Why are freepers/teabaggers/repugs so fucking stupid?

[Ohio Joe]

Honestly... how do people get so stupid? Just take for instance the recent supreme court decision giving corporations the ability to spend freely on elections. Who in their right fucking mind can think this is a good idea (unless you control the corporations)? What can they be being told that convinces them it is a good idea? Free speech? WTF? That is just one topic, the list is to big to even try and list them all but you get the idea. So... I ask you again, how does someone get so fucking stupid?

[quinnox]

1. Its a good question

I have a theory that stupid and ignorant people are attracted to the republican party. Note there are always exceptions. But overall, I have noticed in life that republicans are invariably either dumber than the average bear or more ignorant or both.

I am dead serious about this by the way.

[whyverne]

14. I think it's as simple as that.

Every family I can think of, including mine. The folks who don't read. The dullest knives so to speak. Every one of them is a ditto head or a tea bagger. I noticed that over the holidays. And every one of them had to shoot off their big mouths about their politics while everyone else was trying to be genial.

[Zoeisright]

18. Yep, that's exactly it. I love this quote:

"While not all conservatives are ignorant, all ignorant people are conservative."

And it's certainly true in my family.

[Bosso 63]

26. John Stuart Mill, I like that quote too.

[mrs_p]

2. lack of critical thinking skills

promoted by their communities (school, church, etc.)

:shrug:

[sharesunited]

5. Worse, it is the willful rejection of knowledge, wisdom, and common sense.

[Ohio Joe]

6. Exactly

They simply turn a blind eye... it's fucked up.

[valerief]

3. Well, those charter schools and Fox News are gonna make more and more of them. nt

[LiberalFighter]

4. Because they think with their thumb up their butt.

[customerserviceguy]

7. Do you have any proof that the teabaggers

think this ruling is a good thing? I haven't seen that.

They're upset about the bailouts, I don't think they're happy that the richest companies in the country will be able to use taxpayer-provided money to buy Congress to keep it rolling.

Again, if you have any evidence that they're OK with it, I'd like to see it.

[Ohio Joe]

13. Take a look at the freepers site

Lots of tea party people there and seem to be much in favor of the ruling. Sorry, I won't give a link but go there and do a search, easy to find.

[customerserviceguy]

36. I haven't been there much since the election

but I'll take a look. I was hoping perhaps you'd have a news article that you could cite, or perhaps a picture of a sign from a tea party rally.

[Initech]

8. When you're a GOPer you don't have to think. Fux News and Limbaugh do it for you.

[lib2DaBone]

9. The Republicans are smart enough to tap into this populist unrest...

The Republicans know how to build in hot buttons. The public is pissed.. and the Repugs know that if they can tap into this unrest.. they can channel it to benefit the big banks and corporations.

The Tea Baggers.. will protest to anyone who will listen. And of course.. Fox News is there to broadcast the proceedings to Joe six-pack sitting at home, and convince him that this Tea Bag Party complaints are legitimate.

As always, the DEMS let the Repukes control the talking points and set the agenda. And like before.. it will cost them the election. They never learn.

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

10. we can't all be above average

[DBoon]

11. They are slowly turning into rhinoceroses

The "epidemic" of the rhinoceroses serves as a convenient allegory for the mass uprising of Nazism and fascism before and during World War II. Ionesco's main reason for writing Rhinoceros is not simply to criticize the horrors of Nazis, but to explore the mentality of those who so easily succumbed to Nazism. A universal consciousness that subverts individual free thought and will defines this mentality; in other words, people get rolled up in the snowball of general opinion around them, and they start thinking what others are thinking. In the play, people repeat ideas others have said earlier, or simultaneously say the same things. Once other people, especially authority figures, collapse in the play, the remaining humans find it even easier to justify why the metamorphoses are desirable. Ionesco is careful not to make his play a one-sided critique of the brutality of Nazism. The rhinos become more beautiful as the play progresses until they overshadow the ugliness of humanity, and the audience is forced to recognize that an impressionable individual might have similarly perceived the swelling ranks of Nazis as superior.

http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/rhinoceros/themes.html

[Historic NY]

12. they believed in whatever is told to them for so long they just don't process facts..

its all part of the dumbing down and propagandizing of America by the Republican Party. There minds are closed to other possibilities other than what Rupert Murdoch an immigrant tells them.

[BeFree]

15. Stupid, or...

...hypocritical-bat-shit-crazy?

Coining a new word here: Hypocrazy.

[CANDO]

16. They were born that way!

eom

[EmeraldCityGrl]

17. Uneducated people with access to the intertubes...

provide a prime breeding ground for pushing propaganda. They believe everything they read and lack the critical thinking skills
to question and seek the truth.

[rhett o rick]

19. Read Altemeyer's "The Authoritarians". It should shed some light. nt

[mysticalchick]

35. That was a fascinating read ...

... I've read through it twice now (and it was, as you guys probably know, the basis for John Dean's book "Conservatives without Conscience") and man oh man. I have more wingers in my family than I'd like to acknowledge and his hypothesis holds up for them all. I'd love for them to take that little "test" he gives but I know the results anyway.

My mom (rest her soul) was very concerned about "others" taking away things she felt she deserved (and they did not?) such as social security benefits, medicare, medicaid - all of which she used to the max. If she didn't get one social service benefit, she was on the phone DEMANDING what she felt was her due. She despised Bill Clinton because he "catered to the blacks" - and all this was fueled by (you guessed it) Fux News. She loved Rush and Hannity and followed their every word.

I think underneath it all was some racism (yet she had many black friends and they all loved each other so I think it was racism as a concept, not so much in everyday life) and her overriding fear that someone else would get what she thought was hers. How sad.

[rhett o rick]

40. You bring out an important point about authoritarians. They can not see their own

hypocrisy. You said your mom had black friends that she loved but she probably could spin around and talk like a racist. They do not recognize the hypocrisy. They seem to have things defined in a manner that allows them their sanity, and dont like someone pointing out the inconsistencies. My parents were similar.

[tex-wyo-dem]

20. Because it's a lot easier to sit back and be told what your opinion should be...

by the likes of Limpaugh, Hannity and Beck. It's the old schoolyard bully gang mentality...whatever the gang leader says is what you shaould think.

The teabagger mentality is very suseptable to authoritarianism.

[immoderate]

21. The promise of great riches, or status, or power. Something they can't deliver...

...but that you really want. And you wont give up the lust. It's like religion. They can't deliver either, but if you really want it -- you can only get it from them.

--imm

[Eagle_Eye]

22. Home schooling

[HughBeaumont]

23. I actually know a freeper who thinks that particular decision is a bad idea.

However, his wingnut Clenis-blaming/Bewsh-absolving economic beliefs more than make up for it. He also thinks Reagan should be credited for Clinton's good economy. Yeah, astounding leap in logic there, but it's true.

[ProfessorGAC]

24. Perhaps You Have Cause and Effect Reversed

The effect isn't stupidity. That's the cause of being a Repub, a Teabagger or a Freeper.

Stupid is a prerequisite.
GAC

[quaker bill]

25. Statistically speaking

one half of the US population has less than the median IQ. This is a mathematical identity and is not subject to debate. The median is defined as the score in the center where half the scores are larger and half the scores are smaller. The last time I checked, the median fell somewhere in the neighborhood of 110, near the average. What this says is that there are easily 100 million people here with significantly less than average intelligence.

With that many of them about, you are going to find them somewhere, doing something. It is fairly close to unavoidable. The notion that they might flock together politically in significant numbers seems near inevitable. Keep the answers simple enough for long enough, and they are bound to show up.

As to the recent supreme court decision, there is no provision in the constitution that requires something to be a good idea to be legal. These are two different tests. Something can be legal and have stupid written all over it.

[Bosso 63]

27. Fear is the mind killer.

Show me a Republican, and I will show you someone with a belly full of fear. When the mind is clouded with fear one is likely to make bad choices.

[Orsino]

28. Laziness. Mental laziness.

It's easy to be ignorant, at least until the bill comes due.

[santamargarita]

29. They believe their own propaganda...

from hate radio and the corporate media

[DCBob]

30. Blinded by their ideology..

Black and white mentality and refusal to consider compromise.

[blondeatlast]

31. Because it is hard to educate one's self, and to think, and to keep educating one's self. nt

[guitar man]

32. Religion

At least in part. When you're drilled from a young age to "take it on faith" and not question, it sets them up as easy marks for the snake oil salesmen like limbaugh, hannity etc. It's a lot easier than critical thinking and researching things for themselves.

[Cirque du So-What]

33. I don't believe it's due to low IQ or poor education

as I know plenty of highly-educated individuals, serving in positions requiring high levels of cognitive functioning, who have latched onto RW talking points. I believe it's more a matter of willful ignorance - a willingness to wall off certain areas of their consciousness to the pesky intrusion of facts. It's much like the phenomenon called 'doublethink' in George Orwell's 1984. I've worked with some of these people for years, and they're not stupid by any stretch of the imagination. That's not to say that some low-IQ, poorly-educated people aren't conservatives/freepers/teabaggers, but it's not a prerequisite.

[AlinPA]

34. RE: the example of them supporting the SCOTUS decision, it's because

they know corporations support their causes. Religion, intolerance and anger at everyone different drives them to push for republican issues.

[Xenotime]

37. Religion and fear.

[MrMickeysMom]

38. Ding- Ding!

I give you my last heart for that!

[Subdivisions]

39. Religion, gullibility, extremely low intelligence, fear, and racism. n/t

[keroro gunsou]

41. ignorance is bliss

and they are overdosing on it to avoid a reality that they reject.

[old mark]

42. If they were smart, they would be Democrats - or worse!!!!! nt