Thursday, February 20, 2014

Right Wing Fundamentalism




"Once upon a time, America was THE smartest nation on the planet. We were the most advanced. We invented almost EVERYTHING and the stuff we didn’t invent ourselves, we improved on. We were at the cutting edge of science.
You think we’re still the smartest people on the planet?
We don’t even have the potential to be the smartest anymore.
We have literally lobotomized ourselves.
And to what do we owe this gift of dumb? Right Wing fundamentalism, both religious and political. No one has taken this quote from Benjamin Franklin as seriously as the powers that be in the conservative movement:
“A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.”
They’ve taken it seriously all right; as a serious threat to their agenda. A well informed populace is hard to lie to. A well informed population is hard to manipulate with propaganda. A well informed population is hard to convince that economic suicide is a viable platform.
The Right has spent decades slowly eroding the foundations of intellectual America. Where once teachers were respected and scientists idolized, now they are pariahs. Teachers’ Unions are the cause of our failing schools! Educated people are elitists! Intellectuals are Socialists! Scientists are all lying to you about the environment! Except for this small handful of scientists and intellectuals that inexplicably agree with everything we paid them to say, you can trust them.
The first test of real science versus conservative science was cigarettes. Big Tobacco spent billions to confuse the issue and convince people that cigarettes were safe. It didn’t matter that every properly run study found exactly the same thing: cigarettes are physically addictive and cause cancer (in addition to a host of other ill side effects). Big Tobacco found a willing ally in conservative politicians (shocking, I know); Congressmen who stood in front of cameras and told the country that the damning science was “junk science” and the attacks on Big Tobacco were politically motivated. I would say they lied but I honestly believe they didn’t know the truth and, much more importantly, didn’t WANT to know. Big business had come for help fighting regulation and that’s all they needed to know. That, and how much in donations they could expect for their re-election fund.
And it worked. For decades. Even as the public’s awareness that smoking seemed to be killing their loved ones grew, Congress, carrying water for Big Tobacco, did nothing. Finally, enough incontrovertible evidence surfaced, much of it “borrowed” from Big Tobacco itself, that cigarettes were finally seen for what they really are: a product that will, in all probability, kill you. A dangerous product intentionally pushed onto an unsuspecting public by uncaring corporations. This should have forever put to rest any question as to whether Big Business (and by default their champions, professional conservatives) has the public’s welfare in mind at all. 
But it didn’t.
How does religion fit into this scam? Easily. Fundamentalism works best when no one questions the authority and authenticity of scripture. “You will obey MY interpretation of God’s word or else!” Science, by its very nature, questions and is, therefore, the enemy.
Mind you, we’re not discussing Ultimate Truth here. We’re talking about the observable workings of the universe and the history of the Earth. Fundamentalism insists that the Earth is only 6000 years old, Noah’s Flood was a historical event and evolution is a liberal lie.
When presented with the choice of believing utter nonsense and being forced to question the very underpinnings of their faith, all too many reject the real and embrace the fantasy. Fundamentalist leaders count on this. Once you can convince someone of your absolute infallibility, you can tell them to do anything,believe anything and they will because any other course would shred the very fabric of their life.
Many (most) worshipers reject this fallacy and set religion apart from science. The Fat Smug Bastard is one of them and while our conversations about whether or not God exists can be, at times, viciously energetic, we both agree that science is the final authority on pretty much all matters not having to do with the spiritual.
Even the Vatican, a long time proponent of “Shut the hell up, the Earth is the center of the universe!” looks at the United States and wonders how we became so stupid. How embarrassing is THAT?
Right Wing politics and Fundamentalist religion made a devil’s bargain a long time ago. They would both work to undermine science, thereby rendering the population ever so more open to manipulation and control. This paves the way for unregulated industry (read as: unlimited profit) and for the mixing of temporal power with spiritual (read as: theocracy). Economic conservatism and social conservatism. The two banes of modern America’s existence.
This is great news for the rest of world. As we become dumber and dumber and more technologically unsophisticated, we are unintentionally seceding the role of world leader to whoever can claim it first. We’ll just be their customers. We’ll have terrible credit and won’t understand the instruction manual.”

16 comments:

  1. If one is attacking the 'gift of dumb', it might be smart to close the first set of quotation marks.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. He did. The entire passage is in quotes.

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    3. Hell if I know, I just figured that was some weird thing bloggers do. Quote themselves.

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    4. Actually, if you are quoting an entire paragraph, the closing quotes can be left off. Normally this is done when you are quoting multiple paragraphs in sequence but I've seen it done plenty with single paragraphs.

      Of course in this case it may just have been a typo.

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  2. Your first paragraph is laughably false. At the start of WWII and again at the close of WWII America had an influx of super brains, first with fleeing Jews, secondly with fleeing Nazi's wanting to dodge war crimes trials getting a free ride from Operation Paperclip. Besides that, the US has, and always will have to, import it's talent. Your government may have liked to tell you that you were the smartest country or invented a lot of things, but we know how trustworthy your government is.

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    1. Actually, this country may have a lot of faults but intelligence and innovation aren't among the list. Yes, we benefited from outside sources such as Werner Van Braun but what country hasn't, not to mention that 98% of the country is derived from immigrants at some point in their heritage. But our developments and achievements lead the rest of the world despite some factions within the country. .

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  3. So, what are the other 94%? Democrats lol Nice deception. Also, you make some claims on donations from big tobacco to Conservatives. Where are your sources, or was that made up too? You render yourself as not credible. Also, did you know there are conservative Democrats? Do you think those Southern Democrats of the south that had major economic gains from Tobacco didn't stand up for the companies that are doing business in their site? All good questions you should address.

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    1. @JaxonRaye In the 1990’s our political leaders saw fit to make sure there was funding for anti-smoking campaigns trying to get Americans to quit smoking and save the tax dollar costs of cancer treatments and cures due to the tobacco industry’s products. These products are making adults and children sick even when they are not using the tobacco industries’ products themselves. I am of course referring to one example such as “Second Hand Smoke,” which is costing U.S. citizens billion of dollars in these preventable medical cost side effects.

      The U.S. health leaders are having to banded together to save the nation’s most effective youth anti-smoking effort, the American Legacy Foundation’s “truth” campaign, which faces a total loss of funding.

      On the other hand we are now subsidizing the Tobacco Industries to the tune of $1,138,558,705 since 2000 during the Conservative Republican President, Senate and Congress until 2010. To put this in simpler terms, $1.1 Billion plus per year in government subsidizing. Before 2000 there was no subsidizing of the Tobacco Industry. (Where were the Teabaggers during this “Corporate Welfare” handout started in the Conservative Republican George W. Bush’s administration?)

      Subsidizing tobacco helps the tobacco industry continue to create nicotine junkies out of millions of Americans, many of whom will die from lung cancer and other smoking induced illnesses not only on the users but on those around them, leaving the medical insurance and tax payers with the medical treatment bills. Meanwhile they are reaping record profits of about $500 Billion per year from not only here in the United States but in many countries around the world.

      So for the more simple minded Teabaggers / Patriot claiming political spectrum, I will conclude and condense the message to this sound bite: The Tobacco Industry is recording annual profits of $500 Billion per year but is being subsided by our government since the G.W. Bush years to the $1.1 plus Billion dollars.

      I would also add that this does not take into account the medical costs to the medical insurance premiums and tax cost to the American Working Class Citizens. This enormous health toll is the significant economic burden of tobacco use is more than $96 Billion per year in medical costs and when you add another $97 Billion per year from lost productivity; you have a total of $193 Billion Dollars cost to American Citizens…..and I reiterate, “Why are we subsidizing this industry with tax dollars to the tune of $1.1 Billion per year. This alone would provide medical coverage to every American Citizen.

      In closing I will state, “It is not a problem of “Obama Care” but a problem of “Subsidizing Corporate Welfare” system because it is business friendly.

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    2. http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/section-4-scientists-politics-and-religion/

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  4. @BaSH So Thomas Edison was an import? Philo Farnsworth? The Wright brothers?

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  5. There are still plenty of geniuses in this country as well as the world. It's like George Carlin said, "a couple winners and a whole lot of losers.". Also I think you are over estimating the influence of Right Wing fundamentalist, don't get me wrong as they are greedy insufferable pricks whom only care about empirical evidence when it suits their agendas, but it is starting to show that their game is getting old. With the advent of the internet information is exchanged at a much faster rate so more people are waking up to the realization that not every US politician is exactly adhering to the purpose of their occupations. Their power is fledgling, it just doesn't appear that way since they have pooled all of their money from lobbyists that have protestant backing to make a final push. That's who is really behind this; Protestants as they have always followed the mentality of "my way or your head rolling down the highway". They are the ones who kicked the mafia out of Vegas and has pretty much destroyed any other tribe in some shape or form as murder is as easy as complain about why their wine isn't slightly chilled.

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  6. I think you mean "ceding" (not "seceding") in your final paragraph...

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  7. "We have -literally- lobotomized ourselves."

    I don't think that word means what you think it means.

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    1. If he’s talking about the U.S. as a whole when he says “ourselves” then it is fine as is; there is a concerted effort by the bourgeoisie to destroy the intelligentsia and retard the proletariat. If destroying the brains of the U.S. is not a lobotomy, then what is?

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