Basking In Ignorance In the Age of Information
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My father had a saying, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” It was something he came up with after the police officers who beat Rodney King were exonerated on the basis that the videotape that caught them didn’t tell the whole story, which I thought was a total crock.
I mean, I don’t doubt that there was more going on than the video showed, but it doesn’t take a half a dozen cops to take down a guy who is already in handcuffs. Give me a break.
A former boss once told me “Perception is reality,” but I’ve never believed that. I believe in what I see, and what the evidence proves. When it comes to what I hear, I disseminate. I always look beyond the surface. Or I try, at any rate.
It bugs me that people take everything at face value. Maybe if everyone did a little research now and then, we wouldn’t have Trump as president. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that there are still so many people who are so gullible as to hang on his every word. Trump makes Jim Jones look like a carnival huckster by comparison.
I’m always reading comments from conservative idiots on Facebook saying things like, “Don’t you know your history, or read what it says in the constitution?”, as if they had a degree in political science. I usually follow up with “Don’t you have any compassion or common sense?”
That’s especially true of the gun debate. While the 2nd amendment does guarantee the right to bear arms, it doesn’t say anything about assault rifles. Do you honestly think the founding fathers would have ratified the second amendment if they knew what it would result in? I highly doubt it. They weren’t that damned dumb.
Getting back to Trump, he is nothing that he makes himself out to be. He is not a self-made billionaire, he is not a Godly man, or a business genius. He can’t even play a game of Battleship without checking with Fox News first.
We’ve always had a cult of personality type of mentality, but it’s only the truly stupid who follow blindly. I mean, Trump lies so much that the fact checkers can’t keep up and his lawyers won’t let him testify to the Mueller probe because they know he’s incapable of telling the truth, for God’s sake!
It isn’t even really that Trump can’t tell the truth, I don’t think he knows what truth is as a concept. In his mind, I think he believes the truth is whatever he says it is. It just worries me that his base believes him. And not only that they believe him, but they’re rabid in his defense of him.
They say you can’t fix stupid, but can it be contained, at least? Stupidity is like ebola; it’s a plague and it spreads like wildfire. Too bad we don’t have a cure for it, because we need it bad.
What we are told isn’t always the truth and it’s incumbent upon us to discover it on our own. I find it ironic that we live in the age of information, yet we still bask in ignorance.
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“in this case, the man behind the curtain is a fucking idiot.”
LOL! Ayup, as our dear friend Jess would say 🙂
Greg, to finish the quote you started, “Perception is reality, as long as the perceiver believes it to be real.” But, I get your meaning. Donald Trump is somewhat similar to the Great and wonderful OZ, except, in this case, the man behind the curtain is a fucking idiot. The problem is that these days about 30 35 % of our population are the little people who believe he is the Wizard. I hate to break it to you young man but those idiots on facebook ARE the little people in this story. A while back when all of this Russia crap was just starting and those same people were saying it was all crap I tried to tell them the it was more real than they could possible imagine. I could not tell them how I knew, still can’t, but my friends tell me that Trump’s family is more at risk than he is at this point. They were the ones he put out there to do most of the talking.
Dude, it’s been YEARS since I saw the video and I was in error. But still, are you gonna tell me that it makes any difference? There were SIX cops with batons beating the holy shit out of the guy, and he was down on the ground begging for mercy!
You are the poster boy for the title of your own post. He wasn’t begging for mercy, he was combative. Read what I wrote for fuck’s sake.
I wonder every time I listen to the news or to the endless stream of commercial advertising on the TC or the sermonizing and professions of faith — why are people so unable to see the fraud and fallacy and baseless bullshit that surrounds us like an ocean.
Obviously the lower schools don’t teach critical thinking on any level. Perhaps it would undermine the kind of education they do if students began questioning the curriculum and of course most advertising would be wasted on an enlightened and capable public. Could I suggest that a sort of Pavlovian gullibility is the fuel of civilization?
Nearly everything you hear about health and nutrition and medication stinks of dishonesty if not outright dementia, and yet it supports billions of dollars of wasted spending. I won’t even get into politics. How different it would be if people could believe and analyze evidence instead of believing and defending any lie that makes them feel good or makes them afraid or feeds their beloved prejudices and angers.
Speaking of ignorance, Rodney King was NOT handcuffed when he was beaten by police. Regardless, it was a disgraceful incident that for decades has stained the honor and integrity of LAPD.
The Constitution means nothing to we republicans. The actual ideals and beliefs of the Founding Fathers mean nothing to us either. Thomas Jefferson firmly believed in separation of church and state. He said that he can think of no example of a priest ridden people lasting. He made it a personal rule to not preach his religious beliefs to others. George Washington gave many speeches to Catholic and Quaker groups supporting their rights and telling them their country supports their right to worship or not worship as they saw fit. They supported the rights of atheists to be atheists. Jefferson no atheist ever did him and harm and should be allowed to practice as he saw fit. But we republicans espouse Trump as God’s choice to lead us. God doesn’t matter to us. Integrity mean nothing. The only thing that matters to we republicans who now have a huge election advantage in the electoral college is having people to vote for that tell us the bigoted or ignorant bullshit we want to hear because it validates us. Trump is our dream come true.