Leave It to Beavercreek, Ohio

Conservatives are once again working themselves into tizzies! Actually, they never stopped. But they did manage to mix in some new with the old.
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Conservatives are once again working themselves into tizzies!

Actually, they never stopped. But they did manage to mix in some new with the old.

First, the old: This week, we got to see the loonies in Arizona in a frothy panic over President Obama. He was in their state to give a speech on the economy and, suddenly, Arizonans decided that he's (in their words) a "47 percent Negro"and a "Half-White Muslim" who urgently needed to "go back where he came from." ("I am not racist," added the woman who said that part about Obama going "back where he came from." We're awfully glad she cleared that up.)

And speaking of things that are frothy and don't make sense... this week also saw the spectacular return of former Senator Rick Santorum -- mulling a presidential run in 2016 -- who baffled reporters with bizarre, cryptic comments about a busload of anti-abortion activists who are terrified to step into the men's showers at a local YMCA.

It took the media (who really don't have anything better to do, this being August) more than a little research to figure out what Rick was talking about. He wasn't worried that the pro-lifers showering with suspected liberals in the YMCA shower might accidentally drop the soap. Instead, Rick was afraid that these pro-lifers weren't vocal enough about their politics while in the YMCA shower, even though they were kicked out of the YMCA for being too vocal about their politics when they were in the shower.

Confused? Well, that's what we get for paying attention to Rick Santorum.

And it's why we were easily sucked in by another story involving buses and racists: all that drama in a place magically named Beavercreek, Ohio. There, for a few years now, a mini-war has been waged over public transportation. It seems that Beavercreek -- 90 percent white, according to the 2010 census -- is just too dangerously close to the city of Dayton, where 73 percent of the people who ride buses are minorities. And when some pesky legislators tried to put three new bus stops right in the heart of Beavercreek -- putting those minorities just a little too close to Beavercreek's shopping center, the medical clinic and even Wright State University -- the whitefolk of Beavercreek stopped clutching their pearls and put their loafers down!

So they threw up as many obstacles to the new bus stops that they could think of. Such as mandating that all new bus stops must have grossly expensive high-tech surveillance cameras. And be heated. And air-conditioned! (For all we know, they wanted them heated and air-conditioned at the same time.) These demands proved -- surprise! -- very expensive. So... bye, bye bus stops.

That is, until the Federal Highway Administration stepped in and ruled that the people of Beavercreek -- just like those loonies in Arizona! -- were just being obviously and obnoxiously racist. And now we learn that if, ultimately, the citizens of Beavercreek refuse to comply with the ruling, it could cost them tens of millions of dollars in federal highway funds.

End of story, right? We all know money talks even louder than a parade of pro-lifers in a public shower. So, naturally, the people of Beavercreek would decide to comply!

Not so fast. Just last Friday, the city council voted to put off considering the matter until later this month. Apparently, the town is thinking of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the ruling. And potentially risk running afoul of the feds. All because of a few bus stops.

It's apparently worth a lot of money -- potentially tens of millions -- to the people of Beavercreek to keep those pesky minorities out of their town. Which is why we suspect this fight will get bigger.

So how far will the people of Beavercreek go to keep those minorities out? What genius ideas will they have? What do YOU think?

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