XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.revisionism   
   From: Hillary&Obama&Soros@ideocracy.shadow.gov   
      
   On 02/15/2017 03:44 PM, Bill Steele wrote:   
   > On 2/14/17 9:32 PM, Sancho wrote:   
   >> Anti-Intellectualism And Willful Ignorance In America: The Root   
   >> Of All That Is Evil   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> A post on the Psychology Today website takes a unique   
   >> perspective toward the domestic terror attack in Charleston   
   >> this week. Blogger David Niose’s opinion is that racism and gun   
   >> safety are always hot button topics after a mass shooting   
   >> happens in America, but ultimately nothing of merit ever comes   
   >> from the discussion of those or any other issues. Niose   
   >> believes that “America’s social dysfunction has continued to   
   >> intensify as the nation has ignored a key underlying pathology:   
   >> anti-intellectualism.”   
   >>   
   >> You can see plenty of evidence of this fact if you simply watch   
   >> Fox “news” for even a few minutes or peruse the internet for   
   >> right-wing sites and pages. Example: The Republican response to   
   >> the Charleston shooting spree. The right largely point to   
   >> mental illness and label what happened a tragic but random act.   
   >> A problem too big to ever be solved. Careful not to alienate   
   >> your racist, gun-obsessed voter base, GOP!   
   >>   
   >> Many GOP presidential hopefuls attended the Faith and Freedom   
   >> Coalition’s Road to Majority this week. It is an event where   
   >> Republican presidential candidates court religious   
   >> conservatives (how is this even legal?). At some point, nearly   
   >> every hopeful mentioned or alluded to Charleston. Here are some   
   >> of their comments:   
   >>   
   >> Ted Cruz: “I just want to begin today with a moment of silence   
   >> remembering those who were murdered last night… a sick and   
   >> deranged person came and prayed with a historically black   
   >> congregation for an hour, and then murdered nine innocent   
   >> souls. Christians across our nation, across our world —   
   >> believers across the world are lifting up the congregants at   
   >> Emanuel AME.”   
   >>   
   >> Rand Paul: “What kind of person goes into a church and shoots   
   >> nine people?” “There’s a sickness in our country, but it’s not   
   >> going to be solved by our government.”   
   >>   
   >> Chris Christie: “It’s depraved, It’s unthinkable. We can’t put   
   >> our minds around conduct like that, can we?” “Laws can’t change   
   >> this. Only the goodwill and the love of the American people can   
   >> let those folks know that that act was unacceptable,   
   >> disgraceful, and that we need to do more to show that we love   
   >> each other.”   
   >>   
   >> Jeb Bush expressed sympathy with the victims but said he did   
   >> not know why the killer did what he did.   
   >>   
   >> Sen. Lindsey Graham, defender of the Confederate flag, called   
   >> for stricter enforcement of existing gun laws: “I own a bunch   
   >> of guns, and I haven’t hurt anybody, but there is something   
   >> wrong with the background system.” He noted that too bad seeds   
   >> fall through the cracks. “If I get to be president of the   
   >> United States, you fail a criminal background check, you try to   
   >> buy a gun when you’re not supposed to, you’re going to meet the   
   >> law head on.”   
   >>   
   >> No consensus, no real answers, no invitation for discussion.   
   >> Not one speck of even a seed of a solution.   
   >>   
   >> In the post, David Niose further points out:   
   >>   
   >>     “In a country where a sitting congressman told a crowd that   
   >> evolution and the Big Bang are “lies straight from the pit of   
   >> hell,” where the chairman of a Senate environmental panel   
   >> brought a snowball into the chamber as evidence that climate   
   >> change is a hoax, where almost one in three citizens can’t name   
   >> the vice president, it is beyond dispute that critical thinking   
   >> has been abandoned as a cultural value. Our failure as a   
   >> society to connect the dots, to see that such anti-   
   >> intellectualism comes with a huge price, could eventually be   
   >> our downfall.”   
   >>   
   >> America is poisoning itself by its own willful ignorance and   
   >> the pride that goes along with it. Just look at Dylann Roof. He   
   >> used racism and white supremacy as reasons for hate and to   
   >> commit mass murder. Roofs actions will undoubtedly be blamed on   
   >> racism and gun violence, but what we need to realize is those   
   >> things are directly tied to our nation’s culture of ignorance.   
   >> Of course, ignorance is at the root of racism.  it is also true   
   >> that shootings are a reflection of America’s gun-obsessed,   
   >> violent culture. But those stem from the fact that our society   
   >> has allowed those things to define our culture. Realistically,   
   >> sensible gun policies, such as background check and limited   
   >> access to gun, are not possible in our current climate. First   
   >> we need to have in place an informed, engaged, and rational   
   >> public.   
   >>   
   >>     “An anti-intellectual society, however, will have large   
   >> swaths of people who are motivated by fear, susceptible to   
   >> tribalism and simplistic explanations, incapable of emotional   
   >> maturity, and prone to violent solutions. Sound familiar?” And   
   >> even though it may seem counter-intuitive, anti-intellectualism   
   >> has little to do with intelligence. We know little about the   
   >> raw intellectual abilities of Dylann Roof, but we do know that   
   >> he is an ignorant racist who willfully allowed irrational   
   >> hatred of an entire demographic to dictate his actions.   
   >> Whatever his IQ, to some extent he is a product of a culture   
   >> driven by fear and emotion, not rational thinking, and his   
   >> actions reflect the paranoid mentality of one who fails to   
   >> grasp basic notions of what it means to be human.”  – Niose   
   >>   
   >> What Americans are failing to acknowledge is that the majority   
   >> of our social problems are rooted in the dismissal of critical   
   >> thinking. Or the polar opposite: the glorification of the   
   >> irrational and emotional. Take, for example, the nationalistic   
   >> notion that many believe, the notion that the United States if   
   >> far superior to the rest of the world.   
   >>   
   >> Love of country is perfectly fine, but to honestly believe that   
   >> the U.S. both invented and perfected the idea of freedom is to   
   >> be willfully ignorant. We are NOT number one. Not by a long   
   >> shot. International quality of life rankings place America   
   >> barely in the top ten.  Murder rates and rates of other violent   
   >> crimes are astronomically higher than in most of the developed   
   >> world.  Our incarceration rate is out of control, while   
   >> education and science literacy are embarrassing. Schools   
   >> upholding “traditional values” purposefully avoid sex   
   >> education. It’s no wonder that the U.S. has the highest teen   
      
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