Like most rational people I was delighted to hear about the Georgia court’s smackdown of the birther kooks, less so to hear that this madness not only still exists but is apparently continuing to spread.
My friend the security guard has made a job change that may provide some insight into this phenomenon. He left the big box store and went to work at a contract call center. This particular one handles marketing calls for a satellite TV service. He reports that it is a nest of birthers, truthers, and free-lance black helicopter bleevers; so much so in fact that any contrary (ie rational) view is considered weird and out of step. The agents spend the whole day pimping the service to callers who are often complete assholes. The agents are glib, hyper-active, loud, verbally aggressive, and none too bright on the average. The guard is a smoker. He reports that the agents will start bumming cigarettes midway through the pay period, even though their average pay is around $20 an hour. Last week, he gave away 14 smokes in one shift, about 4 bucks worth, and finally had to say no more. The agents think he is mean but he cannot subsidize the habit for people who make more than he does. Why are they out of money? In many cases there might just be a link with both their hyper-active verbosity and their fondness for conspiracy theories. He and his colleagues routinely find crack and powder cocaine residue in the rest rooms. They have also found baggies of marijuana in the toilet stalls and the hallways, apparently dropped by their owners as they rushed back to work. The agents leave for lunch and come back bleery-eyed and chattering a hundred miles an hour.