The Power of Persuasion

We are constantly told how powerful advertising is. Well... not always...



The above seems awfully persuasive to me, but 52.3% of Californians didn't buy it. They wanted Jim Crow laws. They want racial segregation. They want colour lines. They want religious tests to keep Catholics out of politics and Mormons penned up in Utah. They want sexuality to be legislated. The above advertisement didn't cause the California electorate to pause and consider the benefits of something like the historic Act of Toleration of 1689 where a civil society decides to de-escalate and accept differences. Nope. Californians like their prejudices and want to keep them, thank you very much. The majority voted for Proposition 8.

Yep... life is a study in absurdity. Only 47.7% of the electors in California are willing to try out a little tolerance. The rest are convinced that as good Muslims they must declare jihad on the unbelievers because God is "merciful" and a swift death is what an unbeliever deserves. Oh, and those pesky Christians are convinced that Muslims are fanatical baby killers and that the Crusades didn't finish the business of making the world safe for Christianity. And the Black Power militants are convinced that you have to "off whitey" while the Aryan Nation will either ship the blacks back to Africa or slaughter them in the streets. And of course you have to lock up anybody with an aberrant sexual orientation along with those fifth columnist Japs who were frog-marched off to concentration camps during WWII. Thank goodness we don't waste any time on tolerance. We have too much "business" to get done. We need to clean up the neighborhood and enforce "right thinking" on everybody to make sure that we keep our little corner of heaven safe for the bigots.