Yes Citizens, more epic awesomeness has been created! This article's
topic deals with critical thinking and backing up your shit with
evidence. As we all know, Christians and other religious types rarely
do this, relying instead on unfounded rhetoric and generating FMO to
whip their base into a rabid frenzy. Would it surprise you to learn that
US Republicans do the same thing? I thought not.
This article was inspired by a family member of mine emailing me THIS video, which is so very painful to watch, mainly because I know he's smarter than to believe any of this shit, but also because it demonstrates so many things about why the GOP is wrong on so many levels. Here's the vid, and then following is my reaction to it to my relative.
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1: There are no cited sources for any of these claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and here there is none except this guy's say-so.
2: Just because someone's parents are registered democratic doesn't mean their children are liberal, and vice-versa (we're living proof of that).
3: As soon as he said that a random psychiatrist claims that liberalism is a mental illness, that alone made me question his credulity on everything in this video. Again, no sources cited, no studies brought forth, just opinion. It's a tactic regularly used on Fox "News", by saying "some people say", it makes it seem like they have credible info, when in fact they have none and are just trying to pass off lies as truth.
4: Even though someone may be registered democratic, that doesn't mean they really are, I'm a centrist who leans left, however there is no other choice in our system for that. This also doesn't mean that this is someone's motive for committing a massacre.
5: He attempts to correlate two completely unrelated things: mental instability and liberalism. ANYONE can be mentally unstable/ill, that doesn't mean that liberalism is the cause or a natural outgrowth of this. It's a fallacious comparison, one that has been attempted many times by Republicans, and failed many times. Here's a little tidbit about the supposed psychiatrist, who is more widely considered to be a nutjob: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Lyle_Rossiter
6: Anyone with two brain cells to rub together hates Dubya, both Democrats AND Republicans. He blew a tremendous fiscal surplus inherited from Clinton on a war based on lies, designed to make him and his corporate buddies rich (Halliburton), while committing faux pas after faux pas and making America look like a retarded monkey to the rest of the world. Claiming that someone who hates Bush is capable of mass murder would implicate about 90% of the US Population.
7: Here's a study that shows that gun owners in conservative states are more prone to suicide, unless they're churchgoers with that false hope of absolution to keep them going. Unlike "Wild Bill" here, I back up my claims with cited evidence. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/conservatives-and-suicide_n_3039307.html
8: This is an excellent example of the 3rd identifying characteristic of Fascism, namely - Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -- The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
Republicans have to hate somebody, and since it's not fashionable to be racist anymore (although some are really working hard at that by being racist retards at every opportunity), and the LGBT community has too much support, they're going to go after liberals, claiming we're Un-American and that we hate America and blah blah blah. Classic misdirection from the real problem, which is moneyed interests and corporate control of government (aka fascism).
9: Fear-mongering is the only way Republicans like this guy can get people to continually vote Republican, because they don't have a platform that any sane person would support anymore. By continually screaming about how "LIBRULS WANNA TAKE YER GUNZ!", they conveniently forget that most NRA members are opposed to the views of the NRA leadership, that 90% of Americans, including Republicans, are in favor of common-sense regulations like background checks and licensing, and that most liberals are ok with having a handgun or a shotgun for home defense. I'm personally ok with that. What I and most sane people take issue with, is that most Teapublicans want any gun to be available to anyone, no questions asked, because freedom. There's a reason why people aren't allowed to own tanks, and it's the same reason why people shouldn't be allowed to own AR-15's and other high-capacity war rifles. If you want to play with them that badly, go join the military, or the REAL militia, the National Guard.
10: History is also conveniently forgotten in regards to the 2nd Amendment, which most of these folks claim is to protect themselves from a tyrannical government. If Obama were a tyrant, all the people calling him a tyrant on TV and the internet would have been drug out back and shot in the head about 2 months into his Presidency, so, Worst Tyrant Ever. Here's the REAL reason the 2nd Amendment was ratified: to keep the Southern states from leaving the new Union because they needed good ol' boy militias to put down slave rebellions, because SURPRISE! Slaves don't like to be enslaved! http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery
11: Other nations with strict gun regulation (enacted by liberals AND conservatives who know how to compromise), have insanely lower shooting death statistics. It's a scandal in Japan when there are ANY shootings (that's more than zero), and Australia has had less than 300 each year for the last DECADE. Meanwhile, here in America: http://www.policymic.com/articles/21330/there-are-32-000-gun-deaths-a-year-in-the-u-s-here-is-how-we-get-that-number-to-zero The reason why there is no legislation like this in the US is because politicians care more about continuing their political career, rather than committing "political suicide" and doing what's right (something that several Australian officials have done). I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew I had the power to enact a law that would save even 1 life, let alone 30,000, and decided not to because being a Congressman was more important.
These are all very obvious facts to those who are paying attention and using their capacity for critical thinking, and not just lapping up whatever lies the GOP propaganda machine spews out. I know you're more than intelligent enough to know this, and to value evidence-based facts over unfounded rhetoric. Like I said before, you're what is considered a Classic Republican, aka one who is willing to compromise and debate honestly with the goal of governing the nation in the best way, and doing what's best for the people who elected them. The "Republicans" we have now are not that at all, they're Teabillies, they're Neocons, they're corporate shills willing to say anything for a buck, they're religious zealots who will make everything Christian or die trying. The thing all of these people have in common is that they all have an unreasoning hatred towards anyone who questions them, or simply asks them to provide evidence or support their claims. This is why other nations look at us and shake their heads, and why we're not the greatest country in the world anymore. But we could be.
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Citizens, I love my family, and it really makes me wonder how I turned out the way I did when I get emailed things like these. I can absolutely attest to how an insular society/environment lends itself to propagating conservative thinking, as I grew up in the backwoods of VT, and then once I left the state and discovered the intarwebz, the amount of information and diversity pretty much cured me of any lingering conservative thoughts. Rationality and fact-checked information win the day once more!
That will be all.
The video doesn't work
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