Scissors for Hitler

STEP ONE: Someone claims to be deeply offended that members of some minority are being treated just like members of the majority are. Equality under the law is portrayed as an attack on the majority, an insult and an affront to their way of life.

Left-handed children need to assimilate. Our schools are bending over backwards to accommodate these children and America can't afford to do that. My family, like most real Americans, is right-handed. I don't see why our taxes should be increased every year to pay for special desks and scissors for these deviants.

STEP TWO: The indignant claim is picked up and amplified by talk radio and cable news, where it becomes embroidered with all sorts of easily disproved false assertions that, because they go unchallenged, quickly turn into the zombie lies of conventional wisdom.

Four of the last five presidents were members of this elitist cabal of the left-handed. The odds against that happening at random are astronomical. This doesn't prove that Obama is a sleeper-agent sent to trample the rights of the majority, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate …

This is dangerous, a threat to public health. Lou Gehrig was left-handed, and we all know what happened to him. Our good right-handed children shouldn't be exposed to the threat of Lou Gehrig's disease just because …

Our schools are tossing aside centuries of moral wisdom in a radical experiment based on the anything-goes philosophy of the '60s. Western Civilization has a long history of preventing the left-handed from serving in the military, and we can't just assume …

You know who else was left-handed? Hitler.

STEP THREE: The president is asked about the controversy and notes that the Constitution and the law are quite clear. This further polarizes the dispute into a party-line partisan issue. The president's comments dominate the news for the next 24-48 hours.

Fox News: Obama, like Bill Clinton and Adolf Hitler, is left-handed. …

CNN: President Obama says it's a matter of principle — that schools must accommodate the little Hitler children. Here are two people with opposite views we've brought on to shout at each other for the next four minutes. Gentlemen, should our tax-dollars be buying scissors for Hitler? …

STEP FOUR: Polls are commissioned and it is dutifully reported that Americans are divided on the question of whether or not members of the minority should be treated just like members of the majority.

Our new poll shows that 52 percent of Americans oppose special rights for these deviant Hitler children. …

STEP FIVE: As a fully established Controversial Issue, the question is officially deemed irresolvable and henceforth only discussed in terms of its potential impact on the horse-race of election-year politics.

It just goes to show again that President Obama is simply out of touch with normal people — with regular, right-handed white voters. What this means for November is obvious …

That's the process. This isn't a picture of democracy in action, or of the rule of law, but it's the way America operates here in 2010.

(Oh, and no, Hitler was not left-handed.)