This really deserves a longer, well-thought out piece but I have to comment on something I’ve noticed lately. I reallly like Reddit, a site where people submit things from the web that are then voted on by the members. It was created by a couple of programmer geeks so the range of articles is typically good. When you submit articles that people like, the site tracks your karma and then future articles you submit are ranked higher. All in all, a good site.
However, there are two topics guaranteed to be successful and those are anything involving the conspiracies the Bush organization has foisted on Amerika and atheism. I find the latter amusing, I remember being 22 and atheist, looking to pick a fight with any religious person I could on the web. It was fun and all but really just a pursuit of youth.
The former though is starting to manifest itself as some sort of psychological disease. Case in point: read the comments here. Ranging from Katrina to 9/11, it’s all one big conspiracy against the poor, black, dark or just general Americans. At first I thought that line of comments was a great parody but in the end, it’s apparent they truly believe such things. Providing counter examples to their rather obvious insanity is pointless as they are “The Convinced”. These people really believe Bush is one step away from invoking martial law and nothing can be brought to up sway them.
Is that the state we’re in today, that large portions of an otherwise intelligent sub-population believe an American president knew about 9/11 beforehand, willfully let the people of New Orleans die because they aren’t white and now is ready to invoke martial law in one of the longest running democracies of the world? Really? It’s impossible to argue with these people but it makes me angry that anyone can believe that. Trust me, I think the Bush organization has stumbled mightily lately. But these people seem to concurrently hold two absolutely contrary positions without the slightest bit of cognitive dissonance: Bush and his administration are conniving, horrible Hitler like people and Bush and his administration are idiots.
This sort of insanity troubles me because I can’t possibly work out a solution in my head to explain it. And that scares me.