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Edited on Wed Jul-22-09 12:51 AM by stopbush
Well, as obnoxious as they are, the birthers have managed to shine a bright light on America's obsession with crazy conspiracy theories.
Granted, the birthers have an idiocy and a repulsiveness all their own. But at their heart, they are mirror images of the CTists who aver that man never landed on the moon, or that 9/11 was an inside job by bushco or that JFK was killed by some vast conspiracy that involved everybody from LBJ to the Secret Service to The Mob to the Cubans to the KGB to Whistler's mother. That mirror reflects some common traits that all CTists possess: the inability to separate evidence from fantasy; the twisted belief that the more hard evidence that is presented to refute their CT, the more secret evidence there must be still hidden that would prove their CT; the belief that they and they alone know the "facts" of the case, even when their facts have no evidentiary basis whatsoever; that the more far-fetched a CT, the more likely it is that it is real; and, that a story once considered outlandish can grow in credibility simply due to the fact that it is repeated often enough and loudly enough that normal people begin to think that there must be something to it.
And so this week, as the birthers screamed their idiocies, the rest of the country celebrated the Apollo 11 mission as a factual event, to the dismay (one would imagine) of the Moon Landing Hoax brigade. The Apollo celebration put JFK back in the news, and normal people were treated to a replay of THC's "Beyond Conspiracy" program that simply and effectively put to rest the main talking points of the JFK CT crew.
One wonders: do people like the birthers ever give pause to the other CTists regarding their CT of choice? Do the JFK and 9/11 CTists ever look at the MO of the birthers and think, "geez, that sort of reminds me of me and my CT of choice...and I don't think I like it."
Nah. That would never happen, because the CTists know that they are right in spite of the evidence, whether that evidence is a birth certificate, an autopsy report coupled with ballistics tests or a sound scientific explanation for a building collapse that does not involve controlled demolition.
Still, the birthers are so ridiculous that they may just create that teachable moment in regards to CTs in general. That is, unless the Masons decide to shut down this thread ASAP...
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