I don’t stay up much on the whole gamergate thing, for reasons that will become clear enough in a moment. But I found Todd VanDerWerff’s article over at Vox interesting, Gamergaters Don’t Think It’s About Ethics in Journalism. They Think It’s About Colonialism. For those of you who are blessed with having never heard about it, gamergate is basically a great big whine on the part of the traditional gaming community who think that the girls and the darkies are going to pollute the insular fun of their Call of Duty games. I think the best way to think of gamergate is to imagine three ten-year-old boys inside a tree fort with a sign on the outside that reads, “No girls allowed.”

This article is in reference to an article by Gita Jackson at Boing Boing, We Are Not Colonists. According to her, the traditional gamers feel as though they are settlers of a world with their distinct culture. And now, they feel all these “foreign” elements are coming in and taking over. This is, of course, a ridiculous notion. No one is trying to stop people from getting their vile kicks from Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.

I think the “colonization” paradigm is a useful one. But it describes the situation from the inside. Jackson asked the question, “Are there ‘natives’ to non-physical spaces?” Of course there aren’t. What makes one a native is to be born and raised in a place. These gamers are just as much immigrants as anyone else. But most of all, no one is taking anything from these guys:

But I also think it is simpler than this. The complaints of the gamers are exactly the complains of any group with power that sees that power threatened. It is really just about privilege. I don’t think the irony is missed on anyone that these aggrieved games are generally straight white mans of the middle class and up. The whole of gamergate can be seen as a microcosm of the American power elite’s clinging to power — or a replay of the aggrieved white male of the 1970s, trying to deal with the increasing public power of women.

From what I can tell, the ultimate fear of these basement dwellers is that people are starting to look down on them. And I think they are right. I think the portrayal of women in almost every game I’ve ever seen will gradually be seen sort of like Playboy magazine. But having the world think that you aren’t creepy, immature, or both is not something anyone has a right to expect. But expecting things you have no right to is the very definition of privilege.

Via The Vermont Political Observer, we learn that No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. Go read the article and the ones before it — it’s fascinating. But the basic story is that an eighth grader who was studying Latin noticed that Vermont did not have a Latin motto. So she requested that Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning pass a law to add one. And it was a really great on: Stella quarta decima fulgeat, which means “May the fourteenth star shine bright,” a reference to Vermont’s status as the fourteenth state. But since I’m writing about this, you probably already know what happened.

People heard that the Senate was trying to create a Latin motto and they freaked out. Let’s list some of the more amusing comments:

• Kevin P Hahn: “How about ‘go back south of the boarder'” [The Swiss border? The Austrian border? Or just that short Italian boarder who stays with us on weeknights?]
• Phil Salzano: “My question is, are we Latin, or are we Vermonters? Alright then, English it is…” [Even better: make it Vermontish.]
• Zeb Swierczynski: “ABSOLUTLY NOT!!!! sick and tired of that crap, they have their own countries.” [Well, had.]

This last one goes along with a number about how people need to know how to speak English. This is curious, because the original use of the word “illiterate” was to describe someone who could not read and write Latin. It is also funny how many people claimed that poor Senator Benning was “dumb” and “idiotic.” If ignorance is bliss, these must be some of the happiest people in the world!

What bothers me most about these reactions is that it shows that many Americans don’t even value the European traditions that they so often use to attack other cultures. So it is no longer a question of the United States being the most recent and greatest expression of western culture, it is that the United States is just this singularity that has no beginning and no end but rather just is. This represents a very big problem for me. I still think that there is much to be said about the “great books” approach to education. I want to be more inclusive, but I understand the wish to celebrate the western journey from Homer to Virgil to Dante — Greek to Latin to Italian. But to not know that intellectual history is submental and does not speak well of the United States as the greatest empire in human history.

Digby noted something else: “the conflation of Muslim with Mexican.” But it isn’t limited to that. To these people, all that seems to matter is that these other places are foreign. These are the same people, after all, who hated France because its government didn’t go along with our government in the invasion of Iraq. The only foreign country these people like is Israel, and that’s quite recent. And the only reason they like Israel is because it kills a lot of people who these conservatives hate even more.

An eighth grader requesting that the state create a Latin motto is a great example of American ideals. The negative reaction to it is a great example of American reality: ignorance, fear, and hatred under the guise of patriotism. It’s also the predictable outcome of our terrible educational system. But conservatives want to “fix” this system by making it even worse. Don’t let students know about the actual history of the world. Just start with Thanksgiving (1%), run through the Revolutionary War (50%), teach the Civil War as unnecessary because slavery was dying anyway (20%), explain how the income tax is unconstitutional (10%), and jump right to how Ronald Reagan saved the nation (19%). Give a multiple choice test and call it, “Education!” We don’t need no stinkin’ Latin!

Today, I learned from Martin Longman about some fun goings on in my home state of California, The Sodomite Suppression Act. It seems this lawyer in Huntington Beach, Matt McLaughlin, has filed to get an initiative on the ballot. It apparently involves “authorizes the killing of gays and lesbians by ‘bullets to the head,’ or ‘any other convenient method.'” Unfortunately — and I really mean this — it will never get on the California ballot. He needs to get well over a quarter million signatures. That seems unlikely.

The state of California is not pleased about this. It clearly isn’t a serious initiative, as McLaughlin himself must know, because such a law would be unconstitutional according to the state and the nation. And that’s a valid concern. The truth is that this guy is just wasting government resources to make some kind of a statement. And sadly, it may result in the filing fee for an initiative going up — perhaps way up — from its current cost of $200. I don’t like that idea, but it isn’t my main interest in this case.

I would be fascinated to see just how many of my fellow “liberal” Californians would vote for this “bullets to the head” law. I have no doubt that it would go down to a solid defeat. But I wonder if it might get as many as 30% of the vote. Or higher! Maybe I’m just cynical, but I’d like to know. In a lot of ways, there is too much political correctness. But when people enter that voting booth, they are all alone and they can have their bigoted say. I’d really like to know just where the rest of my state stands.

It’s possible, of course, that the proposition would go down to a stunning defeat with 5% — which could be written off to kooks and people who don’t know how to fill out a ballot. That would be truly awesome. It would make me proud to be a Californian. As it is, I don’t usually think of myself as a Californian. I think of myself as a left coaster. I’m a Bay Area boy and so I feel connected to Portland and Seattle, but not to Los Angeles. It isn’t that I don’t like southern California, but it is certainly a different culture. And it is distinctly more conservative. And let’s not even talk about the valley and the less populated parts of the state that are like something out of Deliverance (but with more money).

But if it came to a vote, I doubt it would be an occasion to feel proud. The initiative would probably end up with something like 20% of the vote. That would be lower than the level that would be horribly embarrassing, but certainly nothing to take pride in. And that would be high enough that some districts would have passed it. Regardless, I think it is good to know what people are really thinking. When it comes to LGBT rights, we are pretty much at the point where people know it isn’t cool to use certain words and talk too negatively. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a lot of fear and hatred. Now that I think about it, maybe we should put slavery for African Americans on the ballot. That might tells us something that many people want to ignore.

Digby highlighted a very interesting segment with Bernie Goldberg and Bill O’Reilly on The Factor recently. Goldberg was providing what passes for the “reasonable” Republican position that the the Democrats and Republicans are pretty much the same when it comes to media coverage, “Liberal news organizations are going to play down liberal screw-ups, but Fox News is gonna play down conservative screw-ups.” O’Reilly was having none of it. He countered that his show featured people of all political orientations. That’s a laugh, but entirely typical.

I once had a conservative on this site trolling around. He would find some liberal opinion I made and say, “Aha! Liberal bias!” I was flattered that he was mistaking me for the “mainstream media,” but it was ridiculous. One of the biggest differences between partisans on the two sides is that conservatives live is bizarro world where they are somehow the center. I’m well aware that my opinions are far to the left in the context of this country. Maybe it is because the conservative media system is so cut off that it is easier for them to only see other conservative media. Regardless, it sets up a system where extreme conservatives like Goldberg are “reasonable” just because they are vaguely aware that they are conservative.

Digby observed something that I know only too well from my own experiences:

Exactly! This is where we get so many “independent” voters who are actually people who consider the Republican Party too liberal. They don’t consider themselves Republicans because they are disappointed with the Republican Party — it doesn’t always do what they want. In other words, they are just spoiled brats who aren’t willing to affiliate with any party unless it is perfectly aligned with their beliefs. Yet they still reliably vote Republican, although they may occasionally vote for the Constitution Party or, very tellingly, the American Independent Party.

It’s a funny kind of conceit. But I think it is more often just pure delusion. There is a reason why conservatism is so associated with rural areas. These people don’t get out much. All they see are people like themselves. And that makes it very easy to vilify people who are not like them, and deny other people their humanity. It also allows them to live in a bubble where all the things they get from the government are earned and all the things “those people” get are just giveaways.

There is a related issue with regard to this that I read about in Michelle Alexander’s excellent book, The New Jim Crow. People in high crime areas are less vengeful than people in low crime areas. So the people least likely to suffer from crime are the ones who think that people who commit the most minor offense should be given very long sentences. This is largely how we ended up with these horrible mandatory minimum sentences — especially for drug “crimes.” But I think it is primarily about lack of empathy. And that, above all else, is what defines Bill O’Reilly and his followers.

This makes these “independent” minds the hardest to deal with. They live in a world where they are convinced that they see the world without bias. And shockingly, they view the world this way even while being more conservative than I am liberal. How does one deal with such people who think that they define the very definition of “center”? In the land of Bill O’Reilly, a liberal is someone like Juan Williams who is an old fashioned conservative. In the context of modern American politics, he is just slightly center right. But to O’Reilly, he’s a liberal. And then people who are just slightly center left, like Dana Milbank, are “far left kooks.” I think such people are hopeless. And they are the basis of one of the main political parties in the United States, even while they won’t admit it.