Hiring a Conspiracy Theorist

In Texas, if you want work done from a contractor, you’re going to eventually run into folks that are wrapped up in the world of the GOP Far-Way Far-Right-Winged Conspiracy Theorists. They are prime targets, especially the white blue-collared guys. These guys are the uneducated white males, typically, in fear that they could have their jobs replaced by people of color. And in Texas, and maybe much of the South, this usually means by either Mexicans or Blacks. So, I understand why they can get to a point of believing most of this junk, but mostly I’m amused by it because on the other hand, these are the guys they hire to actually do the skilled labor for them. Why? Because most white male uneducated men would rather set on their phone, do drugs, sell drugs, etc., anything but become skilled at what the labor requires. This is why they are at a disadvantage, because when these men of color learn their trade, they don’t learn it partially or enough to get by, they actually become skilled. I admire this. What I don’t admire is some lazy white guy feeling that they have no way to a better life because someone of color has done a better job than them. They can’t get out of the cycle, nor do they really want to, of thinking they are somehow better than people of color and that they’re owed a better station in life because of it regardless of the fact that they are the ones in control, but through sheer laziness, would rather blame than do something about it.  

On the other hand, this is exactly what they accuse the other races of being.  As an example, I had a carpenter out recently that spouted off several things that have stayed with me for a number of days now. It stemmed from me telling him I was headed to California to visit. This guy wasn’t the first guy to say this to me, his response was “I’m sorry”. I asked if he had ever been to California and he hadn’t, but that didn’t take away his ability to have a clear understanding of how people or a place was. This led to him asking me if I knew why liberals congregated to cities and hence why California? I chuckled and said no. He responded “that lazy people congregate to cities so that they can take advantage of public transportation and free medical”. I laughed, and said that was a new one on me and responded with a few questions of my own. “You do realize public transportation isn’t free?” and “Do you think California is primarily cities?” Both questions got raised eyebrows. Well, sir, public transportation does cost people, but responsible people use it to reduce pollution and keep traffic down. I said, as far as laziness, there are more white people on welfare and food stamps than all of the other races combined. Also, California is mostly rural and has a strong conservative community in it. In the past, California was chiefly Republican controlled just like Texas of the past was chiefly Democrat controlled. Again, the raised eyebrow as if I was recently delivered from Mars. His biggest concern about California finally came down to the fact that he couldn’t conceal carry there because Texas and California didn’t have restitution with each other. I said you mean they don’t have reciprocity with each other, to which, I got “whatever that means!”. So, the reason you don’t like California and cities are that you feel you have to carry a gun and can’t and that the people disgust you because they are lazy and do nothing but live off the backs of hard-working rural people? Response, “yep!”.

There were a few other comments back and forth, like him asking me what news outlets I listen to. Such as? Do I listen to One America or NewsMax? I told him I hadn’t even heard of them. And he asked me if I listen to some talk radio station in Tyler. Again, I hadn’t heard of it. I got lots of raised eyebrows. But I did say I didn’t consider talk radio or TV Opinion Sensationalists news or newsmen. We touched on many subjects that mostly I kept egging him on to give me perspective of why he believes the way he does. But then he finally hit my hot button when he said something about God given rights. I stopped him and asked him if he was referring to the proposed ballot measures that were about abortion and the freedoms from God to not allow government to control the conscience of individuals? Which is exactly what he was referring to. I asked him if he saw the irony in contradiction of the two propositions? Raised eyebrow, I said that it was hysterical that they wanted to vote that the government didn’t have the right to change a right given by God by taking away conscience choice by people, but that it didn’t include the right of a women to have conscience freedom to choose what happened to their body. How twisted is that? I told him that God gave him no rights, that in fact god only gave him two gifts. The gift to choose sin or not and ruin one’s life, but in the end, you could always ask for forgiveness which was the other gift. Everything in between was rights given by men. I reminded him that there were 11 Bill of Rights with 27 amendments. These were rights from men and not the bible. I followed that with if someone wanted to quote the bible as the way of life and all decisions should be held to that standard, that those people should move to the Middle-East as they would fit in better. I asked him he realized it was written by middle-eastern men that regarded women and anything not of their decent or color as second-class people? I don’t know how I did it, but I got both eyebrows to raise. He had no response to anything I pointed out to him, but he did have a few conspiracy things like WHO. I asked what the hell is WHO, he laughed and said the World Health Organization and that they were taking over all health-related control on the 24^th of May.  He talked about the Civil War and why we will have another one and that most people don’t know why we had the first one. I would have to agree with that and that it does look we are headed down the same road. At this point I decided to cool it on trying to make him seem like an idiot, because I really needed someone to build my garage that came with recommendations.

When he had left, my neighbor who, had recommended him, came over to ask what I thought of Jeb. I laughed and said he was a little out there in conspiracy land, but that he did have some good suggestions about the garage and seemed to know what he was talking about when it came to garages. My neighbor laughing, said yep, but he is a great carpenter. So, I guess that is what it really comes down to, I need a carpenter. We found out about each other and if we can respect that we have different thoughts on the needs of this country and ourselves, that hopefully, we can still work together to build a garage and feel we had a bond, albeit through wood.