Conservatives: If you don’t want to be mocked for your ignorance, try knowing something.

Missouri is in the news again. If you’re a Missourian, you know that phrase is never followed by anything good. At least we aren’t Florida, am I right?

This time, it is because Governor Mike Parson is threatening to prosecute St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalist Josh Renaud because he looked at the source of a web page. This is something that happens all the time, and in fact, the web was built on this open-source approach on purpose — we are supposed to look at the source of HTML web pages. The original intent of the architects of the world wide web was that everyone should be able to see the mechanics of other people’s work to promote freedom of expression by allowing anyone to quickly learn how to build a web page.

In this case, the source of a Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website revealed over 100,000 teacher’s social security numbers. Woops. DESE has always been a bunch of baffoons — probably because a state that values ignorance so highly isn’t interested in adequately funding education — but this is a really impressive error. My guess is that they have a high school student who works for a middle manager taking care of the website rather than a professional programmer. They literally don’t understand that making a modern website with functionality requires a professional programmer because of their intense, willful ignorance and disdain for technical professionals.

The reporter had absolutely no obligation to report the problem to DESE before publishing his article, but that is exactly what he did. (Good on you, Josh Renard.) However, the governor is such a willfully ignorant sack of shit that he is threatening to have Renard prosecuted for hacking. Parson says that Renard had to take “multiple steps” to see the source of the HTML, and that is why it is hacking. If I need to check the engine compartment of my truck for mouse nests, I have to pull a lever, get out, move another lever, lift the hood, and set the hood support rod. That’s multiple steps. Am I “hacking” my pickup? But that misses the point that for most web browsers, there’s really only one step.

Conservatives are always complaining about snobby liberals insulting their intelligence, and it is true that I see a lot of unnecessarily vicious attacks by liberals on conservatives because of something the conservative didn’t know. However, all you conservatives need to stop and consider that if you don’t want to be mocked for your ignorance, you could stop and learn something first to prevent that from happening. When you’re about to talk — which seems to usually involve you suggesting that material harm should come to some individual or group — you should first stop and learn about the thing you’re angry about before you open your mouth. Just shut up for a minute, read something, and save yourself the embarrassment of being an idiot in public.

Although, it seems like a lot of you are failing to be embarrassed. I’d like to know if Governor Parson is embarrassed yet… or if he ever will be. Maybe his head is so far up his own ass that it will never happen. To their credit, there are some Missouri Republicans participating in criticizing the governor, like Tony Lovasco who said that it is, “clear the governor’s office has a fundamental misunderstanding of both web technology and industry-standard procedures for reporting security vulnerabilities,” adding that “journalists responsibly sounding an alarm on data privacy is not criminal hacking.”