Yes, they are conspiring together. It’s a vast right wing conspiracy.
Or maybe the NYT and WaPO have the same articles but are behind paywalls, and you would have discovered that if you read.
Joseph McCarthy was right. The US state department and a bunch of journalists were indeed compromised by the KGB. Read about the Venona Project.
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It’s been part of the right’s approach to politics for decades. Too many people think history started with the internet.
Now you are looking at it from the point of view of the voters, not which political group has made it part of their DNA.
You don’t think it went both ways?
What about Hollywood’s blacklist? If you read the article, what about Oppenheimer? You cast a wide enough net… And it’s troubling as an American to think another American would defend McCarthy.
This may be a sensitive subject for some, but is buying into conspiracy theories equal between both sides? I recently was reading an article that suggested that it was quite plausible that the American right was indeed more likely to believe outlandish conspiracies.
Basically, the idea is that those who are willing to take things like religious beliefs without proof are more willing to believe other things without much proof. When a good portion of the right’s voting base is evangelical, it isn’t much of a stretch to say in general they may be more gullible.
Additionally, if you look at self identified Republicans’ beliefs in things in which are clearly not true (age of the earth being under 10,000 years, evolution did not occur, etc…) are at a much higher rate than on the left.
It’s troubling as an American that senior officials in the state department were working for the KGB at a time when the state department made recommendations like:
Supporting Mao over Shang Kai Shek. Roughly 100 million dead.
Supporting Castro.
Well, we all know that the KGB were the first spies to exist in the entire history of history. McCarthy was a genius to figure out that they existed and then launch a campaign (we refer to it as McCarthyism) that accused everyone and their pet dogs of being a communist. I’m surprised we didn’t start a covert intelligence agency. I mean, why let the Soviets have all the fun? McCarthy would have been a great chief of the thought police.
The Salem Witch Trials are an example of this.
You going to provide evidence, or is this something you expect us to believe without proof?
He was throwing a question out there. You are way too sensitive.
But I’ll give you some evidence: The Dreyfus Affair and the rise of an antisemitism based on a global conspiracy which then led to the creation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Men like Drumont were on the political right and also believed in clericalism.
Even Henry Ford, who had ordered copies of the Protocols to be printed in America, by that time had become a part of the extreme right. He also believed that WW1 and 2 were caused by Jewish businessmen.
The only assertion I really made is that in general republicans have higher rates of things like believing in a young earth, and disbelief in evolution.
Here is research for that.
The reason I did not include a source is that inclusion of a source generally leads to a argument about the reliability of the source.
The only claims I made are pretty easy to back up though, and pew is pretty much just data, so I am okay with posting a source for you.
He didn’t really throw a question out there. He just used a question mark and then answered his question, but didn’t provide evidence of his answer. That’s ironic because his claim was regarding the fact that some people believe things without evidence.
And saying that you read an article about something is a pretty classic way to try to give something standing without actually citing evidence.
The Dreyfus Affair is an example of a right wing conspiracy theory. It doesn’t prove that there are more right wing conspiracies than left wing conspiracies (or that they are more widely believed). Thus, it isn’t evidence of the claim being made.
As far as me being too sensitive, that’s silly. You can’t simply make a claim and then try to say anyone who disagrees with you (or even asks for evidence, since I didn’t explicitly disagree with him) is too sensitive. That’s also a classic logical fallacy. If he didn’t want to have a discussion, he didn’t need to make a point. It’s a politics forum. Wanting to discuss politics isn’t being oversensitive.
No rules were broken here. I made an assertion about republicans not believing in evolution at higher rates than democrats. You asked for evidence, then I replied with evidence.
That is the normal process of debate.
I made the mistake of assuming it was obvious that republicans believed in young earth, and that evolution did not occur, at higher rates than dems.
BTW, here is evidence for the young earth belief claim.
It’s more or less obvious more Republicans believe in young earth. Your claim was:
"I recently was reading an article that suggested that it was quite plausible that the American right was indeed more likely to believe outlandish conspiracies.
Basically, the idea is that those who are willing to take things like religious beliefs without proof are more willing to believe other things without much proof."
You haven’t provided evidence of this claim. Really, it’s the more important and striking claim of your post. You made an easy to back up, undisputed claim regarding young earth and evolution. Then you jumped to a more difficult to back up claim regarding generalizing the first claim. When pressed for evidence of your claim, you provided only evidence for the first claim, without evidence for its general applicability.
I did not make that assertion / claim, I merely threw out a likely explanation. It is the difference between saying “this is what happened”, vs “this could explain what happened”.
You might have missed the “may” in my post. I did not assert that they are indeed more gullible, just that was a likely explanation.
I am looking for discussion here.
???
You could always provide evidence. Also, it does prove that there is one more right wing theory than left wing, as you have shown zero. And owning one of the most ridiculous, and deadly, theories that ever existed is something to be proud of, no?
See my response above.
Right wing: we believe that Jews are conspiring to take over the world, let’s kill them all (this theory of Jewish world domination still exists btw and forms a part of many CTs. From Jews controlling banks to controlling Hollywood and its commie agenda).
Left wing: we believe that Republicans are conspiring to end Bill Clinton’s presidency.
One is probably true and at the very least, not crazy. Which one would that be?
We could apply this to the following as well:
Right wing: Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya who is going to take away our guns, declare himself Sultan of America and institute Sharia Law.
Left wing: The Republican controlled Congress is working to oppose Obama every step of the way to make sure his presidency is a failure.
Left Wing: Trump has been a Russian sleeper agent since 1987 secretly groomed to work with Putin since the times of the Soviet Union.
Right Wing: The Ukraine whistleblower voted for Hillary.
Just because I can come up with examples of crazy things from one side and a reasonable theory from the other side doesn’t mean a thing about the balance of crazy theories.
Interesting article, if anyone wants to skim it. America loves them some conspiracy theories