"Do you think there was a kind of desire, to believe in a conspiracy of the liberal elite, all misbehaving in gross ways that ordinary folks could never think about?"
"Certainly, rationality is beleaguered these days. This is one of the last major newspapers in the country not to publish a horoscope,...non-science, nonsense, the elevation of emotion over fact, is on the rise, whether it's the extraordinary faith in homeopathy or the voodoo economics of the neoliberal right or the healing power of crystals. To read here of Tony and Cherie Blair's rebirthing experience in a Mexican mud bath in 2001 is to be torn between contempt and hilarity.
That our leaders for the past 25 years or so have been as cretinous as anyone else who believes there are fairies at the bottom of their garden is not exactly consoling. The powerful are protected from the consequences of their credulity; we are not."
Israel's other defenders aren't so lucky. But, where Douglas Murray versus Dave Smith was a dreary affair (at least until Murray coined the phrase "You haven't bean?") Tucker Carlson versus (the disingenuous and "feline") Senator Ted Cruz was a real knee-slapper. Cruz is a former debate champion, so to watch him fall apart so shambolically, revealing ignorance, hypocrisy, and deceit, is hilariously uncharacteristic. Here, he's an incoherent deterrent. Tucker said his "logic train has a massive hole in it." This makes his the second head recently displayed on Tucker's wall, after Piers Morgan's, so "well-done" to The TV Dinner Kid.
And, finally, this is what "winning" always looks like, amongst those who can't grasp what a "fact" is:
Joseph Goebbels could scarcely contain himself. The moment he heard the news he telephoned Hitler in the Führerbunker. "My Führer, I congratulate you, Roosevelt is dead," he exalted. "It is written in the stars. The last half of April will be the turning point for us. This is Friday, April 13. It is the turning point."
Sometime earlier, Goebbels had passed along two astrological predictions to Count Schwerin von Krosigk, Reich's Minister of Finance. One had been prepared for Hitler the day he took power, January 30th, 1933. The other, dated November 9th 1918, had dealt with the future of the Weimar Republic. Krosigk noted in his diary "An amazingfact had become evident. Both horoscopes predicted the outbreak of war in 1939, the victories until 1941, and the subsequent series of reversals, with the hardest blows during the first months of 1945, especially in the first half of April. Then, there was to be an overwhelming victory in the second half of April, stagnation until August, and peace the same month. For the following three years Germany would have a difficult time but, starting in 1948, she would rise again."
That's a lot, but "most say they engage in these practices for fun, rather than for insights or guidance on life decisions." Which makes me wish Pew had probed deeper, to maybe ask what's so "fun" about telling manipulative types the inner workings of your relationships and community?
Or what's so "fun" about letting liars know you're gullible?
What's so "fun" about possibly helping "fortunetellers" update the information on you, kept on their own private online community bulletin boards, that they can consult to know specific things about someone, no matter which "fortuneteller" they consult in the area?
What's so "fun" about undermining science, while keeping profoundly unscientific (and sometimes destructive) practices alive?
And what's so "fun" about representing, and proving, how bad your education, and the system that produced it, is?
Read the disturbing threats Big Pharma exec 'sent to bosses at health insurance provider' after they refused to pay for Crohn's medicine - Justin Dynlacht, 54, allegedly sent 15 emails, 12 letters and two faxes to his ex-bosses, Aetna, and its parent company CVS Health in a yearlong campaign of terror. The letters detailed in a court affidavit threatened to kill, rape, torture, and mutilate three executives, their families and children, and various other staff in revenge. Threats were often incredibly graphic, including cutting victims into pieces and putting them around Aetna offices as a warning to others.
