It’s wild.
I would say people in countries with poor or non-existent public education are more prone. The USA’s public education system was eviscerated in the 70’s I think.
I would say people in countries with poor or non-existent public education are more prone. The USA’s public education system was eviscerated in the 70’s I think.
As early as the 60s, but really the 80s. Through the 70s US had some of the best public education on the planet. The move to privatize education started in earnest under Reagan (in California, as governor), and then further under Reagan (and every president and congress to now).
Specifically:
• calling for an end to free tuition for state college and university students
• annually demanding 20 percent across-the-board cuts in higher education funding
• repeatedly slashing construction funds for state campuses
• engineering the firing of Clark Kerr, the highly respected president of the University of California
• declaring that the state “should not subsidize intellectual curiosity”
How the fuck do you come to the conclusion that you’re spending too much money on education
Easy
They are talking at the dinner table about doing things that are against my self interest. I don’t want those damn kids learning that. Therefore cut education
Rather that you know the market place of ideas that I espouse; as long as they match what I believe.
Educated people tend to lean liberal and conservatives hate open minded people.
It’s this. People with good educations will figure out that the Republicans are lying to them to take advantage of them. Republicans don’t want their pigeon/fools to think too hard about the lies they tell.
Look at Trump. Is he an obvious liar? Yes. But there are very “poorly educated” people who believe all the lies he says.
Just look at the GOP. They repeat garbage until their pawns believe it.
With Reagan, it was because Republicans at the time thought there would be too many educated poor people. One of his advisors (Roger Freeman) said:
“We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat…That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college]…If not, we will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed people.”
He was basically worried about a revolution because of it.
Source: https://theintercept.com/2022/08/25/student-loans-debt-reagan/
There’s other sources if you don’t like the Intercept.
Perfectly stated.
By design. It’s a lot easier to fleece stupid people.
Studies have found ( for example ) conspiracy thinking correlates with extremist political beliefs, especially right wing political beliefs, across countries. That linked study found the effect was strengthened by lack of political control.
So countries with more political extremists, especially far right wing in media platforms, leads to more popular conspiracy theories.
We conclude that conspiracy mentality is associated with extreme left- and especially extreme right-wing beliefs, and that this non-linear relation may be strengthened by, but is not reducible to, deprivation of political control.
To add to this, radicalism spreads thru a social contagion effect and requires repeated reinforcement, and social media acts as a catalyst. However, local organizing also plays a vital role in the spread far-right extremism.
Here is an article I have written on my blog detailing how people become radicalized. I have ads turned off and do not benefit in any way from my blog.
One important section I’d like to share here is for the false ‘both sides’ arguments:
There is a stark difference in the means with which the two groups engage in acts of extremism. In a study evaluating Left-Wing and Right-Wing domestic extremism between 1994 and 2020, there was one fatality as the result of Left-Wing extremism, versus 329 fatalities resulting from Far Right extremism in that 25 year period. [5] The Far-Right movement is the oldest and most deadly form of domestic terrorism in the United States, and The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism found that the Far-Right is responsible for 98% of extremist murders in the U.S. [24] Furthermore, for nearly every year since 2011, Far-Right terrorist attacks/plots have accounted for over half of all terror attacks/plots in the United States. [21] In the U.S., Right-Wing extremism was responsible for two-thirds of all failed, foiled, or successful terror attacks in 2019, and was responsible for 90% of attacks in the first half of 2020 alone. [21] Since 2013, Far-Right extremism has been responsible for more terror attacks/plots than the Left-Wing, ethnonationalism, or religiously motivated attacks/plots. [21]
IDK if it’s that or just the fact that there’s both a lot of us and a great sense of nationalism instilled in us from a very young age. I’ve been to Mt. Rushmore twice. Only recently did I learn about how it was a sacred site to the native people that we promised to leave alone, before stealing it and blowing it to hell.
What I’m getting at is that we’re taught that America is the greatest nation on the planet, and we’re encouraged to be loud about that statement. So when a certain group of people in the government who are also very loud about their beliefs start saying some things that might sound completely bonkers to a foreigner, a lot of people find themselves agreeing purely because they like the attitude of the people talking.
Visiting Rushmore as a non-American is even weirder than you imagine.
The levels of over the top blatantly performative “patriotism” is quite bizarre to be surrounded by.
And the suspicious looks we got for not participating enthusiastically was discomforting (no, I’m not going to recite a pledge of allegiance to your country. Why would you expect me to?)
Now imagine a Confederate version with more racism and you have Stone Mountain.
I think that the distrust of governments and generally those in power is a world-wide phenomenon. But I personally don’t think that it is unwarranted. Corruption, abuses of power, and conspiracies are widespread.
I feel like Americans generally “know better”. The bottle says to take two, we know better than to follow the label, we take four. The button says to hold until three quarters full, we know better than to fall for that coffee stealing scheme, we crank that baby till it spills over and then try to add 10 creamers with a name we can’t pronounce. So when we hear that someone died under a bizarre circumstance, we know better.
I feel like Americans generally “know better”. The bottle says to take two, we know better than to follow the label, we take four. The button says to hold until three quarters full, we know better than to fall for that coffee stealing scheme, we crank that baby till it spills over and then try to add 10 creamers with a name we can’t pronounce. So when we hear that someone died under a bizarre circumstance, we know better.
I have taken to calling this “American Exceptionalism”. Its in some ways baked in to how Americans address their world. I think much of it comes from pride-in-struggle, that for many Americans, their pride is all they have. And so this needs to be bolstered, put up front.
I have met several people who moved into Usa during the last years, and they all said Yes very much.
Moved from where?
No, that’s just what they want you to think.
You can read “The Paranoid Style In American Politics” from 1964 for some insight: https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/
American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics. In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
It’s written at a higher than 6th grade target, so it might be a challenge for anyone who’s not used to that. Please give it a good faith effort to read.
Thinking about it, the low literacy rate in the US might be an aggravating factor. Something like half of US adults cannot read at a 6th grade level. That’s going to hurt their ability to deal with complex topics.
Only an agent of the New World Order would post this.
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Yes, though you have to remember, in most other places, the government cracks down on conspiracy theories. For example, if you live in China and believe that certain groups are secretly being mistreated, you’re going to have the authorities on your tail.
The Simple answer is No. Every country has its fair share of loud and dumb.
I would also add things we consider conspiracy like UFO’s have been seen all over the world just other countries usually have a religious or spiritual reason for the sightings and thus they don’t become a conspiracy just part of their everyday life. Look up Jacques Vallee he does great research into this.
Nah. There are just a lot of them, and most of them have access to the Internet.
David Icke is English 😂
No, we just have a majority of English speakers so you assume all stupid English speakers are American unless proven otherwise. The anti-vaccination conspiracies comes from the UK from what I can tell.
