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.

As you may have heard, Oregon passed a law so that people are automatically registered to vote when they go to the DMV to renew their drivers licenses. I am, of course, totally in favor of this. It is an outrage that people even have to register to vote. What is that all about anyway? For at least the last three decades, newborns automatically get social security numbers. We know who the citizens are so we know who is eligible to vote. And all this nonsense of revoking voting rights for felons in the more backward states is part of the same thing. It is all about limiting the voting franchise. So hooray for Oregon!

As Domenico Montanaro at NRP noted, the Oregon move is an interesting contrast to so many deep red states that are doing everything they can to make voting more difficult. One thing about us liberals is that we actually believe in democracy. Maybe it is because we know that in a fair fight — idea versus idea — we win. Or maybe it is just that we know that our policies are more popular. I don’t know. But it isn’t just Oregon that is moving in this direction:

The Republicans who are against this law argue that this could harm the privacy rights of individuals. That’s a laugh out loud complaint. If you are a driver, the government already knows all about you. And anyone can “opt out” of the program. I’m not clear who exactly is going to be interested in doing that. The conservative freaks will already be registered and the unregistered are unlikely to care one way or the other.

That gets to an important question, and the point of Montanaro’s article: would automatic voter registration increase turnout? We don’t know, but it certainly won’t hurt. I suspect that it will increase turnout by a small, but measurable, amount. The more important issue is that registration is a precondition for voting. Here in California, if it is four weeks before the election and a citizen decides that she wants to vote — it is too late. You have to be registered 30 days before the election — long before most people really start to pay attention. So automatic registration is a good thing.

As time goes on, conservatives are more and more open about the fact that they really don’t want people voting. Their policies are unpopular. They are dependent on the Fox News set to win elections — people who are convinced that they are the most knowledgeable people but turn out to be more ignorant of actual facts than people who don’t follow politics at all. And that brings us to another bit of news this last week. Apparently, Holly Yan on CNN posted something that the president said and reported the completely distorted headline, Obama: Maybe It’s Time for Mandatory Voting. That, of course, got the right wing media echo chamber going. Ed Kilgore reported about the whole thing, How Anti-Obama Myths Get Started.

But you have to wonder about half of the American political system that is so against this idea. To me, voting is something that we owe to our democracy, just as surely as we owe taxes. So there is nothing wrong with the idea of taxing people an extra couple of bucks for not voting. I can see problems with such a law, but I don’t see the very idea being the leading edge of tyranny. “Obama wants to make sure we all vote; it’s tyranny! We want people to be able to take jobs for a dollar an hour; that’s freedom!”

Anything that increases the ability of the people to vote is a good thing. And anything that encourages them to vote is a good thing. That’s not a controversial thing for a liberal to say. And the more we increase the ease of voting, the more it will become clear that conservatives oppose us, not for any good reasons, but because they don’t believe in democracy.

When Oliver Wendell Holmes created the metaphor of “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater,” the specific example that he had in mind was a socialist who was passing out literature encouraging young men to resist the draft for World War I. Today, there is much confusion about what that war was even about. And that is nowhere more true than in the United States. How was encouraging draft resistance “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater”? If anything, that’s shouting fire in a theater that is on fire. But at the time, I’m sure that Holmes thought the war was very serious business: the Central Powers posed an existential threat to us!

That’s the problem with government suppression of free speech. It is trivial to find examples that seem too extreme. And when people are afraid, clear political speech that the First Amendment should apply to becomes illegal. There’s a pretty clear distinction between “Kill the president” and “Don’t kill for the president.” Yet that distinction was lost on as great a mind as Holmes during the First World War. Of course, now most people would think that encouragement of draft resistance ought to be legal, just as most people think the Japanese deserved Fourth Amendment protections during the Second World War. We humans are great thinkers in retrospect.

In France, following the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the government enacted a law that blocks websites that encourage “terrorist” activities. It’s a wonderful irony, right? After all the marches and speeches about the right to say anything you like, the government comes in and clamps down on websites that say things they don’t like. I get it: most of those websites are probably pretty vile. But it’s curious, nonetheless. The government will shut down an entire website just because one page offends them. And the decision is made unilaterally — apparently with no due process.

Of course, I find this greatly disturbing. Governments do not have a great history of oppressing just the “right kind” of people. Just recently, we found out that American “security” forces were spying on a local Black Lives Matter group that protested at the Mall of America. Sadly, as far as the government is concerned, there really isn’t much of a line between advocating the overthrow the US government and protesting against the official murder of minority groups. Even if the new French law is perfect right now, eventually it will be expanded as more and more minor things are defined as “encouraging terrorism.”

This also has personal resonance. Let’s assume that right now the law is limited to people inciting others to acts of terrorism. I doubt it is, but let’s assume that. The same logic that allows the government to shutdown that kind of behavior applies to my writing an article defending those people’s rights. It could be called support for terrorism. And though I don’t generally accept slippery slope arguments, the government does tend to broaden such programs — especially when there is little to no oversight.

Glenn Greenwald provided a great overview of what’s happening, What’s Scarier: Terrorism, or Governments Blocking Websites in its Name? He gave the details about the French law as well as laws and proposed laws in other “enlightened” countries. He pointed out how tyrannical governments use the same excuses to block free speech with a recent headline, “China Tells Seoul Messaging Apps Blocked to Curb Terrorists.”

You see: there are always terrorists! That’s one of the big problems with all this. At this point, I’m not even sure what terrorists are other than violent groups that we don’t like. Greenwald put it well:

I have to admit to being especially angry about this stuff for an odd reason. I am so sick of people — great and small, near and far — freaking out about something that is happening; doing something stupid about it; and then looking back and saying, “I guess I overreacted. Oh well!” My whole life is a history of overreacting to things. Over time, I’ve gain what I think is a little wisdom. When I hear a news report about some outrageous thing, my thought is, “I’ll bet when I learn more, I’ll find out that it isn’t what it seems.” That doesn’t mean that there aren’t still outrages — sometimes I’m more outraged the more I know. But I’m convinced that we humans are hardwired to have an addiction to outrage. And it is a very, very bad thing.