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Orson Scott Card just can’t help himself. You’d figure with the boycott of the motion picture based on his novel Ender’s Game (http://skipendersgame.com/ ), plus the open letter I posted, he’d have enough to deal with. But no, that’s not how this particularly crazy works. He must have figured he didn’t piss off enough people by being bizarrely over-the-top in opposing LGBT rights. So why not bring it to a whole other level of offensiveness? If all you’ve been looking for in your batshit right-winger life this summer has been conspiracy theories, racism, and the President as Adolph Hitler, has OSC got an essay for you. We’ll get to Nazi comparisons soon enough, but let’s start here — his little “thought experiment” starts off on a slow burn.

Obama is, by character and preference, a dictator. He hates the very idea of compromise; he demonizes his critics and despises even his own toadies in the liberal press. He circumvented Congress as soon as he got into office by appointing “czars” who didn’t need Senate approval.

Nothing too bad at first. Just your usual boilerplate crazy. Yes, yes the President is by nature a dictator. That’s why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act aka the Stimulus was 1/3 tax breaks. That also must be why we’re all enjoying the Public Option as part of Obamacare. I’m no wordsmith like Orson Scott Card but I seem to have a better understanding of the words “dictator” and “compromise.” It’s the same thing with all this talk of “czars.” Sure the name czar is just a colloquial term used for certain positions started under the Nixon administration. And yes every administration both Democrat and Republican has had “czars”since the 70’s. However, it’s Obama, so it must be nefarious plot. Again, nothing your average back bench Congressman from a red state isn’t spewing on a daily basis. So let’s add some spice to the mix with a little dash of overt racism:

Having been anointed from the start of his career because he was that magical combination — a black man who talks like a white man (that’s what they mean by calling him “articulate” and a “great speaker”) — he has never had to work for a living, and he has never had to struggle to accomplish goals.

Oh boy. No Mr. Card. The fact that the President is articulate and a great speaker means just that. I’m very sorry if all of your information on black people comes from Blaxploitation era of films and that you seemed to be watching on infinite loop with Peggy Noonan. She, another sufferer of Obama Derangement Syndrome. I’m also sorry that a black person speaking intelligently seems magical to you. I’m even sorrier that it somehow signifies whiteness to you. Here’s the thing, though: Columbia University and Harvard Law School don’t tend to accept folks who converse like extras from the movie Shaft. That’s not sorcery. It’s called an education.

I’d like to take a break from talk of racism to highlight that a person that writes sci-fi books for a living is referring to another person as never having worked for a living. AMAZING! I assume he’s referring to that tired old trope from the right which denigrates the President’s CV. Apparently, tearing apart his educational accomplishments wasn’t enough. But work as a community organizer, State Senator, Senator and now President of the United States by any measure constitutes working for a living. I’m not saying he was working in a coal mine, then again, what Orson Scott Card does for a living isn’t exactly backbreaking.

But let’s get back to the festivities — because Mr. Card was just getting warmed up.

This next portion requires a bit of set up. I really wanted to do a linear retelling of most of this nonsense. But Orson Scott Card is insane and therefore his mind doesn’t work in a linear fashion. The piece is filled with references of Obama as Hitler, Obama installing the First Lady as President and maintaining a Svengali like control over her, and his enemies no longer being allowed access to health care what with Obama Care giving him total dominion over that system as well. It’s so intricate and detailed that if I was inclined to do a complete point-by-point fact-checking session on the ranting of a madman, it would deserve its own post purely for debunking reasons. But I digress.

So at this point of the piece President Obama Dictator Obama has seized total control over the government with a national police force. I know, I know. Given how lazy an unintelligent he’s so often called in the essay, he sure does get a lot done in record time. Just come with me further down the rabbit hole — I swear it will be worthwhile — how he’ll institute his national police force is the least interesting question. The most interesting part is whom will make up said National Police force. Mr. Card continued:

Where will he get his “national police”? The NaPo will be recruited from “young out-of-work urban men” and it will be hailed as a cure for the economic malaise of the inner cities.

One important point: Those quotation marks are his, not mine. That means that even he’s aware of how racist he’s being right now. I thought I’d have to do an entire paragraph on coded language and what “urban” meant. Luckily Orson does the heavy lifting.

In other words, Obama will put a thin veneer of training and military structure on urban gangs, and send them out to channel their violence against Obama’s enemies. Instead of doing drive-by shootings in their own neighborhoods, these young thugs will do beatings and murders of people “trying to escape” — people who all seem to be leaders and members of groups that oppose Obama.

Again one must just sit back in amazement of how unadulterated the racist and the crazy are. The stakes just keep getting raised. Thus far we have the President employing gangs of “young out-of-work urban men” for his National Police force. But that’s not nearly scary enough. He needs a Nat Turner level of terror. So here come the images of drive-by shootings in case his use of “urban” was too subtle for you with them literally murdering his enemies. Some even going so far as to kill people that are “trying to escape” (escape what, and to where? The cities? The whole US?). Bravo Mr. Card. Bravo.

He tries in vain to talk about his essay as a fictional pursuit. Every few paragraphs there’s a sentence or two that says something to the effect of predictions are often wrong, or this couldn’t possibly happen. Only to give another dozen reasons why it most certainly will. For example, “Absurd, because predictors are inevitably wrong.” but also “Actually, I was laughed at in the 1980s for publicly predicting the possibility of the fall of Soviet Communism…” He’s a crafty one — crafting and promoting his vision of a terrifying Obamapocalyptic Dystopia in rapturous detail, but making sure to hedge his bets in case, you know, real life ends up disagreeing. And on and on he dances.

Suffice it to say, if you didn’t have a reason to avoid putting one more cent into this man’s pocket, you should now. But again — while debunking the rabid right-wing nonsense in this essay is fun, it’s not worth a post by itself. What’s actually more interesting is how easily Mr. Card fits right in with what used to be considered the extreme right-wing of a generation ago which is now the regular right-wing of today. Conspiracy theories? Check. Hitler comparisons, no doubt. Racism? Of course! One could look at the President’s life and come to many conclusions. None of which relate to “never having to struggle.” Today the things that crackpots used to whisper about are now what passes for mainstream conservative thought. Just last year Mitt Romney was talking about how much easier his Presidential aspirations would be for him if only he were a Mexican. Yeah he grew up the wealthy scion of a politically connected family and amassed a fortune of a quarter of a billion dollars. But imagine what he could have done if the whole white thing weren’t holding him back. Only in the fevered imaginations of those in conservative circles are such conversations entertained.

Speaking of things that the crazies used to whisper about, “Obama as Hitler” sounds certifiably crazy. At least it should to most people. Not so says this 2010 poll. Not only did almost 40% of Republican respondents think that Obama was “doing many of the things that Hitler did” but 24% think he just might be the anti-Christ! Given that a Tennessee magistrate thought this baby was trying to be the Messiah, I guess anything goes. But this is par for the course in Republican circles. Everything is on the table when it comes to the President. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the claims. Even the most contradictory attacks. Need proof? Look no further than Mr. Card’s essay.

On the one hand, Mr. Card is saying that the President is this lazy bum of a man whose never had to work and had everything handed to him on a silver platter. OK, that’s easy enough to refute. But on the other hand, Mr. Card also says the President is this dark Machiavellian character who maintains his autocratic regime with strict control of his allies and the destruction of his enemies. Either through character assassination in the media, withholding health care or outright murder via drive-by. I’m not sure what comes after jumping the shark but its a wonder that Mr. Card and the rest of the tin-foil hat brigade haven’t collapsed into neutron stars by the sheer force of irony. Any story comparing Obama to both Hitler and Neville Chamberlain is doomed to ridicule. The President can be either a ruthless dictator bent on destroying the US from within or he can be the ineffectual idiot who lucked into power and is going us all killed. But he can’t be both Kaiser Soze and Colonial Klink. So which is it? Tri dimensional chess vs. the world or hide-and-go-seek by himself?

Mr. Card, I never knew how crazy you were. Fortunately for you and most unfortunately for the rest of us, you seem to have plenty of company.

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Categories: Politics Fix, Random Rant