A few years ago (forgive me, I lack a link) the FBI caused a minor flap by announcing that it was easing up on the Ku Klux Klan. Specifically, they no longer planned to devote resources to regular undercover stings, surveillance, and so on. Their rationale – and let's face it, they needed a pretty good one – was simple. At any given KKK rally, they found that somewhere betwen 1/2 and 3/4 of the attendees were either reporters or undercover state/local law enforcement agents.
The actual Klansmen were badly outnumbered by impostors looking for A) evidence or B) a snarky story for the kind of newspaper that you pick up free at bars.
While perusing the fantastic Fundies Say the Darndest Things (FSTDT)* or other spectacles of the unhinged like Conservapedia, the KKK anecdote pops into my head pretty often. Conservapedia has "real" content – that is, content written by people who sincerely believe it. I have no doubt about that. But I find it hard to believe that there's not a decent amount of articles contributed by ringers masquerading as Young Earth creationists. It is not hard to imagine, for instance, a bunch of college sophomores sitting around a dorm room late at night and deciding to play "OMG! Let's see how ridiculous an entry we can get accepted!" Members of the Conservapedia community have explicitly blamed this sort of behavior for some of their more outlandish entries. On that, they probably have a point.
With respect to FSTDT, it's tempting to assume that more of the content is "real" because we all know there are plenty of people capable of posting such nonsense around the Internet. But I'd also like to remind you that former ginandtacos author Mike liked to use an online persona called "CultureOfLife" to litter the internet with mock-sincere nuggets of Fundamentalist commentary. Could that account for all of it?
No way. But it could account for a good chunk of it.
I don't know about you, but I'd be some combination of depressed and humiliated if I realized that intelligent people writing the dumbest shit they could think of was indistinguishable from my actual belief system. Then again, I suppose that things like shame or reality get in the way among the home-schooled creationist crowd.
*I think this has to be my all-time favorite from that site. And it fits very well with today's post….it's just insane enough to be real, and just ridiculous enough to be fake:
"I am a bit troubled. I believe my son has a girlfriend, because she left a dirty magazine with men in it under his bed. My son is only 16 and I really don't think he's ready to date yet. What's worse is that he's sneaking some girl to his room behind my back. I need help, God! I want my son to stop being so secretive!"
Um….yeah…….