Boston Teabagger on NPR: "I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

[Odin2005]

The NPR reporter pointed out to the woman that Obama cut taxes for 95% of us and she responds with "I don't believe that". :eyes:

This shit really annoys me. For how much the wing-nuts like to attack us for "Relativism" they sure have a problem with differentiating between opinion and objective truth. How sad we have become as a society in that OBJECTIVE FACTS can be dismissed as "just your opinion". Postmodernist brain rot and Right-Wing Nut brain rot is not a pretty combination. It seems to be the lack of respect for the objective nature of facts is destroying our society.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

1. It's the same thing

a three year old does. It's called throwing a tantrum..........
Since they can't have what they want, they reject what clearly IS! :)

[Odin2005]

3. Yep, just like a my 11yo niece going "NUH-UH!!!"

[ixion]

2. Indeed. And this is not just a simple issue with objectivity

The deep-structure of language has been fractured by allowing complete fabrications to stand as a comparison to factual data.

That is, as speakers of a common language, we no longer agree on a basic set of semantics that define 'reality' at a rudimentary level. As such, there can be no meaningful discussions.

We are reliving the shattering of the Tower of Babel, in essence.

[DCKit]

5. In that case, when does the tribe of teahadii wander off into the desert...

never to be heard from again?

[Odin2005]

6. Very good point. Linguist George Lakoff has wrote a lot on that.

It's like people live in totally different mental realities. it's scary.

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. The difference between Teabaggers and Tamarians is that Darmok was sensible, after a fashion.

It's difficult to comprehend the delusional.

Shaka, when the walls fell.

[marmar]

4. "I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

That's pretty much their approach to everything.

[ShortnFiery]

7. The political elites at NPR, et. al. are laughing their asses off: Divide and conquer baby!

:evilgrin:

[ClassWarrior]

8. Here's the article... This story needs lots of media attention.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125917175&ft=1&f=1006

NGU.

[Odin2005]

10. Thanks!

[RKP5637]

9. The innate capabilities of teabaggers leave a lot to be desired in the real world of

reality. I don't know if it's the result of our dumbed down society, inbreeding or simply a reflection of the vast distortions today. ...probably some combination and several other factors. One can believe what they want, right or wrong, and find plenty of support. AM radio discovered this long ago and Fox News is a mirror of AM radio IMO. It makes for a dangerously ignorant society, ripe for manipulation.

Also, the generational memory is fading, few remember the horrors of the rise of dictators. The teabaggers don't even understand the meanings of the "...isims" they throw around in speech and on their signs. ..few seem to know history, and many have no concept of how the government operates... and from what I've seen/heard, few know anything about the rest of the world.

What you said is quite correct, they are a product of, "Postmodernist brain rot and Right-Wing Nut brain rot is not a pretty combination. It seems to be the lack of respect for the objective nature of facts is destroying our society."

This nation is becoming the laughingstock of the world.

[unpossibles]

14. it's the planned result of their programming

First, using people like Rush Limbaugh they got people to distrust information (the media, education, science, experts, people who can spell and speak well) in order to fill the void with their propaganda (FOX, Newsmax, etc.) of choice. It worked wonders; when I've tried to use facts to debate one of the more stubborn dittoheads, they just clam up and say they don't believe the liberally biased news. It makes it easier for them to ignore.

[RKP5637]

19. Yep, I've tried too and I might as well go talk to a rock... n/t

[BlancheSplanchnik]

27. also they have no interest in learning. No intellectual curiosity.

Stubborn and damned proud of it.

There are tons of topics here that I'm pretty unfamiliar with, and truckloads of perspectives...for me and most of us, we know when we have a lot to learn and we want to know more. (welll, some people parade around a distinctly ignorant attitude about certain subjects, but that's different....or maybe not so different. The stubborn "you can't tell me anything, and I'll insult the hell out of you" aggression is similar to the bags')

Hate-laced stupidity is pretty scary. I don't like the way mass media colludes with that.

[RKP5637]

30. +1000, n/t

[smoogatz]

11. Just heard the piece.

She was wildly disingenuous, seemed to me. Claimed to be "just a housewife" who was moved to protest the bailouts (Bush's program, mind you), but then started whining about how liberal Massachusetts politics are. You can't claim to be basically non-partisan in one breath, and then slam your adopted state's liberal politics in the next. Unless you're a moron, that is. And I guess if you "don't believe" in the objective facts of evolution, and you "don't believe" that human activity can alter the climate, despite the obvious evidence, then choosing not to believe that Obama cut your taxes is a pretty small imaginative leap. It's the intellectual equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and saying "neener neener neener--I can't hear you!"

[Bitwit1234]

12. I would have probably got cut off the air because

I would have said "Well all you racist KKK's have your head up your ass how to expect to know what is going on?"

[rudy23]

13. Sadly, denial is the trump card. How do you win an argument with someone who flatly denies reality?

You don't, which is why they win all the arguments. Being "right" has little to do with who wins a debate.

[Odin2005]

25. Pretty much.

It's much like trying to argue with a solipsist, or a creationist who uses the "How can you prove that the whole world, including your memories and all evidence of the past, were not created last Tuesday?" argument. Ultimately this is not a question of objective facts, it's a question of how one values such objective facts. Deciding to respect logic and empirical evidence is, after all, itself a non-rational value judgment.

[Stevenmarc]

15. Cognitive dissonance a teabagger requirement

[smoogatz]

17. Bingo.

In fact the teabagger thing isn't at all about taxes (Obama cut them), and it isn't at all about bailouts (Bush started them). It's about the fact that a black Democrat is president, and Democrats are the majority in both houses of congress. Period. It's a desperate (and often hilarious and slightly crazy) attempt to keep conservatism relevant despite rapidly changing demographics and an utter lack of actual ideas with any kind of popular appeal. Conservatism is still about deregulation and cutting taxes for the rich, and keeping the nation on a perpetual war footing economically (and actually, if need be). It's also about bigotry and nativism and throwing a giant shitfit if you lose a couple of elections.

[TalkingDog]

18. Here's the bumpersticker that says it all.

http://www.zazzle.com/the_teabaggers_creed_bumper_sticker-128553966373868826?rf=238589910366818801



Buy about 50 of these and slap them on any vehicle that has any republican tagging on it.

[bamacrat]

16. Somebody watched Myth Busters.

That is what Adam says in the intro.

[librechik]

20. When you give them a "news outlet" that spews lies 24/7 all dressed up as "reality"

And all the other news outlets bow down and let them do it without a whimper, certainly the more impressionable types are going to believe it (if it's what they want to hear in their evil and intolerant little hearts)

[Bobbie Jo]

21. This is *the* most cogent statement I have ever seen, coming

from a bagger.

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

That pretty much sums it up. :thumbsup:

[Orsino]

22. He may have cut their taxes, but he's still black. n/t

[Toucano]

23. Is it really so different from the people who can't accept the principles of evolution?

I guess it's no small wonder.

[Kablooie]

26. Adam Savage has coined the motto of the conservative movement. The above phrase.

[csziggy]

29. If the Mythbusters trademarked that phrase, they should sue! n/t

[Odin2005]

28. KICK

[Mudoria]

31. Being ignorant and uninformed is one thing..

being willfully ignorant and uninformed is quite another. The Teabaggers have the last part covered to a T.

[jbnow]

32. I bothered to answer some comment after an article I read. The comment

was an open letter to Obama and was so filled with factual errors. It ended with the infamous "we want our country back" and it was from "the patriotic people of the United states". Several people agreed with post and they were all bitching about the huge tax increases we'd start paying this year.

My answer was pretty polite but it corrected many of the errors, links included so they wouldn't have to take my word. Unless they were smokers there taxes had not gone up and if they are middle class they had gone down already.

They explained my naivety to me. The tax cut wasn't real. They were getting more in checks but they'd have to pay it all back and more when they filed their taxes with increased penalties when they couldn't pay all they would owe.

Oh and by the way...to their common Obama/teleprompter/doesn't even know what he is saying I asked how they thought he could sound so knowledgeable at press conferences and in interviews they had that answer to. His handlers made him memorize answers to the top 20 questions he might be asked and he practiced them a lot

I don't know why I bothered, it was silly. Still as ridiculous as they are if it turns out Obama is a socialist, marxist, fascist communist who is a secret muslim terrorist trained from his youth to become president and destroy America... well we will owe them an apology.

[Odin2005]

33. Wow, that is some major stupid right there.

[Jim__]

34. First of all, postmodernism is not brain rot.

Postmodern philosophy is a serious philosophical consideration of problems with human knowledge and implicit assumptions. From a very short article on postmodern philosophy:

In an article from Rhizomes, Post-Modernism is defined as,

suspicion of metanarratives, foundational assumptions, totalising theories, utopian ambitions, large pronouncements of any kind.<1> (My emphasis) Although a negative definition, Post-Modernism is distinct from Modernism. Modernism is the philosophical view that holistic, reflexive, identitiarian and foundational systems of thought can and do accurately mirror or be identical with the truth of things. The systems of Plato, Aristotle, Scholastic Philosophical-Theology, German Idealism and Marxism are prime examples of the 'Western rationalist, universalist paradigm' that Post-Modernism has issues with.

...

The relevance of Post-Modernism's insights to Foundational, Totalising and Utopian philosophies is that they prevent the latter's pretensions to Closure. By means of this short overview of Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault, I hope to have highlighted the theme of the prevention of closure and the openness to the new. The difference of Post-Modernism is that it prevents Closure.

Closure is Finality and Finality is (assumed) infallibility. Ontologically and epistemologically, Post-Modernism prevents the doorkeeper of assumed Finality slamming the door shut in the name of monopoly Truth, whether the door be that of the University or the Internment camp.

I'm not trying to defend teabaggers here. But OBJECTIVE FACTS are not always as easy to establish as your post implies. For instance, take the "95% of us" claim. I'm not sure what that's based on, and I'm not saying that it's untrue. However, if the claim is based on an income tax cut, then it really can't apply to 95% of us, because less than 95% of us actually pay income tax. Like I said, I don't know, and not knowing, I can claim not to believe it and can rationally ask for the documentation.

I agree that teabaggers are unreasonable. But, part of our problem in discussing things with people we disagree with is ambiguities in language that often lead to us actually referring to different things using the same terms.

[mwooldri]

35. That guy is living on a houseboat on an Egyptian River. nt

[alarimer]

36. They refuse to believe anything they do not want to believe.

There have been actual studies in cognitive science that show that people who believe things that are simply wrong do not change those beliefs when confronted with the truth. In fact they cling to those beliefs even more. I don't know if you would call it denial or what but it seems to be a cognitive defect especially among right-wingers. I do think there is some truth in the quip "reality has a well-known liberal bias".

It is why more-educated people tend to be more liberal and less-educated people tend to be more conservative.