On Conspiracy Theories

Posted: April 18, 2020 by ng36b in catholic
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People never cease to amaze me. I am used to reading Chinese, North Korean and Russian propaganda. It’s comical to read, but sad when you think that 20% of the world’s population has to read this garbage due to censorship.

So imagine my frustration when a friend sent me this:

And I’m pouring myself a glass of plentiful water being like

How are you supposed to respond to these things? It’s not the first time, and over the years, I’ve tried various strategies. The three I’ve settled on I like to call Truth, Ridicule and Instigation.

Truth

You can always fight lies with truth. A while back I was trying to sort through the hype about the HPV Vaccine. My doctor at work said it was fine, but I had heard stories about it acting as a contraceptive. So I dove in, reading an awful lot of technical papers. Turns out, the one study that said the vaccine was a contraceptive was poorly done, and every Catholic source I found said the vaccine is fine, although also recommending it not be mandated.

Ridicule

Watch Baghdad Bob in action at about the 7 minute mark!

The invasion of Iraq exposed many Americans to the Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, or more commonly known as Baghdad Bob. During the invasion, we were inundated with interviews where Baghdad Bob would deny claims that any American forces had entered Iraq or Baghdad, with such memorable quotes as “They’re coming to surrender or be burned in their tanks.” and “There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!” Americans, in typical American fashion, were not impressed, and soon al-Sahaaf was featured on countless memes, YouTube videos and even had a website devoted to him.

From http://www.holtorf.com

Instigation

Instead of fighting the allegation, you force it one level deeper. When someone asked me whether 5G caused COVID-19, I told them “Only the Huawei 5G. That’s why we have to build 5G from Verizon.” Or when someone claims that climate change is a government conspiracy, I tell them “It’s worse than that. Ever since the U.S. captured the Nazi weather machine in Svalbard, our scientists have been making all sorts of dangerous changes!”

A good instigation has a kernel of truth that is easy to find on the Internet. In the 5G case, its the push by the U.S. to build their own 5G infrastructure. In the climate case, its the (true) fact that the Nazi’s had a weather outpost on Svalbard that was one of the last places to surrender during the war. Heck, the Nazis even had a weather station in Canada! Maybe the Inuits were working with the Nazis to overthrow the Canadian government…nah, couldn’t be true, could it?

You can easily do your own instigation, and you should! The best format is:

  • Hyperbole – Actor – Kernel of Truth – Outright Lie –

My favorites are:

Hypberole:
It’s worse than you know…
I have insider information…
A study that was covered up said…
I found this site on the Dark Web that said…

Actors:
The radical left
The vast right-wing conspiracy
The underground Communist movement
Russian spies
Vatican II
The Nazis
The Illuminati

Truth and Lies are easy, a bit of Googling and you’ll learn some interesting history. Occasionally, places like the Onion help you out, like when they reveal that government vaccine trackers malfunctioned.

Instigation seems cruel, but the more I used it, it made me realize two things. First, when you learn about history, you realize that governments are made of people that are flawed. Conspiracy theorists will connect a few dots of information to come up with some wild accusation, while the reality is a lot more mundane. I tell people that the golden rule for government conspiracy is “Never attribute to government conspiracy what is better left to incompetence, greed or lust for power.“

Applying that to the current status of Michigan’s COVID-19 shutdown is perfect. The current Governor is a jerk. She’s using the crisis to push her own agenda, beat down on people she doesn’t like, and it wouldn’t surprise me if she profits from it in some way. But is she part of a bigger conspiracy? Doubtful. You’d be giving her too much credit by saying that.

The other thing I realized is that we’re all sucked into conspiracy. Plenty of people reading this will think they are somehow too smart to be fooled by conspiracy. To that I say, you’re not. Lots of people believed Bernie Sanders and/or Donald Trump was being funded by the Russians. People doubted whether Barack Obama was a U.S. citizen, despite the FBI having investigated the matter. People still believe there are UFOs at Area 51.

On a small scale though, we all fall victim to this. How many people think drinking 8 glasses of water a day is recommended? Or that flossing your teeth is a good thing? Despite living in the information age, we’re terrible at actually challenging our beliefs. We could read about vaccines and flossing, sift through campaign finance records, and learn about unique history…or we could share social media posts that appeal to our emotions instead of reason.

Humans are unique for many reasons, but perhaps the biggest is our ability to reason and logically question the world around us. Social media makes it too easy to be lazy, put people in stereotyped boxes, and accept old-wives tales as truth. We could all do better.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

Right Thing Smart Thing Sugar Daddy Edition

Posted: April 18, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Guy to woman at bar: Will you have sex with me for $1,000,000?

Woman: Well, [pauses] yeah, sure.

Guy: Will you have sex with me for $100?

Woman: [offended] What kind of girl do you think I am?

Guy: We’ve already established that, we’re just haggling over price now.

Very old joke unknown author

Two days ago Stacy McCain took down a post on the murder of Mackenzie Lueck due to objections by some of his kids to its tone.. In said post (which he stands behind despite taking it down) he objected to Ms. Lueck’s friend’s instance that we must to critique the choices that led to her murder and closes thus:

If grown-ups don’t warn girls against this stuff, peer pressure will continue leading many of them down the same road that led Mackenzie Lueck to her grave. Her anonymous friend can try to rationalize this “sugar baby” racket as something other than what it really is, and argue that “society” is wrong to condemn such behavior, but none of that can change the bottom line: “When they’re dead, they’re just hookers.”

The final line being from an episode of the Adult animated series Archer which by an odd coincidence I had just watched the day before.

Now while I see how that might offend some the point is very correct so let me put this into a context that might be readily understood and be less offensive to those of delicate sensibilities.

It is my understanding that young women have turned to “Sugar daddies” to pay for expensive colleges much like Miriam Weeks choose to become porn star Belle Knox porn star to help pay the tuition at Duke. That being the case let me ask this hypothetical question:

If a college operated a program where rich boosters could buy the, shall we say “companionship” of these young ladies (either for themselves or for student athletes as a perk for recruitment) how would feminists react?

Would they suggest that this is an excellent idea as these would be known men who would be less likely to present a physical danger and would not involve traveling and meeting people at 3 am somewhere? Or would they be shocked and angry at a college facilitating rich boosters using their wealth to obtain sex from young woman?

I submit and suggest that there is no moral difference between the pair. They’re both prostitution under a different name and the spiritual and psychological consequences are the same and I would highly advise any young woman considering such a path to reconsider. Once you start renting yourself out as a man’s sexual property you’ll find men will start treating you as property to be bought and sold. Much better to go to a less expensive school and own yourself completely instead of being the rental property of others.

After all is that really the “equality” you want for yourself?

DaTechGuy’s AM Court Livestream 9:30 AM Friday Topics MSM Reade or Not @POTUS the man with a Opening plan, WHO are you fooling

Posted: April 17, 2020 by datechguy in baseball, business, DaTechGuy's Quick Thoughts, economy, entertainment, News/opinion, podcast, politics, primaries, Sports, trade
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

It’s time for the lastest edition of DaTechGuy’s Friday Morning Court now permanently moved to 9:30 AM EST on Friday’s

Today’s topics

  1. MSM Reade or not?
  2. Trump the Man with an Opening Plan
  3. WHO are you fooling?
  4. and misc including Catching Mike Trout and product placement

You can watch the livestream here starting a 9:30 AM EST

Remember this is completely a tip jar operation we’re looking to pick up an extra $180 a month via dapodcast we need another $135 for April so if you like what you see consider hitting DaTipjar and if you’re not in a position to then like the video or spread it around and subscribe as I’m a few hundred Youtube subscribers away from qualifying for ad cash on the channel.

The Democrats held up the Coronavirus stimulus so they could try and steal elections

Posted: April 16, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

It is absolutely unconscionable that Speaker Nancy Pelosi held up the Coronavrius relief package for about a week in order to advance a progressive wish list.  The worst provisions of this progressive wish list were those that were supposed to federalized elections.  This would have guaranteed that Democrats would win the majority of all elections going forward, especially presidential elections.

The provisions imposing voting by mail and same day registration on all states would have opened US elections to an enormous amounts of fraud.  This is nothing compared to the amount of fraud that would have unleashed on US elections if the provision discussed in this Breitbart article Pelosi ‘Stimulus’ Bill Imposes Nationwide ‘Ballot Harvesting’ Without ‘Any Limit’ was imposed on all 50 states.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s new stimulus bill would mandate nationwide “ballot harvesting,” allowing party operatives to return other people’s ballots to polling places without “any limit” on the number of ballots.

“Ballot harvesting” was legalized in California in 2016, and first used in the 2018 midterm elections. It allows anyone to drop off someone else’s mail-in ballot at a polling station. There is no process for vetting or verifying those delivering the ballots — no background checks or identification requirements. Democrats dropped hundreds of thousands of ballots off at polling stations in 2018, helping Democrats as they flipped seven Republican seats.

Here is the actual text of the ballot harvesting provision.

shall permit a voter to designate any person to return a voted and sealed absentee ballot to the post office, a ballot drop-off location, tribally designated building, or election office so long as the person designated to return the ballot does not receive any form of compensation based on the number of ballots that the person has returned and no individual, group, or organization provides compensation on this basis; and (B) may not put any limit on how many voted and sealed absentee ballots any designated person can return to the post office, a ballot drop off location, tribally designated building, or election office.

When Nancy Pelosi attempted to insert the ballot harvesting provision into the bailout legislation she knew well that it will lead to Democrats stealing elections because it succeeded when it was tried in California.  This is documented in the Breitbart article Blue State Blues: Democrats Stole the Election in California — Legally, Through ‘Ballot Harvesting’

California Democrats “stole” the midterm election using a new method that is illegal elsewhere but completely legal in the Golden State: a practice called “ballot harvesting,” which allows third parties to submit mail-in ballots for voters.

The practice explains several mysteries about the 2018 election, such as: why mail-in ballots caused massive shifts toward Democrats in races Republicans thought they won on Election Night; why Republicans won the turnout battle in the primary, but lost it in the general election; and why Democrats with party backing defeated fellow Democrats without it — even when the latter had more money.

It is true that the proposed changes to election law could favor both parties however the Democrats have demonstrated a remarkable proclivity for cheating and fraud.  That is because they have embraced Marxist philosophies and Saul Allinsky’s Rule for Radicals. Their success is documented in this San Francisco Chronicle article

California Democrats took advantage of seemingly minor changes in a 2016 law to score their stunningly successful midterm election results, providing a target for GOP unhappiness that is tinged with a bit of admiration…Few people noticed when Gov. Jerry Brown signed the changes in AB1921 into law two years ago. In the past, California allowed only relatives or people living in the same household to drop off mail ballots for another voter. The new law allowed anyone, even a paid political campaign worker, to collect and return ballots — “harvesting” them, in political slang.

In Orange County alone, where every House seat went Democratic, “the number of Election Day vote-by-mail dropoffs was unprecedented — over 250,000,” Fred Whitaker, chairman of the county Republican Party, said in a note to supporters. “This is a direct result of ballot harvesting allowed under California law for the first time. That directly caused the switch from being ahead on election night to losing two weeks later.”

Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republicans must hold strong.  They must make sure the Democrats never take control of our electoral system.

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