Cutting Through Trump's Conspiratorial Bafflegab About Ukraine As Source Of 2016 Meddling

Contemporary Conspiracism In Context: "You're Not Entitled To Your Own Facts"
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-contextualization-of-contemporary.html

Alan: Ronald Reagan coined the term bafflegab, a word that epitomizes the deliberate obfuscation of substantive truth by American conservatives who seek to justify substantive falsehood by lies, innuendo, rumor, gossip, outlandish speculation, introduction of doubt and the use of deliberately exploded shards of integral truth.

How Conservatives Use Decontextualized Shards Of Truth To Tell HUGE Lies
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/08/scott-pruitt-how-conservatives-use.html

Key phrases in this obfuscatory effort include:

"People are saying..."

"People tell me..."

"Nobody really knows..."

"You don't know. I don't know."

"Who knows?"

"Did you know...?

"It could have been..."

"Fake News!"

"Smear campaign"

"We'll see what happens."

"Believe me."

Tyranny's Best-Kept Secret: It's All About Epistemology
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/tyrannys-best-kept-secret-its-all-about.html

Here is a hilarious - and pointedly true - video by John Oliver contrasting the centrality of "substantive truth" with the peripheral dodge of "deliberately misleading exceptionalism."

The Guardian: "John Oliver's Viral Video Is The Best Global Warming Debate You'll Ever See"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-guardian-john-olivers-viral-video.html

Just because you discover "exceptions to general rules" doesn't mean these exceptions justify the creation of a new rule. 

The rule remains the rule. 

The exceptions remain exceptions.

In an attempt to "get through" to a lifelong friend who has become a right-wing cultist I put together the compendium below.

And here is my introduction to this compendium (followed by the compendium itself):

I created the following blog post -- "You Are Not Entitled To Your Own Facts" -- thinking about a life-long friend who has become a devout conspiracist and right-wing cultist.

Arthur has not yet declared himself a Trumpista per se but he openly champions Bolsonaro in Brazil, Salvini in Italy, and argues that Putin-and-Assad are champions of Syrian civilization fighting the murderous barbarism of villainous "White Hats."

Simultaneously, he promotes the conspiracy theory that the massacre of 20 six year old kids at Sandy Hook Elementary School -- as well as every other firearm massacre in recent years -- has been designed by Homeland Security, using so-called "crisis actors," to "stage" apparent massacres with the goal of turning popular opinion against 2nd Amendment rights.

I spend conserable time communicating with people "on the hard right" and they routinely believe such nonsense.

Often, these are high-functioning people, sometimes with remarkable social skills.

But they are also cultists participating in delusional systems every bit as wacky as "Heaven's Gate," "The Moonies" or Jim Jones' church in Guyana.

"Bette Midler And The Trumpian Truth Of Ted Bundy"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/…/bette-midler-and-tru…

Recently, I challenged Arthur by sending him the same email I sent to Laura Wood, a Catholic Traditionalist (not to be confused with "traditional Catholic"). Along with my letter to Wood, I included a note telling him what I told "The Thinking Housewife": he needs to visit Sutherland, Texas (like he recently visited war-torn Syria) to probe, first-hand, the massacre of 26 people gathered in worship at Sutherland Baptist Church, instead of thinking it was dramatic stagecraft choreographed by the federal government.

"Correspondence With 'The Thinking Housewife' About The Supposed Hoax Of Mass Murder At Sutherland Baptist Church In Sutherland, Texas."
https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/…/names-of-sutherland-…

Contemporary Conspiracism In Context: "You're Not Entitled To Your Own Facts"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-contextualization-of-contemporary.html

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts About Conspiracies And Conspiracism

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/06/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-about.html

I stay in  touch with conspiracists.

And over the years, I have come to realize two salient characteristics: they almost never provide documentation, not even when I ask them - repeatedly - for "just one link."

And when they do provide information, it routinely smacks of ignoring the "forest for the trees."

Examples of this obsession with the "minute."

1.) Discussing the presence of "thermite" in Twin Towers debris.

2.) Neverending microscopic examination of "inappropriate" facial expressions and emotional reactions by those bereaved by firearm massacres as "proof" that these people are "crisis actors."

3.) Using aerial photos that seem to show the apparent location of multiple porta-potties in a police command post near Sandy Hook Elementary School, as proof that the alleged carnage was part of a pre-meditated plan by the Department of Homeland Security to use so-called "crisis actors" to stage purported massacres in order to turn public opinion against Second Amendment Rights.

Egregious case in point:

4.) Calling the murder of 26 Baptists an "arranged disappearance" -- NOT "a mass murder" ' whom the mainstream press (including my friend, Elaine, a devout Catholic and editor of the local paper - a person who knew the decedents personally) even though these 26 murder victims were residents of a town whose population is 600. Perhaps most notably, no one - not you nor me nor conspiracists themselves - know ANYONE who would agree to "disappear" (or even more remarkably agree to the "disappearnce" of their children) for the rest of their lives, and to do so to advocate on behalf of gun control. Furthermore, this particular attack in Sutherland Texas  occurred in a "crimson red" rural community, where damn near everyone is an unflinchingly staunch advocate of totally unregulated gun access.

The Thinking Housewife's Conspiracism: Exploring The Falsehood
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-thinking-housewifes-conspiracism.html

"The Thinking Housewife" Condemns Pope Francis For Siding With "The Little Guy

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-thinking-housewife-condemns-pope.html 

It cannot be said too often that conspiracy theories ALWAYS redound to the benefit of right-wing authoritarian governments.

Once right-wingers have signed off on The Central Lie that "Absolute Authority" is foundational to any good social order, they will then reflexively justify all subsidiary lies.

Alan: Not surprisingly, conspiracists routinely deny The Holocaust and even represent Hitler as a "good man" working very hard to improve the lives of his people.

Althought many smart people have fallen prey to conspiracy theories, the bedrock affect of conspiracism is to convince uneducated white people -- usually "Christian" "conservatives" -- that only repressive, authoritarian and seemingly fascistic regimes can "save them" from The Liberal Threat which conspiracists often represent as genuinely diabolical.

Liberalism: "Satanic Rebellion Against God?" (The Thinking Housewife)

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/11/liberalism-satanic-rebellion-against-god.html

"My Gripe With Christianity"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-gripe-with-christianity.html

Here's how all this looks if you agree that "a picture is worth a thousand words."