Kent Hovind: The Flintstones Was a Documentary

I really like having the Internet. For an information junkie like me it is heaven-sent. All of the information you reasonably need on pretty much any topic you want -- and some you don't want -- is just a click or two away.

Unfortunately there is a down side. People whose only influence before the World Wide Web would have been limited to the few-mile reception range of a low-watt AM station in South Knucklesville suddenly can have a voice that spans the world. All you need is a clever shtick, a low opinion of the intellectual abilities of your followers, and a craven willingness to fleece your sheep in the name of The Lord.

My related researches over the last week into the intricacies of The Turner Diaries led me to an examination of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and that led me to the fantastical world of one Kent Hovind.

You may not recognize his name, but Hovind was the founder and creator of something called "Dinosaur Adventure Land", an ultra-cheesy low-rent fact-free Creationist theme park, apparently based on the idea that The Flintstones was a documentary, that he built behind his house in Pensacola, Florida. He is of course a Young Earth Creationist.

He is also, as you might expect, 100% wackjob nutso crazy.

What the Protocols have to do with Young Earth Creationism is a connection that exists only in Hovind's mind, but he is also an adherent to any number of insane rightwing fringenut ideas and a proponent of the "sovereign citizen" movement (aka the "I don't got to pay you no stinkin' taxes!" movement -- which I have bloviated about before), a belief for which he was ultimately sent to federal prison for tax evasion. Evading taxes on the many thousands of dollars of income that stupid people sent him to continue doing The Lord's work. And his defense was that it was never his money -- it was The Lord's money.

Mmmmmm-kay...

People like Hovind, like I said, would likely not be well-known outside Escambia County FL back in the good old days. But give a man free access to the most democratic of media (the Internet) and he'll pull in the sheeple like a wool suit pulls in cat hair.

Hovind is also notorious for positing this challenge on his website: "Show me irrefutable proof of evolution and I'll give you $250,000".

Of course he is the sole judge of this "contest" and all rulings by the "judges" are final.

It got to the point that even the rest of his fellow Young Earth Creationists have backed away from him. That's got to hurt, when even your fellow wackjobs think you are too far "out there"...