Brainwashing Yourself

[Tags: partisan, politics, rhetoric, brainwash, idiots,
stupidity]

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As a debater, I love to hold peoples feet to the fire when they make irrational or generalized statements. On the opposite side of things, I sometimes make generalizations and am fine with admitting such and usually either have to provide proof that either the generalization is common or that I was wrong. Both have happened in the past.

What I love though is when people explain things, make claims and then provide their own words as proof. Now this would be okay in only a few situations. Maybe when the person is the "head of state" or a dictator of some kind. If they are the identified authority on a subject, such as Stephen William Hawking in physics or maybe Einstein - possibly Sherlock Holmes on investigatory police work... well, you get the idea.

Yet, with the Bush bashers frothing at the mouth and the adrenaline flowing for the mid-term 2006 Congressional elections, they are out in force! I've got nothing about Bush bashers as long as they provide accurate information that can be proven. You know, a little thing called "evidence" which must come from some type of universal authority of the type that is close to "truth" as possible. This evidence should be corroborated somehow with other sources - to lend itself to authenticity. Call me crazy, but living in a society of laws and a country built upon the rule of law which applied to everyone, it takes a little pinch of work to make your point. I shouldn't be able to say Jon Marksfield is green, without actually showing someone the pictures, a letter or two and maybe an eye witness who's seen him green. I also have to make sure it wasn't a bad pork chop or something that turned him green when I make the accusation.



What America is lacking right now, is the ability to provide that proof. Lots of accusations are being made which can be chalked up to rhetoric, and ultimately just partisan garbage. When people start to "quote themselves" as proof though - that's when you know we've hit the twilight zone.

For example - I recently had a debate with a person who I asked to provide some sort of evidence that they base their opinion on, and they provide me their blog links. Huh?

Yeah you heard right - their own blog links. That's their proof. Now I wasn't expecting much from an idiot like this anyway, but I thought I'd at least get a Chomsky or Marx or maybe a Mao... but no, I wasn't that lucky. I got his own blog posts. Well duh - of bloody course you think you're right but why back it up with YOUR OWN BLOG??

This is evidence of people brainwashing themselves. When they are so desperate that they cannot find evidence to back up their opinions, they feel the need to write their own evidence - in a blog. Now, call me crazy, but I never provide my blog as a FACT. What's contained in this blog are observations and my own opinion and NOT IN ANY WAY fact. Mostly, I try to stay tongue and cheek with this stuff since there's just so much partisan tripe and politically vomited hate out there. Why be the same thing as a thousand other blogs?



But these people actually, I think, have brainwashed themselves. They quote conspiracy theory, write a nice long blog page on it, then cite it as fact. Really. I'm not making this up. As pathetic as this may be, they go on forums and QUOTE THEMSELVES! If I thought that I was sometimes pathetic by even doing this type of thing off and on, THAT my friends is about as pathetic as one can get. Of course, I'm usually prevented from saying such a thing either by forum rules or by simply good taste on my part. But really - they quote themselves. How arrogant and tasteless and utterly devoid of reality must one be? Then they believe everything they post - they use conversations and blog posts from a year ago on a non-associated subject as proof of something. I'd provide an example but it's too sorry and pathetic to even show. It would be like GW Bush citing his axis of evil speech as proof that Iran has a nuclear weapon.

The best part of this is when they use quotations to try and bolster their points. Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, all the biggies are used to try and make their opinions
more valid. Lots and lots of quotes which have nothing to do with what they say...



This is all the more reason to question everything - in my limited time on the internet, I've found 99% of people make it all up - their posts, their thoughts, their information (wikipedia is included), as well as internet sites and all opinion pieces are based on nothing. It's like a network computer system using the Seinfeld method - it's an internet about... nothing.

As a matter of fact, this opinion post right here is based actually on ... nothing. Though I don't have to necessarily convince anyone of anything other that there are some wacko assed wierdo's out there trying to get you to believe what they believe? I say... believe what YOU want to believe and make up your own minds and question EVERYTHING!