Sullivan, on a tear lately about Sarah Palin, tries to plumb the depths of this particular corner of the human gutter…

The lies of Sarah Palin are different from any other politicians’. They are different because they assert things that are demonstrably, empirically untrue; and they are different because once they have been demonstrated to the entire world that they are untrue, Palin keeps repeating them as if they still were true or refuses to acknowledge that she was wrong.

Yeah.  And I’m reading this and flashing back to my early years on the Internet, and a place called Usenet, and a little corner of Usenet called alt.politics.homosexuality.  APH it was (is) an unmoderated forum, created to divert arguments about gay civil rights and the validity of homosexuality away from the gay social forum, soc.motss.  It is basically a place where bigots and gay folk can argue to their heart’s content, about any damn thing, as civilly or profanely as they like. 

I spent years there arguing with bigots, and it didn’t take long for me to notice exactly the same behavior Sullivan describes above in a lot of them.  A good example of that kind of thing is the bogus figure for average gay male lifespan Paul Cameron cooked up.  Some bigot would cite it as proof that teh ghay lifestyle was inherently dangerous.  About two or three dozen gay posters would quickly post the backstory on how Cameron got this figure (he averaged the ages in the obituaries of two gay newspapers during the worst of the AIDS epidemic deaths in America).  Said bigots would then either a) agree that the figure was wrong and then the next day cite it again anyway, or b) keep citing it and add to it that Cameron’s figures had been proven to be correct, or c) keep citing it and add to it that Cameron’s figures had been proven to be correct and that most gay people will tell you so.

I keep saying this but it’s true: your gay and lesbian neighbors have been seeing this behavior on the part of the kultar kampfen for decades now.  It’s not simply that they lie, or even that they’re so brazen about it.  It’s that digging in of heels even when the lie has run its course and isn’t fooling a single solitary soul anymore.  The game seems to be that as long as you can’t get them to admit they’re wrong they win.

Over at Pam’s House Blend, poster Louise relates getting one of those chain emails the sheeple like to send around to those of us who aren’t with the program.  It begins on a familiar (if you’ve ever gotten one of these yourself) note…

I found this to be very truthful and interesting. We need to stand up for our beliefs instead of letting the more vocal become the majority. 

…and ricochets right into tea-bagger fantasy land with a missive purportedly written by winger buffoon Ben Stein…

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees…

Two sentences into it and you just know where it’s going.  But further on down it takes a turn I wouldn’t have credited even Stein with taking…

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said okay.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Pay attention to that "why our children have no conscience" part.  As it turns out, the Stein didn’t say half of what the chain email says he said.  Most of it was tacked onto a transcript of a commentary he gave on CBS Sunday Morning some time ago.  And the tacked on part is full of bogus "facts" like the one about Dr. Spock’s son committing suicide.  it didn’t happen.  A grandson who was schizophrenic did.  But there is no family tragedy too painful for the kultar kampfen to glorify themselves with it.

Conscience?  Conscience?  If a conscience that won’t even politely suggest you shouldn’t belly flop into the gutter has any use I can’t imagine what it would be.  Actually, your children probably do have a conscience.  You just can’t tell because you don’t know what one looks like.