When is Parody not Parody?

The easy answer is "When it carries Andrew Schlafly's stamp of approval." Or any of the Fab Five (or is it Super Six) administrators of the encyclopaedia right-wing hate-blog that is Conservapedia. The most infamous example of this was the so-called "hit list" - a list of U.S. States with Democratic Senators, but Republican Governors. The implication appeared to be that should these Senators meet with an *ahem* untimely end, the Republican Governors would appoint Republican Senators.

Now this page remained on Conservapedia for some time and even achieved credibility by being edited by TWO Conservapedia administrators. It was only after Wonkette highlighted this page and the resulting internet shit-storm that broke out, that the article was deleted for containing "Inappropriate content." The irony is that the administrator who deleted the article, DeanS, was also one of those who edited - and thus validated - this "inappropriate content."

Of course, the more you read Conservapedia, the harder it becomes to distinguish parody from facts. I mean, once you've been past Andy's (and his minions') "Relativity is a liberal plot," "Obama's birth name is Barry Soetoro," "Atheists don't win the World Cup and don't build hospitals," "Belief in black holes could stop people reading the Bible," "The Bible is too liberal, let me make my own;" you're basically ready to accept the Pacific Northwest Arboreal Octopus as the real deal.

So, it's really not hard to create parody on Conservapedia. The sign of a true master, however, is having your parody endorsed by Andrew Schlafly. Second place would be having one of the other sysops approve it. This excludes Terry Koeckritz, however, as allowing parody to stand is all part of his nefarious plot to undermine CP from within.

There're a couple more examples I'd like to highlight.

The first is Conservapedia's article on "Liberal obsession." This cleverly worded article not only played on Andy's trend of creating "Liberal {insert noun} " articles, but also managed to highlight many of the absurd Conservapedia stances, by pretending to list them as items liberals obsess about. Examples include:

• Obsession over celebrities or Hollywood (as evidenced by Andy's fixation with "Hollywood values" and young starlets' breast cancer woes)


• Obsession on censorship of school prayer (this is Andy's standard fall back line when losing an argument)


• Obsessing over Global Warming


• Obsession over the homosexual agenda

And so the list goes. I guess the logic here is that if it looks like Andy and sounds as crazy as Andy, it must be Andy.

Which brings me neatly to my second point. Now, as with most things, Andy has next to no knowledge of football (For the benefit of the uncivilised, I'm talking soccer) At some point during the year, Andy became dimly aware that something called the World Cup was taking place. Once he'd made sure he wasn't getting confused with the World Series, he went on to pontificate that atheistic England could only draw with the USA, because God was on their side. Then he went on to say that Ghana beat the USA, thanks to the power of prayer. So it seems God changed sides - fickle bloke, this God fella. Needless to say, Andy's World Cup commentary - as with most things Andy - went downhill from there.

Now I told you that story, to tell you this one. CP does have a "Soccer" article. There's a few things you need to note about this. Firstly, courtesy of über-troll, Terry Koeckritz, is that soccer is a"'socialist" sport. Thereafter, a user by the name of Danq added an entire section entitled "Soccer and socialism" in July 2010. It's interesting to note that as of 17 December 2010, Danq hasn't been blocked and may even be a sock of Terry Koeckritz (just sayin'!). Now I'm deliberately leaving the text until last, so you can see just what Andrew Schlafly has put his seal of approval on.

On the 16th December, somebody removed Danq's content from the soccer article. Not long after, Schalfly reverted that user, with no comment in the edit summary. Shortly after that, Terry Kockritz blocked the editor for "Removal of valid content." However, that action can be ignored, coming from the biggest troll on Conservapedia.

So, you might be asking yourself, by now, just what has Andrew Schlafly pout his seal of approval on this time? Well, here it is and hopefully you'll realise after reading that as long as people like Schlafly are on CP, you don't need parodists.

The nature and rules of soccer very much resemble socialism in many ways:

• The "no hands" rule can be compared to socialist tax policies.


• The "off-sides" rule prohibits using certain aggressive ("unfair") tactics in the game.


• The game forbids frequent stops, which can be compared to "carbon footprint" efforts to fight supposed global warming.


• Soccer is very bureaucratic, and teams are very much tied to their countries.


• The US is often treated unfairly by other nations in the game, one reason being soccer's lack of popularity in the US - socialism always claimed to favor the absolute will of the majority rather than personal and economic freedom of the individual.


• The World Cup trophy resembles socialist Hollywood's Emmy Award.


• In youth leagues, everyone gets a trophy for their efforts regardless of achievement, and there is no scoring in the game.


• Even the World Cup encourages "achievement" by holding a third-place game for the two losers in the semifinals.


• Union strikes, even during the playing season, are a major issue with soccer.


• Riots caused by "hooligans" - fans of a team which lost a game - often include violent crimes, such as infringement on private property rights.