole thing is just a thinly veiled excuse for Bob to regurgitate the anti-immigrant and anti-Islam invective that he ingests from Fox News and whatever other paranoid delusional websites he's managed to find through AOL or whatever knothole he uses to look at the world.  As usual, reading the entire thing is an exercise in masochism. Seriously, Bob, the ellipsis is not a pause. Stop abusing it. It's called a comma, try it some time. Bob is such a put upon person, with his being white, Christian and male making it so difficult for him to get anything in this world run by white, Christian men.  If only those damn liberals weren't trying to take away his rights and give them to all the immigrants and Muslims!

     It's hard to tell exactly what Bob believes in, except maybe the Tea Party.  He seems to be mostly libertarian, except when it comes to the military, which he thinks should be waging war in every Muslim country and any country that dares disagree with America.  His militaristic, nationalist, racist zealotry smacks of fascism, and it wouldn't be surprising to find a copy of Mein Kampf on Bob's bookshelf.  While comparing anyone you disagree with to Hitler has become such a common occurrence on the internet that there's a shorthand for it (Godwin's Law) and it's certainly one of Bob's favorite tools (Islam is the greatest threat to world peace since Nazism, really?), in this case, it really applies.  Bob doesn't have an anti-Zionist bent, but the way he writes about Muslims is damn close.  He is fiercely nationalist, believing whole heartedly in American exceptionalism.  His anti-immigrant stance borders on race purity and eugenics, and his views on unions, liberals, feminism, and homosexuality all line up with fascist ideals.  The only thing missing is a little mustache and an arm band.

     At the end of his "creative insight," Bob compares liberals to both North Korea and ISIS.  Now, this really highlights Bob's ignorance, because North Korea and ISIS are about as polar opposite as you could get.  One is an atheist totalitarian dictatorship, the other is a religious extremist group.  In Bob's diseased mind, all three are out to curtail free speech, and so they're the same thing.  It would be humorous, Bob's attempt to make liberals seem evil because there are some who would stop at nothing to make him shut up, including threatening violence, if it weren't so myopic and narcissistic that it borders on sociopathic.  Honestly Bob, do you not read what you are writing?  Do you not hear yourself calling for the restriction on the human rights of other people?  People don't hate you because you're speaking truth, they don't hate you because they're afraid of you, they hate you because you are a self-centered, egotistical, ignorant bigot.  America is sick, Bob, and the cure is cutting out cancers like you.