I'm very curious about UFOs. Not sure what it means to "believe" in them. Many people have seen them, photographed them, suffered some ill effects from proximity with them. In many cases, UFOs have left burnt fields, scorched highways and other types of physical evidence. They've blinded and burned people. Some people claim they've been abducted -- and these aren't irrrational people, either. I don't know quite what to make of that.
But about 95% or even more of what people label as UFOs turn out to be bizarre cloud formations and other weather phenomena, space junk, "black projects" from the military, even your average plastic grocery bag aloft on the wind. But there are some pretty unusual events involving UFOs that are inexplicable. Are they extraterrestrials? I don't know. And I don't even know if I accept that theory. But there is something out there, and because it's an unknown, it kinda fascinates me.
So I visit UFO reporting sites and sometimes even look at the mailing lists and exchanges to see if anyone's figured out what this or that particular point of light could possibly be. And about five years ago, some guy who called himself Chad sent a radio station several photos of some strange thing that he claimed to have photographed hovering in California somewhere. The thing looked like what would happen if a table fan and an egg-beater mated and had children. I mean, it was ridiculous. It had something like Klingon writing on its extended arms. Then other people supposedly saw and photographed a similar "flying" thing zooming over telephone poles and various mountain meadows and forests.
But none of the photographers would come forward and discuss what they'd seen. There was just the photos. "Oh, well, they'll be questioned. People will make fun of them. You can't blame them." Yes I can.
With every photo, the thing got more complicated with more arms and sparkly things dangling from it. After the release of one of the later photos, I went to a UFO list to see what the buzz was. It was becoming more and more apparent to me with every new photo that this was just a rather ridiculous hoax. I left a message: "It really IS a chandelier!!!" Referring vaguely to the mother ship in the movie "E.T."
Not the right thing to say. I was reviled as a "debunker," God forbid, and the "believers" ignored and/or sneered at any more of my remarks and comments. Like other debunkers, I was only spoiling the party. No, much worse, trampling on their faith.
And the UFO photos and "documentation" that eventually accompanied it got even more and more complicated, more and more tangled and confusing. I stopped paying attention, and in the end, the whole incident proved itself to be nothing more than a hoax. And I must say, to their credit, all the really serious UFO investigators recognized early on that someone was just pulling their leg and didn't give it too much of their attention. One guy duplicated the photos of the alleged UFO using computer graphics, and I do believe he started getting hate mail. For the believers, it was just getting all too real.
I recall one believer on the list used the name "IWanttoBelieve" and others went by similar. The sillier the photos became, the taller the tales attached to them, the more "IWanttoBelieve" and others in that camp dug in their heels, insisting that, sure 'nuff, the ET's were preparing to land on the White House lawn any day now.... and the chandelier-egg-beater thing provided absolute proof of that. It was signaling to these anointed, the True Believers, that it was on its way and was giving them advance notice that only they, this particular elite, could appreciate. And furthermore, several of them claimed to have been abducted by aliens periodically all their lives, so were the debunkers prepared to call them liars? And break their hearts? And they sincerely hoped we debunkers would someday suffer the same kind of ostracizaton and everything that.....
In short, this list got to be something like a psyche ward with no attendants. Kinda like the Illinois State Assembly? Or Pelosi's House of Reps?
So now we have the shootings in Tucson, and Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik making unfounded claims about perpetrator Jared Loughner that have been completely disproven by the facts. And a bunch of crazy I-Want-To-Believe progressives just digging in their heels and screaming, "Well it COULD happen!" You can't convince them otherwise. They want to believe. They don't care about the facts. They just need this kind of thing to plug up the gaping holes in their world-view, and you'll never convince them that they're just crazy. In a couple weeks, this will gain some kind of legendary status among them, become some kind of amorphous Unquestionable Truth, another article of faith in the progressive canon.
A key feature of this particular kind of cultism is the way these people cling together to support each other, even though they must know -- in the under-used intelligent part of their brains -- that they are flat-out lying and making things up. Some new, even bigger piece of fiction is announced by someone (possibly someone in the White House), and they all lock arms, braying "Right!!" in some kind of mad and insistent hysteria. As though their co-dependent consensus will make it all true.
And if you don't believe? You demand that they produce facts and hard evidence? Well, you're ruining their party. You're shaking the pillars of their faith. They can't tolerate that. If one small glimmer of incontrovertible truth penetrates, their whole belief system is likely to collapse, and they really can't tolerate that. They'll only scream louder -- and with a kind of ridiculous bathos, tears streaming down their cheeks -- that you're victimizing them somehow. And in the case of the progressives, if you're not a sanctified victim, then you're actively begging the victimized to cleanse you of your guilt. They all hold hands and cry for each other, console each other, and blame everyone else... for everything.
It's very strange. It's a phenomenon I've seen over and over again in various groups. I don't care who they are. They develop a certain dogma, a set of principles that become assumed, knee-jerk. They begin twisting and spinning the actual fact of everything they perceive around them to fit their dogma. And if you knock or question the dogma... heaven help you.
Drunks and junkies are the same way. They interpret everything from the drunk/junkie perspective and it all takes on a different meaning and drives them to take even more drugs. Drugs, by the way, are a very handy way of keeping "the faith." I mean, on drugs, you're totally tuned into the shadows that lurk in the dark recesses of your own unconscious. Makes it easier to ignore real life and an objective reality.
So now someone in congress doesn't want the Republicans and the democrats to sit on different sides of the aisle for the Comrade's upcoming State of the Union Address. He wants everyone to intermingle. No doubt so when the Comrade tells us blue is yellow and the sky is falling and we've got to spend a couple billion dollars to fix this mess, and the liberal crazies stand up and applaud -- it'll look bipartisan support. Yeah, right. Either that, or with the Republicans and democrats segregated, the shift in the majority numbers will become too embarrassing for the dems to accept.
Or maybe they should just find a nice big hilltop, join hands, and sing "Imagine" at the top of their lungs.
Anyway, I've got to go do some work. I have so many people after me for money it's impossible to ignore reality. My creditors won't let me.
Save the Republic.
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