My comment policy normally discourages amateur psychoanalysis, but I feel the need to break that for a post. The comment thread is hereby WILD, so normal comment policy doesn't apply (for either side). Since it's been a while since I've done anything remotely serious about conspiracy theories, I thought I'd post some of my perceptions on the topic, rather than let Hollywood maintain myths.I find many of the conspiracy theorists out there cling to implausible theories because, paradoxically, they're comforting:
Humans are thinking animals. Aside from high endurance for long distance walking, humans don't stand out very much, physically. Humans survive by their wits, detecting patterns and warning signs less intelligent animals would miss. Having special knowledge is an advantage, so it's natural to feel more secure when you know what's going on. Or if you think you know what's going on. Wisdom makes a person valuable and revered. That's why nearly every sort of woo, altie, or fundie pride themselves on being a "red pill": They have what they believe to be special knowledge. Of course, I find them to generally fail to prove it, but that's for the factual threads to cover.
On the flip side of the special knowledge angle is the fear of uncertainty. Many people, for example, couldn't deal with the idea that a lone gunman could kill the president during lax security, hence the need to assure themselves JFK had an enormous conspiracy of enemies out to get him. Many 9/11 twoofers can't deal with the idea that America could be successfully attacked in such a catastrophic manner, so they make up a special exception of an inside job of American conspirators.
To put it in geek terms, I found the Joker from The Dark Knight scary because someone like him could exist in real life:
I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Hmmm? You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!There's no shortage of insane, violent people out there. Religious fundamentalism does a good job of encouraging those qualities. All it takes for them to cause chaos and panic in our lives is for us to get lax in security and/or them to get clever. If you're an overzealous conspiracy theorist, those sorts of people aren't a problem because it's all "according to plan" of some guy who manages to grab some sort of advantage in the end result. Without good evidence for a plan, about all you can say about those who benefit is that they're opportunistic bastards.
Additionally, there's so much in this world that's a result of stupidity. Popular idiots can get elected into office. People can fall for basic logical fallacies and in turn mislead voters with propaganda that results from those fallacies. People who should be experts in their fields can get sloppy or complacent enough to miss fundamental problems. This world is very much subject to Hanlon's Razor: Incompetence runs the planet far more than malice. Incompetence is harder to predict than malice, so it's more uncomfortable to deal with.
132 comments:
Or, y'know, you have a bone of skepticism in your body and you aren't believing in absurdly unlikely conspiracy theories that have don't even have half a chance of existing in the real world.
I'm not even sure what it would mean for the government to 'take control' of the internet. That would be, at the very least, a massive international incident, using all of those words in the sense that I understand them.
Anyway, we don't doubt the existence of conspiracies because of a stream of news stories reassuring us 'nope, no conspiracy here' (though I like to visualize something rather like that happening in Endgame: Singularity). We doubt the existence of conspiracies because we believe that human nature would cause any large, secret group to collapse, or have members speak out, or maybe just slip up. A deathbed confession, perhaps.
Does anybody else feel like being more articulate than I just was?
Wow, Debra, you just believe whatever you hear on YouTube, don't you?
How can you know what the real world is. The evening news? Your daily paper? These are owned by giant corporations. All we have is the internet and I heard that Obama wants the government to take control of it ,just like t.v.
Turn that initial question back on yourself, Deb. How do you know that what you heard about Obama suddenly somehow taking control of the Internet (which would be interesting, since the 'net is international and since only Congress has the power to draft legislation and since Obama ran on a platform including Net Neutrality) is accurate? How do you know that all your favorite conspiracy groups haven't been invaded by Rothschilds and Bilderbergers and the hands of the conspiracy? How do you know they're not feeding you false information so you'll go on blissfully thinking you know what the real plan is, but totally unaware that all your dissent, all your fighting back against unseen enemies is all part of the conspiracy? How do you know that they haven't planned for you, too?
The problem with conspiracy theories (okay, one of many) is that every conspiracy theorist is the star of their very own action thriller movie, where they're constantly being watched by the many and various eyes of the shadow government, who have unlimited resources to waste on bugging comic shops and following kooks home in unmarked stealth cars.
Either the conspiracy has unlimited resources and is incredibly competent (in which case how would you and your friends be able to figure out the conspiracy?), or they're sloppy and obvious enough to leave clues that amateurs on YouTube can find (in which case, how is it effective at controlling anything?). Your story is self-contradictory even before it collapses under the weight of all the people who would have to be part of it. When the conspiracy has enough manpower to track and follow some random schlub in a Texas comic store, how many people must be left aren't involved in the conspiracy? Surely by this point the number involved dwarfs the number uninvolved.
Your ramblings so far sound like nothing so much as paranoid delusions. Perhaps instead of seeking help on YouTube, Debra, you should seek help from a psychiatrist.
First off, the only evening news I watch on TV is the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report.
We've still got the scientific method, logic, and international communications over the Internet. Of course, Obama couldn't contain the Internet if he wanted to. If he tried, hackers nationwide would quickly crack the security and let the information be free, since it wants to be free.
And, as for the various conspiracy sites, as others have said: How do you know they're right? It's the same sort of thing as Science versus Creationism: Why trust a random magic-filled creation story among thousands instead of an enormous worldwide self-correcting process that finds multiple lines of evidence that converge to one plausible story?
Hey, would all of you do me a favor. Yes, it is Youtube. I am not as eloquent as all of you seem to be. Will you watch---Why You Are A Slave. The Rothschilds Own You. End The Fed. ----
Tell you what, Debra, why don't you pick the website or YouTube video that you think presents the best case for your conspiracy beliefs, and I'll watch it. This is like the fourth thing you've recommended, and my high-speed access is somewhat limited these days. Instead of linking everything, pick the best, and I'll give it an honest viewing.
Also you are very correct in saying that they may have planned on me. Part of the conspiracy may be to reveal themselves a little in movies or the news.
So, the conspiracy sees everything, is everywhere, knows everything, plans for every eventuality, and can do pretty much anything? Gosh, that's a familiar claim. And strangely enough, I find the same lack of evidence and abundance of faith-based claims supports this all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful entity as all the others.
If the conspiracy has planned for people like you and me, Debra, then how can you know that your conclusions are reliable? Since your belief system includes the idea that all information can be manipulated, it follows that no information--not even the information that you have about the information being manipulated--can be trusted. Your belief system can lead to mutually inconsistent positions; this is a problem.
One further challenge, Debra: hypothetically speaking, what (if anything) could convince you that your current beliefs are mistaken? I know what it would take to convince me of a global conspiracy of Bilderchilds and Rothsbergs and Reptilluminati; do you know what it would take to convince you that you're mistaken?
Also, I doubt the intelligence of any conspiracy who would employ an inbred halfwit like Glenn Beck.
There is only 1 video with that title on You Tube.
So this is the video that best represents your beliefs and the arguments for them?
And I am not here to convince you .
This is a position I find difficult to understand. If I thought I had proof of some vast, utterly important truth that would change the way people interpret reality, I would set about convincing as many people as I could. How can you be so blasé? "I know the truth, but I couldn't care less if you did"?
I couldn't FIND the energy to convince you.
It wouldn't take energy, Debra. Just evidence.
We can't talk until you see this video.
As long as it's just this video, and when I set about criticizing this video, it's not "well, this other video answers all those questions." I don't want to go after low-hanging fruit, here, Debra. I'm interested in the creme of the crop, the best you have to offer. If this video isn't it, then I'd prefer to watch the best one rather than an inferior product.
Incidentally, this appears to be the link to Debra's video. I'll take a look when I get the chance.
Quick point on a flaw in your argument about them being in movies: Angels and Demons doesn't have a conspiracy, someone fakes a conspiracy (unless they changed it a hell of a lot from the book). So Angels and Demons doesn't make people think it's "just a movie"; in Angels and Demons, it doesn't exist.
I have nothing else to add to this conversation.
Debra,
How can you hate "The Colonel?"
Debra:
A black expensive car followed me for 5 turns.
Seriously, get help. I am no doctor but you seem to have strong paranoid delusional tendencies.
This statement of yours is also funny though, in a "Geez these conspirators are a mass of contradictions." sort of way.
So, these conspirators have managed to insinuate themselves into power throughout the world. They control governments, economies, militaries and shadowy paramilitary resources. They are going to take over the world, the internet and all of our lives. They have unlimited resources it seems. The only people that know of them are a few enlightened, brave and noble individuals (that is how you see yourself isn't it).
All of this, and these people still use black cars to follow people. Even though the whole black cars thing is such a well known part of conspiracy theories it became a joke in two kids movies.
Tell me Debra - why can't your conspirators do what most police and intelligence agencies do when tailing suspects - use different colours and models of cars?
Why do they continue to use exactly the sort of car that everyone is looking for?
Let me guess, Henry Ford builds the cars for them? I'm sure he has to be in there somewhere right?
Why are your conspirators experts at every aspect of espionage fieldcraft except undercover work?
"Hey K, we have to tail Debra today. Shall we take the indistinct silvery Toyota Corolla?"
"No J, lets take the enormous shiny expensive black Lincoln, she'll never be looking for one of those."
Or maybe, just maybe, it was a coincidence. Here's a test for you - tomorrow take a drive. Count how many black expensive cars don't follow you for a few turns. Then count how many silver cheap ones do. Or red moderately priced ones.
After that, I repeat my call for you to get help for the sake of yourself and your son.
The point about the black cars really brings home the Hollywood mentality. Black cars have become a part of the Hollywood conspiracy mythology.
It's kind of like Hollywood ninjas: They didn't perform every mission in black pajamas. Why wear distinctive clothing when it's sometimes possible to hide in plain sight just by dressing as a civilian?
If they wanted to tail you after talking at the shop, they would have done so with a common as dirt model of car and worn everyday clothing rather than tint the windshield.
Now you're just making excuses for your poor performance and again allowing Hollywood to rule your worldview.
As for the other thread, I'm largely waiting for confirmation that the video you mentioned really is the cream of the crop. I've run into countless goalpost movers, myself.
More on MIB: It's been pointed out that it doesn't make any sense for the Illuminati or whoever to drive around in expensive black cars. They stick out like sore thumbs that way if it's "common knowledge" among conspiracy gurus, Saturday morning cartoons, and Hollywood that secret operations do that sort of thing. Black, expensive cars look "official" and black has sinister connotations.
If you were a corner drug dealer and a guy pulled up in a car like that, wearing a clean black suit and sunglasses, you'd be crazy to sell anything to him. That's why undercover police try to blend in by driving ordinary cars and wearing ordinary clothing.
Another example of something you remind me of: The nighthawk stealth "fighter" (actually a light bomber) is black, not because it's the optimum color for night bombing, but because some upper brass had more machismo than sense. It's a good thing black is close enough to dark gray and blue.
You're Wrong Genre Savvy for real life, Debra. The laws of popular entertainment don't apply here. Real world organizations that want to maintain secrecy will generally do a better job than your average cartoon villain.
Bronze Dog: The point about the black cars really brings home the Hollywood mentality. Black cars have become a part of the Hollywood conspiracy mythology.
It's the same kind of thing as the UFO believers--the type of alien, the tropes of the abduction stories, the other associated tropes, and so forth all match up to common media presentations at the time.
Debra: Well I can see that I was invited here for your amusements.
No, I think Bronze Dog invited you here to see if you could present an argument for your beliefs. What you've presented are vague "warnings" and a video about British-descended aristocratic bankers. Hardly the sort of thing that makes me want to stockpile canned goods.
All any of you want to do is to tear down You have been tearing down for so long you probably can't remember a time when you were building or helping one another.
My Doggerel Sense is tingling! Actually, BD, "you just tear down" is a good one (which Akusai apparently suggested two years ago) that could deserve its own entry.
Debra, what you don't seem to understand is that we're only applying some very basic scrutiny to the claims you make. If your claims are true, then you have nothing to fear from difficult questions or requests for evidence. This is the basis of critical thinking and science, and it's the way we distinguish true things from false things. False things fail the tests of applied skepticism, true things survive. So far, you're not doing so hot in this arena.
I think that it comes down to this, all of you are atheists and I am a Christian. And I am done here talking to those who may be in Lucifer's army.
Well, this does explain some things--your arguing style, in particular. But if your claims are true, then our differing religious beliefs are a red herring. Evidence is evidence regardless of whether or not you believe in God.
As far as being in Lucifer's Army, well, we don't believe in him either. If I'm in his army, then I think I ought to at least be getting an unholy pension check. That's a very Christlike attitude of yours though, refusing to speak with the people who disagree, who are supposedly morally inferior, and who may be possessed. I mean, it goes right in line with Mark 2:17: "On hearing this, Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'"
I watched the video. There's ten minutes of my life I won't get back. I'm not even sure why it was presented as a video, since it's mostly just text.
It's a mish-mash of historical facts and dubious assertions, with no references for either. I suppose now I'll be told I should research the assertions myself. Well, if you have a reference that's not based on Nazi propaganda, that would be nice.
Debra:
Good grief you fall back on whinging victim quickly don't you?
Bronze Dog invites you on here for a debate. You come on and simply assert some things, say 'Watch this video and you'll be amazed and enlightened like me." and then complain that we don't just simply take your word for everything and immediately believe as you do.
Answer this:
If I tell you I have a geniune billion dollar note in my pocket, and its legal tender as shown by some random 10 minute YouTube video, would it be a personal attack if you said "I don't believe you, show me the note and the evidence from the treasury that it is legal tender."? Or would it be the only reasonable response?
And if I then shrieked back at you that you are mean and only want to make fun of me, what would that make me sound like?
You're a subscriber to a number of groups that are demonstrably ridiculous or just plain wrong in modern political and social thought - god-bothering, libetarian, conservative, doomsday theorist, paranoid conspiracy theorist. On top of this, you already admit that you are seeing a psychiatrist! Then on top of that, you seem to have a victim/martyr complex.
Yet you expect us to just accept at face value everything you say.
Bollocks to that idea, you're clearly a nutter. Get help.
The Spectre Limousines of the NWO have become quite recognizable -- too recognizable, in fact. As a result, Q Division has started production on a new series of vehicles, incorporating the latest technologies in innocuous types like blue or silver sedans or mid-sized cars.
That's from a role-playing game. A role playing game published by a company that's not known for having a good grip on logic or consistency. If White Wolf Games can figure this one out, so can the folks behind the conspiracies, assuming they actually exist.
Now if I were to notice an expensive black car following me, I'd be inclined to assume that it was a rental limo on its way to an event or back to base. There's one or two limo services that store vehicles in my neighborhood.
Ironically, the local comic shop is in an area that's popular with the kids on prom night, so there's a time of year when they wouldn't be out of place in the area.
All any of you want to do is to tear down You have been tearing down for so long you probably can't remember a time when you were building or helping one another.
No, we build stuff all the time. But here's the important part: then we see if we can tear what we built down! If we're able to tear it down, the building's not up to code, so it was a bad building anyway. (Okay, they probably don't do that in real life construction, but pretend they do for the purposes of this metaphor)
If we can pick apart your arguments and find glaring flaws, they aren't good arguments.
Anyone wanna take bets on how long it will be before "argumentum ad YouTube" is formally recognised as a logical fallacy? Why is it that some people will believe any old pile of nonsense if it's presented in the form of a badly-edited YouTube video?
I think that it comes down to this, all of you are atheists and I am a Christian. And I am done here talking to those who may be in Lucifer's army. This is no place for me.
Crank magnetism in full effect! Somebody call a waaaahbulance!
I know this won't mean much, coming from one of the soldiers of Lucifer's army (personally, I'm holding out for some Bling Of War, y'know?), but Debra... If the Conspiracy lets information get out, how do we know that you aren't, in fact, one of its agents? This isn't directly intended to discredit your arguments... I just want to know how you'd go about establishing such a thing.
I mean, if King of Ferrets and I are prime Conspirator material, I kind of feel like they'd hire anybody. (Child labor laws be damned! :P )
I'm prime conspirator material, all right. Who would suspect a fat 16 year old nerd of being in cahoots with the Illuminati? Nobody, that's who.
Oh crap, Odysseus found out that I'm with the Illuminati! I'm screwed. (Because I couldn't pass up the chance for a mythology reference when I realized I could have one.)
I'm just a year-and-a-half older, but my mind is in its early thirties! (By... some measures.) This means that, if we ever get a movie adaptation, I get to be played be a hot twenty-something who adds depth to his character by trying to act out midlife crises. Too bad I only just recently got clearance for having my hair look nice.
Is it terribly wrong of me to visualize the hypothetical 'adaptation' as a Lifetime Original? I mean, I suppose that's a bit mean...
Wait, two-and-a-half. Bleh. I'm really good at math, provided it's not arithmetic, apparently.
Is it terribly wrong of me to visualize the hypothetical 'adaptation' as a Lifetime Original? I mean, I suppose that's a bit mean...
Well, so far it's been a bunch of mean guys verbally beating the hell out of a poor, lone woman just struggling to raise her son and horde enough canned food to see her through the coming NWO apocalypse while trying desperately to tell the Truth to an unhearing public.
I think Lifetime would be all over it.
Oh, also:
Bollocks to that idea, you're clearly a nutter. Get help.
Absolutely seconded. From my armchair, you're suffering from serious paranoia issues and probably a non-trivial level of schizotypal disorder.
It's not the Black Hats that are affecting your ability to live a happy, productive life; it's your extreme neurosis.
Debra: Thousands of their Agents (all expendable and replaced)
About time you got to mentioning how they'd carry out these plans. So, who are these agents, why are they working for them, and how do they feel about being expendable?
Debra: Well for one "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil".
Kind of pointless to work for money when your boss is intending to tear down the economy.
And two, they are Atheists or Agnostics or believe in a God that is not the God of Abraham or believe in Lucifer as their God, so living life here on earth with all of its materialistic riches, is ALL that is important. There is no Heaven to them there is only a limited time on Earth so enjoy, enjoy enjoy (with as much money as you can get your hands on of course).
Must be one of those very rare breeds of atheists I hardly ever encounter. I get my enjoyment for generally lower costs and do so without hurting people.
And of course, if they believe in some other gods, they're not atheists or agnostics. They're [insert religion].
And third, for those that have Lucifer as their God of worship, all is going well for them at this moment in history. After all, THEY are about to rule the whole Earth. The Whole Earth. One World, One Religion, One Currency, One Government
I still find the idea quite silly. You can't wash away tribalism so easily. Meanwhile, on currency: America can't even get rid of pennies because of the public outcry whenever they try.
But, then you have to remember that this new nightmare for us has all been foretold in the Bible.
The same Bible that tells us grasshoppers have four legs and that unicorns are real?
Thing is, some know that they will go to Hell for denying the God of Abraham. But they just really, really, really, HAVE to have the Earthly pleasures.
There's a difference between relatively minor slip-ups and knowingly going along with crazy schemes. You seriously think there are that many people unable to defer gratification?
And I think that some of the others who follow Lucifer believe that he will win the battle. That Bible prophecy will be altered.
When you believe in the supernatural, it's easy to believe anything.
Well you know that I don't know how they "feel". But I can guess, can't I? Or does that trigger your critical thinking education to respond to me with more personal insults.
You haven't seen me get personal. The ridicule is for your Hollywood logic. That you can't tell the difference is informative. Instead of coming up with a good reason the Illuminati to use standardized expensive black cars with tinted windshields or admitting to the flaw in your Hollywood logic, you decided to change the subject to your hurt feelings.
I thought that there wasn't personal emotion in critical thinking...
Hey, if I find you saying something logically absurd, there's no harm to my side from laughing at it. Humor is quite often based on logical fallacies. You being thin-skinned doesn't change the fact that you described what would be an enormous amateurish blunder on the Illuminati's part. An organization that's supposedly kept its activities secret for decades.
I guess that some live in fear that they could not please the Illuminati. Some fear not pleasing Lucifer And therefore will be picked as expendable and replaced. That is why We The People see them make absurd, ABSOLUTE absurd decisions for us.
You do realize that if they're insiders, they could blow the whole thing apart with just a bit of evidence.
Of course, I'm getting an extreme cynical vibe from you: You seem to think anyone can be bought or cowed into submission, and that none of these people could choose an aggressive response to their fears.
Debra: 1. Youtube=Obama Civilian Security
2. Youtube-Obama Chief of Staff, You Will Serve
3. Youtube-Congress Passes HR8791 Homeland
Security Bill
No, Debra. I'm not looking at any more YouTube videos. I haven't yet finished responding to the last one, but I seem to recall mentioning that I wanted you to pick out the best one to explain the conspiracy. What you provided was a video that copy-pasted historical events (assuming that all their facts are actually facts--there are quite a few things so far that I haven't been able to confirm outside of conspiracy sites) for ten minutes, skipping over vast amounts of time and pretending that they were all related. It doesn't look to me like a conspiracy, it looks to me like a rich banking family has had some influence in financial events at various points in history. Not so much now, since the Rothschilds have had to close most of their banks.
Also, Debra, do you mean this video? Of John Haller (R-PA) reading the bill aloud on the floor of the House? The video that's from "The Onion"?
Debra, you've been played for a sucker. There is no Rep. John Haller (here is a list of current Pennsylvania congressmen). "The Onion" is a humor newspaper. The video is a joke.
I thought you talked about doing research Debra, and you couldn't check your sources enough to know that The Onion is a joke, and neither Rep. Haller nor HR8791 exists?
4. Google-World Daily Net
Do you mean WorldNetDaily, the ultra-right-wing news and opinion site that endorses young-earth creationism and blatantly slants any story they can to show how bad gays and liberals are? I'm afraid I'm a bit biased against them, since I know their history of dishonest reporting and complete credulousness. Could you find a more neutral source for this story? Since it's talking about the House adopting a plan, it should be public record (as with any dealings of the House). It'd still has to be passed by the Senate and signed (with the exact same language) before it'd be a law, though.
"The Conspiracy"
Lucifer
Doesn't exist. You're off to a bad start, Debra.
The Illuminati 13 families-
The Illuminati was an 18th-century Bavarian political organization. Why would all these families be involved? I've seen no evidence that it still exists, let alone that any of these people are involved. Can you provide a citation for this? Assertions are not evidence.
Thousands of their Agents (all expendable and replaced)
Who are these agents? Where do they come from? Why do they work for the conspiracy? And how is it that of all these families, all these thousands of agents, no one has ever come forward? None of these families ever had a black sheep who didn't agree with their international politics? None of these people ever had a deathbed confession? None of the thousands of expendable agents ever resented the idea of being expendable and posted his or her story somewhere? This stretches credibility, Debra.
SECRET SOCIETIES
So, all these secret societies are involved too? Even Skull and Bones, which is basically just a rich boys' fraternity?
Going through the rest of your list, I have some questions:
1. Why would the Communists, who explicitly endorse rule by the working class and reject religion, be working with so many religious groups, including the Vatican?
2. I can find no record of a "World Parliament of Churches," and the World Council of Churches is an ecumenical organization of about 350 churches. That doesn't exactly sound like it's anywhere near the level of the Vatican; why are they even involved?
3. Why are only "Liberal Protestant Denominations" on the list? Are you suggesting that the beliefs of liberal Protestants are more in line with the aims of the conspiracy than conservative and moderate Protestants? And why would the Vatican be working with any of those groups, particularly under a Pope who has explicitly said that they are not real Christians?
4. Baha'i and the Universalists? Really?
The rest of Humanity? We are Ants to be destroyed, except for the millions of slaves with microchips, thus leaving the world to them.
Um...there's not a whole lot of "rest" left once you've named all those organizations, you know. And why are they planning on destroying the rest of us? What microchips are you talking about? How are these things going to be brought about? How would they kill off the small fraction of people not already represented in your list of conspirators without depleting their pool of expendable agents? How has no one come out and said anything about any of this, despite the apparent fact that anyone with a conscience at all would violently oppose all of this?
Their plan for a NWO --- inscribed on a monument, The Georgian Monument. Paid for by an unknown person who went by the false name of R.C. Christian
So they inscribed their secret plan on a monument? That's pretty ass-poor secret keeping there.
Their is no place now for the Agnostic. It is either Lucifers way, or the way of God of Abraham
Apparently not, since the Catholics and Liberal Protestants also claim to follow the God of Abraham. So even following said God, one apparently may be doing Lucifer's work.
Unfortunately, neither that God, nor any other, nor any Devil, has been shown to exist at all. Like your conspiracy, you believe in them based entirely on faith, and I'm going to have to see some evidence for any one of them before I believe.
By the way, that's some God you have there, if he can't stop Lucifer's grand genocidal conspiracy. Why would you worship a God who's going to do nothing to stop you and every non-slave person on the planet from being crushed like ants? Is Lucifer just more powerful than God?
By the way, I'm pretty sure you've completely missed the point of the Rockefeller quote.
Who are these agents? Some of the groups are very small as in The Bilderberg Group, so they are easily named. Last meeting they had- Condalezza Rice, the President and CEO of Google, David Rockefeller etc. I can get more names for you if you would like.
And Rice and Rockefeller are expendable and "replaced"?
Well for one "The LOVE of money is the root of all evil".
So all these thousands of agents are just greedy, which makes them okay with committing global genocide, even though they know they're completely expendable and could be replaced at any time? And of all these people, there's not one Oskar Schindler, not one Dietrich Bonhoeffer, working against the evil plan?
And two, they are Atheists or Agnostics
Yes, those agnostics, with their wishy-washy not-quite-beliefs, are totally a threat to everyone. Speaking as an atheist, Debra, I can tell you that I'm not getting any paychecks from any New World Order, and I wouldn't be working for any program like the one you describe. To do so, I'd have to see some reasoning to support it. I certainly see no reason to pal around with the Pope and the goofballs in Baha'i and Newage cults. "Because they're atheists" is not a reason for any of this.
or believe in a God that is not the God of Abraham or believe in Lucifer as their God, so living life here on earth with all of its materialistic riches, is ALL that is important.
Um, no. First, there are plenty of religions which believe in non-Abrahamic gods who still think there's a wonderful afterlife to get to, and still reject materialistic riches. I don't think the Buddhist Monks trying to reach Nirvana are all that into materialistic riches.
Also, speaking again as an atheist, I don't think materialistic riches are "all that is important," and I think you'd have a hard time finding any atheist who did. What I think is important is living a good life, trying to make the world a better place, and spending time with the people I love, doing the things I enjoy. You know what I wouldn't like to see? All the people I love killed or enslaved.
There is no Heaven to them there is only a limited time on Earth so enjoy, enjoy enjoy (with as much money as you can get your hands on of course).
Congratulations Debra, not only are you a paranoid nutter, but you're also a bigot. Don't presume to tell me what my philosophy of life is.
And third, for those that have Lucifer as their God of worship, all is going well for them at this moment in history.
The economy sucks for everyone.
After all, THEY are about to rule the whole Earth. The Whole Earth. One World, One Religion, One Currency, One Government This is a great time in history to be living for them.
Yeah, and seven years later they all get wiped the fuck out. I know how the Pre-Trib apocalypse is supposed to go down, and if I were part of it, I don't think I'd be too psyched.
Also, Debra, you realize that since, oh, the dawn of Christianity, people have been saying that the end of the world and the Devil's rule is "just around the corner"? For over two thousand years, people have been saying that the apocalypse was coming any day now. So far, every single one of them, from Jesus on up to Tim LaHaye, has been totally wrong. Why should we believe that you're any different?
It is foretold that God will destroy "utterly" those that follow Lucifer. God will reign and cast Lucifer to Hell.
So why are things going great for those folks again?
Thing is, some know that they will go to Hell for denying the God of Abraham. But they just really, really, really, HAVE to have the Earthly pleasures.
That sounds like pretty stupid damn reasoning there, Debra. If I thought there was a Heaven and Hell, I wouldn't be saying "gosh, that sounds great, but I really want that new car. I think I'm going to worship Satan." In fact, I'd be doing anything I can to get to Heaven sooner. Obviously I couldn't commit suicide, since there's a loophole there, but I certainly wouldn't be wearing my seatbelt or looking both ways before crossing the street.
And what about those of us who deny the God of Abraham (and all the others) because we don't see any reason to believe in them? What about those of us who haven't seen any evidence?
And I think that some of the others who follow Lucifer believe that he will win the battle. That Bible prophecy will be altered.
Wouldn't be the first time. Take a look at all the places where the Bible says that Babylon will never again be inhabited, or that Damascus will be destroyed--Babylon's still inhabited (and not just by the dragons referred to by the KJV) and Damascus has never been destroyed.
How do they "feel" about being expendable?
Well you know that I don't know how they "feel".
Wait, you know their motivations (Greed, godlessness, non-Christianity, Satanism), but you can't even guess how they'd feel about knowing they could be killed off at any second? Try imagining that for a second, Debra. Put yourself into the shoes of an agent: you love money, and you've been told that you can get lots of money by working for the Conspiracy. The downside is that you have to reject your conscience, enable genocide, and you could be killed at any time for no reason. Now, I don't know about you, but as a materialist atheist, I don't think I'd be in for that plan. First, there's nothing keeping the conspiracy from killing me instead of paying me. After all, they didn't get to be a global conspiracy by throwing money around. Moreover, since I don't believe in an afterlife, it's in my best interest to continue living as long as possible. It doesn't make sense to work for people who would kill me as soon as pay me if my motivation is to get paid. I can't enjoy those materialistic riches if I'm dead.
But you don't know how they'd feel?
Or does that trigger your critical thinking education to respond to me with more personal insults.
If you can't take it, don't dish it out. Or don't you think that saying we're all greed-motivated genocidal pawns of Lucifer is a "personal insult"?
I thought that there wasn't personal emotion in critical thinking...
First, you thought wrong. Second, we're not talking about emotion in critical thinking, we're talking about emotion in people, specifically the people supposedly working as expendable agents for the grand global conspiracy. Apply a little critical thinking and figure out just what someone like that might be feeling. I'll bet "gee, I love money and don't believe in an afterlife, I just love working for a conspiracy that will kill my loved ones and probably me too, because at least I get money" isn't it.
but you tell me. I have no education in that area.
You're right, you have no education in how humans actually think or feel, let alone what motivates atheists. So, maybe you should stop pretending to know anything about it.
I guess that some live in fear that they could not please the Illuminati. Some fear not pleasing Lucifer And therefore will be picked as expendable and replaced. That is why We The People see them make absurd, ABSOLUTE absurd decisions for us.
You're not in any position to call anything absurd, Debra, not when your theory falls apart under the smallest scrutiny. You think a video from The Onion is an accurate assessment of real threats to the country. You think the nouveau riche Kennedy family, who made their money in coal and bootlegging in the '20s, is somehow part of a centuries-old secret society. You propose a religious alliance that stretches any and all assessments of actual relationships between those organizations. Your uber-prepared, all-knowing conspiracy relies on all of its members being idiots who can't see the contradiction between "loving money" and "being expendable." The whole thing falls apart several times over when human nature is taken into account, since real people have consciences, and not every one out of thousands is going to happily remain silent about global genocide for a few bucks. And finally, and here's the real kicker, you say that the Conspiracy is on the verge of total world domination...but if they're made up of all those people and organizations, then don't they already have it? Why would they go and commit global genocide (eliminating an awful lot of customers and potential recruits) when they have it pretty comfortable right now?
Your story doesn't make sense, Debra. Your credibility, linking not only to videos that blatantly cherry-pick and quote-mine to make their points, but also to a video made by The Onion, is completely shot. If there is a Conspiracy, then you are their best agent yet, because you've made their existence seem implausible to the level of insanity.
This is not a personal insult, Debra: seek psychiatric help. The doctor you have now isn't cutting it.
Also, here's the Wikipedia entry on the Georgia Guidestones. I don't agree with all of them (particularly the idiotic stuff about a world population of 500,000,000 and the simplistic model of sovereignty), but it hardly seems like a sinister world domination manifesto.
Well said, Tom. Nice job catching The Onion video.
And I think you're quite right about Debra: She doesn't understand how people really think.
And I'll add my vote to her getting psychiatric help. You really need it, Debra. You speak as if life operated according to TV Tropes, and not according to practical logic.
Anyway, back on the black cars again, since that was too funny, and she hasn't answered the criticism: Evil Overlord List #104: My undercover agents will not have tattoos identifying them as members of my organization, nor will they be required to wear military boots or adhere to any other dress codes.
Kind of kills the Men in Black mythology if it's something to make fun of Saturday morning cartoon villains for doing.
What microchips are you talking about?
Oh, I know this one!
They put it in the base of your skull and whenever you go to bite a human, it makes your head hurt really bad so you can't drink blood anymore, but you can still hurt demons, so you're still of some use to the Slayer, and she won't kill you because you're incapable of hurting humans.
Right?
Debra: They are tearing down the currency for us "Ants". It is to make slaves of us. I see, and you see our money going to the super rich elite. But why "bailout" most and leave some to whither, like Bear-Sterns. To me... Bear Sterns did something that was ...uh.. uh... to the Elite, the Illuminati, Lucifer. But that is one of those guesses of mine.
Kind of ruins the mooks' motivation to work for these people, if they can't spend the money they make.
And what you engaged in with Bear Sterns was what's known as an ad hoc hypothesis: Making special exceptions after the prediction.
Me, earlier: "You can't wash away Tribalism so easily".
Debra: Dude... it's going .... going..... gone.
So, you mean, for example, the Shiites and Sunis are all going to be one big happy family tomorrow? How?
Debra: I don't know about the number of legs on Grasshoppers or the Unicorns. You tell me what it says about them in the Bible.
Unicorns are mentioned in the Bible multiple times as if they really exist. Isaiah 34:7 is one example.
Grasshoppers and other insects described as having four legs: Leviticus 11:20-23. Of course, in the real world, they have six legs.
But hey, I thought that some or all of you believed in Evolution...
I do, as do my blog buddies, but I doubt you know much of anything about what it really is.
We were born into desiring instant gratification. The TV, magazines, movies, movie stars, have been telling us since we were toddlers and throughout our entire lives what we want, what we need, what we MUST have. Heck, it is so hard for me to resist instant gratification that I go for it. As do you, as do we all. I guess except for Buddhist Monks.
1. You do realize there are countries other than the US, right?
2. Speak for yourself.
The supernatural? Why does the invisible have to be visible to see their work.
Invisible doesn't enter into this. There's plenty of natural stuff that's "invisible" and yet we can understand, measure, and predict it. You might want to study up on how skeptics really think, and not just parrot stereotypes and thought-stopping cliches.
What YOU have to decide right now or very soon is what side you will stand with,. will stand with the Lord and be strong for choosing Him. To suffer for that choice, suffer and die from starvation and tortures that the world of human beings has never imagined. Or will you be weak right away from hunger and be RFID microchipped to so you can buy food, or to sell some article of value to buy food.
Meanwhile, you have yet to figure out how they intend get rid of cash in a society that's been unable to get rid of pennies. And no, some snobby "hip" club that only takes electronic transactions isn't evidence that it's inevitable. Back in the '90s there were some snobby "hip" cybercafes that forced you to go online in the shop to order your drinks. Over a decade later, there's still someone to greet me at the cash register at Popeye's ready to take my order.
Of course, on this supposed apocalypse, I'd take the side of good, and one thing many fundies have had a severe problem with is convincing me their arbitrary tribal stone idol is good.
"Maybe several insiders has come close to blowing this whole thing apart before now". Like I said, expendable and replaceable.
So, the Illuminati magically knows which of their operatives will betray them and successfully disposes of them 100% of the time?
As for 1984, that was a book before it was a movie. Of course, one unexpected lesson real life has taught us (since George Orwell didn't foresee the information age we're in now): It's much, much harder to pull off in real life. There are no memory holes on the internet. You can't yet watch everyone (Too much manpower is required, at least until someone can make AIs smart enough to understand what they see). The hacker and cracker community is always at least one step ahead of security.
These days, in information wars, large centralized organizations are at a huge disadvantage when dealing with swarms of autonomous individuals. You'd have to convince me it's possible for an Illuminati to overcome that crippling disadvantage.
Debra: They are tearing down the currency for us "Ants". It is to make slaves of us. I see, and you see our money going to the super rich elite.
What good will the money do for the Elite once everyone else is gone? Do you really think that money is going to be worth anything to anyone once they've committed global genocide?
I am not referring to you or anyone on here that is Agnostic or Atheist of a believer in a God that is not the Father of Abraham. I am referring to the people on "the list".
Yes, the people on the list and their "thousands of agents." And when we asked why they would work for the conspiracy, you gave as reasons to work for the conspiracy that they were greedy, and that they were non-Christians who want earthly pleasure. According to your answers, our (lack of) religious convictions should be enough to convince us to work for the Conspiracy. If there's some other reason, then please provide it. Otherwise, again, we can speak as atheists and agnostics that the reasons you give are not representative of atheist or agnostic thought processes.
Either being a greedy non-Christian is sufficient to make someone give up all morals and work for a genocidal conspiracy run by the Devil, or it's not. Which is it?
"You can't wash away Tribalism so easily".
Dude... it's going .... going..... gone.
Um...evidence? There's a civil war between Islamic tribes in Iraq, there's a growing schism in the Episcopalian church over homosexuality, the Catholic church is largely splintered on political issues, the political climate in the United States is made of diametrically-opposed major parties and tiny splinter groups, and there are thousands of denominations of the dominant religion who generally hate each other. I don't see any of that--or any of the other tribalism around the globe--clearing up any time soon to allow your conspiracy to even take shape, let alone take over. I still can't see how or why the Vatican would work with Baha'i (or would need to) or why the Communists would throw in with all these capitalist countries, or why the CIA and KGB would be chummy. Your conspiracy would require that all these wildly different organizations, who are opposed to one another, and who have wildly different goals, would all put aside their differences and join hands to make this world a much worse place.
Yeah, I'll believe it when I see some evidence. In the meantime, try wearing a Yankees hat in Boston and telling me that tribalism is "going...going...gone."
I don't know about the number of legs on Grasshoppers or the Unicorns. You tell me what it says about them in the Bible.
BD already did. The Bible's got all sorts of wacky claims, which differ depending on your translation.
But hey, I thought that some or all of you believed in Evolution. Which I have always thought of Evolution as sort of parallel to the Bible. Sometimes going hand in hand.
Only if you ignore what the Bible actually says, or what evolution requires. The Bible claims that plants came before there was a sun to initiate photosynthesis, science reverses that order of events, and leaves a few billion years between them.
I see how "Adam and Eve" came out of Africa. god never said these were white or Day time Soap Opera beautiful. He created Mankind and everything on Earth and the Heavens.
Yes, but the Bible says they were two people. Evolution doesn't work by spitting out individual members of some new species to go off and produce millions of offspring.
But this is neither here nor there. Yes, if you twist and turn things and ignore the parts that don't fit, you can believe that the Bible and evolution go hand in hand. Just like if you twist and turn and ignore the things that don't fit, you can come up with an End Times narrative where metaphors about Rome can be taken to be prophecies about the United States, and somehow a "mark" becomes an "RFID chip." In neither case is the reading reasonable, nor is it supported by the text, nor does it bear any resemblance to reality, nor is there any reason to suspect it to be true.
Just like the Scientists say with their have carbon-dating of the Earth.
I'm...I'm not even going to try with this one.
We were born into desiring instant gratification.
Yes, and we grow up learning to defer it. I mean, I don't wear diapers anymore or cry when I have to wait to eat, Debra. If you do, that's your prerogative, but don't assume that all of us are so short-sighted. I think anyone with a shred of intelligence can figure "eternal happiness + deferred gratification > immediate happiness + eternal damnation." You give people absolutely no credit.
As do you, as do we all. I guess except for Buddhist Monks.
This is rich. Hey, Debra, you realize that Buddhist Monks are non-Christians who don't worship the God of Abraham, right? Doesn't that mean that they're on Lucifer's side? I guess the only ones who can defer gratification are the ones who don't believe in a Heaven.
The supernatural? Why does the invisible have to be visible to see their work.
Well, by definition something has to be visible if you're going to see it. But we're not having an issue with visibility, we have an issue with evidence. There's no evidence for anything supernatural; there's no reason to believe that anything supernatural exists, and there's not even a sensible justification for claiming that "exist" is a meaningful term for non-natural entities. A thing has to be somehow observable, either directly or through its effects on the universe, for us to have any reason to believe in it.
It is happening. Right now. Today.
I can haz evidence plz?
And the followers of the God of Abraham seeing Prophecy right now.
The followers of the God of Abraham have been seeing the same prophecies for 2000 years, and claiming they're happening "right now." So far, there's bupkus.
Moreover, don't style yourselves as the only "followers of the God of Abraham." There's this little sect of people called the Jews, who follow the God of Abraham, and are still waiting for their prophecies of a messiah to be fulfilled. Some offshoot sects jumped the gun, apparently, and declared the messiah to be some guy who didn't fit the bill a couple of millennia ago.
Today. Knowing not to be afraid of these times.
Don't be afraid, just stock up on food and ammo, and panic when black cars drive behind you a bit.
Christian suffering will come to an end when God comes for us.
Bullshit! What suffering, exactly, are the vast majority of Christians going through, especially in this country? You're so put upon, you 75% majority, you. Why, you can marry and be elected, how persecuted you must be! Pull the other one.
Furthermore, there are plenty of Christians who are apparently part of your Conspiracy--you list the Catholics, liberal Protestants, and the Unitarians in your Conspiracy list, so presumably they're going to be "left behind." Moreover, there are going to be plenty of converts after you and the other lucky ones get taken. For all those Christians, the suffering is just beginning, and is going to be far worse than any suffering you've experienced in your posh comfortable mostly-Christian nation.
Assuming, of course, that you're right, and every other generation of Christians ever ever is completely wrong.
And having chosen to take the easier route, than Christian persecution, torture and starvation, from their "leaders", they will spend all of eternity in Hell.
Yes, you've taken the hard route, following the vast majority of people in the country and the largest single religion in the world, where you've never actually had to deal with anything even resembling persecution, torture, or starvation, and you believe that Jesus is going to come and pick you up before anything bad happens. That's not the hard route.
To suffer for that choice, suffer and die from starvation and tortures that the world of human beings has never imagined. Or will you be weak right away from hunger and be RFID microchipped to so you can buy food, or to sell some article of value to buy food.
What? So, if you stand with God Jesus is coming to get you, and your suffering will be over, but you'll suffer and die from starvation and torture if you choose it, and if you choose otherwise, you'll suffer from starvation? Sounds like a lose-lose proposition.
"FOOD IS THE NEW OIL".
Who are you quoting?
And on to... BD you are right, I haven't seen you get personal. I guess that the cracks about the black car wasn't personal, just cracks. But you did read what some of the others wrote to me, "schlub, seek treatment, see a psychiatrist, nutter.... ".
Um...yes, schlub. As in, normal person of no particular importance.
As for the rest, it's not an insult when we tell you to seek treatment. I think I speak for everyone when I say I have genuine concern for you, because what you're saying sounds like paranoid schizophrenia.
I was not prepared to take on critical thinkers.
Accidental self-awareness for the win!
And for another excuse of my poor performance, I continued to respond through the night and into the morning.
Then step away and take a break. There's no time limit on responding to blog comments.
I did wonder why almost all of you kept talking about the black car.... . Soooo many comments on that. i remind you that I said it could be a coincidence.
And yet, you let it frighten you. The fact that you think it could be something other than a coincidence is why it sounds crazy.
that the creepy thing was the very dark tinted windshield.
Which sounds to me like the kind of person who also has large subwoofers in the back, not someone who's working for the government.
I have never seen a dark windshield before. Have you?
Yes! Yes I have! They're illegal in most states, but I've still seen them. They're popular with the same groups that put neon lights under their cars and giant ground-shaking speakers in the back.
And I did not say that it followed me from the Comic Book Store,
No, you just suggested it was following you because you mentioned the Rothschilds in the comic shop.
Like I said, expendable and replaceable.
So what do they have to lose by whistleblowing? If they're dead either way, why not work to help everyone?
I didn't intend to give off a cynical vibe. i have never been cynical before.
You just think that people can be paid enough to want to commit genocide. Not cynical at all.
But you would also know me for my love, sweetness, my joyous personality, my capacity for giving without telling anyone, my capacity to nurture.
Great. Now, why would you assume that such traits don't also belong to the thousands of people involved in your conspiracy? Do you think none of them capable of nurture? None of them feel love or sweetness?
But you meet me now when I am storing canned food , dry foods and ammo.
What good would the ammo do? Why would you stock up on supplies if you think Jesus is going to take you away before anything bad happens?
Also I will mention now that my son is 25 years old and a graduate of a top Ten University.
What does he think of your conspiracy theories?
Standing with the One True God is a pretty aggressive place to be standing when the whole world will be ridding itself of every type of religion.
What world are you living in where non-Christians would willingly give up their religion?
When it comes to being "bought", is to submit. To keep living some resemblance of the life you once had. That will require you to get the RFID Chip. Gonna have to have it to eat their food from GMO sterile seeds. The only seeds left in the entire world, having sterilized heirloom seeds and these seeds brought to you and the world from the one owner of the seed, Monsanto.
Oh great, GMO hysteria too. Yes, that terrible Monsanto, putting terminator genes into their seeds so that cross-pollination won't result in herbicide-resistant weeds. How dare they! How dare they make crops that are more environmentally-friendly, with higher yields so they can feed more people? The nerve!
And if you think that people would submit to an RFID chip, with the kind of paranoia people already have about such things, then you're living on a different world from the rest of us.
Then again, what's the difference between the RFID chip and credit cards? Yet again, you propose an unnecessary step for the conspiracy.
But as all of you have read before, once you take the Mark of The Beast...
Please show me the place in the Bible where it says the Mark of the Beast is an RFID chip.
Debra, your citation of a video from The Onion, a satirical comedy website, and the Priory of Sion, a hoax, speak to your difficulty in distinguishing reality from fantasy. You've provided a semi-detailed description of the plans of the conspiracy, but you haven't told us how you know this, or what evidence you have to believe any of it. You've claimed that some of this comes from the Bible, but you don't actually seem to know much about what the Bible says. Go ahead, find me where in the Bible it talks about a global conspiracy under the Rothschilds and Bilderbergs. Find me the place where it says that you're going to get an RFID chip. Tell me where it brings up GMO seeds. You show me that, and I'll show you an interpretation more tortured than your understanding of Genesis.
Do you have any evidence for any of your claims? Do you have any response to the fact that you've used a joke video as evidence for your conspiracy? Do you understand why we think this all sounds so ridiculous and unrealistic?
Akusai: Oh, I know this one!
No, no, it's the chip that's going to shock us whenever we try to use curse words.
Here's the problem with the idea that Big Brother is here; I had this pre-prepared from talking to my batshit English teacher about it.
Yes, people are constantly watching you. Yes, there are cameras everywhere. Yes, it's entirely likely your conversation is recorded somewhere.
This does not, however, mean that the government is watching you at all times! There is no depository of all this data watched by federal agencies! All of it is collected by individual people and businesses and not shared with others!
Yes, there are cameras everywhere. KoF correctly pointed out that there's no central repository for the video data. Worse for Big Brother is that there's no way to interpret this mass of video data without devoting lots of man-hours to it, even if they could steal it from the companies who use it to protect themselves. Private companies usually only keep some over a period of time to view only if there's a problem, or evidence to give to a prosecutor.
I don't think we have to worry about AI image interpretation becoming reliable for another couple of decades at the very least, and even then, it'd be companies using it for their own site security and maybe agendas, not anything centralized. So far, about all they've got is some facial recognition, and you have to have your face put into the user's database. Of course, if that became widespread, it could be subverted with the old art of disguise.
Of course, if they did do something dishonest with that information, it'd be on the news and blogs, and risk becoming a PR disaster.
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying is entirely possible. Do you mean having a repository of all the camera data? BD's thing on having people analyze the data? What exactly are you talking about?
The interpretation I will choose to go with is an image encoding algorithm that produces a malevolent AI as its output file. I won't attck it because it's basically a strawman that got into a head-on collision with rule-of-cool. I mean, it's completely unworkable within the current infrastructure, but just imagine the potential... It would be like an evil clone, except digital, and with a valid reason to share phonemic traits. (Of course, it would pretty much be stuck with, say, zits, unless it airbrushed itself.)
I agree that centralization is a risk for other reasons, which is why I think anti-monopoly laws and legislation are important. (Having just formed this opinion, I haven't researched it very well, fyi) I have no clue what your stance on that would be, since that's, simplistically, big government trying to break down big business.
I couldn't hear all of the other statements. they were, well mean.
No. You're just too willing to filter anything you don't like through the leans of "MEANIES!" so you can ignore it.
The only time I was being explicitly mean was when I called you a credulous bint. You think that things that I, BD, KoF, Jimmy Blue and others have said were "mean" only because you can't interpret them any other way. That's not our fault; that's just user error.
But even if I was being explicitly mean when I told you to seek help, how would that make my point invalid? Either you are certifiable or you're not; it doesn't matter if I express my opinion with "Look, honey, I understand your concerns, but you're really scaring me and I worry you might be having delusions that are interfering with your life so I think you should seek help," or if I say, instead, "Wow, you're one crazy bitch. You really need to see a psychiatrist."
Dismissing the second because it wasn't nice enough is irrational and self-serving.
Wow. I mean, wow.
It's like someone actually managed to distill a form of pure unadulterated crazy and pour it onto the internet in word form.
Let me start at the end, then go back to the beginning. I was reading something over on Butterflies and Wheels the other day about the figures people keep quoting for survelliance cameras in England so did a little math.
Assuming some low grade survelliance system (since anything else would be cost prohibitive) then:
A T160 tape length is 1075 feet, record time is 225 minutes
4.2 million cameras in the UK circa 1999.
24 hours = 1440 minutes
1440/225 = 6.4 tapes day for one camera
1075 * 6.4 = 6880 feet a day for one camera
So 6880 * 4.2 million = approx 28896000000 feet of video a day for all cameras in the UK.
OR 5 472 727.2727 mile of tape a day.
Feel free to correct the math if I missed something.
But seriously. I mean come on. Who the hell has the resources for that?
Here's the article I was reading:
The strange case of the surveillance cameras
Sorry Debra. You're just simply not being watched and neither is anyone else. No amount of technology can view 5 million miles of tape or a digital equivalent (and that's just for the tiny UK) to search for your face from every possible angle. Now go on, bring up satellites. I dare you.
As for the rest, in as condensed a form as I can manage:
Lucifer doesn't exist.
We all have a bloodline. Everyone of of us can trace it back a couple of billion years. Uninterrupted. How's that for established?
Secret societies? So secret that everyone knows about them.
Banking groups and political groups - you mean the ones that can't agree on anything? Many of which are demonstrably incompetent? Government leaders that come from wildly different political backgrounds and ideologies and that change on a regular basis?
Intelligence groups:
British Intelligence (Mi6) - you could at least try and get this right. There are three (at least three publicly well known) British intelligence agencies. Mi6 is not the correct name for any of them.
KGB - doesn't exist anymore, try doing some more research.
The Kremlin - is a building.
Inter-Services Intelligence and CISEN - oh yes, those powers of espionage Pakistan and Mexico.
Regional Federations:
The EU - seriously? You don't read the news much do you?
The African Union - no obviously not.
The major media AND the alternative media - why we just can't trust anyone. Wait, wouldn't your YouTube videos be considered alternative media?
International drug cartels - Oh come on. Then why are so many of the other conspirators trying to destroy them?
Interpol - like this one, for example.
The Communist party - Which one?
Religious Groups
So, basically anyone who isn't in your group. How unexpected. How about Hindus? Sikhs? Zoroastrians? Muslims? Jews (I think I know this one though)? You missed A LOT of religions.
Educational groups
UNESCO - You already mentioned the UN. You do know this is part of the UN, right?
The Media establishment - wait, just the main media, or the alternative one? When did the alternative one become the establishment? This is so confusing.
I second the notion that you really missed the point of the Rockefeller quote.
Debra: After all, THEY are about to rule the whole Earth. The Whole Earth. One World, One Religion, One Currency, One Government This is a great time in history to be living for them.
Which religion? Which currency? You really think one government would work? You have much more faith in government than me it appears. Which is ironic.
Debra: Dude... it's going .... going..... gone.
You really don't pay attention to the news. For crying out loud - tribalism still exists even in inner city America, ever heard of the Bloods? The Crips? Gang/tribe - what exactly is the real difference in material terms?
Debra: But hey, I thought that some or all of you believed in Evolution.
So you're saying that the bible was right and Grasshoppers evolved extra legs in 2000 years? Just with no evidence of having done so.
Debra: god never said these were white or Day time Soap Opera beautiful.
Oh that's just charming. Because black people are so ugly, right Debra?
Debra: As do you, as do we all.
Speak for yourself.
Debra: Christian suffering will come to an end when God comes for us.
More of the persecution complex. Worlds biggest religion, remember? Try being in a real minority, then tell me Christians suffer.
Debra: I have never seen a dark windshield before. Have you? Yeah, I was alarmed then.
Yes, lots of them. They're called tinted windshields, and they have been very popular in the past with people known in the UK as boy racers. I'm sure there's an appropriate American term. Of course, it could also have just been an effect of refracted light or other optical effect and not actually dark.
Debra: Like I said, expendable and replaceable.
No offence but, you mean like you? And yet they can't stop you writing on the internet about it. You still don't see why this is a problem for your theory, do you? Hacking websites is so easy that school kids crack government ones. But this conspiracy of governments, intelligence agencies and bankers can't break The Bronze Blog?
Debra: Well...... i really " screwed the pooch" on that Onion video. I do apologize for that. I do feel kinda bad about it.
No Debra, you didn't just 'screw the pooch' you highlighted that you will simply unquestioningly believe anything and that your supposed research is completely laughable. You took something made up as a joke as evidence for your conspiracy. It undermines everything else you say.
Debra: The RFID microchip, in your hand or forehead, will enable satellites to track your every move. Just like it can track cars with the chip, the new RFID passport,etc.
What do you mean track cars? Do you mean those cars that transmit their position using GPS? Go on, explain how satellites are going to track 500 million tiny chips that don't use GPS or transmit signal. I dare you.
Debra: England has the most survellance equipment in the world.
Really? And your source for this is? Do you mean England, or the UK? Or Great Britain? Ask me how it affected my life before I left. Who monitors this stuff so diligently? All 5 million miles of tape a day.
Debra: the new owners have installed video cameras
Are they listed under your 'Groups Involved' section? No? So I guess there is some other reason why there cameras are sinister? And this is...?
Debra: she has been there for 3 years that I know, and you can now receive only 3 write ups and you are fired. . And with the camera they see drunk people and ask them to leave. Good Grief.!!!
Yes, good grief. They wrote up an employee for bad performance and want to eject people that might cause a problem from their establishment. How dare they?!
Debra: Now all of these cameras going all over the world 24 hours a day.
How many cameras? Shooting how many miles of tape? And who watches all this tape? And how exactly do they slow down time in order for them to watch all this tape every day?
Debra:Don't you find it creepy to google an address on google earth and be able to "drive' by some ones house and even see your own!
No. Next question.
Oh wait, you mean Google Earth is part of the conspiracy too? Tell me Debra. Exactly what use to the conspiracy is a view of your house from the road? This I am dying to know.
"Hey J, Debra has a cream door which totally doesn't match the drainpipes. Put her down for a chip."
Debra: What was in futuristic books and movies is our new reality.
You can buy flying cars and replicators?
Debra: You know guys, I am not the one to present this side to you.
Don't be so hard on yourself, you have been exactly as successful as every other person who has tried this with me.
Debra: So, that makes the Euro the only currency in Europe and the Amero for us.
BUZZZZZ Thanks for playing Debra, put you're wrong again. The Euro is far from the only currency in Europe. Your research really needs more work.
Debra: Not yet guys. Not yet. But being Techno savvy as I think most of you are, it can be, right? I think that it will be. You guys don't think so, i know, but I do.
We don't think so Debra because we have a grasp on both reality and the limitations of technology.
There is no technology that can pick out one face from 5 million miles of tape every day from any angle. On top of that, you have obviously never seen the quality of most of the output of this survelliance. If it was a straight on picture of my wife's face I'd have trouble recognising it on 90% of the cameras in the UK - it's nearly all complete shite. Ask anyone who has seen an UK Crimestoppers broadcast.
I couldn't hear all of the other statements. they were, well mean. I will tell my Dr. what I am doing these days. And I will listen to what he has to say. Debra
Please do Debra, and don't make the mistake of equating sarcasm and disdain towards your ideas as contempt for you as a human being. We are all, I think, genuinely concerned that you have mental health issues. Get help.
All spelling and grammar mistakes in the above were completely intentional and designed to catch out those idiots who think that means what I said didn't count. Honest.
Tape? Did you say "lengths of tape"?
Limitations on Technology?
Oh please do go on Debra. How much digital storage space does 24 hrs worth of survelliance take? And how much does that cost? And did you miss the part where I mentioned "or a digital equivalent"? And how exactly is this easier to view than on tape?
And who, perchance, do you think owns these 4.2 million cameras. You see, most of them are not government owned, they are owned by the pub, shop or bookies that they sit in. So, yes, they are tape. Did you miss the part about cost?
Your research sucks.
See, unfortunately for you in regards to this subject, I just finished a 10 week class on remote sensing, and I am just starting my 10 week class on digital image processing.
So please, do go on.
More to the point, I think, is that Debra clearly thinks that sci-fi is an accurate representation of the future. Yes, there are limitations on technology. We cannot, for example, build lightsabers, because light doesn't work like that. That's what you might call a natural limitation.
Then there are practical limitations. Like BD said earlier, face-recognition technology is nowhere near being developed. Sure, maybe, someday, but right now we're only beginning to puzzle out the neurological structures that recognize faces in humans and other apes. One thing that's come out of that research (that Jimmy Blue has touched on) is that Face A from angle X and Face A from angle Y do not look the same, and it requires a highly sophisticated instrument (like a human or chimp brain) to maintain recognitional constancy between the various views of a face in motion. Our technology is nowhere near that. Nowhere near.
I mean, I suppose you could say "That's not a real limitation because someday someone might crack it," but that's kind of irrelevant. It's like saying "The speed of light in a vacuum doesn't limit our transit speeds, because somewhere out there there might be a Type III civilization that has figured out how to get around it." Yeah, maybe, but as far as we know that ain't the case.
Sorry, forgot to mention that of course you ignore the many factual errors I point out (listing the Kremlin as an intelligence agency for crying out loud) and simply grasp at your misunderstanding of survelliance systems like that excuses you from answering everything else.
Go on though, explain how the local newsagent in the UK affords the sophisticated digital survelliance system accessed by your conspiracists. Explain how none of those 4.2 million cameras use tape, and how you know this.
And who, perchance, do you think owns these 4.2 million cameras. You see, most of them are not government owned, they are owned by the pub, shop or bookies that they sit in.
But rabid libertarians could never lie to me! :P
And, yeah. There's got to be a lot of tape in there, especially given the time. The effort required just to get all that tape to one place should just be... wow.
Debra:
Then perhaps you should think about not just what you say but how you say it. What you quote yourself as saying here:
"God never said that these were white people. Daytime soap Opera looking people".
Is different to what you said originally:
"I see how "Adam and Eve" came out of Africa. god never said these were white or Day time Soap Opera beautiful."
Coming from Africa is related to skin colour and being beautiful in your original quote. That reads "Hey, I accept they came from Africa. No-one said they had to be white or pretty." How does that sound to you? All you had to say was you accept that the human race may have originated in Africa. But you didn't.
Of course, all this simply highlights the weird strand of racism that runs through christianity (whether you are racist or not) - since Jesus is almost never portrayed as someone of Semitic descent, and Adam and Eve are always portrayed as white people. And don't get me started on the christian attitude towards Jews.
How do you feel about Jewish people Debra? No good conspiracy theory is complete without some thoughts on the Jews, right?
Debra: Isn't there a saying or something that any argument that goes on long enough will finally mention Nazis
Jews?
Yes there is. Of course you mentioned the German Jewish Rothschilds right away, so we didn't even have to wait long for "The Jews" to enter this debate did we? Jewish international bankers are to conspiracy theories like oxygen is to breathing. And it is never because they are claimed by the conspiracy theorists to be charming, witty and self sacrificing.
I was curious whether you buy into all the other conspiracy nonsense about Jewish bankers, Jewish conspiracies and even something like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Since you have fallen for one joke and one hoax (the Priory of Sion) it is safe to assume they might not be the only ones.
Debra: What does this mean to you? I read the comment "we are paying for our own ass fu--ing. Twice!!!
Well, if you read two comments that said that then it must be true I guess!!!
Or not.
You know, the fact that you ignore every other counter point to zero in on little things is starting to get annoying.
You've based your argument on a hoax and a joke.
You listed organisations but couldn't even get their names right.
You listed a world famous building as an intelligence organisation.
You listed a Mexican intelligence agency as a world threat.
You list an intelligence agency that doesn't exist anymore as part of the conspiracy.
You think intelligence operations are run like kids movies.
You believe YouTube videos whilst at the sametime telling us the alternative media are part of the conspiracy.
You seem to think anyone who doesn't agree is an agent of Lucifer, who doesn't exist.
You pretend that somehow survelliance technology is 100 years ahead of where it is, but only you and the conspirators know this.
You think that your stockpiling is evidence of the conspiracy, rather than a symptom of extreme paranoia.
You don't seem able to coherently explain what the conspirators are doing and how, whilst at the same time pretending to know exactly what and how they are doing it.
You try to use England as an example of a survelliance society but you've clearly never been there.
You list societies that everyone knows about, as secret.
You don't seem to know anything about the EU or the African Union, but list them as part of your conspiracy.
You seem to think that there is a large organisation known simply as The Communist Party.
You think Interpol and international drug cartels are in cahoots with each other.
You think that human tribalism has gone away - which is kind of like covering your face with your hands and insisting no-one can see you now.
You think because you haven't seen dark windshields very often then no-one has.
You think Google Earth's Streetview is somehow a threat to your freedom, but can't say how or why.
You still can't explain how your conspirators, with their unlimited resources, have failed to stop you posting about them on the internet. But you insist that they eliminate all opposition.
All this is the reason your arguments have been treated with such disdain Debra. The simple fact is, your argument is complete and total uninformed and poorly researched bollocks.
Well...... i really " screwed the pooch" on that Onion video. I do apologize for that. I do feel kinda bad about it.
That's good. Now, since you've gotten burned once by believing things from YouTube without doing even the most basic research to verify the claims, do you see where you might have gone wrong with the rest of your claims? When you just believe what people tell you without actually seeing if those things are true, you end up looking like a fool.
Do you see why your claims of "being awake" and others (us included) being "sheeple" ring so hollow when you've demonstrated that you'll believe obvious satire uncritically if it supports your preexisting conclusions?
Perhaps you should go and do more than a few hours of "research" on conspiracy sites and unsourced YouTube videos, and actually look to see if the things you're claiming make sense. The Onion video was certainly more of an obvious falsehood than the others you've posted, but that doesn't mean that they aren't yanking your chain one way or another as well. The only way to avoid looking like a gullible idiot is to make sure your beliefs are backed up by evidence.
The RFID microchip, in your hand or forehead, will enable satellites to track your every move. Just like it can track cars with the chip, the new RFID passport,etc.
Okay, and who, other than pets, are getting these chips? What businesses are replacing their credit card readers with RFID scanners? When are these chips supposed to become mandatory? How will they be implemented in other countries that aren't as tech-flexible as the US? And what evidence do you have that anyone is even thinking about doing any of this?
I mean, why RFID anyway? It might make you easier to track (though not if you have a cell phone), but some places already let you use thumbprints for transactions. Why would people go for an invasive procedure when the technology for even more convenient and secure payment is already available?
They want to get the population to 500 million because with such a low number, the earth will blossom. The Eco System would cease to be
frakked up. And that is a number that the elite CAN control.
Except how many of that 500 million is made up of the "elite"? In that epic list of people in the conspiracy, there must be millions of people represented.
Furthermore, what evidence do you have that the Georgia Guidestones represent the Conspiracy's desired state of affairs? Seems to me that they largely contradict your various claims, what with wanting countries to be governed from within (as opposed to being governed from an outside conspiracy).
And just reducing human population to .075% (yes, less than one tenth of one percent) of its current size isn't going to have any magical effects on the environment. In fact, I'm not sure that there's any way to kill 6.2 billion people without killing an awful lot of other things too. Not to mention the huge numbers of living things that depend on humans for their existence and subsistence. And what effect will 6.2 billion decomposing human corpses have on the environment?
500,000,000 people left is a number that the Elites can manage? Who's going to clean up after the other 6,200,000,000? That's 13 and a half bodies for every person left on the planet to bury. And if the goal of the conspirators is really to reduce world population to 500,000,000, then they're included among that number. I don't see the Rothschilds picking up shovels in droves, do you?
England has the most survellance equipment in the world. And you know that our towns, our cities and toll roads are capable of tracking us by camera. Not to mention every store, bank etc.
Yes, they can track us through grainy, black-and-white low resolution, low frame-rate surveillance cameras. Forgive me if I don't shake in my boots.
Even in this town where BD and I live there is a bar in a hotel where so many people, myself included, go all the time. the new owners have installed video cameras in the ceiling of the bar to watch the not just the bar to observe any possible theft, but the patrons.
Um...who do you expect is going to be doing the theft but the patrons? Moreover, I can think of lots of good, non-Illuminati reasons to film patrons. Having records of who started what in a barfight might be useful for any prosecution.
Then again, I wonder how advanced these cameras are. Do they have microphones as well? Most surveillance cameras don't.
So far with this camera I know one female bartender has been written up once for over serving someone. she has been there for 3 years that I know, and you can now receive only 3 write ups and you are fired.
Ah, so it's not keeping an eye on the patrons, but the employees.
And with the camera they see drunk people and ask them to leave.
I think you're sticking an unnecessary step in there.
Now all of these cameras going all over the world 24 hours a day. Don't you find it creepy to google an address on google earth and be able to "drive' by some ones house and even see your own! surely you can admit this one... Big Brother is here. What was in futuristic books and movies is our new reality.
Yes, Big Brother is here, and he is us. We can see still pictures of people's houses, taken at one time in the past. It's not like we can go to Google Earth and see real-time video of anyone's backyard (yet). But it's not like this is some secret government conspiracy plot, this is open-source.
I don't worry about all this information being out there; the more information, the better. More information, readily available, means that any "conspiracy" is going to have to devote more manpower, energy, and time to sift through all of it. The signal-to-noise ratio becomes infinitesimal. The logistics of constantly monitoring everyone--or even just people who fit certain profiles or say certain watch-words--are unrealistic at best. Even if the technology to gather all these grainy videos together and get a realtime feed of everyone existed, the workforce needed to sort through all that data doesn't.
What was in futuristic books and movies is our new reality.
It doesn't therefore follow that everything in futuristic books is real. Improvements in surveillance technology and the ubiquity of surveillance cameras does not equate to the ability of any organization, even a global conspiracy, to track the movements and actions of any people in whom they're interested.
You know guys, I am not the one to present this side to you. I am not a person with special gifts. i am not educated like you. I am an ordinary, well pretty ordinary, person.
That shouldn't matter. Any person, ordinary or not, should be able to present the evidence for the things they believe. Especially if they believe in something as huge as this conspiracy, and especially if they claim to know all these intricate details of the conspiracy's plans and operations. Whether or not you have letters after your name has nothing to do with how well-supported your beliefs are. If you have good reasons for believing the things you believe, then you can tell them regardless of your education. If you don't have good reasons for believing the things you believe, then why would you believe them? How would you know such details about who's involved in the conspiracy and what their plans are if you didn't have any evidence for those claims?
Life went along and then last October when the banks failed I got on the computer to see how in the world this could happen.
Um...deregulation and predatory loaning practices? Wildly unethical banking?
I saw for the first time that true evil existed. These secret groups, the Rothschilds owning 1/2 of the worlds wealth, the Federal reserve is not the Fed but a private bank, their bank. Which they just printed how much money into circulation??
So, you did some cursory research and believed the first thing you found--a wild story about "true evil" and giant global conspiracies started by Satan. The rest of us would rather be a little more realistic and evidence-based with our beliefs, and instead of blaming the credit crisis on the forces of the underworld, we blame it on the incompetent politicians, short-sighted bank executives, and unfortunate suckers who actually brought it about.
Also, the bit about the Fed? Not true in the least. The Federal Reserve is not a private organization and does not have the power to print money--that ability belongs solely to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It's long, complicated, and a little confusing, but I recommend reading some of the Wikipedia article on the Federal Reserve system and the United States monetary policy. It's a more complicated situation than "the banks are run by Satan," but not everything in life is easily understood. Unlike your story, Debra, the actual facts about the Federal Reserve and the U.S. banking system make sense and aren't self-contradictory.
Next will be us joining with Mexico and Canada as the North American Union with.... the new currency, the Amero, not the dollar.
This doesn't even make sense. Why would we do this? What reason would we have to do this? What would we gain from forming a more explicit union with Mexico and Canada? And why would we rename the currency? Canada already calls theirs the dollar.
So, that makes the Euro the only currency in Europe and the Amero for us. I don't know what the other two Unions call or will call their currency
What other two unions? Why only two other unions? Do you realize that the Euro isn't the only currency in Europe? Or have you never heard of British Pounds?
If there's one thing you can count on, it's the stubbornness of Americans and Brits with regard to sovereign currency. If you think that we'll ever give up the dollar or the Brits will ever give up the Pound, without some profound changes to social attitude (that haven't happened yet and don't look like they will anytime soon), then you're not living in the real world. If Britain wanted to join the EU, they would have done so years ago. Meanwhile, especially with NAFTA in place, I don't see what anyone would gain from an NAU.
The highway that is to be built from Mexico to Canada has been fought hard by so many Texans. It is to be built by a private foreign company.
A private foreign company would oversee construction of a project that crosses through three countries? And you're surprised by this? Do you think that most international projects are conducted by the members of just one of those nations?
And who will that private foreign company be employing to build this road, assuming the project even exists and can get off the ground? Are they going to be flying in private foreign roadworkers? Or are they going to take the easier, cheaper route of employing local people? Sounds to me like this is a project with the potential to create jobs.
i think Spanish investors I own land in East Texas, South Eastern Oklahoma and Western Louisiana.
...and? Foreigners own land in lots of countries, and Americans own land in lots of foreign countries.
Some properties are right in two of the projected paths. i very well, like sooo many others could lose our lands to Eminent Domain by a private foreign company.
Like hell you could. The Fifth Amendment requires that any property taken via Eminent Domain be paid for with "just compensation." Only the government, not private companies, has the power of Eminent Domain, so far as I understand it. Now, projects like road building are typically initiated or planned by the government, and if it's a road passing through the whole country, it's going to be a Federal project by necessity. The government may outsource the project to private companies (usually allowing those organizations to bid for the job), paying them to oversee the work. If you're in danger of losing your property to Eminent Domain, then it's because this is a government project that is being done through a private organization, and the government will take your property for said government project (with just compensation).
And what does this have to do with a huge global conspiracy? This is business as usual. Eminent Domain has been a part of this country's dealings since its inception. It's in the Bill of Rights, for crying out loud! This isn't a new issue, it's not a consequence of the bad economy, it's not a plot by a global conspiracy, it's infrastructure. Or don't you think that goods are transported between countries in North America?
When I read and saw and to me, proof, that there was real evil and had been here all along... I knew then for the second time in that God was real. but this time I was not a child.
What you read, Debra, was not "proof." It was claims, which then need to be supported by proof. So far, nothing you've offered has approached "proof."
And how would any of this be evidence of God? Even if your conspiracy were real, it wouldn't even be proof that the Devil's behind it, let alone that there's a God to oppose it. But more significantly, if there's a God, why wouldn't he do anything to stop this?
That is how I met BD in the comic book store. I was there to find the comic books "Secret Invasion" and "Dark Reign". I had come across those two comics somehow as a source to possibly glean some info. There I met BD. Debra
Wait, you're looking to comic books as a way to find out about the real world? Debra, like The Onion, comic books are fantasy. "Secret Invasion" is about shape-shifting aliens taking the place of superheroes in order to rebuild their empire, which was mostly destroyed by an invading army from the Negative Zone (and it's not very good; save your money). "Dark Reign" is about the Green Goblin getting appointed to Iron Man's old position in the government and forming his own team of Avengers out of supervillains like Bullseye and Venom. What about all those is supposed to apply to reality?
Debra, when you start looking to comic books to find out about the real world, I think that's a sign that you've gone way off the deep end. While I applaud your support of the comic business, I hope that you'll just look to comics (and YouTube) for entertainment, and get your information from actual sources.
Not yet guys. Not yet. But being Techno savvy as I think most of you are, it can be, right? I think that it will be. You guys don't think so, i know, but I do.
Yes, and that's because you don't understand the limits of technology. Not even just the current limits, but the actual processing speed limits that are dictated by the construction of computer components and the laws of physics. Sifting through that much data to find the few nuggets of useful information would, even with the best possible computers, take lots and lots and lots of time. And that's with programs that are sophisticated enough to actually find whatever it is that the conspiracy is looking for with all this surveillance.
Anyway, I finally read what sounded like a real concern about my mental health. It was..... let me see, Tom Foss. Well, Tom, I am listening to you. I couldn't hear all of the other statements. they were, well mean. I will tell my Dr. what I am doing these days. And I will listen to what he has to say.
I wouldn't discount things for being "mean," Debra. The truth often comes across as "mean," especially if it's meant to shock you out of some kind of complacency. But I'm glad to hear that you're going to talk to your doctor; I hope you do listen to what he has to say.
Jimmy_Blue: Oh that's just charming. Because black people are so ugly, right Debra?
To be fair, I don't think that's what she was getting at. Science would suggest that Cro-Magnons weren't white, and were not exactly pretty by modern western standards. I think that's what she's trying to say: the Bible never says that Adam and Eve weren't hairy cavemen.
It does, however, say they were made from dust and a rib, respectively, and that they were the first two people, and that they lived upwards of 900 years. So, you know, it's still not particularly reliable.
Yes, lots of them. They're called tinted windshields, and they have been very popular in the past with people known in the UK as boy racers. I'm sure there's an appropriate American term.
I'm pretty sure the appropriate American term is "douchebags."
What do you mean track cars? Do you mean those cars that transmit their position using GPS? Go on, explain how satellites are going to track 500 million tiny chips that don't use GPS or transmit signal. I dare you.
That's a good point that I hadn't thought of. RFID chips need to be scanned, like barcodes. If you've ever done self-checkout at a grocery store, it should give you some idea about the limitations of such scanners.
Oh wait, you mean Google Earth is part of the conspiracy too?
She listed the founder of Google among the Bilderbergers.
Exactly what use to the conspiracy is a view of your house from the road?
In case they're looking for real estate. "Hey, J, take a look at that siding!" "Wow, that's nice. Does it have an in-ground pool?"
"Hey J, Debra has a cream door which totally doesn't match the drainpipes. Put her down for a chip."
Yes! It's Men in Taupe!
Debra: Tape? Did you say "lengths of tape"?
Limitations on Technology?
You are joking right? This is a joke.
Yes, Debra, most surveillance cameras still operate on tape. Digital cameras with sizeable internal hard drives are a recent innovation, are more expensive, and not every camera has been upgraded (for obvious cost and efficiency reasons). And yes, there are limitations on technology. Lots of them. There are further limitations on the workforce needed to monitor and maintain that technology. The fact that you seem surprised by this suggests that you need to read a little less sci-fi.
Isn't there a saying or something that any argument that goes on long enough will finally mention Nazis
Jews?
Godwin's Law, but it only applies to Nazis. You're the one who brought them up.
As far as Jews, they are a component of most of the conspiracy theories of the type you're proposing. In fact, many of the claims you make--such as the supremacy of the Rothschilds--are often coupled with the point that the Rothschilds are a Jewish family.
US-With Frms- To Buy 'Bad' Assets
"Under the new Public Private Investment Program, taxpayer funds will be used to seed partnerships with private firms to buy up assets backed by mortgages and other loans".
What does this mean to you? I read the comment "we are paying for our own ass fu--ing. Twice!!!
Well, first it means that you took a quote from an article and tried to interpret it out of context. But what it sounds like to me (and I am not an economist) is that the banks have screwed themselves by giving out bad loans, and the loans themselves are worthless to most people, so the banks are losing money on them. The government is stepping in to buy these loans from the banks, thereby stopping the banks from losing money, and thus stopping the banks from having to foreclose on the properties, which would be bad for the people with the loans. By buying the loans, the government can take over those debts (so people, presumably, would be paying their subprime mortgages to the government, or whoever the government gets to buy the loans at lower rates), which will make the banks more willing to give out good loans, since they're not losing money on the bad ones. The people paying off the bad loans will be doing so with the government, which (for good or ill) isn't primarily concerned with making a profit.
What it means to me is that banks will stop hemorrhaging money, which means they'll be able to give out more money, which will help the economy. Meanwhile, people with bad loans won't lose their property (as easily, anyway) and will have less to pay. The government takes a hit, but the government also has better resources to recover from such a hit.
YOU asked me" how do you feel about Jewish people, Debra.
Yes, yes, some of your best friends are Jewish. Why did you choose this thing to respond to, and not any of the requests for evidence of the conspiracy?
The first time by giving OUR tax dollars as SEED money to a private firm. Then the government will BUY from them and OWN our debts. So, pay your credit card, house loan to them. Well, thats twice fucked.
That's not what the article is saying. The government is using tax money from everyone to buy the bad loans that some people own, and those some people will continue paying back the loan, only now they're paying it back to the government (or a proxy), so eventually that money comes back to everyone via the government. The consequence of this is that the banks stop losing money from everyone and thus are more willing to give money to more people, which means more people will have money to use to start businesses and pay other people, which is good for everyone.
As far as I understand the article.
Oh by the way, I had a Lesbian relationship with one woman for 6 years. She was a Rice grad.
Good for you. I do recommend not looking at what the Bible has to say about that, though. And, for that matter, your dating non-Christians. I don't have any problem with any of that, but it's your holy book.
I want to ask you, did any of you just once read something that I wrote where you thought "thats a good point or probable or just like you that worried me when I... etc. ? One line?
Not particularly. But don't feel bad, that's how I feel about most things I read. I've read lots of things you've said or linked to and thought "that's interesting; I wonder if it's true." I still haven't been able to confirm a lot of the stuff in the first video you posted, though the way it butchers Kennedy's Address to the American Newspaper Publishers to make it look like he's talking about a global conspiracy instead of Communism really casts doubt on its honesty.
But the problem with the things you've said, Debra, isn't that they're good or bad points, it's that you haven't really made many claims at all. You've described a conspiracy, you've outlined many of its plans, you've described an end of the world scenario, but you haven't told us anything about how you know any of this. Moreover, your story doesn't hold up on its own; it contradicts itself repeatedly, and contradicts known facts about reality as well. All you have are claims and a vague storyline, but you haven't given any evidence or reason why you think these things are true, except that you heard about them on YouTube and conspiracy sites, and they fit with your notions about metaphysical good and evil.
There hasn't been a shred of friendship formed between all of you and me. So much written exchange and so much void. I hate that. I have put a lot of myself into these exchanges and there is nothing between us, except for disdain, that seems to be a collective word between all of you towards me.
I don't have disdain for you, Debra, and I don't think most of the others here do either. What we have some disdain for is your claims. We disagree with your ideas, and you haven't given any evidence or reason to make us change our minds and agree with them.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I've put a lot of myself into these responses too, Debra, and I'm a little disappointed that you don't really acknowledge them. I worry about you, because I think you've put a lot of undue stress on yourself by falling for a fictional story invented by paranoid lunatics who don't understand how the world works. You believe this story because it appeals to your religious notions and it provides simple answers to a lot of your questions about the economy and the political atmosphere; plus, it's a little flattering to your ego to believe that you're important enough to be watched by the rulers of the world, and that you'll be one of the few people to get taken to Heaven by Jesus, or that by storing canned goods, you'll be one of the .075% of people left on the planet after the conspiracy commits nonsensical genocide. You feel like you understand the world on some deep intimate level, and that gives you a sense of control; you know what's going to happen, even if it isn't good for anyone.
But that's not reality, Debra. Unlike sci-fi novels and comic book plots, reality is complicated. There often aren't easy answers that boil down to good guys and bad guys. There really isn't some grand plan that everything has to follow--the conspiracy's or God's. In the larger picture, only a very few people are important enough to attract the attention of the people with power, and even they only have that importance for a comparatively short time. Reality is usually harder to understand than popular conspiracy theories make it out to be, and bad things happen even if there aren't evil people or evil demons behind them. Sometimes bad things happen because some people are just incompetent.
I can't speak for everyone here, Debra, but I don't usually think "that's a good point" when I hear some claim that I've never heard before. As I said, usually I think "I wonder if that's true," and then I look to find out if it is. So far, Debra, the things that you've said that have turned out to be true are things that don't add up to a massive global conspiracy. The rest has turned out to be misleading at best, and unsupported or fabricated at worst. Besides that, you've shown that you don't have very high standards for what you'll believe, since your primary sources appear to be YouTube videos and comic books. This hurts your credibility in our eyes and casts doubt on your claims of certainty and being "awake." When we see that someone will accept a satire video if it happens to support their pre-existing ideas about the world, it suggests that they'll also accept poorly-sourced non-satire (but still wrong) videos for similar reasons.
I won't say that your posts haven't made me think, Debra; they have. But they haven't changed my mind, mostly because you haven't provided any evidence for the things you claim, and because your conspiracy story is built on other things that there is no evidence for (Lucifer, the Priory of Sion), is self-contradictory, and doesn't take into account the limitations, motivations, or basic nature of the people and technologies that would have to be involved. A world where such a conspiracy existed would be a very different place than the one we live in.
All of you have so much in common and are so alike. And that is a good thing to have and to hold onto and nourish. But anyone new, anyone like me, invited on here, not crashing by the way, is... fresh... dead... meat.
It's true that we aren't gentle with new ideas, but don't think that you're alone in this. I know you're a fish out of water on a skeptical blog like this one, but I assure you that (as long as we're being consistent) this is how we treat all ideas, even the ones we are inclined to agree with (in fact, especially those ones). This is, essentially, an application of the scientific method: for any idea, we test all the ways we could possibly show that it's not true. If it survives all those tests, then we'll believe it (until it fails such a test in the future); if it fails the tests, then it wasn't a good idea, and therefore was almost certainly untrue. This sort of intellectual rigor is the only way to make sure that the things we believe accurately represent reality. Yes, it's harsh, but you don't build a sturdy car by subjecting it to soft impacts and hitting it with pillows. You put the design through the ringer, and if it survives, then you go ahead with it. I wouldn't want to drive a car that hadn't been crashed into every rock-solid barrier they could come up with, and I wouldn't want to believe an idea that hadn't gone through similar testing. I don't know why anyone else would either.
Here's the bottom line, Debra: If you have good reasons and/or evidence for believing in a global conspiracy moving the world toward armageddon, then you should show it to us. If you don't have good reasons or evidence, then you should question why you believe it, and whether or not it's really a good idea to be spending so much money and energy on canned food and ammunition and worrying about surveillance cameras and men in black.
That's one of the best benefits of skeptical critical thinking, Debra: it keeps you from being suckered into spending money unnecessarily and driving yourself crazy with irrational fears and worries. There are enough real things to worry about without inventing shadow governments and devils, and there are enough real things to spend your time on without inventing afterlives and apocalypses. Put your money toward something fun, donate your canned goods to a homeless shelter, and spend time with the people you love and the things you enjoy. I guarantee your life will be better for it.
Debra:
So we've established you aren't racist and you have known a lot of Jewish people, and that you aren't homphobic either. Of course, that also means you aren't that good a christian either.
Nonetheless, you talking about how many Jewish people you know doesn't answer the question - do you buy into all the other conspiracy nonsense about Jewish bankers, Jewish conspiracies and even something like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
Debra: I said " I read the commenT, with a t on the end, not an s. "That we are paying for our own ass fucking, twice.
No, what you wrote was:
I read the comment "we are paying for our own ass fu--ing. Twice!!!
Which is such a badly punctuated sentence (come to mention it, so is the first quote) it was hard to decipher what you meant. If you are going to use quotation marks, at least try and get them right.
Debra: I want to ask you, did any of you just once read something that I wrote where you thought "thats a good point or probable or just like you that worried me when I... etc. ? One line?
No, not one line. You have given not one shred of convincing or believable evidence, and you've shown that you will accept any evidence no matter how pathetic it is. You cited a joke and a well known hoax as part of your evidence.
Even now you chose to focus on one little sideshow and ignore the problems with your conspiracy theory, even when I present them in a nice list readily accessible.
Your victim complex is really starting to wear thin. It doesn't matter if we are mean or not if you can't even back up your ideas under the most cursory scrutiny.
Tom:
I see Debra is probably not racist now, but given the 'wearing your underpants on your head with pencils up your nose' crazy arse nature of everything else she wrote, it wasn't much of a stretch.
I've just skimmed that post, Debra, and I don't think you really want to hang your hat on those folks as better opponents for us. In just that one post, I saw more of a ridiculous ignorance of history than I have seen elsewhere in quite some time. That's in addition to the usual spate of logical fallacies and inconsistencies.
I hope you read this, Debra, because it's important: in my years of being a skeptic and debating people with whom I disagree, I have found that the "experts," the people who my opponents quote and link to and say "they can argue this better" can't. Those "experts," whether they're conspiracy bloggers or respected theologians, use the same arguments with the same logical fallacies and the same complete lack of evidence as the average person on the ground. They just do it in more words with more syllables. Prestige, fame, and even education are not indicators of having a good argument or believing in things for good reasons.
"In its current form, the legislation does not include a mandate requiring service."?
How does that equate to what you just said?
Debra:
Seriously, is that blog post the best you've got?
I skim read through the first largely content free rants (the ones with no supporting evidence that I suppose we are just meant to take at face value) until I got to this:
Why do we only grumble at the taxes taken out of our paychecks instead of knowing at a visceral level that no one on the face of this earth is entitled to help themselves to the fruits of our own physical labor?
Ah, libertarians. So, it won't be long before they contradict themselves, and sure enough:
The system itself has forgotten that it only exists to ensure our prosperity and to see that our shores are defended from outside attack.
And how, pray tell, do they afford to defend shores without taxes? Magic? Toenails? Baseball card swaps?
These are malfunctioning people who, given their way, immediately set about to pillage, plunder, oppress, control, silence and enslave everyone they can entrap.
Who are? All of whoever 'they' are? Where's the evidence?
Strangely, the wealthy elites today have no shame anymore.
It would help if they actually said who this mysterious 'wealthy elite' was. Of course, if they said something concrete, that would mean they would need evidence, actual real evidence. So we know why they don't, don't we?
And on and on it goes in the same vain. Assertion after assertion with not one single piece of evidence offered.
Sorry Debra, it is just another content free rant.
There is NO EVIDENCE presented for any of the claims and assumptions there. Because they have no evidence. They just expect you to accept their word at face value, like you do.
If you are used to reading this, I am not surprised that you thought our asking for evidence was a personal attack. It appears people in your circles don't ever ask that question, and don't think they need to.
Which explains a lot.
And as for the GIVE Act, maybe you should try actually reading it.
Also, from the OpenCongress summary:
In its current form, the legislation does not include a mandate requiring service.
Hell, the word mandatory only appears in there twice, once for something about learning in secondary schools, and once in reference to a committee that may as part of its activities look into :
Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.
Sounds horrific.
Sounds a lot like the alternative service used instead of national service in Germany. Remind me, where is Germany currently on the scale of world despotisms? Is Germany a society living in fear? Under the heel of totalitarianism?
Of course, with so much qualifying language in there its doubtful that a committee would find in favour of this anyway. And this is NOT a mandatory service requirement - its authorisation to see if that is feasible.
You did read the bill, right Debra?
Good grief.
Gosh, Debra, I wonder if this has anything to do with the heavily-edited video of an interview with then-Congressman Rahm Emmanuel that you linked to earlier.
Anyway, HR 1388 is almost entirely, as far as I can see, made up of amendments to the National and Community Service Act of 1990. Last I checked, there's been no mandatory volunteerism in the last nineteen years (unless you count the hour of garbage-picking I had to do as part of my High School Driver's Ed class), so there'd have to be some pretty major amendments to change that.
Here's a summary of the bill. You're right, it's totally Borg-like. Who could forget Locutus saying "We are Borg. We will increase the opportunities available through AmeriCorps and similar programs, and we will provide additional grants and funding to students and other citizens who enter into public service programs. Resistance is Futile."
Really, nothing there in the summary talks about "mandatory volunteerism." About the closest it comes is this: "Requires states to develop comprehensive plans for volunteer and paid service by Baby Boomers and older adults." Yes, truly this is the machination of Big Brother.
Now, I haven't been able to comb through the entire bill (or the two entire bills it amends), so perhaps that bit about drafting people into volunteer service got left out of the independent summary. That being said, Debra, I'm willing to bet that you haven't read the full text of those bills either, and neither have the conspiracy sites you've cribbed this hysteria from.
So why don't you do this: look through the bill (full text available here) or even just the summary (again, here) and tell us what you find distressing, objectionable, or otherwise frightening about the bill.
I did a quick Ctrl+F for the word "mandatory" in the full-text bill, and it came up with two notices. One was discussing a program that could be implemented in schools where service learning was already a mandatory part of the curriculum. The other was stating that ineligible organizations included those that had mandatory religious practice.
But maybe I've missed something. What's so bad about this bill, Debra?
Sorry, the Library of Congress invalidated my link. Here's the handy-dandy full-text of the bill, in PDF form.
Incidentally, I couldn't find the bit you cited, Jimmy, about the feasibility of a national service program.
And, of course, there's the other little problem. Debra, you say "RESISTANCE IS FUTILE...
THE COLLECTIVE IS INVINCIBLE." You do realize that the bill has to be passed by a majority of the Senate and signed by the President before it becomes law, right? Some "invincible" collective, when it can be beaten by a veto pen.
Tom, I think it has something to do with the different versions of the bill that the Library of Congress cites, the part I cite comes from the bill as it was in the House of Representatives, could have changed since then - I am not to clear about how the bill system works here in the US and which one is the actual bill that will or has become law.
The text I cited was in the link I gave above, and was the text I found some conspiracy nut complaining about during my Google search for the bill.
If it didn't even make it into the final bill, then that is even funnier.
I was working from the version of the bill as it passed the House, which is the third of four available at the Library of Congress (the fourth being the version proposed to the Senate or somesuch). Yeah, if that text was removed from the version that actually passed, then that makes it all the more ridiculous that people would be upset.
I just checked, my text is in the bill as reported to the house - number 2 at the Library of Congress, and is in section 6104,B(6).
So I guess the language people were getting all worked up over has gone? You people and your crazy republic. What's wrong with some good old fashioned monarchy?
Oh. Right.
Ehh... children have fewer rights under US law. I should know. I only recently completed my own larval phase.</pretentious-nerdiness>
Debra: United States Constitution
Amendment Xlll
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United Sates, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Yes, and? I asked you to look at the bill you cited or its summary and tell me what you found objectionable. I'm well aware of the 13th Amendment (which would be XIII, not "Xlll"), but it doesn't apply here, because the GIVE Act is all about voluntary service. There's no involuntary servitude; it's about service projects conducted by students, non-student youth, adults, and the elderly, through groups like AmeriCorps. You can't be drafted into AmeriCorps any more than Habitat for Humanity is going to drag you out of your bed in the middle of the night. You're not making sense, and it's painfully obvious that you're once again getting yourself worked up over things you've never read.
Even if this bill were requiring involuntary public service, you've pointed out one more way that it invalidates your "the collective is invincible" rhetoric: it'd be Unconstitutional. Which means it would be struck down by the courts. Yes, resistance is futile, except from all but one-half of one of the branches of government!
You came into this blog claiming to be "awake" and "speaking the truth," and you scoffed when we said we'd done the research. Increasingly, it looks like your only research is to read little bits of blog posts and watch YouTube videos, and just assume that they're telling you the truth. That's hardly "awake," Debra; it's so lazy it's practically sleepwalking. Moreover, isn't "believing everything you're told" precisely the behavior of the "sheeple" you decried before?
Think for yourself. Do your own research. It took me less than fifteen minutes of Googling and searching the Library of Congress's THOMAS archive to see that your claims are bunk this time, Debra. You could have saved yourself the anxiety and embarrassment by doing it yourself.
Since last October,I have read most of the blogs on the site 'Survival Acres'.
Great. Try reading some books. And I don't mean Jim Marrs or David Icke, either. Or at the very least, try reading some House Resolutions, rather than getting worked up over them when you don't do the research.
Okay, I've just seen the new post on that blog you've been reading, the one that has you all worried about being enslaved. I'll tell you right now: THAT BLOG IS LYING TO YOU.
Here's the language that every source cited by the blog seems to be seizing on (besides the language that Jimmy cited, which was removed before it passed):
"The term youth engagement zone program means a service learning program in which members of an eligible partnership described in paragraph (4) collaborate to provide coordinated school-based or community-based service learning opportunities, to address a specific community challenge, for an increasing percentage of out-of-school youth and secondary school students served by local educational agencies where –
(A) not less than 90 percent of the students participate in service-learning activities as part of the program; or
(B) service-learning is a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency."
It's not saying "service learning must be mandated in schools" (though, you know, why would that be a bad thing?). What it says (as far as I can tell) is that a youth engagement zone program is one where service-learning opportunities are provided to students and out-of-school youth who are served by educational agencies that already mandate service learning, or where most students already participate in service programs.
To break it down further, there are schools that make some community service a requirement for graduation. This part of the bill makes provisions to give more funding to those programs. There is nothing sinister about this. There's no enslavement, there's no violation of rights, there's kids learning by helping out in the community. Last I checked, the Borg weren't in the business of tending community gardens or assisting in old folks' homes.
Speaking as an educator, there's a growing amount of research to support the benefits of service learning, and there's a growing sentiment in the educational community that getting students active in their communities helps them build character, citizenship, and various skills outside of a classroom. I've participated in a couple of designs for service-learning projects, where we proposed draconian, NWO-enabling activities like "interviewing the elderly" and "putting together a publication for the community." Truly, I'm working undercover for the man.
You're seeing black helicopters where there are only stars, Debra. You're believing-without-questioning the claims of a blog that believed-without-questioning the contributions of a reader, who believed-without-questioning the ravings of a few conspiracy news sites, who read-without-understanding a House Resolution on increasing funding for programs that help young people improve their neighborhoods and expand their résumés.
Stop being the "sheeple" you claim to despise and actually do your own research.
Or at least apply some critical thinking: don't you think the site selling survival gear might be benefiting from creating an atmosphere of fear that the world is going to end? Isn't there, I dunno, a massive conflict of interest there?
I can't believe how you're twisting the commentary on the unreliability of parrots into a straw man you only believe in because you've been told by the parrots what we're supposed to be like.
We don't trust the government. When we hear about something funny, we'll look into it, and the people here have obviously looked into it, found nothing suspicious, while you're essentially screaming, "The parrot said so!"
And while you're trying to get us jumping at every shadow, that's time taken away from focusing on real problems in the government, like the destruction of school curriculum or bonehead economic or foreign policies.
I can't believe how most of you on here are so very trusting of our government. It's so... naive.
No, "naïve" is trusting whatever you read on slanted blogs and see on YouTube rather than doing your own research. You got suckered by The Onion, Debra; you're in no position to call anyone naïve.
But you know what? When it comes to the bills that our government is passing, then yes, I'm going to trust our government with regard to the wording of those bills. I have no other choice. The only source for the language of a bill that passed the House of Representatives is the House of Representatives. So when I read HR1388 and I see nothing in there that says anything even remotely suggesting mandatory volunteerism (whatever the hell that oxymoron means), I have to trust that the bill that was passed similarly had nothing about mandatory volunteerism in it.
And get this, Debra: so do you. So does anyone else commenting on the bill. The only source that "Survival Acres" can find about the wording of HR1388 is HR1388! So instead of just believing what people are telling you about the bill, you could actually read the damn bill and find out for yourself!
That's what I did, Debra. I read the summaries, I skimmed the parts of the bill that were amending earlier laws, I looked at the new provisions, and I did a quick search for words like "mandatory." Go ahead; do the same. I couldn't find anything sinister in there, and I bet you won't be able to either, because there's nothing sinister there.
Don't presume to tell anyone here that they're naïve when you just parrot what you hear on conspiracy sites without doing any of your own research. Try having some thoughts of your own. What is it that the conspiracists are always saying? "Think, it's not illegal yet"? Why not give it a try, Debra?
Furthermore, who is "the government"? What is this "the government" I'm supposedly putting so much trust into? Last time I checked, "the government" was run by the people we put in it. I've met my Congressman. I've been to fundraisers and cookouts with him. He's a nice guy with a nice family. He's not some NWO flunkie looking for ways to eliminate my personal freedoms. He's just a guy. And I think you'll find, when it comes right down to it, that the vast majority of people in government are also just people. They aren't shadowy figures plotting world domination; they're people with jobs. They aren't scary (well, some of them are), they aren't locked away in secret bunkers miles below the surface of the Earth. They have public offices and friendly staff people to answer their phones. Go ahead, call a politician, voice your concerns, use the system.
I think this is the most sinister assumption promoted by the conspiracy nuts: the idea that the government is some external entity that rules from above without transparency or limitation. Debra, this is a democracy (well, okay, a democratic republic if you want to be picky). The government is us. The only naïveté here is your willingness to believe the people who say otherwise.
Finally, Debra, I've been trying really hard to be nice. I really have, and I think I've been slipping in the last post or two. I do genuinely care about your well-being, and I do genuinely worry about your stability, and I desperately want some of this to get through to you. But you're not even paying attention to what I'm writing here. Your last several posts have been content-free fearmongering and insults, and you haven't responded to a single point that's been made. If you can spend six months reading the drivel dripping out of blogs that are trying to sell you things, then you can take the much smaller amount of time necessary to read our posts here, follow our links, and try to understand what we're saying. The means are available here for you to draw your own conclusions from the actual evidence. Your refusal to do the scant research needed to see that the blogs you're reading are full of shit suggests that you'd rather be scared, deceived, and fleeced than think for yourself and question the conspiracy story.
Simply, Debra: every word I've written here has been my own. When you mentioned the bill, I looked up the bill myself, read it myself, and came to my own personal conclusions. You've parroted the claims of conspiracy sites, provided links to videos, and cut-and-paste arguments from other places; you've not bothered to do even the smallest amount of research on your own, and all your arguments have come from someone else. Given these facts, Debra, please tell me: Who's the sheeple?
UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION
AMENDMENT XVI
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
Hmm...So I guess slavery is legal, then?
Oh wait, taxes are only slavery if you're a lame-ass ideologue.
Going to a 3 day Organic Gardening class starting tomorrow. It is a 3 1/2 hours from here. Over the next several months I am taking Bread making, Beginning Sewing, Cheese, Culinary Herbs and Family Cow, and Homesteading.
Maybe, I hope at least one of you, will start buying food to store away. Maybe one of you will tell your parents to do so. D
Great, Debra. That sounds like it could be fun, if potentially full of woo-crazy. I hope you enjoy your classes. I don't particularly care for cheese, but I think it'd be interesting to learn how to make (I always liked making candles in grade school, even if they never quite turned out the way I wanted them to).
And thanks for the admission that you haven't read or attended to anything we've said, that you think you've apparently made no mistakes, and that you plan to continue following the conspiracy theorists unquestioningly. I'm not going to horde food (my house has enough bug problems and space issues without me worrying about the apocalypse). No, unlike you and your impenetrable and irrational certainty, I wouldn't be quite so arrogant or foolish to assume that if 99.925% of the world's population were going to be killed, that I'm going to be one of the .075% left over. Thanks for letting us know that you'd rather pay money to be fooled than be urged to think for free.
Enjoy your jerky and evaporated milk, Debra. I'm sure that'll tide you over until THEY decide that your willingness to believe absolutely anything you're told would make you the perfect slave when the shit hits the fan. It's been a pleasure.
Toodles!
Maybe one of you will tell your parents to do so.
Yeah, then my parents will laugh at the crazy, too, because they also aren't complete nutjobs.
This is fucking pointless. I'm pretty well convinced now that Debra isn't listening because she is actually psychologically incapable of listening. The radio's coming in on her teeth fillings. She is certifiable.
It's not that she's refusing to engage. It's that she is, at the very least, riddled with extreme neuroses that make her fundamentally unable not to see conspiracies around every corner.
She thinks Dark Reign is a documentary, for Christ's sake. Marvel has hardly put out anything worth reading in the last few years, much less anything harboring secret truths.
We cannot affect her thinking because she doesn't need evidence and syllogisms; she needs medication.
Of course, she doesn't think so; her conclusions are infallible, she's 100% right, she's awake, and the only medication she needs is the red pill, because all others are just mind-control chemicals from the conspirators that run Big Pharma. She will not seek help because she is in no state to even understand that she needs it. Hell, she's in no state to admit the possibility that she needs it.
We're just wasting our breath here (so to speak).
Ok I agree with Akusai, this has been a complete waste of time. Although, my opinion that Debra was in need of pschiatric help is swinging more towards her being just a complete moron instead.
Debra: I can't believe how most of you on here are so very trusting of our government. It's so... naive.
I can't believe you are so very trusting of claims that have NO SUPPORTING EVIDENCE, and of the alternative media that YOU LISTED AS PART OF THE CONSPIRACY. I can't believe that YOU LISTED A JOKE VIDEO FROM THE ONION AND A WELL KNOWN HOAX as evidence of your conspiracy theory. I can't believe you DIDN'T BOTHER TO READ A BILL YOU THEN CLAIM IS EVIDENCE OF YOUR CONSPIRACY. I can't believe that you have IGNORED EVERY COUNTERPOINT put to you. I can't believe that YOUR RESEARCH IS WOEFULLY INADEQUATE. It's so...naive. No wait sorry, not naive, fucking stupid.
As Tom said Debra, the only way to know what is in HR1388 IS TO READ IT. You and your idiot friends clearly have not because IT DOESN'T SAY WHAT YOU CLAIM IT DOES. Saying so is not naive, it is the only rational thing to say. It is what anyone who isn't delusional or stupid would say.
Debra: Going to a 3 day Organic Gardening class starting tomorrow. It is a 3 1/2 hours from here. Over the next several months I am taking Bread making, Beginning Sewing, Cheese, Culinary Herbs and Family Cow, and Homesteading.
Bully for you, we're all so impressed that you are so bat shit insane and/or idiotic that you are wasting your money preparing for something which isn't going to happen, based on your evidence free ideas and content lite conclusions. I just wish I could be around for the eventual realisation that you wasted so much money and so much of your life on this utter nonsense. Then we'd see who was naive.
Debra: Maybe, I hope at least one of you, will start buying food to store away. Maybe one of you will tell your parents to do so.
Sorry, I only take advice from people who actually know what they are talking about, not wealthy single moms with paranoid delusional tendencies and a pathological desire to ignore all sane advice and verifiable evidence.
Of course, the question I have to ask is, how can you trust all those teachers? How do you know that they are teaching you the correct techniques, and not techniques guaranteed to leave you starving or poisoned? How do you know that the whole survivalist industry is not just the conspirators making even more money off people by actually leaking news of their plans?
How can you trust anyone?
Ta ta.
Akusai: This is fucking pointless. I'm pretty well convinced now that Debra isn't listening because she is actually psychologically incapable of listening. The radio's coming in on her teeth fillings. She is certifiable.
I'm about halfway to that point. I definitely think Debra's in desperate need of some medication, but I don't think she's Gene Ray. That she admitted her mistake about The Onion suggests to me that she's capable of thinking she could be wrong--she just refuses to acknowledge that she may be wrong about the conspiracy as well. Furthermore, she's emotionally and financially invested in its truth; we all know how that can bias people.
Debra, if you're still reading, this is important. The main point of skepticism is that we know we could be wrong about anything. That's why we try to base our beliefs on the best available evidence: so that we minimize our chances of being wrong.
So tell me this, Debra: have you ever considered that you might be wrong about the conspiracy? If not, then do you think you (or the blogs you read) are infallible? If so, what reasons or evidence convinced you that you were not wrong?
She thinks Dark Reign is a documentary, for Christ's sake. Marvel has hardly put out anything worth reading in the last few years, much less anything harboring secret truths.
Akusai is awake and speaks the truth. Although "Captain Britain & MI-13" is quite good.
We're just wasting our breath here (so to speak).
Sadly agreed.
You know, they say insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Maybe I need to get checked out, for continuing to engage woos and entertaining the hope that I'll actually get through.
Which may be the difference between me and Jimmy--I cling to that hope an awful lot longer :).
Jimmy_Blue: I just wish I could be around for the eventual realisation that you wasted so much money and so much of your life on this utter nonsense. Then we'd see who was naive.
Assuming said realization ever happens. I sure hope it does, but I don't think it will. She'll be on her deathbed surrounded by cans of baked beans, and her last words will be a warning about heirloom seeds. Unsinkable rubber ducks.
Tom:
Which may be the difference between me and Jimmy--I cling to that hope an awful lot longer :).
That, and you seem to understand quantam physics.
Nothing wrong with optimism though. I just had mine removed at birth.
It... um... hasn't been hijacked? Unless all laws pertaining to things are bad, or something.
I mean, I think they took care of your... words... pretty well. When I read their comments, I thought they covered what you said. Did you read what they said, or is that a luxury only afforded to scholarship college students who might be in the pay of the Conspiracy, or something?
(Also, I'll note that that's about $3 million a day, or 0.4% of the daily cost of the Iraq war.)
Debra, you're being an idiot. You obviously still haven't read the bill or the summary, or you wouldn't say something as blatantly moronic as the following:
I bet that that whole family is freaking out on how his initiative has been hijacked to make it a new LAW . A LAW!
Nothing about AmeriCorps has beem "hijacked" or "made a LAW." If you'd read the damn bill, you'd see that this bill gives more funding to AmeriCorps and creates more programs within AmeriCorps and similar organizations. It also makes it so that full-time AmeriCorps workers get paid an amount comparable to Pell Grants for college students.
Before you post anything else, try reading this summary of the bill. The more you post without reading it, the more insane you look.
As to the rest of your post:
Last year 61 million American volunteered, or 26.4 % of the population.-Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
...And? Sounds like a great start.
The Serve America Act will cost 5.7 billion dollars over a 5, a 5 year period.
And that sounds like a drop in the bucket. That's a grand total of $1.14 billion a year, going to service organizations so that full-time workers get better pay, and so that across the board, more opportunities for volunteer service can be created. $1.14 billion is small change compared to the cost of, say, the war in Iraq, or the corporate bailout, or abstinence education, or any of a gajillion other government programs. And this one goes to education, community improvement, and infrastructure; it's $1.14 billion spent constructively. Seriously, you're just fishing for things to get upset about.
This is something that is tended to in Obama's first 100 days.
Yes, and it's something he talked about on the campaign trail, too. A politician who follows through on his campaign promises? Now that is shocking!
Debra, stop evangelizing and open your damn eyes. You've written your last several posts without reading (or at least understanding) a thing any of us have said, and you're getting bent out of shape over a bill that doesn't say what you think it does. Don't take our words for it: read the bill or the summary for yourself.
The longer you go talking about stuff that you haven't bothered to understand, the more silly you look. Yet again, you're blindly following the claims of the conspiracy sites without doing any thinking of your own. You are the sheep, Debra. Break out of the pen and do your own research; all you have to do is click the links above, I've done all the legwork for you.
Otherwise, you (and by association, your conspiracy story and your religion) just continue to look more and more absurd. If you're really hoping to convince us to start filling our cupboards with Ramen, you'll read the bill's summary and tell us what about it makes you so upset. You'll prove to us that you're capable of independent thought, not just a drone of the survivalist militia.
Also, how was your organic gardening class? Be careful of the E. Coli!
Is there any similarity between what typical volunteers do, and boot camp?
And even if there were millions of stealth soldiers with intense military discipline, what's to stop them breaking off from the tenuous command structure that connects them to... somebody, and overthrow their shadowy masters? I mean, if this is the conspiracy's frightening main force, none of them must have a shred of conscience. Killing one in twelve people is nearly guaranteed to take out someone that one of these soldiers will fight for.
It's just... if there are any left alive, and better, they'll be an inherently destabilizing influence.
But this is all ludicrous. The laundry list of groups that you provided should easily have enough money to absorb six billion. They could just pay directly through anonymous contributions rather than setting up everything in the open to save a few bucks.
The idea of the government 'hijacking' something (by... giving them money?) only makes sense if you refuse to look at the already-exposed internals. For example...
As governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin recently refused the state's bailout money. If you view this as Alaska refusing to take the money, this looks insane. But if you view this as a woman trying to build a reputation for the next Presidential primary, it makes perfect sense.
The only problem is, there are usually more people involved. And to see what the whole is doing, you ignore the existence of the parts.
And to add to that, His Anericorps is the SHIELD for hiding the new civilian army.
Where is your evidence for this claim? You still haven't read the bill, have you?
I'm sure our "civilian army" will have the...well, whoever they're fighting...shaking in their boots, when they see our crack forces made up of "Baby Boomers and older adults" and "displaced workers" and "youth under age 17." Yes, truly our civilian army will be a formidable force.
Surely Americans don't have ANY problems volunteering and this is NOT a concern of ours RIGHT NOW.
Surely a single mom from Texas knows the whole situation for the entire nation!
Yes, I imagine right now, Americans have lots of trouble volunteering. With the economy in the crapper, I imagine most people are looking for things to do with their time that will earn them copious amounts of money. The point of this bill is to create more volunteer programs to address real community problems, and to make those programs attractive to people despite the crappy state of the economy. That's why it's increasing the pay for full-time AmeriCorps workers, that's why it's providing educational credits for Americans 55 and older, that's why it's creating a Veterans' Corps under the AmeriCorps umbrella: to meet the needs of those groups of people, and to give them incentives to be involved in community improvement.
And the money! We are broke.
We are broke, yet we still need to fix our infrastructure. We are broke, yet local communities still have problems that need to be solved. This bill will give people opportunities for work. It will do so at a much lower cost than, say, trying to pay a corporation to do the same job.
Oh, it will give each person who signs up some money for college, right... That is the string to lure people in .
Actually, I don't think it is giving each person who signs up money for college. There are grants and fellowships involved, to be sure, but quite a few of those are going to older people who aren't going to college. What's more to the point is that it's giving people something to put on their résumés and college applications--and for some seniors, it's giving them educational credits.
And you're right, that's the incentive to lure people in, because quite a lot of people--especially people who are struggling to make ends meet--aren't going to volunteer if there's no benefit to them. It's luring people in so that the jobs get done. It's making volunteer work worthwhile to people who could otherwise be spending that time doing other, potentially more profitable (and potentially less constructive) things.
Given the choice between building houses for the impoverished and flipping burgers at McDonald's, the average fifteen-year-old is probably going to opt for the latter, since the latter gets him a paycheck. In order to get those houses built (or to do the other community service that needs to be done), the service organizations need to offer some kind of incentive to make the work more enticing than McDonald's.
Just wondering how the 4,000 dead servicemen and women are going to do with their college bonuses.
Just wondering what this has to do with anything about the bill you're talking about.
College bonuses... even I can come up with a plan better than that that won't cost ADDITIONAL dimes. The the millions and millions of people who want to continue with their generational welfaring.
Oh Jesus Christ on a stick, Debra. Yeah, find me the "millions and millions" of people who want to stay on welfare. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Add to those laws that there has to be "giving back". Community service for THEM. That seems very reasonable and just common sense.
There doesn't "have" to be community service from anyone, and you'd know that if you read the goddamn bill!
Incidentally, here are some relevant things that the bill does:
"Directs the Corporation [the Corporation for National and Community Service] to plan pilot programs to: (1) better target and serve displaced workers;"
"Authorizes the Corporation to provide grants to innovative and model service programs, including those for disadvantaged youth, youth under age 17, and potential recidivists."
"Authorizes new VISTA grant programs of national significance that provide poor and rural communities with: (1) services reintegrating formerly incarcerated individuals into society; (2) financial literacy and planning; (3) before-school and after-school services; (4) community economic development initiatives;"
Hm...displaced workers, formerly incarcerated individuals, youths, and potential recidivists. I wonder how many of those would fall under your vaguely bigoted umbrella of "generational welfare." Seems like this bill has provisions to get those people who are most likely to be on welfare out and doing good work for the community.
But, then, the people on welfare aren't the ones who should be volunteering. People on welfare should be looking for jobs, not looking for volunteer work. The people who should be doing volunteer community service are the ones who don't have to struggle to make ends meet, who don't have lots of kids to take care of while still looking for work or holding down a minimum-wage job. People, I don't know, like independently-wealthy mothers of grown kids who spend their money on canned goods and survivalist classes. When's the last time you helped out at a soup kitchen, Debra? Ever read to seniors at a retirement home? Ever work on a house with Habitat for Humanity? You've got free time, Debra, which makes you far more able to do volunteer work than someone with a lower income and dependent children.
But you'd rather be hoarding canned goods than donating them.
Oh and to add to earlier comments. I am not good with arguments like all of you are. I tried to do the line by line argument for awhile there and it was exhausting me. If ya'll want me to stop being on here just say so and I will. Sure it will embarrass me a little to be told or asked to leave. But I will.
You don't have to be good at arguments. You don't have to leave. You don't even really have to respond. What we're asking you to do is to actually think for yourself. Why are you so afraid of reading what HR 1388 actually does? I defy you to find one thing--one thing!--in there that's worth the kind of hysteria you've been promoting.
The more you post without reading what we've said, the more you repeat what you've read at conspiracy and survivalist sites, the more you look like you're not a reasonable person, Debra.
The person who blindly follows the conspiracy nuts is just as much a sheep as the person who blindly follows the government. Think for yourself. Do your own research.
To me and other nuts the similarity of volunteerism and boot camp is found in early Nazi Germany.
Could you care to elaborate on those similarities?
See, I can see similarities between volunteer service work and boot camp right here, without invoking the Nazis. Both the armed forces and service organizations are volunteer-staffed. Both look great on a résumé or college application. Both can potentially send you around the country or the world, depending on what organization you join up with. Both can potentially enable members to do great work in helping communities solve various problems. Both might involve physical labor. Both receive funding from the government.
See, lots of similarities. It doesn't follow, though, that volunteerism = boot camp. It doesn't follow, either, that the current United States is like early Nazi Germany. We can find similarities between any two things; it doesn't mean those two things are the same. Oranges and apples have seeds, are fruit, and can produce delicious juice, but oranges aren't apples.
Yes, volunteer service is liked armed service; it's also like firefighting, or police service, or any other service industry. None of them are mandatory for anyone, and HR 1388 doesn't make any of them mandatory for anyone. READ. THE. BILL. YOURSELF.
I don't have the time to read the whole bill because there is so much happening so fast.
I understand that; I don't have time either. It took long enough just to skim 310 pages of the weird writing style that legislation uses. That's why I repeatedly posted links to this tiny summary of the bill, in plain language that anyone can understand. It would take you less than five minutes to read through that, and would save you a lot of heartache.
and I am reading between the lines.
You can't read between lines you haven't read.
Today an email to me from the Constitution Party.
You realize, right, that the Constitution Party and the Libertarian Party are diametrically opposed on an awful lot of issues? Chief among them the separation of church and state and free speech issues?
Caution to those who would travel in the state of Missouri-
People who have 3rd party bumper stickers or stickers related to third party views are being pulled over by the Missouri police and questioned.
Evidence, please?
Incidentally, I've heard basically the same thing about Texas, except that they pull over anyone with an out-of-state license plate and a nice car.
TO IDENTIFY MILITIA OR DOMESTIC TERRORISTS
The February 20, 2009 report "The Modern Militia Movement ", the red flags to identify militia are these:
1- Political Bumper stickers for 3rd party candidates
2-talking about conspiracies such as the plan for the Super Highway linking Canada to Mexico.
Oh, hey, it's profiling! It only makes sense, really. I mean, if we're going to strip-search every brownish-colored person with a foreign name at the airport because 19 Arabs blew up the World Trade Center, we ought to be checking out every third-party white backwoods conservative militia nut, because groups of them have committed far, far more domestic terrorist attacks (Oklahoma City, Waco, the KKK, Army of God) than any Arabs.
Of course, I think it's stupid and unconstitutional, but it makes as much sense as pulling over black drivers and searching Arab airline passengers.
And again, I'd have to see actual evidence that it's happening. Considering how few people I see with third-party bumper stickers, I'd be surprised how anyone could find a trend in it.
I have two bumper stickers-
"I LOVE THIS COUNTRY, IT'S THE GOVERNMENT I DON'T TRUST" and......
"ANY SOCIETY THAT WOULD GIVE UP A LITTLE LIBERTY TO GAIN A LITTLE SECURITY WILL DESERVE NEITHER AND LOSE BOTH'...BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Great quotes. How about you add another: "I BRAKE FOR CRAZY THEORIES." Or "MY OTHER CAR IS ALSO BEING FOLLOWED." Or "IN CASE OF RAPTURE, THIS CAR WILL BE FILLED WITH DEHYDRATED FOOD." Or "I'LL BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU SAY AS LONG AS YOU CLAIM TO BE AGAINST A NONSENSICAL CONSPIRACY, AND I WON'T QUESTION IT AT ALL, THINK FOR MYSELF, OR DO MY OWN RESEARCH, BECAUSE I AM THE SHEEPLE THAT THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS WARNED ME ABOUT. PLEASE SELL ME SOME SURVIVAL GEAR."
I guess that last one might be too long for a bumper sticker.
Oh, by the way, in MONSANTO apples and oranges there are no seeds.
It doesn't take Monsanto to make seedless oranges, but I haven't seen seedless apples. Believe it or not, Debra, they can be made through traditional agriculture.
If you're so afraid of GMOs, then I recommend you not eat bananas, corn, or...well, anything else that's been produced by human agriculture and selective breeding. Genetic modification is just cross-breeding, but quicker, safer, and more well-controlled.
Yes, Monsanto seeds are exactly as you described.
I know. As usual, I've done the research.
But the side effect of that breakthrough in famine just happens to sterility. A side effect that just happens to make them mountains of money.
Debra, it's not a side-effect. It's an effect. Terminator genes are inserted intentionally so that the second-generation seeds are sterile. Yes, it would require farmers to buy more seed than they would otherwise (though there are non-GMO crops that don't produce sterile seeds either). Yes, one of the reasons for doing it is profit-driven: it protects Monsanto's intellectual property rights.
But part of the reason, and I daresay the reason it was developed, is that it addresses another of the anti-GMO propagandists' fears: cross-pollination. GMO crops with terminator genes would greatly decrease the chances of getting the transgenes for herbicide resistance, fungal resistance, pest repellent, and so forth, from getting into non-GMO plants--in particular weeds and other neighboring plants.
See, the thing that anti-GMO hysterics worry about so much (transplanting genes from one species to another) actually happens all the time between plants in the wild. There's a real risk of those genes that give GMO crops their awesome traits (which help feed millions more people than could be fed on older crop varieties) could get into weeds and other unwanted plants, creating new varieties of superweeds. Terminator genes sterilize the GMO crops, decreasing that risk.
So if Monsanto didn't use terminator genes and similar technologies, anti-GMO people would cry that they were ignoring the danger of cross-pollination. If they do use terminator genes, anti-GMO activists cry that they're hurting farmers in order to drive up their profits. Do you see the situation that the anti-GMO luddites have put groups like Monsanto in?
But I'm sure you'd just prefer we all switch to low-yield organic farming methods with outdated seed varieties, using heavy metal-laden natural animal fertilizers and losing large amounts of every harvest to pests, diseases, and general lack of quality. If the conspiracy were trying to whittle the Earth's population down to 500,000,000, that'd be a good way to do it. If every farm switched to organic methods, billions would starve.
And another side effect of those GMO seeds is that they happen to sterilize farms grown with Heirloom seeds.
What does that mean? Are you suggesting that the GMO crops somehow sterilize non-GMO crops? How would that even be possible? Again, evidence?
Thus making or eventually forcing the farmer to switch to the more" hearty" Monsanto.
Don't put "hearty" in quotation marks; GMO crops (depending on the variety) are designed to grow in more places, in harsher conditions, and with less damage to yield and quality from pests and other infectious agents. There is no doubt as to which is "heartier."
Thing is the farmer has to buy every year.
Farmers already have to buy every year. In this scenario, they might have to buy more. They also have to throw less of their annual harvest away, have to spend less on outdated fertilizers and excess pest- and herbicides, and get a larger overall yield. It's up to individual farmers to do the cost-benefit analysis on all that, but if the "benefit" pile didn't add up to more than the "cost" pile, no farmer would get Monsanto seed.
Destroying what mankind has done for thousands of years. COLLECT SEED
Shock and horror! It also works to undo something else that people have done for thousands of years: STARVE EN MASSE. I think it's an okay sacrifice.
You've drunk deep of the Kool-Aid, Debra, and you've clearly tried to change subjects from the grander conspiracy and Obama's terrible plan to build a civilian army that will fight in the terrible soup kitchen trenches. I wonder why you'd do that.
This video was just sent to me..
Walter Cronkite; I Am Glad to Sit On The Right Hand Of Satan.
And we're back to this crap again. Tell me, Debra, is this one a parody, a poorly-edited conspiracy screed, or an attempt to draw a bunch of cherry-picked historical facts into a semi-coherent narrative?
I'm not watching any more videos, Debra. Unless this one has actual evidence, then it's not worth my time. If you can't be bothered to read the summary of a House Resolution before you start running around screaming that Congress just caused the sky to start falling, then I can't be bothered to watch more crackpots cut-and-paste text into a video editor.
If it presents a good argument, then summarize it here. If it provides evidence, then tell us what the evidence is. Otherwise, a YouTube video is proof of nothing but your continued gullibility.
So are short summaries that can be read in 5-10 minutes at the most, but we don't see you looking at them.
I don't know if it is fake or not. Maybe you can tell me. it looks and sounds real.
Forgive me if I don't trust your judgment.
And why can't videos be seen as information. It's a damn good way to spread information.
It's also a damn good way to spread misinformation, which is part of why you got into this mess in the first place. But I didn't say anything about "information," I said something about evidence. Specifically, evidence that there's a global conspiracy. Evidence that HR 1388 is creating a drafted civilian army. Evidence that GMOs cause non-GMO fields to go sterile. Evidence for any of the claims you've made in the last hundred posts.
Or, at the very least, a good argument. Does the video have a good argument? Does it have any evidence for anything?
Thankfully, I don't need to wait for YouTube to load to find out. The Wikipedia entry on Cronkite has some of the speech quoted. Even more thankfully, I found the full text of Cronkite's speech (in two places, but neither one with the "right hand of Satan" line intact). I recommend you grow what's known in most circles as a "sense of humor," Debra. It would have saved you with that Onion video, and it would save you with this one.
I hate to explain the joke and thus rob it of any humor, but here's the jist: Cronkite, respected newsman, favors a centralized global government. You can agree or disagree with his arguments; I don't really care how you feel about it. In advocating such a government, he notes that some far-right Christians say that we won't (and can't) have a global government until Jesus comes back, and "Any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the Devil!" So according to Pat Robertson and the other far-right Christians Cronkite cites here, if you work for world peace and global governance, and Jesus hasn't come back yet, then you must be working for the Devil. If working for peace and global unity means working for the Devil, says Cronkite, then I guess I'm working for the Devil. And since I'm proud to be working for peace and global unity, says Cronkite, then I guess I'm proud to be working for the Devil.
In other words, Debra, he finds the Robertsonian notion that peace and global unity are the Devil's work to be patently absurd, and he is using humor to point out that absurdity.
Incidentally, this is the most complete video I could find of the speech (though I didn't look too hard), and it makes some really massive editing cuts. Most notably, a cut makes it look like he's accusing Pat Robertson of crimes against humanity, when even a casual glance at the actual speech reveals that he says nothing of the sort.
I notice that he stumbles a bit over the joke (and you might notice that the audience laughs. I guess someone got it), which suggests that he's ad-libbing, which would also explain why the joke isn't in the printed full-text versions of the speech.
So, again, where's the sinister plot for conspiratorial control of the Earth? I see a retired reporter espousing a political opinion that I don't agree with, and making a joke that I find funny and all too true. I don't see evidence for a plot to take over the world anymore than the stated goals of the Constitution Party constitute a plot to install a Christian Theocracy in the United States. Sure, the CP would like that, just like Cronkite and the WFA would like to have a global federal government, but I see nothing to suggest that either group has the means to accomplish either goal.
So are short summaries that can be read in 5-10 minutes at the most, but we don't see you looking at them.
Awww, SNAP!
So reading tonight I see yet more complete lack of humor, an odd appeal to nature and tradition, and a whine about GMO companies designing seeds that make them money.
Tom's already dealt with the Cronkite issue. I want to have a brief word on the other two.
Debra, who cares if humans have collected seed for thousands of years? Why does that make it better than modern technological advances in agriculture? Hell, agriculture is a late-breaking development in human history. For tens of thousands of years before it was developed, humans were exclusively hunter-gatherers. Between one thing and another, agriculture, which required technological innovations like plowing and terracing and irrigation, as well as the domestication of plant and animal life, worked better to feed the growing numbers of many cultures, and so tens of thousands of years of h/g were forgotten and people moved forward.
I can imagine a Late Natufian Debra screaming from the hilltops about the evils of agricultural advancement. "No!" she yells in some proto-Sumerian click language, "This is all wrong! You cannot trust the farmers who think we should only save the best, most robust seeds for next season's planting! It is unnatural to pick and choose which seeds to plant based on their overall success! It is dangerous! It is an affront to our ancestors who ate whatever was lying on the ground! Stop cultivating!"
Because, really, that's the neolithic equivalent of the anti-GMO craze. Luddism is Luddism, regardless of epoch. GMO foods are really no different than cultivated strains that are modified slowly over generations to meet specific societal and environmental needs; they just come faster and, despite your fear-mongering, with a higher level of safety and precision. Luddism is Luddism, regardless of epoch.
As for your whining that terminator genes allow major GM agricultural corporations to make more money by forcing farmers to buy seeds every year, well, a hippie might have a problem with that, but why do you? You've told us you're a Libertarian. A company protecting its IP and coming up with new ways to exploit their market to make a higher profit is just capitalism in action. Terminator genes are just a novel way to make more money for offering a product, and if the need to buy seeds every year doesn't sit well with farmers or agribusiness, well, then they're free to keep buying regular seeds and saving their own from year to year. So what's the problem? Clever marketing isn't exploitation, it's a smart investment.
So why the fuss over terminator genes?
You know what I don't understand? Even if you assume the NWO (a) exist, and (b) are up to Undefined Evil Schemes, what good is hoarding canned food in a bunker going to do? What are the NWO going to do to you that's worse than hiding in a bunker eating canned corn and being terrified for the rest of your life? Thanks, but I think I'd rather take slavery - at least you get to speak to people. I've done the whole hiding in the hills bit - it's fun for a while, but you wouldn't want to spend your entire life that way.
And that's it. My opinion is revised. Debra is not a nut, she is a complete and total fucking idiot. The threshold has been crossed, there's no point trying to reason with someone like this anymore. Maybe I just like the pain though. Even you must be at the end of your patience Tom!
See previous posts for the complete list of why so far, I'm only going with her most recent droolings here.
She admits quite clearly that she hasn't even read HR1388 (apparently stockpiling canned goods takes up so much time) - but she continues to make claims about it and for it, and then explains she is reading between the lines. YOU HAVEN'T READ ANY LINES DEBRA - YOU CAN'T READ BETWEEN THE LINES IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE LINES.
To claim otherwise would, well, make you look like an idiot.
So, your post on the 26th at 6:43 - not relevant. Americorps has not been hijacked. Only someone who had not read the bill and did not understand the bill would think so.
Where is your evidence that Americorps is a civilian army? Are you even vaguely aware of how much cost, time, effort and resources go into making an army? The money you cite for the bill would not even come close to doing all that AND keeping it secret.
Debra: I am not good with arguments like all of you are.
Oh oh, wait guys. Debra is not good at this. And here we all were labouring under the illusion that she was a master of the art.
You don't have to leave - you actually have to have an argument you can back up with evidence. You actually have to KNOW ABOUT THE THINGS YOU ARE MAKING CLAIMS ABOUT. You have to address counterpoints rather than pretend they just don't exist or are the product of an agent of Lucifer.
You have done nothing of the sort.
Debra: To me and other nuts the similarity of volunteerism and boot camp is found in early Nazi Germany.
Then you and other nuts clearly are complete and total fucking idiots.
But go on then, how exactly are there similarities between volunteerism and Nazi Germany? Boot camp and Nazi Germany could be a lot easier I guess, provided you actually explain what you mean by boot camp in this sense. But volunteerism and a facist dictatorship that carried out industrial genocide and attempted global domination via the most destructive war in the history of humanity. This I have to hear.
Don't be afraid to go into specifics, this is one of the areas I studied in some detail during my history degree and have studied in my own time since, and I'm always looking for new information.
Oh, by the way, in MONSANTO apples and oranges there are no seeds.
Oh, by the way, in the culinary bananas that you buy in a store there are no seeds. In wild, non-domesticated bananas there are. Think about it. It's a conspiracy stetching all the way back to Papau New Guinea in 5000 BCE (possibly even 8000 BCE).
Good grief.
Then, you fell for another joke didn't you Debra?
Truly you are exactly the sort of person that, if there were indeed a conspiracy, the perpetrators would just love - you believe anything you are told or shown on a video WITHOUT QUESTION. You are an IDEAL believer. And you say that we are naive.
Debra: I don't know if it is fake or not. Maybe you can tell me. it looks and sounds real. And why can't videos be seen as information. It's a damn good way to spread information.
So videos never lie? You do remember listing the Media Establishment and THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA as groups involved in the conspiracy, don't you? Videos apparently only lie when they don't reinforce your opinion, right Debra? If you agree with it then it is information, but if you don't, it can't be trusted. Right?
Videos are an excellent way to spread DIS-information too. How do you know which is which Debra?
I'm not sure if this is exasparating, horrifying, a Poe or a bad dream. can anyone really be this obtuse and wilfully, blissfully ignorant?
Until Debra starts to actually address an argument and the counters to it, I see no reason why anyone should politely try and point out the failings again.
can anyone really be this obtuse and wilfully, blissfully ignorant?
Oh, hell yes. Sorry.
I was getting at this in another thread, but taking it to the next level would be psychoanalysis, and therefore best suited to here.
Debra... there are some things that I think I grasp now... You're putting yourself into a role normally occupied by characters in stories. There are certain patterns... you don't let anybody else let you feel safe, I think, not unless they tell you what you want to hear. When you heard about YouTube accounts being targeted, you acted idealistically, and took the 'underdog' role, even though, in that instance, you were either neutral or somewhat affiliated with the aggressors. As unromantic as insisting on shades of gray sounds, there is a lesson to be learned... in essence, as I see it, you've seen so much black-and-white that you can't understand what gray looks like. You have to see past this fantasy of immutable moral standing.
Good people, under the right conditions, can be made to commit atrocities. It's not even for reasons of greed, it's just that people will abdicate responsibility for their actions, even if they seem to be threatening someone else's life. (The experiments that established this are controversial for reasons of testing ethics, but the results are sound.)
But I really do think you're fitting your perception of reality to, in effect, narrative convenience. Siding with the underdog, against big organizations, which are sinister because of their size; something that powerful makes a credible opponent. (Wom/M)an vs society. (On the one hand, I'm against normative patterns of language. On the other... eeeew) But that's not the shape of it at all... there are so many people fighting to change society that there's not the same kind of rebellion in play. And the way you put things together... you can never truly learn in an ad-hoc world... If the conspiracy truly controls all knowledge, then you know now, everything that you will ever know.
This is a dead end... step out of it.
Wait, was that during the maintenance, or before it? And that sounds like a different problem, like YouTube was having trouble. The skeptical channels have trouble with YouTube's setup, in and of itself. (possibly, some of the problems you saw were from votebot attacks, or something like that. There are jerks out on the web.)
As to the story... Now, understand that I sometimes have difficulty appreciating things... But what were you trying to say? That you felt calmer then than you have before, or something like that?
I'm not familiar with YouTube maintenance policy, but said problems probably are the reason why they took it down for maintenance.
Hey Debra, what's with deleting all your posts? That's no fun. And not even an explanation why.
Anyway, here's some news about the Amero you were so worried about:
Amero
...Wow. Didn't know she did that, since I don't get notifications for deletions. Didn't think she was the type to volunteer for the memory hole.
Oh, well. We've got some decent chunks of her quoted in our responses.
I never knew what i was getting involved with. Bronze Dog knew when he gave me his blog address what all of you would say to me. I reread the entire blog that is why I deleted my portion. Reread it, hear yourselves.
Whether ya'll admit to it or not, you are a mean bunch. How you can spend that much energy on being hateful, I don't know.
I address Bronze Dog now..
Yes, we're the mean bunch, Debra. I mean, you accused us all of being "sheeple" who work for the Devil, and all we do is "tear down," while you're bravely fighting the conspiracy (which, as atheists and bloggers in the alternative media, includes us) by stockpiling food and ammo for the coming non-zombie apocalypse and jumping at shadows in comic shops.
We've been so mean, trying to show you that you're being played for a fool by survivalists and nutters, who are perfectly happy lying to you if it means you'll buy more jerky. We've been so mean, worrying about how your paranoid apocalyptic delusions are having adverse effects on your life and the life of your family. We've been so mean, asking that you actually pay attention to the things we're saying and fact-check your beliefs with something other than YouTube videos and conspiracy websites. We've been so mean, getting frustrated when you refuse to follow simple links or even consider the possibility that you're wrong, that a system of unsupported beliefs which have already suckered you into accepting myths (the Priory of Sion) and hoaxes (the Onion video) as evidence might have fooled you into believing other untrue things as well.
Yes, Debra, I'm sure we'll all go back and reread what we've written. And I, for one, won't feel ashamed about any of it. Throughout this conversation, I think I've been charitable to a fault and more than patient, even as you've clearly refused to engage in even the smallest bit of critical thinking. Even after it was obvious that you're convinced of your own infallibility in detecting the machinations of the One World Shadow Governmentinati, I continued to try to address your claims in civil terms, in the vain hope that you'd actually listen and stop ruining your life preparing for and worrying about an Armageddon that will never happen.
Debra, once again, I suggest you follow your own advice: reread what you wrote (well, what's left, anyway) and see how insane it sounds. Your conspiracy story is self-contradictory and falls apart under even the most basic scrutiny. Try to shut down your emotional attachment to the conspiracy claims for a moment and examine them in an objective, critical light, and see how well they actually stack together. Or ask your psychiatrist to do so.
On the other hand, you could just continue blissfully on in your delusion, which comforts you by assuring you that you have special knowledge and understand the truth of how the world works. That's certainly much better than accepting reality on its terms. Truth hurts; truth is hard to accept, reality is painful. No, much better to believe the comforting lie.
Tom Foss, you are a bitter man.
It would be a very, very good idea to consider why he is "bitter", debra. You're a tough woman to debate, no flattery intended.
Actually, Tom isn't, in my experience, very bitter at all. You're just completely unable to understand what's really going on around you because you insist on filtering everything through your preconceptions.
"Frustrated" would probably be a better word...
I'm sorry Tom. I shouldn't have said that.
Debra:
You were afraid that what you wrote might make you sound like a complete nutter. It did.
So you very bravely deleted it all.
I can't help but think that if someone really, truly believed what they had written, and really truly wanted to help others understand they would have left their words there regardless of how others had reacted to them. Regardless of how mean we might have been, if you believed your words were true they should still stand. They should have still meant something.
But you deleted them.
Which leaves you with some interesting unanswered questions, doesn't it Debra?
Man, my girlfriend is a conspiracy theorist. She believes in all this stuff and I just don't get it. She spent so much energy memorizing all these facts and stuff trying to prove that the Government is evil and trying to kill us all and I just asked,
"What are you going to do about it? What are all these facts going to do about the problem?"
I don't know how to convince her it's a worthless thing to invest effort into. And it scares me because I don't know if she's insane or she is just buying into some jerk's theory that "sounds" like it makes sense.
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