Tinfoil Hat

"Why are you so paranoid, Mulder?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because I find it hard to trust anybody."
- Scully & Mulder, The X-Files, "Ascension"

I seem to have a habit of using either my clients or my wife's friend as anecdotes on my blog. It's a potentially dangerous habit if either were to read my blog. But, I don't use names and I don't know of any of my clients who are actually aware that I have a blog. And at this point in my life, and with me having my own business, even if a client somehow did figure out they were being ridiculed and took offense, losing their patronage would not bother me that much.

Usually, I use them to illustrate some right-wing or religious nuttiness. Well, I'm going to draw from the well once again, but this time it's on the other end of the spectrum. I used to frequent Democratic Underground, especially in the days around the last couple of elections ('04 an '06). There are discussion groups on the site for different areas of the country and I would occassionally lurk in the Arizona group. Sometimes I would join in. On one occassion, a poster asked for a computer consultant and I ever so humbly offered my services. It worked out well for that client and they have referred me to other friends on and off the Dem Underground site.

Now, I consider myself very liberal, but I'm friggin' Ronald Reagan compared to the few that I've met. They mean well, are very kind and active in their communities, but they all seem to have an unhealthy paranoia. I have a general mistrust of our current administration and do feel that our civil rights are being infringed upon. But my leftist friends are X-Files/black-helicopter/conspiracy-theory kooky. We're talking break-out-the-tinfoil-hat kooky.

One called me today to set up an appointment for this week. She believed that her internet connection wasn't working because her boyfriend had started a petition seeking to recall Sheriff Joe Arpaio and this was the Sheriff department infiltrating their computers. I calmly explained that in my 15 years and thousands of computers that I've worked on, I've never seen such a thing. I'm not saying that the technology doesn't exist to facilitate it, but rather that if Sheriff Joe took the time to chase down and hassle everyone that has said anything negative about him, he'd never get a minute of sleep and would spend billions of dollars making it happen. One of my best friends used to work in the Maricopa County Sheriff's IT department and knew Joe well (she even got me this swell autographed poster). He was much more concerned with getting his mug on national talk shows than with anything important.


The lesson here is - it's good to have a healthy mistrust of your leaders. Don't take them at face value. Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you. The last few years have certainly shown that to be true. But don't let that paranoia cripple you and temper it with some common sense.

"I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code." -- Emo Phillips