Karma is a Mirror -Wow, they're bringing out Paul Cameron again.karmaonesixone - June 11, 2022
Propaganda being handed out by the fash below in the park at CDA Pride.
Coeur d'Alene, ID
June 11th, 2022
[Image showing handout of anti-LGBT slander statistics, particularly oriented at labelling "homosexuals" universally as pedophiles]
It's been a while, but the fact that his lies still circulate in fundamentalist and fascist circles isn't even a little surprising.
I'm surprised they haven't included "54% regularly consume the feces of their sexual partners" too.
For people who don't remember, the fundamentalists have a long history of setting up lie-generating pseudo-science organisations, and of propping up a small number of fake-science-generating "researchers."
One of which is Paul Cameron, the source of some of these numbers.
Huh, the fucker is still alive. Go fig, evil never dies.
Anyway, they generate bullshit but superficially-real-looking studies that are built to produce results which describe their targets, excuse me their research subjects, as absolute monsters.
When not just straight up lying, the data is generated by pre-selecting a subjects who will produce the intended result. This group is then described as a sample of the population.
Note the lack of the word "representative" before "sample." But we'll get there.
They then generate other "research papers" which extensively reference these previous "studies," and suddenly "sample" becomes "representative sample." Wash, rinse, repeat, and thus, the bullshit is laundered.
You'll have to go five, six studies deep to get back to Paul Cameron or someone like him to find out how the "results" were ginned up.
(I'm not even discussing the insanity of how they make definitions to reach conclusions. Pre-selected subjects is only one of the tricks.)
Sometimes they prewrite all of them at once and at least once screwed it up. I found a circular reference chain that way. Paper A referred to Paper B referred to Paper C referred to Paper D referred back to Paper A. At no point was there any actual presentation of data.
But the rank and file don't know and don't care. It's "science" and "data" that says with what they already want to believe and therefore it's true, and that's literally the reason why it's true, because that's how they judge truth.
This was the culture already in place when their cultural takeover of the @GOP happened, and has a lot to do with why I could see all of this coming.
And after that takeover - well, that's when Republicans started talking about creating their own realities, and how there should be different "truths" for different _people_, depending upon status.
Real truth for Donald Rumsfeld, affirming lies for the rank and file.
That was, of course, an early and crude manifestation of what was coming. They were too willing to say it straight up in public, and that's a little too far, even for them.
But it's still what they're doing, and what the fundamentalists have always done. Fake the reality they want, declare it real, make policy to punish their targets.
a.k.a. "make up shit and get mad about it"
...and then lash out.
The only change has been putting way less effort into the shit they make up, because they've realised how little of that is really needed. They used to work much harder. Maybe this is a sign that's coming back.
What _hasn't_ changed is that the arbiter of truth is still "does it serve the cause?" - or, for the rank and file, "do I like it?" which is the same thing.
It's weaponised confirmation bias.
Incredibly effective, and useful... as long as you're a complete psychopath who doesn't give a single fuck about reality and truth.
Hence, today's @GOP - and hence, where we are.
