A Conspiracy Of Stupid

In yesterday's post, I talked about conspiracy theorists.

Well, sort of.

Basically, I was ranting about the stupidity of those who continue to believe Barack Obama is an illegal alien despite all evidence to the contrary, or more correctly, despite the lack of supporting evidence for their accusations - since by law the burden of proof is on them. I mentioned a few of the lawsuits brought by people who want Obama declared ineligible for the office to which he has been elected. No matter what evidence is presented, no matter what facts are verified, no matter how many times their claims are shown unequivocally to be without merit, they continue to believe. Basically, they can't stand to lose, and they can't believe that they are utterly wrong, so they've invented a single goofy non-issue, blown it all out of proportion, and cling to it against all reason in order to justify their hatred of a man the rest of the country has embraced.

I don't think I actually used the term "conspiracy theory" anywhere in the post, but that's really what we're talking about here. If you look at these people you find a pattern, I mentioned Philip Berg, he's a 9/11 "Truther." Andy Martin, the guy who started the Obama is a Muslim terrorist silliness, is a rabid anti-Semite and bigot, and was denied admission to the Illinois bar due to psychiatric diagnosis of paranoid tendencies. Andy has now recanted his opinion that Obama is a Muslim - instead he's come up with a new mind boggling conspiracy and it's a doozy. However, according to Andy, his theory is based on a "gut feeling" and not actual facts or evidence. Really, go read it. The rest of the folks I mentioned are the same (with the exception of Alan Keyes who is probably not a conspiracy theorist - more than likely he's just an opportunistic asshole). No evidence will ever convince these people that what they are doing is wrongheaded and harmful to the country they claim to love and support.

But you know, it's not just the crazy bastards, it's not just the diehard conspiracy theorists - it's all those witless mouth breathers they've managed to convince with their stupidity. Need a scary example? Take Michelle Malkin and her band of uber right-wing Patriots with a capital "P." On November 18th, Malkin said on her blog that the reason Barack Obama got elected was because "Stupid people voted." "Lots and lots of stupid people." Well, yeah, I guess she's talking about me. Apparently the smart people who voted for Bush last time around didn't vote for McCain. Or smart people stayed home. Or only stupid people vote. Or something. Seriously what did you expect from a nasty little ultra conservative blowhard like Malkin? After all, she's the pinhead who raised pluperfect hell about Rachel Ray's scarf and the radical Muslim threat lurking in Dunkin' Donuts. Her idiotic drivel isn't interesting - unless you consider how Malkin herself became a citizen of the United States - but what is insightful from a conspiracy theory standpoint are the 199 comments under that post. I don't expect you to read them all - but I did.

Allow me to sum up (Princess Bride ref, get it?): Obama got elected because the majority of voters are stupid. They're stupid because they are easily deceived. They are easily deceived because they're young. Because they're young they voted democrat because only stupid and lazy people are democrats. Because the majority is stupid, misguided, young, lazy, and democrat, Obama got elected.

Ergo: Stupid/Young People should not be allowed to vote. Voting age should be raised to 25, or 22 if you have kids and a job, or 18 if you're in the military (there are variations, you want to know what they are, you can go read all the comments yourself). There should be a test, an intelligence test, before you're allowed to vote.

Excuse me. Question. Which party was the elitists again? I forgot.

Additionally, the comments point to a number of other conspiracy theories surrounding Obama's win, specifically the media. There's this common perception through conservative circles that Obama only won because the liberal press trashed McCain (and Palin in particular) and promoted Obama. There's also the persistent belief that the media picked McCain, even though conservatives didn't want him, because they knew he'd lose - there's no mention however of why, if Republicans are so much smarter than Obama supporters, they didn't catch this and vote for somebody other than McCain in the primaries. There's the perception that Obama won because he raised more money, no mention of McCain's millions or how come he wasn't as effective of fund raiser, being so much smarter and all. Amusingly, there's a brief aside into how vegetarians are more educated and healthy than the people who voted for Obama - amusing because a quick search of vegetarian websites show a strong liberal bent, in fact I didn't find one that was conservative. Just sayin'. I particularly enjoyed the comment from FamilyMan@132 who blames Obama's win on the education system and says that our kids need to be saved from the far left and we do that by "putting GOD back in the schools," along with the pledge and prayer. He says "God in schools is the main issue, make no doubt about it." Yeah, that's why stupid Americans voted for Obama, no prayer in school.

And just in case you think this kind idiocy is reserved for Malkin's blog, take a look at the comments under this LA Time article. I particularly like the comments that attempt to define a "natural born American." I really like the comment that declares America bases overseas aren't American soil so babies born there aren't natural born America citizens. I love the people who don't get the difference between expository first person and reporting of fact. And I especially like the one comment that questions the printing date on Obama's birth certificate (as displayed in the Times article) and suggests that some "frensic" examination is what we need here. To be honest I didn't read all the comments. I've had about enough stupid this week, thank you.

It's one thing for a person to continue to cling to demonstratively wrong beliefs in the face of contrary evidence and harm no one but themselves. It's another thing entirely, when these same silly idiots attempt to impose their defective world view on the rest of us. Gary Kreep, head of the United States Justice Foundation (sounds like a comic book doesn't it - Hairy Kreep at The Hall of Justice!) and the lawyer who represents Alan Keyes in the California lawsuit said,"We will file lawsuits on his [Obama's] actions, every time. As long as we have money, we will keep filing lawsuits until we get a decision as to his citizenship status." What Mr. Kreep means in context is this: If Obama is sworn in as President, and USJF is not satisfied of his eligibility, they will file a lawsuit against every single action Obama takes as President, every law signed, every executive order given, and like that. See that's where conspiracy theory goes from being a harmless little obsessive mental illness and starts being a danger to the rest of the country.

As I said at the beginning of this post, sadly nothing will ever convince these people that they're wrong - well, short of yesterday's suggestion to slap some sense into them anyway. Like Creationists and UFO nuts they keep adjusting their paranoia in order to maintain their foregone conclusions.

Yeah, it's the the people who voted for Obama that are the stupid ones.

Suuuure it is.