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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Meet Your Average Republican Voter
Posted by Jill | 5:49 AM
Here's how Republicans manage to pull stuff out of their asses and have people believe it: Because they target people like these:
They spent months warning the world of the apocalypse, some giving away earthly belongings or draining their savings accounts. And so they waited, vigilantly, on Saturday for the appointed hour to arrive.

When 6 p.m. came and went at various spots around the globe, including the East Coast of the United States, and no extraordinary cataclysm occurred, Keith Bauer — who hopped in his minivan in Maryland and drove his family 3,000 miles to California for the Rapture — took it in stride.

"I had some skepticism but I was trying to push the skepticism away because I believe in God," he said in the bright morning sun outside the gated Oakland headquarters of Family Radio International, whose founder, Harold Camping, has been broadcasting the apocalyptic prediction for years. "I was hoping for it because I think heaven would be a lot better than this earth."

But he added, "It's God who leads you, not Harold Camping."

Bauer, a tractor-trailer driver, began the voyage west last week, figuring that if he "worked last week, I wouldn't have gotten paid anyway, if the Rapture did happen." After seeing the nonprofit ministry's base of operations, Bauer planned to take a day trip to the Pacific Ocean, and then start the cross-country drive back home Sunday with his wife, young son and another family relative.

[snip]

In New York's Times Square, Robert Fitzpatrick, of Staten Island, said he was surprised when 6 p.m. came and went. He had spent his own money to put up advertising about the end of the world.

"I can't tell you what I feel right now," he said, surrounded by tourists. "I don't understand it. I don't know. I don't understand what happened.

"Obviously, I haven't understood it correctly because we're still here," he said.


It tempting to feel sorry for gullible dupes like these, except that these gullible dupes are the same people who made Rick Scott the governor of Florida, and Scott Walker the governor of Wisconsin. These gullible people are the same people who read Andrew Breitbart and listen to Sarah Palin. These are the same people who gay-bash and want their particular brand of Christianity to become the mandatory state religion. These are the same people who scram "Keep the government out of my Medicare" and elect people like Paul Ryan. They are stupid, frightened ignorant people who are beyond learning, who are beyond allowing anything like empirical reality to interfere with their already-established worldview. So today we get to point at them and laugh.

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Blogger Geoffrey said...
I love your writing and I am usually in total agreement. Yes, if it wasn't for the "gullible dupes," the churches would be empty and the Republican party would consist only of the top 2% of earners that fail to pay their fair share and secretly scoff at those that do. I think I have a little more sympathy for these people than you do. The reason may be age. I must be getting soft. But they are pathetic in their need for causes and creeds larger than themselves that give them the safety of being told what and how to think. The alternative would be frightening for these timid souls who need the comfort of being told they are right (no pun intended), have not developed the ability to think independently. I might suggest that they have been conditioned from years of religious tyranny where they were told they were unworthy, incapable of knowing the "mysteries", and that there was one true religion and one answer for everything. Not sure that would cover all of them but it would be a start. So we have created another generation of unquestioning offspring of limited ability that will opt for the easy way out; religion over science and scarcity mentality over abundance mentality. I sense that we are at a crossroads brought on by a world that will no longer allow us to be as dumb as we want to be. I'm thankful for your work because I see it as an effective way to stop the fall into total ignorance.
Thanks
5/22/11, 11:58 AM  
Anonymous neonnautilus said...
Worse than the dupes are the people who are manipulating them. That's where evil enters the picture.
5/22/11, 12:25 PM  
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