Crazy, Codified

In a literal case of the lunatics being in charge of the asylum, Georgia is set to outlaw the implantation of microchips in humans without their permission. (In doing so, it would become the fourth state to have passed such a law! And it should surprise no one that the legislatures of each of the states are controlled by Republicans.) The responsible committee in Georgia heard testimony from citizens, which included this:

“I’m also one of the people in Georgia who has a microchip,” the woman said. Slowly, she began to lead the assembled lawmakers down a path they didn’t want to take.

Microchips, the woman began, “infringe on issues that are fundamental to our very existence. Our rights to privacy, our rights to bodily integrity, the right to say no to foreign objects being put in our body.”

She spoke of the “right to work without being tortured by co-workers who are activating these microchips by using their cell phones and other electronic devices.”

She continued. “Microchips are like little beepers. Just imagine, if you will, having a beeper in your rectum or genital area, the most sensitive area of your body. And your beeper numbers displayed on billboards throughout the city. All done without your permission,” she said.

It was not funny, and no one laughed.

“Ma’am, did you say you have a microchip?” asked state Rep. Tom Weldon (R-Ringgold).

“Yes, I do. This microchip was put in my vaginal-rectum area,” she replied. Setzler, the sponsoring lawmaker, sat next to the witness – his head bowed.

“You’re saying this was involuntary?” Weldon continued.

The woman said she had been pushing a court case through the system for the last eight years to have the device removed.

Wendell Willard (R-Atlanta), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, picked up the questioning.

“Who implanted this in you?” he asked.

“Researchers with the federal government,” she said.

“And who in the federal government implanted it?” Willard asked.

“The Department of Defense.”

After which, the committee approved the legislation.

This is only mildly surprising. First of all, it's self-evident that Republican legislators are disproportionately disposed to craziness. Raising alarm about things that don't exist, ignoring those that do, they bathe themselves and their constituents in delusion. And, given as so many of them are to religious obsessions, their delusions align nicely with this kind of paranoia.

Second, it's of a piece with the credulity given to craziness, and the extent to which it's fanned for political gain: disingenuously and deliberately by many Republican lawmakers, delusionally by the rest. Prominent among the disinformation about the recent health care law is the lie -- among many others (such as the claim that it exempts Muslims from being required to buy insurance) -- that it includes the forceful implantation of microchips. It's one thing to accept that certifiable paranoid schizophrenics like the poor lady above believe such things; it's an unimaginable other that there are enough believers elected to public office -- even in the South -- that legislatures would pass such a bill. One can only wonder how it is that they don't get laughed out of office.

And yet, it's pretty obvious: it's the result of the deliberate creation of unquestioning followers by the leaders of the Republican party, cynically catering to the religious right, furiously fanning the fundamentalist flames of fanatical factlessness, and intentionally damaging public education by replacing reasoning with religion. (In the first linked article, it's stated that "In Virginia, a bill supporter declared microchips to be the “666″ mark of the beast referred to in the Book of Revelation.") So far, it seems to be working for them, as they've astroturfed their way among the teabaggers, who rage on. Unfocused and without solutions to the problems -- real and imagined -- that upset them so, they will only elect more of the same Bachmannopalinized leaders, legitimizing (at some level, anyway) the rantings of Glenn Beck and that poor chippie of Georgia.

The thing is, as we're beginning to see, when such people are elected there's evidently no limit to what they'll do. When reality ceases to be a fundament, when unhinged thought is not only not a disqualification but has become a requirement for politicians, total collapse can't be too far down the thoroughfare. And along that road, woe be to the non-white, non-Chrisian, non-heterosexual, non-reactionary.

When we've finally become a nation composed mostly of the politically insane, wandering aimlessly about the land, babbling, drooling, confused, bereft of those basic means of support that a reasonable government might have provided, no one -- assuming there might still be a few willing and inclined -- will be able to find the poor souls to help them.

BECAUSE THEY WON'T HAVE THEIR MICROCHIPS!!!