Idiot Nation
By John Cole August 18th, 2010
More proof, if any was needed, that we are a nation of idiots:
All he said was that they have a right to build it there. How can you disapprove of that? That’s indisputable.
Posted in Bring on the Brawndo!
How does Gallup think it’s credible asking a question about a “planned mosque” when it’s objectively NOT a mosque?
August 18th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
27 % were going to disagree strongly just because Obama said it, so really you’re only dealing with 10%. More striking to me is the fact that 41% don’t have an opinion. That’s a good indication of the number who have simply tuned the media out.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
People just want to be outraged. They don’t want to think. Our whole existence is moving from outrage to outrage at this point.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Because this country has dissolved into a nation of complete fucking idiots, who pin flag pins on their man titties and scream USA, USA, USA, and “protect the constitution” in one breath and then without blinking a fat eyelid decide that the only bit of the constitution that they actually like is the 2nd Amendment. The rest of it is subject to “interpretation” or better “reversal” why do you ask?
August 18th, 2010 at 8:23 pm
So, a whopping 37% are then by default disagreeing with the United States Constitution. Pretty astonishing when you think about it.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
28% of people in NY state polled don’t think the guys have a right to build the place. not ‘disagree with the wisdom of it’, not ‘they should build it somewhere else’, but ‘don’t think they have the consitutional right to build it’.
i know it’s the 28% effect, but it gives me a america sad.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Obama needs to have some of these know-nothing Americans assassinated.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
America. The See Spot Run Nation
August 18th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Silly poll. First he said it was OK, then he tried to backpedal. It’s the latter of which I strongly disapprove.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
As you’ve already said, John, I just don’t get this. There is obviously a conservative version of JournaList that is coordinating the “outrage”. There’s nothing there except that a democrat, and a black man, is the president. I listened to a third string-right-wing radio host for about a half hour yesterday complain that the Mooslims have the right to build the community center but President Obama was wrong to say that the Moosilms have the right to build the community center.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:32 pm
The tearrorists hate our freedom!
August 18th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
I’m happy to see that 41% don’t know enough to say (which I interpret as “this manufactured outrage is not a big pressing concern for me right now”).
August 18th, 2010 at 8:33 pm
@smiley: “There is obviously a conservative version of JournaList that is coordinating the “outrage”.” Of course, there is, and I bet Tucker Carlson isn’t allowed on it either.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:34 pm
An interesting follow up question would have been, ‘What do you think the President said?’
August 18th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Actually, I’m impressed that 41% were willing to admit they didn’t know enough about it to say. I’d read that the same poll that said 70% of Americans didn’t think the mosque should be built there also had 67% saying it wasn’t anyone’s business but the builders and the local government. I really must track that down…
August 18th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
John Cole:
Isn’t the whole GOP weltanschauung, it’s raison d’etre, to dispute the indisputable?
.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
@smiley: Most likely the steady drone of the wurlitzer finally taking effect. Obama = furriner = exotic = secret mooslim, oh noes! TERROR. They don’t buy it all at once, but over time the lizard brain worm burrows in, waiting for the right trigger to sprout fear.
I tell you. The wingers are expert at this kind of thing. They have to be for people to vote for them and magically forget the royal fucking they got the last time. A whole two years ago.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
Well, John, a good many of them didn’t hear him say “they have a right to build it there”. What they heard was, “I love Muslims because I am one and as such, I hate America, so this mosque being built right on top of the ruins of the World Trade Center is a-ok with me.”
Hope that clears things up a bit for ya.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
but when Obama stands up for progressives values, everyone will love him forever! I know because Jane Hamsher told me.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:40 pm
41% don’t know anything. I find that amazing, but also really great – the largest category have avoided all the sturm and drang. Maybe because they’re stone morans, but maybe it’s because they’ve put themselves out of reach of the cable screamers. I find that really interesting and kind of hopeful, in a glass half full way. They’re not watching Fox, anyway.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Groan….it’s a good thing the tea partiers have spent the past year carrying the Constitution around the country and attacking our President as being “un-American.” Maybe it does take someone born in Kenya/Indonesia/Mars to teach us about our Constitution.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
@Dave Trowbridge:
He didn’t back pedal. He said that he was not and would not comment on his opinion of the wisdom of the project. You can take that as meaning he doesn’t approve, but that clearly isn’t what he said. What he was saying was that as president and as a private citizen his opinion on the wisdom of the project is irrelevant to the constitutional and legal rights of the parties in question to build the community center. We in fact don’t know how the president feels about the wisdom of the project, because he won’t tell us. And he won’t tell us precisely because his opinion on the matter has nothing whatsoever to do with the legal and constitutional aspects of the issue. This is something that would seem entirely consistent with the way Obama approaches a lot of issues and with his background as a student of law and the constitution.
And in addition he has shown a hell of a lot more courage than folks like Reid and Dean.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
@magurakurin:
Which, frankly, we can use a whole lot more of in our politics. I really could not care less what the president “feels” about the community center being built where it is. It’s completely immaterial to the fact that they have a legal right under the Constitution to do it, and I’m glad he didn’t let himself get drawn into that trap.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
It’s important to remember that the Park51 project is almost entirely theoretical at this point; there’s no architect, plan, blueprint, and, more importantly, practically no money (according to Politico). Given the lack of financing and the exceedingly amateurish way in which the project has been put together (Politico details all of the screwups by the project’s backers, and they’re legion), I seriously doubt it will ever be built. Obama could easily have avoided the entire mess by speaking in general terms about the rights of Muslims to worship God in their own way, and noting that the decision whether to build the community center was a local issue to be determined by the people of New York. That he chose to wade into the controversy tells me that he’s concluded, in effect, “Screw it. I’m dead because of the economy so why not speak my mind and let history be the judge.” At this point, I doubt he’ll even run for reelection. That will likely have disastrous consequences for the country because it will bring a highly radicalized and vengeful GOP back to total power very soon. But given the level of denial in the country right now (people want low taxes, a welfare state, and a large military—clearly unsustainable), it’s better if the other party is in power when the hammer blows start to fall.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
@Cat Lady:
I can believe it. If you don’t watch cable news and don’t live in NYC, why would you hear about it? I’m starting to wish I never heard of it.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
I see it as 68% not caring enough to hold the comment against him.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Howard Dean supports compromising the “mosque” away:
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/.....esistance/
August 18th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Look, at least many people admitted they didn’t know enough to say. Most of the mainstream reporting on this has been terrible. Yes, too many Americans are woefully ignorant about the Constitution (the actual one versus the Tea Party Etch-a-Sketch version). But how many of those polled knew that this was a Muslim community center with a prayer center located two long city blocks away from Ground Zero, and not a Ground Zero Mosque? How many actually heard Obama’s remarks?
The poll question is terrible on its own, unless there was more context given. And while I have absolute cynical faith in the idiocy and bigotry of that crazy 28% or so of Americans, I wonder about the rest – we’re not talking about failures of judgment yet so much as failures of basic news reporting. T he bigger problem on this horrible non-scandal created by that raging Islamophobe Gellar and Fox News is that most Americans don’t know the basic facts on this.
August 18th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
@Allison W.:
They should care.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
@chopper: I read that poll, too. Basically, there are about 28% who oppose the center, no matter what, where, why, how, or who. That means there are 30% or so in the “They have a right, but it isn’t wise” camp. So I don’t want to lump everyone together when I read “70 percent oppose the center” polls. That 30% or so are the ones who actually can be persuaded.
The 28% by the way is hardly unexpected. There has been a very concerted effort to paint Feisal Rauf as a radical cleric in league with Iran and an enemy of the people, to question the funding sources of the center, to paint the center as secretive and unusual, to paint the existence of Islam in America as a fundamental threat to our existence, to deny that Islam is a religion, and that whenever Muslims gather, they subversively plot to overthrow the country. These things get pushed all day long and have been pushed for years, often by people who are considered trustworthy. Bigotry aside, if you thought that Islamofascism and Islam were the same thing, would you believe that Muslims have first amendment rights?
Not trying to rationalize their fear, but I was glad when I saw it was only in the 25-30 percent usual crank range. About the same number who think men never landed on the moon.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
As usual, rightwing framing wins out. “The construction of this mosque.” It’s not a mosque. But that’s all the majority of people seem to call it.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
Americans, as a group, are stupid. But that does not explain these poll results. Rather, a large percentage of Americans, in tough times approaching 50%, want their leaders to hate and fear what they hate and fear. Republicans have been campaigning on this since the end of WWII. From the McCarthy days, to Nixon, to Reagan (especially Reagan), to Bush I and Bush II. There is not one Republican campaign of any significance that does not do this. As Pat Buchanan did, they believe that if they tear the country in half, their half will be a bit bigger. For the last fifty or sixty years, they have been right.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
@Texas Dem: Gawd help me, as I agree mostly with your viewpoint. The problems of this country are too deep and embedded for one black dude to fix as president, with all the baggage his blackness brings to bear on the dim psyche of this country. We are in for some shit like no other imo, might as well have the wingers get the blame, and get on with the crumbling empire thing. Maybe if we’re lucky, the rest of the world will invade and take our nukes and Wall Street. I hope the French lead the invasion, just for laughs.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
also, rove just came out saying that muslims building this center in lower manhattan was totes like nazi skinheads being dicks to blacks and jews.
i love this country.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
@James E. Powell:
they still are. That’s why I never understood the liberal obsession with fighting the right endlessly…you’re smaller and less powerful, this is not David and Goliath, this is Luxembourg and Germany. Do you want to be crushed? or do you want to get shit done?
August 18th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
The whole Cordoba House nontroversy should become the textbook example of why we have a First Amendment and a Bill of Rights in general.
If given the chance, the majority would trample the rights of an unpopular minority in half a heartbeat.
The Bill of Rights is a firewall against demagoguery and the knee jerks of public opinion.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
@chopper: Did he forget that Nazis were allowed to march through Skokie (defended by a Jew from the ACLU) because in America you can do that?
August 18th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
While we wail at the bigots, kudos to Russ Feingold, who occasionally catches firebagger wrath here (btw where the firebagger threads?)
August 18th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
When I first heard Obama’s remarks, I was frustrated because I thought they didn’t go far enough. After reflection I decided I was wrong; as the President of the United States it was appropriate to speak in terms of the broadest principles that everyone could support, and by doing so I thought it would make it more difficult to attack and attract more sympathy. Perhaps only a third of the population strongly opposing his remarks is as good as we could have hoped for.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
It was basically okay for the USA to be an arrogant dumbfuck country when we were sitting on a pile of important resources and had functional monopolies in certain manufacturing and intellectual processes.
Its sad how we seem it have run off the road and are sinking ever deeper in to a really big ditch.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:25 pm
A plurality didn’t pay close enough attention to this nontroversy to have an opinion. That’s good news.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Yes, but it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. We’re just following the path of the British Empire, post 1945. The only question is whether Americans will accept this loss of status gracefully, or whether we’ll lash out in some way and try to drag others down with us. Given the level of xenophobia in the country right now, there’s every reason to be afraid of what’s in store.
August 18th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
From Politico
I pretty much stopped reading there. THIS is the media, people
http://www.politico.com/blogs/....._York.html
August 18th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
@Nick: “I pretty much stopped reading there. THIS is the media, people.” I think it’s time that we stop fighting the media and start systematically ignoring them. I guess it’s hard it counsel ignorance, but as I ponder the poll above, I do think the 41% are on to something—they’ve managed to avoid the media well enough to not know what the fuss is about.
August 18th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
@jwb:
On to what? That they don’t know enough to comment on whether or not the President is correct in standing up for a simple right?
I think you’re on to something…Republicans fight, Democrats…ignore.
August 18th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
We elected Obama, and you needed more proof?
August 18th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Actually he said something even more important and basic than that – he said the CONSTITUTION means that they have the right to build it there, like it or not. Taking his comments of the next day, he suggested he himself might not like it, but it doesn’t matter.
He swore to uphold the Constitution and uphold it he will.
The Democrats are, as usual, missing a HUGE opportunity here. The tea-baggers and Repubs have been on a year+ long rant about upholding the Constitution, how Obama is undermining the Constitution, changing our country from what the founding fathers wanted, etc.
But here is as clear cut a case of religion and the First Amendment as any and the Democrats aren’t out there every day in every media outlet saying “it’s the Constitution. Got a problem with that?”
Call them on their fake allegiance to the Constitution. Every day.
August 18th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Funny how we weren’t a nation of idiots on November 4, 2008.
Cheer up, guys! Just a bump in the road.
August 18th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
@Nick: Good lord. Politico is correct. Small non-profits usually aren’t sophisticated enough to handle it when a major political party and multi-billion dollar media empires decide to attack relentlessly. It’s their fault for not handling the politics better.
If only the Cordoba Center had been clear! Why, they should have just used their own multi-billion dollar media empire and broadcast a rebuttal!
August 18th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
@Dave Trowbridge:
How did he try to back-pedal?
August 18th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
@Nick: No, they aren’t paying attention enough to know that there’s even a basic right at stake. I rather suspect that if you talked with that 41% a very large chunk of them would in fact end up supporting what Obama said. But you, I and they know very well if they listen to the media they would just grow confused because they don’t have the time to work through the shit storm. I think they know very well that they are better off knowing they don’t know enough to thinking they know what is right, and that a little knowledge will just put them in a bad place.
So how are you going to fight, Mr. Nick? As you’ve pointed out over and over again, Obama, who has the biggest megaphone on our side, can hardly get a word out through the media. And we have yet to develop effective means for getting around the media. So that leaves systematically ignoring the media so as to disempower it (“disengage” might be a better term than “ignore”) or continuing to get clobbered by it.
Really the world sees a much saner place when you stop filtering it through Politico, WaPo, HuffPo, TPM, Fox News, CNN, the networks—even when you are watching it only to uncover the media effects. These days I read the local paper, scan the headlines at the Times and McClatchy, occasionally listen to NPR when I’m in the car, read Krugman’s blog and this one and follow up the occasional link from these places. I tell you the world is not nearly as crazy or fucked up as media desperately wants us to believe.
August 18th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
I dunno. I think the 41% who answered “don’t know enough to say” have basically tuned out the entire non-issue and have resolved to live their lives without being bothered by the latest outrage du jour. We’re not entirely hopeless.
32% of us are total and complete assholes, however.
August 18th, 2010 at 11:04 pm
@jwb:
That’s even worse. It means we can just take random people’s rights away and no one would even pay attention.
August 18th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
@Mike M:
I concur. I’m pretty sure that people generally aren’t paying much attention to the cable screamers, and this only strengthens that opinion.
I’m not worried that almost half of those polled never heard of it because it’s a total non-story. Local religious group wants to build community center—film at 11? Only on a really slow news day.
August 18th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Hey, guys, help me out here. I just had a horrible, horrible thought. All of this “Muslims building mosque on hallowed ground, how dare they” talk—this isn’t all a sly reference to the Al Asqa Mosque, is it? Y’all, say it ain’t so.
August 19th, 2010 at 1:19 am
Idiot John Cole.
Whether someone has a right or not has nothing to do with whether you like it or not. It’s like evolution. It pisses me off that we evolved from hominids so I disapprove of it, I wish it wasn’t true. But I uphold evolution and demand it be taught in the schools because IT’S INDISPUTABLE and I am too fucking honest to deny the facts even if I hate it.
You might want to try thinking one of these days.
August 19th, 2010 at 2:19 am
Long ago I realized that about 85% of the American public are idiots. This is yet one more statistic to back that up. Only 16% of Americans strongly approve what Obama said? Seriously? Americans really are a bunch of ignorant fucktards. Remember that as you go through your daily life. No matter how rational some people seem on the surface, chances are they’re total fucktards when you probe a little deeper.
This just goes to show that Obama was elected in spite of people’s stupidity, not because of their (non-existent) intelligence. If you want to get people behind anything good in this country, you can’t rely only on appeals to rationality.
August 19th, 2010 at 6:10 am
Idiot MNPundit.
You’re one of the 85% I mentioned in my post above. Of course most people don’t realize they’re idiots, and many of these idiots even think they’re smart. You’re clearly one of these.
Obama affirmed that this Muslim group has the Constitutional right to build their religious community center on their own damned property. Nowhere did he sing the praises of the project itself (although he should have, because it’s a great project that will promote moderate Islam over the radical variety). Since he was merely fulfilling his oath to defend the Constitution, you’d think people would stand behind his comments. But no. People are stupid.
I’d suggest you try thinking one of these days, but when stupid people try to think it only causes problems.
August 19th, 2010 at 6:20 am
@MNPundit: Obama didn’t say whether he liked it or not. He said they have a Constitutional right to build the center. Which is true…it’s indisputable. This poll shows that of those who care/know enough, a plurality – 37% – disapprove of what Obama said on this issue. Since Obama never addressed whether he likes the project or not, then these 37% must disagree with our Constitution’s First Amendment…or they agree with it but think it shouldn’t apply to Muslims. That’s one of only three possible explanations here. The other two are 1) some of that 37% have no idea what the fuck he said or have heard disinformation about what he said or 2) they disapprove of what he said because he said it – ie, the 27 percenters.
August 19th, 2010 at 10:16 am
@giantslor:
Somebody needs to help me out with this.
I haven’t polled Juicers, but I’m guessing the vast majority would agree with the statement, “the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ is a manufactured controversy.”
According to the poll above a plurality of Americans don’t seem to know or care what Obama had to say about this manufactured controversy.
Therefore they are idiots.
Somebody please explain the reasoning here.
August 19th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
@giantslor:
@OGLiberal:
Both of you are morons.
I have said over and over again that my feelings on this issue are irrelevant. They followed the law, therefore they can build on it and I am going to defend that right forever more. I am willing to get a group together and stand fucking guard over the building so that idiots don’t try to disrupt that construction.
But I don’t have to like that anyone is building mosques anywhere and—pay attention now, you kiddies might miss it—I don’t have to like that the constitution gives people those rights. I just have to defend their exercise of those rights. And you better fucking believe I am going to defend those rights.
In fact, I never said that I MYSELF disapprove of Obama’s comments. Merely that other people can disapprove of his comments because they can disapprove of the constitutional rights granted to people in regards to religion.
Perhaps an example you can understand. I don’t like the fact that the 2nd Amendment gives people the right to bear arms, in fact I would support an amendment to strip that from the constitution. But while it is still there I am going to defend the right of people to bear arms until I keel over because that’s the fucking law of the land. In recent years after examining the issue more closely I have come to believe that the common left-conflation of “well regulated militia” with National Guard is wrong and so I have no choice but to support even greater gun permissiveness even though it sticks in my craw to do so.
That’s what it means to be a citizen of America.
You can stand up for something even if you want to change it.
That John Cole was not able to realize this in his initial blogpost is why I called him an idiot.
August 19th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
the idea that Obama has given up is ludicrous.
i’m ready to bet on Obama’s reelection, Texas Dem – what odds will you give me?
how about if Obama wins, you have to run Treacher over with a state department SUV?
August 19th, 2010 at 3:40 pm