Absurdity
Right-Wing Media Warns Equality for Others Will Result in Less Oppression
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
WASHINGTON, D.C. A coalition of right-wing media organizations issued a joint warning this week that pending federal equality legislation, if passed, could result in a significant and potentially permanent decline in oppression across several key demographics, a development their analysts described as deeply concerning.
The warning came in the form of a 58-page impact report titled "Dignity Creep: Modeling the Collapse of Hierarchical Comfort in a Post-Equality America," produced by the Center for American Stability and Tradition, a nonprofit whose stated mission is to preserve "the traditional distribution of social advantages that made this country what it is."
"We are not opposed to fairness in the abstract," said CAST senior fellow Brent Holloway, who chaired the report's authoring committee. "We are opposed to fairness at scale. There is a meaningful difference, and frankly we feel the media has not covered that distinction fairly, which, to be clear, is also a problem."
The report projects that under the proposed legislation, oppression levels could fall to a 40-year low by 2033, a finding the authors present without irony as the document's most alarming data point. A chart on page 31 shows oppression declining in a smooth red curve, labeled in the legend as "The Threat."
Conservative media spent the week amplifying the findings with what producers described as "urgent but measured" coverage. One primetime anchor devoted three consecutive segments to what he called "the mathematics of loss," explaining that dignity, unlike most resources, operates on a fixed supply.
"If they get more of it," he said, gesturing at a graphic that was mostly just the word MORE in red capital letters, "then by definition something has to go somewhere. That's just physics. I'm not a physicist, but I've talked to people."
The anchor did not name who "they" were. His producers said this was intentional, describing it as "a stylistic choice that preserves plausible deniability while retaining full emotional effect."
Holloway's report recommends several countermeasures, including a federal Oppression Stabilization Board, a public awareness campaign under the working title "Your Discomfort Is Also Valid," and a provision that would require any new civil right to be offset by the suspension of an existing one, a process the report calls "rights sequestration."
"We modeled it after carbon offsets," Holloway said. "Which, for the record, we also oppose. But the mechanism is sound."
The legislation in question, a broadly worded anti-discrimination measure that would extend existing protections to several groups currently excluded from them, has not yet come to a floor vote. Its lead sponsor, Representative Darlene Okafor of Ohio, said she had read the CAST report and found it clarifying.
"It confirmed for me that the people opposed to this bill are opposed to it because it would work," she said.
Representative Okafor's office later noted that this was the first time in her nine years in Congress that an opposition document had functioned as a better argument for a bill than the bill's own summary.
By Thursday, the story had migrated from cable to talk radio, where host Dale Pruitt of "The Pruitt Hour" spent forty minutes explaining that the real victims of equality have always been the people who had been doing extremely well without it.
"That's a community too," Pruitt said. "Nobody talks about them. I'm talking about them. That's why this show is important."
A listener called in to say she agreed and that she felt the report should be required reading in schools. Pruitt said he would look into it. His producer said the show does not have the infrastructure to look into things.
The Center for American Stability and Tradition has since announced a follow-up report examining what they describe as "the chilling effect of basic decency on people who were already comfortable."
It is due in the fall, which Holloway says leaves enough time to stop whatever is about to happen.
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