Rudeness required

The concern trolls are very concerned. They are responding to my posting of Sonia/Tanja/Rosa/Whoevera Jensen's crazy email — she's disabled! She's mentally ill! It's cruel to post her wacky screeds publicly where people will point and laugh! You're picking on her! <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE SONIA ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>

No.

Crazy people — and I don't mean clinically ill people who need medical/psychiatric help — are everywhere, and they are saying and doing stupid things, and they are sending their nonsense to me, and they are engaging in their foolishness in public places where they affect the normal, non-crazy, mostly sensible people. Announcing that they are mildly nuts is not a reasonable excuse to hold off on criticizing them. That logic would mean we'd have to restrain ourselves from mocking Glenn Beck or rebuking Michele Bachmann. They're no less crazy than Sonia Jensen, after all.

My mailbox would depress you. I think I am notified about just about every dufus who pops up and demands public respect for his delusions. Take the bus driver in Atlanta who decided he wouldn't let passengers off his bus if they wouldn't pray with him.

A MARTA bus driver is on suspension following allegations that he forced passengers to pray before allowing them to exit the bus.

Christopher James was one of those passengers. James said, initially, he thought something was wrong when he rang the bell to get off the bus and the door didn't open.

James said the bus driver asked him and three other passengers to join hands in prayer. James said the driver prayed with the group for about four minutes.

Suspend him or <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE THE BUS DRIVER ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>?

Or how about the schoolteacher who thinks the Book of Revelation has warned her about fingerprints?

A 22-year veteran kindergarten teacher in the Texas Bible Belt could lose her job for refusing, on religious grounds, to give fingerprints under a state law requiring them.

The evangelical Christian, Pam McLaurin, is fighting a looming suspension, claiming that fingerprinting amounts to the "Mark of the Beast," and hence is a violation of her First Amendment right to practice her religion. Her case is similar to a lawsuit by a group of Michigan farmers, some of them Amish, challenging rules requiring the tagging of livestock with RFID chips, saying the devices are also the devil's mark.

The latest case is the first in which a teacher is refusing fingerprinting on religious grounds, the woman's lawyer said. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to decide whether the First Amendment is implicated in fingerprinting, especially at a time when states, local governments and civic organizations are increasingly making them mandatory for anyone wanting to drive a car or coach a youth basketball team.

McLaurin's lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency cites various passages of Revelation, the final book of The Bible:

He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand and on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.... Then a third angel followed them saying with a loud voice -- if anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God.... He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

Fire her or <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE THE SCHOOLTEACHER ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>?

I also get email from Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association. He's very excited; Christmas is victorious!

Governor gets message, big victory for Christmas!

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear did not like a Christmas tree being called a Christmas tree. So he changed it. According to the Associated Press, Gov. Beshear recently decided the tree on the Capitol lawn in Frankfort, for 2009, should be called a "holiday" tree.

American Family Association immediately went to work against the forces of political correctness who wanted to remove the word "Christmas" from the Christmas season. Within hours, we sent an email alert into the Bluegrass State asking our 38,370 AFA Action Alert friends to call and e-mail Governor Beshear.

Point and laugh, and call the tree we atheists put up in our homes a Christmas tree too, or <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>?

Or how about this one? It turns out that Iraqi police are searching for bombs…with dowsing rods. A British company is making bank selling these useless gadgets to gullible — and now endangered — people with a risky job.

Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq's security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.

The sensor device, known as the ADE 651, from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Iraq has bought more than 1,500 of the devices.
The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works "on the same principle as a Ouija board" -- the power of suggestion -- said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.

…

Aqeel al-Turaihi, the inspector general for the Ministry of the Interior, reported that the ministry bought 800 of the devices from a company called ATSC (UK) Ltd. for $32 million in 2008, and an unspecified larger quantity for $53 million. Mr. Turaihi said Iraqi officials paid up to $60,000 apiece, when the wands could be purchased for as little as $18,500. He said he had begun an investigation into the no-bid contracts with ATSC.

Scream and yell that their stupidity is putting their lives on the line, prosecute the con artists selling these cheap and useless gadgets, or <ChrisCrocker>LEAVE THE BOMB DOWSERS ALONE!!!</ChrisCrocker>?

I guess I'm one of those people who will continue to say that stupidity, ignorance, and even mental illness do not demand that people stand silent when victims of those afflictions thrust themselves forward and demand respect for their views. Polite silence and encouraging words of reassurance is how we got to Idiot America in the first place.