The state we’re in*

*2015 edition: Making history with the Oklahoma legislature

Not since—well, okay—January has Oklahoma had such a perfect storm of hubris, cacophony, homophobia, illogic and mutant sanctimony sweep down its plains. This latest wave of dumbassery came about, as it usually does, because of prickly, one-note representatives, constitutional muttonheads and unapologetic gun pimps. Their efforts to control pedagogy, regulate love, punish government workers who follow the law, humanize semi-automatic weapons and humiliate state residents, though, is just the short con. They’re really after Oklahoma’s soul.

And they just might get it.

We begin.

Not only does HB 1380—which sailed through a committee hearing this week—bar state funds from being used on AP History, the legislation specifies what should be taught in the classroom by specifically identifying dozens of “documents, writings, speeches, proclamations and recordings related to the history, heritage and foundation of the United States” in the 10-page bill.¹

Its author? This guy.

In the past few years, Dan [Fisher] has traveled the country presenting the messages “Seven Lies We’re Being Told About America” and “Bringing Back the Black Robed Regiment”. “Seven Lies” is a presentation that addresses the attacks being launched against America’s Christian heritage by the “politically correct” progressives.  It proves beyond a “shadow of a doubt” that Christians founded America—not atheists and deists, and that the Founders wanted a country where Christianity would have a strong impact—not a country where faith and government would be divided by a “strict separation of church and state.”²

I could tell you Fisher, who believes we all need to put on the “full armor of God,”³ is three casseroles short of a pot luck supper, but let Thomas Jefferson tell you …

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was, a part of the common law.”

And James Madison …

“Religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”

But why would Fisher know these quotes? They’re covered in—wait for it—AP History.

Fisher, who’s a Republican representative from Yukon, believes these Advanced Placement courses have moved away from the study of American Exceptionalism and, instead, been spending too much time on, you know, reality. He also dictates that speeches made by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush be included in the new curriculum but omits any from Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. The fact that Reagan and Bush are Republicans, though, and Carter, Clinton and Obama are Democrats is just a coincidence—yeah, and I’ll be leading bible study at Trinity Baptist Church in Yukon this Sunday.

Dan believes that America is facing a crisis today much the same as the one faced by the country in 1776. 

Would someone please stop his food? 

Let’s review:

1776—a fight for independence 

2015—a fight against politically-correct Christmas greetings from cashiers at Target.

So, days later, after the media knocked Oklahoma around like a piñata at a 6-year-old’s birthday party, Fisher said he would rework the bill because it was ambiguous, a polite word for what it was, and then Joy Hofmeister, new state school superintendent, said she would  “partner” with him to find “balance.”⁴ We’ll cut Hofmeister some slack here, for she’s new and can be forgiven for worrying about the bullying tinhorns who control the purse strings, but for the love of Horace Mann, balance? His side of the teeter-totter is buried in the earth’s mantle and she wants to partner with him? 

Dan is also on the leadership team of the OKC Tea Party and is frequent speaker at tea party rallies around the state. 

Hofmeister should have told Fisher if he didn’t like Advanced Placement exams, he could home school his kids, for all she cared, and quiz them on what Moses told John Jay when they were sparring over the Establishment Clause during the Second Continental Congress.

“You can have my answer now, Senator. Nothing”—Michael Corleone.

Bill Maher was right when he said the Left in this country moved to the Center, the Center moved to the Right, and the Right moved to an Insane Asylum (though you may know it as the state capitol in Oklahoma City).  

Thing is, you meet crazy halfway, you’re still in crazy land, which means it wins.

But while this AP story sucked out most of the oxygen in the room, there was this:

“It’s a combination of principle and a matter of common sense,” said OK2A (Oklahoma Second Amendment Association) President Tim Gillespie of Earlsboro. “If we’re letting people carry guns, it makes no sense not to let them carry switchblade knives. We believe knives fall under the Second Amendment because it says ‘arms,’ ” said Gillespie. “I don’t understand why switchblades are thought to be so evil.”⁵

And this …

The Bixby Cubs, a baseball team for boys 11 and under, is selling raffle tickets to win an AR-15 rifle as part of a fundraiser. Davis said this is the fourth year in a row for the team to hold the popular fundraiser.

“It’s a positive thing for the kids, and we have received support from all of the parents,” Davis said. “We have found that people would rather buy tickets for this than a Visa gift card.”⁶

And this …

“It’s our God-given right and our constitutional right,” said Rep. John Bennett, R-Sallisaw, who has filed legislation to allow weapons to be brought into the Capitol.⁷

And this …

The “Preservation of Sovereignty and Marriage Act,” as HB 1599 is styled, also bars the use of public funds for “enforcing any court order requiring the issuance or recognition of a same-sex marriage license,” and orders the immediate removal from office of any judge who violates the provisions of the bill.⁸

And this ...

A controversial bill could require couples to prove they don’t have certain diseases, including STD’s before getting a marriage license. Under this new provision, if a person has a disease that can passed to another person, they basically won’t be able to get married in Oklahoma. Each year many Oklahomans file a marriage license. It doesn’t take much, but state lawmakers are working to change that process and to include very personal health information, making what’s now private under HIPAA laws public.⁹

This is the small-bang theory—Oklahoma is that hot dense state—at work: cynical, mean and synaptically-challenged minds wreaking havoc, piece by piece, on what Charles P. Pierce of Esquire calls our “Laboratory of Democracy.” I was wrong last column when I said we were only in double-A ball—the state is now in the show. No amount of facile snarkery (and believe me, I’ve tried) can adequately describe what’s truly going on in Oklahoma. Fisher is not a well-meaning religious patriot and legislator with an unbridled love for America—he is a hooded zealot who apparently believes he has been sent by heaven to save us from Obama.  

Along with John Bennett and Sally Kern, he is part of a new brigade—all with God on their side and flag pins on their lapels—that cherry-picks history, stifles creative and critical thinking, removes the language and institutions of love from those in love, demystifies automatic weapons in the minds of 12-year-old rightfielders (and whatever happened to bake sales and car washes?), expands the ways in which we get to kill each other, exposes the private lives of state residents who dare to live by a different moral or ethical code, and flirts with sedition and nullification. The more they tinker, paw and disfigure the ways in which we deal with each other in Oklahoma, the less recognizable and habitable the state will become. 

(1) cnn.com: Oklahoma bill would make AP U.S. History history

(2) BringingBackTheBlackRobedRegiment.com

(3) examiner.com: Okla. AP courses under fire for teaching ‘negative view of American history’

(4) tulsaworld.com: State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister says she’ll work to fix lawmaker AP history bill

(5) tulsaworld.com: Oklahoma Legislature may rumble over switchblade ban

(6) tulsaworld.com: Bixby youth baseball team sells raffle tickets for AR-15 rifle as fundraiser 

(7) newsok.com: Bill would allow some to carry guns into Oklahoma Capitol

(8) tulsaworld.com: Bills targeting same-sex marriage advanced by Oklahoma House panel

(9) newson6.com: Proposed Bill: Couples Must Prove They Don’t Have STD’s Before Marriage In OK