About a month ago, the naked and bound body of a 51-year old part-time census worker in rural Kentucky was found hanging from a tree in a cemetery with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest in magic marker (here). This story shocked me, which is saying something, because nothing shocks me anymore. Like, I was totally unfazed by the whole Balloon Boy saga, in which an idiotic fame-seeking hick perpetuated an ill-conceived media hoax that unraveled due to Balloon Boy himself buckling under Larry King’s gentle probing. Surprised by Balloon Boy? Hell, I’m surprised this sort of thing doesn’t happen with clockwork regularity.
But I am haunted by this dead census worker, killed and hung naked from a tree. It suggests that Red State discontent — stewed under a fire of conservative media, tea parties, and townhall meetings — is bubbling over into murderous rage. It signifies a muddled, schizophrenic embodiment of “patriotism” that I frankly find terrifying. It harkens lynching. What next, will postal workers be run out of town by venomous mobs? Will burning crosses appear on the front lawns of meter maids?
The FBI is investigating whether this census worker was a victim of anti-government sentiment. Well, it’s either that, or, um… oh heck. I can’t think of a goddamn reason, not even a snarky jokey reason, why someone would hang a census worker and scrawl “fed” on his corpse except for anti-government sentiment coupled with mental derangement, paranoia, and old-fashioned violent tendencies.
In Massachusetts, we don’t have this mentality of lowly government workers being tentacles of the beastly leviathan that is the Federal government. Rather, we see lowly government workers as former D students who cannot be entrusted to consistently exercise good judgment, intellect, or creativity and thus must be restrained by a sprawling bureaucracy that functions quite like a straight-jacket.
But Kentucky, we understand that you’re different. You don’t like the Federal government, with all their fancy “questions” and “statistics.” You don’t want the Federal government sticking their noses into your household to see how many people are there, and how old they are, and if they are male or female, because that’s an invasion of your privacy. But do you have to go and kill the census workers? Can’t you just pretend not to be home, like the rest of us?
