Oh Boy! And this person BREEDS! And considers herself WELL INFORMED

[Heddi]

so there's this gal that I barely knew in high school but added as a friend on facebook (at behest of another friend who wanted me to add the barely known girl so we could make fun of her pictures in private chat---i wasn't able to see her pictures b/c I wasn't her "friend")

Anyway.

So this girl I barely knew then and don't even know now makes me her friend.

Among her beliefs (that are posted on the front page for all to see) ((and I am not making any of this up, btw. This is the most serious truthful thing I've ever said, like, all day!)))

* Vaccines are made from Aborted Babies ♦

* Children should avoid dentistry because the drilling of cavities is when they implant the microchip

* Gardisil gives you HPV

* Welfare is against the law *note, she and her husband are on welfare, get AFDC for their kids, food stamps, and every other "Hand out" possible, and I say "hand out" because she is able bodied enough to make and birth 4+ kids, but cannot find time in her busy day to get a job because "being a mommy is full time work", even though her kids are with their dad and with her parents more than they are at home. So it is a hand out for her lazy ass. Sorry.

* RON PAUL 2010!!! I mean 2012 (ha ! She actually had that on her page--wrong election year)

* we are going to start "serious trouble" when we blow up the moon to look for water. In her words: (verbatim from her page): the one thing the earth does NOT need more of is WATER. The earth is 70% water. HELLO! We have enough water to drink, there are to many people trying to drink it is the problem!" and "who knows what problems we will reap upon ourself when we blow up the moon because, the moon has impact on us!" -- what?

* she posts links all the time from Prisonplanet and feels they are "a truly unbiased source of journalism that we haven't seen in this country for at least 50 years. If not more"

* "Global Warming is So Much Hyped. Do You Know There is NO Scientific Evidence to Prove it? "
----

So the question....should I keep her on my friendslist so I can make fun of her pictures (which are terrifying, by the way) or so that I can make fun of her backwards unfounded racist beliefs? I AM SO CONFUS

[salvorhardin]

1. It's tempting isn't it?

It's tempting to laugh at these people, and in all honesty, I don't know what you can do but laugh. Someone who is that much of a true believer will never be reached by reason. About the only thing I've found that reaches people that far gone into paranoid delusions is some sort of major life event. Something so horrendous and terrifying that all the delusions fall away and they see the world as it is for the first time... or they escape deeper into fantasy finding refuge in some form of perverse religiosity.

But then I think that life for people who have such terrifyingly paranoid beliefs has to be a thoroughly miserable experience. Thinking they're in on the secret, the one everybody else is too stupid to see, must be about the only form of control they think they have over the direction of their lives. After all, if such powerful cabals exert such omniscient, omnipotent control over the plebes, and everybody from your dentist to your family doctor is in on it, then really, what is there to live for?

In The Paranoid Style In American Politics, Hofstadter said, "We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well." I don't know of anyone else who has expressed it better.

I think if I believed thusly I'd just kill myself. Just up and swallow that whole bottle of vicodin on the shelf with a litre chaser of vodka. Double sufferers, indeed.

I may be able to blow of some steam by laughing at some of these people from time to time, but it's not what you want to be doing every day. It's too depressing, and I can't help but think that if it's someone you once knew, even if only marginally, that it'd be terrible to watch them go down that road. The average work-a-day conspiracist may not be mentally ill, but how can anyone doubt that someone who thinks dentists are implanting microchips in cavities is anything but?

It's just unseemly to make fun of the mentally ill. Especially when one considers that from everything we know from modern cognitive neuroscience and neurology, the line that divides us from them is treacherously thin. It'd only take one tiny tumor or lesion in the right prefrontal cortex or any one of a dozen or more areas of the brain and we'd be drawing the same bizarre conclusions as them.

So I say unfriend her and let her go. Maybe she'll get better, maybe she won't, but there's nothing you can do about it and you sure as hell don't have to watch her make that awful journey.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Good points all...

but these delusions come from somewhere, and not just from mental illness. I have known many people with mental illnesses, and they didn't draw these sorts of conclusions. I have seen most of these ideas on various 'conspiracy' sites; and in most cases I have seen the sites because they were linked by people on DU!

Someone who has a mental illness is more likely to accept such paranoid ideas, but I would hesitate to assume that she has a full-blown mental illness, just as I'd hesitate to assume that an extreme religious fundie had a full-blown mental illness. She might - or she might just be not very intelligent, a seeker after simple solutions, a 'fundie' by personality, and the sort of person whom Barnum said was 'born every minute'.

It's interesting that Ron Paul features so much on the sites that promote these weird paranoid ideas.

[salvorhardin]

5. True, that's a point I often make

Belief in CTs is not necessarily mental illness, nor does mental illness breed most CTs.

But at some point I think belief in CTs does become, or at least indicate a mental illness. What the point is I don't know. I guess I'd consider it mental illness when the beliefs start interfering with a person living their life, but it's the same as extreme religiosity in that regard. When does being religious cross the threshold from merely unsubstantiated belief, to being or indicating mental illness?

Re: Ron Paul. Modern Libertarianism arose out of Randism and reactionary backlash to the 60s counterculture and has a near fundamentalist preoccupation with individual liberty (or the lack thereof) and the "free market". It also considers anything but AnCap government as immoral so it's not surprising I think to find many conspiracists subscribing to Libertarian ideals. I think Ron Paul features so prominently because he's the most visible Libertarian with any power in the U.S.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

8. I'll bet you could find a strong vector

in mentally ill people and those that believe in a lot of conspiracy theories. The belief in one or two conspiracy theories is not that abnormal. I know otherwise normal people who believe in one or two weird or quirky things.

But, when someone starts subscribing to *every* damn conspiracy theory that comes their way, those people have gone beyond the normal CT'er, and have cracked the glass ceiling of reality. I'm not any sort of psychologist/psychiatrist, but that break with reality is probably not a healthy thing for that person's mental well-being.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Wow and double wow!

At least if she's got the year wrong, she might not manage to vote for her RW loons.

What's wrong with her; did someone implant some Gardasil in her brain without her noticing? Or did they simply implant her brain in her arse?

I'm mainly sorry for her kids, if that's what they're being exposed to.

[conscious evolution]

4. Whats that saying you guys use

The stupid-it burns.?

Holy cow!

[JitterbugPerfume]

6. I just reconnected with a childhood friend

who speaks in tongues, has the gift of prophesy, and councils teens . She wants me to join her anti abortion group and prays for me daily. She says she recieved the holy spirit when she was nine .

I was raised in the same church, but got away from it as soon as I was able . It is like she has been stuck in one place for her whole life, which is 60plus years.I just do not understand how this seemingly intelligent woman has never strayed from what was were taught in childhood.

[Warpy]

7. Running after 4 kids is a full time job, I'll give her that much

but the poor woman is completely confuzzled as to the nature of the world for the rest of it. I pity those 4 kids and hope they have the wits to rebel after they realize what Mommy taught them in the home school was a load of shit.

Do her a favor, block her and tell her why. Somebody has to.

[NMMNG]

9. Stoopid that severe must have an awful fierce burn.

Aye.