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As I read/hear/watch the daily news reports originating here in the United States of
America, I am becoming more and more convinced that a great number of Americans are either brain-dead or are rapidly losing
the use of a functioning brain.
Our brain-dead Americans refuse to accept verified and universally accepted scientific data and facts.
They believe unproven and irrational statements from unreliable sources. These brain-dead individuals believe and/or concoct
numerous conspiracy theories without a shred of valid information or facts upon which to base such theories. Here in 2021,
those brain-dead (or brain-dying) Americans who believe in gigantic conspiracies have moved from the crackpot periphery to
the mainstream in our daily life. They are eager to believe almost any conspiracy theory, no matter how implausible, as long
as it agrees with their opinions and feelings – never mind any actual facts.
The invasion of the U.S. Capitol Building by rioters and vandals on January 6, 2021 marked a
significant moment in American history. It made clear that political propaganda and irrational beliefs had reached crisis
levels. Thousands of people in Washington, D.C. that day, and many more elsewhere in America, were so hypnotized by blatant
lies and objectively nonsensical beliefs that they were willing to break laws and even threaten others with violence, at the
risk of their own safety and freedom.
Gullibility, fanaticism, and political trickery are not new in America. But it all feels faster,
louder, and more dangerous these days. One no longer needs to be a charismatic apocalyptic preacher with a brick-and-mortar
church or a well-financed politician to invade the minds of Americans at a steady clip. Today anyone with a Facebook or
Twitter account has the potential power to ignite a wildfire of public lunacy.
The Capitol insurrection was a tornado strike of swirling irrational beliefs. A sitting U.S. president
and his allies used television, radio, and social media to weaponize some of the most gullible people in America. The key
instruments of modern communication are maliciously being exploited to infect vulnerable people with mental viruses that
transform them into deranged mission-focused zombies. With an avalanche of deepfake technology (synthetic video/audio media
that is nearly impossible to identify as false) looming on the horizon, it can get much worse.
The reason this problem of mass delusion and rampant disinformation can exist to the degree it
does may be because too many American minds are incapable of handling close encounters of the irrational kind – there are
now too many brain-dead Americans! Vast numbers of people can’t think critically and are insufficiently aware of how easy it
can be for anyone, regardless of formal education or intelligence, to be lured into a bogus belief. The abundance of these
brain-dead individuals provides the necessary foundation for this growing crisis.
Are you skeptical of the claim that America is becoming brain-dead? Consider that many (possibly
most) of the January 6 rioters were QAnon believers. Going all-in with QAnon meant believing that a long list of celebrities
and elites - including Lady Gaga, Bill Gates, Joe Biden, and Tom Hanks - operated an international satanic cannibalistic child
sex-abuse organization.
QAnon was a movement with no clearly identified founders or leaders and no formal doctrine. It was a
big-tent/grab-bag of many old and new conspiracy theories that accommodated a long list of suspicions, fears, resentments,
and prejudices. QAnon was the Costco of conspiracy theories, the Walmart of delusions: “Whatever you want, we got it.” It also
had a Da Vinci Code element that seemed to appeal to many believers who excitedly search for clues and follow online crumbs
toward big “revelations.” Despite the absence of any credible evidence and the overwhelming unlikeliness of it all, the
combination of fuzziness, inclusiveness, and flexibility worked. QAnon vacuumed up millions of brain-dead minds in recent
years.
According to an NPR/IPSOS (National Public Radio / Independent Polling System of Society)
national poll, less than half of the Americans polled said that QAnon’s
core claims were false. Seventeen percent of U.S. adults admitted to believing in the QNanon. Also, an alarming 37 percent
were “unsure.”
Unfortunately, our government cannot simply outlaw the inclination to believe nonsense. Regulations
won’t purge the internet of every lie and those Americans who are currently brain-dead cannot be suddenly
revived.[1]
Being a “Covidiot”
The term “covidiot” is a slang term for someone who ignores recommendations to limit the spread of
covid-19, the deadly disease. In reality, a “covidiot” is arguably someone who is well on the way to becoming
brain-dead.
Researchers found that whether or not an individual decides to follow social distancing depends on
how much information their working memory can store, which determines mental abilities such as intelligence. Those who ignore
social distancing guidelines therefore should be viewed as having limited mental abilities and intelligence, i.e., they are
partially brain-dead.
Following a survey of 850 Americans, the research team discovered that those with more working memory
capacity were more likely to comply with recommendations during the early stage of the coronavirus outbreak.
The coronavirus began spreading across the U.S. in early 2020 and the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) released a list of recommendations aimed at limiting the spread of the virus. The list included wearing
a mask and social distancing.
Although the recommendations were simple to follow, many Americans ignored the warnings and
coronavirus cases spiked across the nation.
A team from the University of California set out to understand why some individuals chose to dismiss
wearing a mask or social distancing while others readily complied.
Researchers found that individuals with higher working memory capacity were more likely to follow
social distancing rules and wear face masks than those with lower memory
capacity.[2]
Maybe a better interpretation of the study results is: Covidiots are people who refuse to
social distance or wear face masks. These covidiots have reduced mental capacity and are well on the way to becoming
brain-dead.
Refusing Covid-19 Vaccination
“A recent NPR/Marist poll found that one in four Americans said they would refuse a coronavirus
vaccine outright if offered. Another 5% are ‘undecided’ about whether they would get the shot.”
(Ref. 3)
Someone refusing to be vaccinated against the covid-19 virus can only be explained by that person
being brain-dead. The covid-19 pandemic has been deadly and widespread – This is an undeniable fact!
Extensive and rigorous testing has scientifically proven that the covid-19 vaccines are close to 100% effective in defending
against the virus – This is an undeniable fact! Extensive and rigorous scientific testing has shown that
adverse effects of the covid-19 vaccines are almost nonexistent. – This is an undeniable fact! In spite of
all these facts, there are brain-dead individuals who will not get vaccinated!
Not Wearing a Mask During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Couple the anti-vaxxers with the other obviously brain-dead Americans who risk death to themselves,
to their family members and others around them by refusing to wear protective masks.
In July of 2020, before we had begun to get a handle on the covid-19 pandemic there were those
citizens of the most advanced nation on the face of this planet who were demonstrating an inability to think rationally
and/or to display some measure of intelligence.
Simply put, by July of 2020, our scientists and the medical community had found that face
masks saved lives. That’s right, a simple piece of cloth could help prevent the spread of coronavirus. So much, in
fact, that experts said that if 95% of Americans wore a face mask in public, we could save 33,000 deaths by 1 October
2020 - not to mention all the illnesses that would be prevented.
But something as simple as face masks became a political statement. Some folks thought that face
masks were some grand conspiracy to force us to do something. God forbid that we do something for the good of ourselves and
for the good of others around us. Others thought it was is just one more step in the left’s attempt to radicalize us all.
And some folks refused to wear face masks simply because they were whiny selfish assholes whose motto was basically “BUT I
DON’T WANT TO!”[4]
In actuality, those refusing to wear a face mask simply were more proof that America was
becoming brain-dead. These Americans were ignoring irrefutable scientific data and endangering themselves and
everyone else around them in order to make a stupid political statement or to demonstrate that they had no concern for
human life.
Believing Trump Had the 2020 Election Stolen From Him
“I don’t know how, when or why this goes away, and it’s hard to grasp the level of dysfunction it
embeds in our little experiment in democratic/republican self-government, but …
“… recent polls continue to show that more than two-thirds of Republicans believe that the 2020
presidential election was stolen by Democrats.
“Those who believe that are wrong, and cannot produce any credible evidence to back up their belief.
Such ‘evidence’ as exists has been in the courts and rejected, all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided . . .
not to hear the case . . .
“That’s old news, but the latest polling, from SSRS for CNN in late April, indicates that – while a
huge majority of Democrats, a solid two-thirds majority of independents, and a solid overall majority of Americans believes
the Joe Biden’s election victory was legitimate - two-thirds of Republicans either believe or suspect that Trump’s victory was
somehow stolen. (And by far the bulk of those, comprising 60% of all Republicans in the sample, took the harder line, saying
there is ‘solid evidence’ that the election was stolen from Trump.
- - -
“But this was not a particularly close election. Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 51.3 to 46.9 percent
in the national popular vote. And to believe in the ‘steal’ theory, you have to believe that several states, including states
where the elections were run by Republican officials, had been stolen for Biden.
- - -
“This is creepy. If this is the new normal (and I’m plenty worried that it might be), I fear
for the future of the American experiment in democracy.” [Emphasis mine]
(Ref. 5)
Donald Trump’s cult-like followers won’t accept the facts that stare them in the face. There has
never been one shred of credible evidence that there was fraud perpetrated in the election or that “the election was stolen”
from Trump. In fact, wherever there has been investigation into such claims, just the opposite has been shown to be the case.
i.e., the election results were correct and honest! Even today, Donald Trump still claims with absolutely no evidence that
he won the election. He makes this claim even though more than 60 courts - including the U.S. Supreme Court - have thrown out
his absurd election challenges.[6] Claiming that Donald Trump had the 2020 election
stolen from him after considering all the undeniable evidence against the claim, indicates that the persons making such a
claim are brain-dead
Believing the QAnon Conspiracy Theory
QAnon is essentially an online conspiracy theory based on interpreting the posts of an unidentified
person (or group of people) known as Q, who purports to be a high-ranking official in the US government. Q’s message to the
faithful is that this government is secretly controlled by a cabal of satanic pedophiles whom Donald Trump was supposed to
round up and execute one day, in a mass cleansing called the Storm. Unbelievably, There are brain-dead Americans who actually
believe this balderdash.
Of course, this Storm is not going to happen, but anticipating this Storm is what has made QAnon a
compelling fantasy. It’s impossible to know how many people actually believe in QAnon as an accurate description of how the
world works, relative to how many just enjoy talking about it as a kind of online game. Q is a collaborative work of
speculative fiction that replaces this world with one that is more exciting. The essence of that world is the Storm: the
fantasy that those who disagree with your politics are not just wrong but evil, in a way that justifies finally smashing
them, i.e., you must unquestionably follow and support everything Donald Trump tells you.
In this obsessive fantasy, QAnon resembles another form of fantasy politics from 2020 - the
speculation that President Trump would refuse to leave office if he lost the election. Of course, Trump lost the election -
or, as some claim, it was stolen from him. And, in a sense, to this day, Trump has refused to leave office.
The Trump coup theory has attracted a stronger and more sophisticated audience than QAnon. Both
QAnon and the Trump coup are dark fantasies that come with the same happy ending: a situation in which decent Americans no
longer have to argue with the ignorant and evil, because these Americans would be finally justified in simply overpowering
them. At this point in time, the possibility of a Trump coup seems consigned to the realm of past fantasy. We don’t know what
will happen to QAnon now that Trump has left office. But most assuredly, there are, and will continue to be, brain-dead
Americans who believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory.[7]
Believing White Police are Conspiring to Kill Unarmed Blacks
Though Democrats and their media cohorts have convinced large numbers of Americans that the country
is in the midst of an epidemic of black suspects being fatally shot (or “lynched”) by police because of “systemic racism,”
data and experts say otherwise.
The real facts are: The rate of black suspects shot fatally by the police is “a
function of” how often Blacks commit crime. Because Blacks commit the majority of crime in the U.S., they have the most
dealings with the police and get shot disproportionally to their percentage of the population. But don’t let the facts get
in the way of the beliefs of so many brain-dead Americans!
Fact: In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and committed about 60% of robberies, though they were only 13% of the population.
Fact: Of the 996 fatal police shootings in 2018, only 209, or 21%, involved black suspects, meaning that the share of black suspects shot by the police was in fact less than what the black crime rate would predict.
What about the claim that “so many” unarmed blacks are dying at the hands of the police? Well, according to various experts, there aren’t actually “so many” unarmed blacks dying at the hands of the police.
Fact: 23 “unarmed” black suspects were fatally shot by the police in 2018, while even fewer, 12, were shot in 2019. At least one 2019 shooting involved a black officer and a grand jury ultimately declined to indict him for any wrongdoing. But, In many other cases, the involved white officers were indicted.
Also, keep in mind that a suspect being “unarmed” doesn’t necessarily make them any less dangerous. An unarmed suspect can still lunge at a police officer, try to run a police officer over or even push a police officer off a bridge.
A study conducted by two criminal justice researchers found that in 90% of cases involving “unarmed”
suspects, the police opened fire only because they felt they were facing “an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury
to themselves or a third person.”
Of this 90%, the suspects had been “attempting to disarm an officer, drown an officer, throw an
officer from a bridge or rooftop, strangle an officer, gesturing as if armed with a real weapon, keeping hands concealed
despite commands, and charging toward an officer with apparent intent to assault.”
These are the facts. Yet despite these truths, whenever a black man, woman or child
is fatally shot by the police, our brain-dead Americans display blind outrage instead of determining the realities behind the
killing. Then they riot, call for defunding the police and engage in other totally irrational behavior that only worsens the
situation and which avoids exposing and then solving the real problems that African-Americans face in our
country.[8]
And what happens when our brain-dead Americans get their way and police departments are
defunded?
Fact: Reducing police resources ultimately results in poorer service to the
law-abiding
residents of high-crime areas, e.g., in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Officers without back-up will be more stressed
and at higher risk of poor judgment. Response times will increase. Cash-starved agencies will train less, not more, while
lower pay scales will result in less qualified recruits.
Fact: Reduced police presence in minority neighborhoods claims more Black lives.
When officers back off of proactive policing under accusations of racism, violence shoots up. That was the case in cities
recently examined by Harvard economists. After investigations opened up into media-grabbing instances of police use of deadly
force in Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Ferguson, Missouri, and Riverside, California, it was discovered that there were
almost 900 excess homicides and almost 34,000 excess felonies committed after the accusations of racially motivated police
brutality were made.[9]
Clearly, all the evidence shows that those Americans who buy into the unsubstantiated charges that
white police are murdering unarmed Blacks are mistaken. And they are not only brain-dead, but they are actually contributing
to additional Black lives being lost, as well as the subsequent rioting and violence that hurts all Americans.
Believing Eliminating Police Will Bring More Law and Order
Many brain dead Americans have bought into the fantasy that defunding, eliminating, or neutering
our law enforcement agencies will make us all safer and somehow provide us with more law and order. The truth that is
so obvious to any thinking individual is that America need more cops in response to rising crime - and we are getting fewer.
No rational person would want smaller police forces right now, yet the elite culture, leftist politicians, and obnoxious
street protesters are conspiring to shrink our law enforment resources.
America’s cities are feeling the effects of a year-long experiment in what would happen if nearly
everyone celebrated a movement based on the idea that police are racist goons, excused rioting and explained away spiraling
crime, and made it clear to cops that if they make a mistake, they would, at the very least, become instantly infamous. Such
has been the case in Portland, Oregon, which has become a veritable research lab for this type of action/reaction.
Rioting has become part of the fabric of urban life in Portland, where demonstrators have battled with cops nearly every
other night since the death of George Floyd.[10]
The facts are clear, but the conclusions drawn by so many simply defies logic.
Illusory Truth Effect
“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather
that nobody believes anything any longer… And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is
deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then
do what you please.” - Hannah Arendt
- - -
“Many of us are familiar with the quotation, ‘Repeat a lie often enough and people will eventually
come to believe it.’
“Not ironically, the adage - often attributed to the infamous Nazi {propaganda minister} Joseph
Goebbels - is true and has been validated by decades of research on what psychology calls the ‘illusory truth effect.’
First described in a 1977 study by {a} Temple University psychologist . . . the illusory truth effect occurs when repeating
a statement increases the belief that it’s true even when the statement is actually false.”
(Ref. 11)
It appears that many 21st century Americans are now victims of this illusory truth
effect!
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References:
- How to Repair the American Mind, Guy P. Harrison, Psychology Today, 19 January 2021.
- Real covidiots! People who refuse to wear a mask or comply with social distancing have lower cognitive ability,
new study shows, Stacy Liberatore, Daily Mail, 14 July 2020.
- Vaccine Refusal May Put Herd Immunity At Risk, Researchers Warn, Geoff Brunfiel, npr,
7 April 2021.
- 14 Tweets That Sum Up The Stupidity Of ‘Mask-Holes’, Christine Organ, ScarryMommy,
10 July 2020.
- Poll: Most Republicans haven’t given up thinking 2020 election was stolen , Eric Black,
MINNPOST,
5 May 5 2021.
- Liz Cheney's ouster should alarm all fact-based Americans who believe in our country, Donna Brazile,
USA TODAY, 12 May 2021.
- QAnon and the 'Trump coup' have more in common than you might think, Dan Brooks,
The Guardian,
24 December 2020.
- The real number of unarmed black people killed by police you can share with your liberal friends,
Vivek Saxena, Business & Politics, 23 April 2021.
- There is no epidemic of fatal police shootings against unarmed Black Americans, Heather Mac Donald,
USA TODAY, 3 July 2020.
- How to decimate police forces in 2 easy steps, Rich Lowry, Boston Herald; Page 14,
23 June 2021.
- Illusory Truth, Lies, and Political Propaganda: Part 1, Joe Pierre M.D., Psychology Today,
22 January 2020.
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