Anyone who watches C-SPAN
knows that viewers are provided opportunities daily to call the
network and freely express themselves. And anyone who watches
C-SPAN with any
regularity also knows that most people haven't got a thing worthwhile
to say, but they're committed to saying it anyway.
But this is America, which means you have the right to be ridiculous,
even on national television, as often as you like, as long as you're
not contagious. Upon hearing some of these calls, you'd surmise
that human beings are truly in a bad way, that the situation is dire
and this—
this shrill voice from the other end of that telephone line — is what
politicians — especially right-wing politicians — have been pandering
to these last fifteen years or so. It makes you think, what hope is there,
really? You might even wax
religious and believe as many Bush supporters do, that the end of
the world is nigh, and it's time to take seriously the possibility of the
antichrist, and maybe make an earnest effort to identify him.
"Be of good cheer," as I'm sure Jesus said somewhere. Things
aren't that bad. Those faraway voices delivering nuggets of
hinterland wisdom and homespun entertainment are God's way of showing
you you're blessed with an intelligence perhaps for which up to this
time you hadn't been grateful. Whatever your faults, you haven't
made that call; you haven't said
that thing.
Thanks to C-SPAN, you know this
for a fact: there are people dumber than you've ever been, even on your very worst day.
After listening to these nonsensical calls for so many years, an idea
blossomed: What if, after hearing something of truly entertaining
stupidity, I could share the ephemeral marvels of ignorance and vitriol
with others?
Indeed, what a noble endeavor! What a service to our declining civilization! The
stoical C-SPAN moderators rarely flinch at the ignorance they
tolerate day after day. They accept the calls, one after the other, letting
them
pass into the video archives as blankly as a checkout clerk
scanning generic corn flakes off a conveyor belt. It's
what they do. It's the C-SPAN policy to remain completely
neutral,
regardless of the absurdity they've just encountered. But
it doesn't have to be our policy. We can comment. We can
laugh. We can share the audio and pat ourselves in
congratulation that we hadn't said that,
regardless of how partisan we are. We can listen and know — the
fact confirmed upon repeated hearing — that we are truly blessed.
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