The Virus of the Mind
Ask most biologists what scares them most it is the viruses and diseases we once thought were eradicated. Admittedly, my knowledge of immunology is limited to how my wife dumbs it down for me, but you see this every once in awhile. Someone somewhere will come down with the plague. Someone else will come down with measles. We get the occasional bout with whooping cough and polio as well.
When diseases are eradicated people and experts naturally let their guard down. They let strategic supplies of key medicines and vaccines go away. After all, we don’t need them anymore. So, we focus our energies on the newest threats and the diseases that claim millions. After all, cancer, HIV, and diabetes claim a whole lot more than whooping cough.
Unfortunately, when you find someone that has developed one of those conditions we thought was a distant memory we find ourselves flabbergasted. We don’t know what to do. The same happens when we find arguments we thought were long since settled. Someone comes out and defends the indefensible. If you are anything like me, you have that moment where you are frozen in time. Are they really saying what I think they are saying right now?
Congressional candidate John Gibbs is the latest to do this. In all fairness, he did this in college in the early 2000s, but he very clearly argued that the 19th amendment should be overturned. For those that don’t remember their U.S. History, that gave women the right to vote. That happened over 100 years ago. This is settled law and settled as an issue. At least we thought it was.
Gibbs is an originalist in the stupidest way possible. He wants everything returned to the factory settings which means he would become three-fifths a person and ineligible to run for office. At least, that is where he was in the early 2000s. Maybe he has wised up since then. Gibbs is hardly the point. Unless you live in Michigan, he really isn’t your concern.
What is our problem is that this phenomenon is growing. You can hardly live anywhere where there isn’t some idiot arguing for things that were long since settled decades ago. We have people like Gibbs arguing against women’s rights. We have people arguing against interracial marriage. We have people arguing against other civil rights. Hell, our very own senator (John Cornyn) argued that we should overturn Brown vs. Board of Education.
Much like the biologists, defeating idiocy long since defeated can prove dangerous. The arguments we had in our quiver have been replaced by newer arguments for newer issues. Then, there is the question of how much energy you want to invest in such tomfoolery. Fighting a half-wit over a zombie issue is a lot harder than you think. It’s like fighting a one armed man. What do you gain when you win?
