Their Own Private Idaho

A particularly prolific and vocal set of Arizona Republicans have launched their own version of Facebook, calling it Republicanville. I won't dive too deep, but we're talking about the likes of Charles Jensen, founder of Politics on the Rocks, Jeff Vath (aka Tony GOPrano), David Schweikert, the GOP CD5 candidate who lost by better than 10 points to Harry Mitchell in 2008 (yet lists his political title at his profile as "Congressman"), Rachel Alexander, the paradoxically intelligent fountain of output at The Intellectual Conservative, and the rest of the Phoenix/Mesa/Scottsdale GOP bunch. Sometimes it's hard to tell if they are serious or joking, but they talk about Republicanville displacing Facebook. Not sure how many people are on Facebook, and it's not clear what this new site realistically seeks to accomplish, but they might be up to about 150 members. I doubt Facebook has cause for alarm.

The endeavor ties to a much larger one on the part of conservatives to craft their own world in the face of changing times. In response to the Wikipedia explosion and its remarkably detailed and accurate information, conservatives unhappy with reality (evolution, age of cosmos, fossils, glaciers, plate tectonics, Hispanics) launched their own pedia, called Conservapedia, which forwards the assertion that Obama is seeking to rule the Internet and features a picture of him with the caption, “Fascism.” They don't bother to mention that Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, is co-sponsoring the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, who said, "If we fail to take swift action, we, regrettably, risk a cyber-Katrina."

Do you know anyone who has looked something up in Conservapedia? Conservatives have not launched their own version of the academic Scholarpedia because they've never heard of it.

The Bush administration all but institutionalized "reality is what we say it is" and of course 911, Katrina, two botched wars, and last fall's financial meltdown occurred during its distilled ignorance. The country's pants were around its ankles for eight years. As Katrina victims were dying on rooftops and in stadiums, Bush agonized over which Air Force One landing location would make the best impression.

Perhaps they will create their own Google that only links to hate saturated Jesus freak pontifications. I would love to grant them their wish to depart our messy reality for a distant, racially pure Idaho where a 6000 year old sun revolves around a recently flooded flat planet that isn't getting warmer. They would be happier, and so would the rest of us.