It always amazes me how people believe some really dumb stuff. It is especially true with the internet, because these people can now brag about their lack of critical thinking skills by posting to facebook or sending emails about the various conspiracy theories or lies they have bought into. I wish it was indicative of a political ideology (crazy liberals or crazy conservatives) but they seem equally batshit.
Liberals like to talk about the conspiracy of corporations that control our government. We aren't talking having access to politicians so business friendly legislation gets passed at the detriment of the average worker. That would make some sense and I would respect that. No, these people believe that big pharma is poisoning people with vaccines and medicines that are designed to make you sick. Or, they think Monsanto is forcing everyone to eat GMOs that will cause cancer, and soon we will see all our loved ones die an early death. Now, these claims can easily be debunked by the scientific method. So it should be very easy to show these people the published research and kill the conspiracy theory. Wrong. Like all bad conspiracy theories, they get larger and larger as the evidence shows up against them. The people explain away the scientific evidence by claiming those corporations control the scientific world. So, not only do these corporations control government, they control our universities as well. It seems the only thing these corporations don't control is the random nut job with an internet domain. The funny thing is, that would be a lot easier and cheaper to control than the US government and universities around the world. Here is the strange thing... If I knew of a publicly traded company that was that powerful, I would invest all my money into buying their stocks. But, they don't. They continue to be poor and crying about being controlled by these corporations.
Now, with conservatives, I could go several ways. First, there is the religious conservative. But, I am not going to go there. Religion is superstition and I can be superstitious too. I will leave people to their religions and whatever goofy beliefs come from that. However, I will go after the conservatives that focus on politics outside of religion. There are people that believe everything they read from a conservative website or radio show about Obama. Anything bad about Obama they buy into 100 percent. Fact checking and common sense could debunk these claims, but they don't take the time. I really think they don't want to know they are wrong. It is easy to hate someone, and there is something inside us that likes that. We like to hate. It is a simple, clear emotion that makes us feel better about ourselves, because we can see people that are beneath us.
There is a guy I go round and round with on facebook. He is an educated man, who used to be a history teacher. He actually went to the same schools I did. Every other day it seems he posts something about Obama that he got from some email or website that is just really off the deep end. He doesn't post real criticisms of Obama, and there are plenty. He posts stuff like, "Obama knows everything that has happened in Syria, but still doesn't know what happened in Benghazi." Here is the kicker, I know what happened in Benghazi, and I have told this guy what happened. He ignores it, and I think because it would change his world view to accept it.
There are also the "economics is magic" conservatives. These can vary from the followers of Ron Paul (off the deep end batshit nuts), to the people who want to follow the fresh water economists, but have no idea what they are saying (can't be Keynesian, because then government might actually be able to do good). The Ron Paul nuts say they want to go back to the gold standard, or want to do away with the fed. To them, economics is so simple that macroeconomic theory shouldn't exist. I think it is because as soon as you start talking about macroeconomics, they get the thousand yard stare. It is way too complicated for them. They don't realize that the reason we created the fed, and got off the gold standard was that our economy was terrible, and these things helped correct that. That is as basic as I can be without having them take a class on economics. The other people who are less nuts are the austerity people. I understand what they are saying, but most have no idea why they are saying it. I am not talking about real economists who, while being wrong for the last several years about austerity, can explain why they think we need austerity. I am talking about the people who watch them on tv and parrot what they say without having a clue what they are actually advocating.
These are the sad people, because they should really know better. If they weren't lazy, they could educate themselves. But, then the world wouldn't be so simple.
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