(Corrrection: The first version of this post stated that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had called up the Texas National Guard. He in fact called up the Texas Guard, one of the three branches of the Texas Military Forces. Mea culpa.)
If you visit the county courthouse in Bastrop County, Texas, you will see standing proudly in the middle of a park in front of the building a proud monument to the Confederacy. Yeah, these guys still cheer for the Confederacy…really. Oh, but that’s not all. Recently, the new Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, had to ask the State Guard of Texas to essentially “watch over” the US Army as they conducted an 8 week training exercise in the county. This came after a judge in Bastrop County did his best to actually feed into the local Tea Party paranoia and issued the following statement during a community meeting: It’s a sad [day] when people’s greatest fear is their own government. Think about the ramification of that. If Americans go to sleep at night worrying whether their own government is going to sell them out before morning, it’d be hard to sleep.
There’s ill-informed, there’s painfully ignorant…and then there’s whatever the Hell is going on in Bastrop County, Texas, where the wingnust, conspiracy theory paranoia, and the just plain stupid are stronger than ever. I never cease to be amazed at the world-class ignorance and distrust of government that exists in Texas…and the good, God-fearing patriots of Bastrop County are SERIOUS about their stupidity.
It takes a truly special kind of stupid to think that our (NOT White and NOT Conservative) President is planning to invade Bastrop County…as if there’s anything worth taking over there. Home to not quite 75,000 mostly bat-shit crazy White Christian Tea Party Conservatives who’ve convinced themselves that the federal government is an evil, malevolent force dedicated to their destruction, there’s evidently no room for reason or logic.
When your primary news sources are Fox News Channel, NewsMax, and InfoWars, you’re not normally going to be the sort of person one might reasonably describe as “reasonable”. The good folks of Bastrop County wouldn’t recognize reason if it showed up with a name badge.
[T]he people in this small rural county that still sings the praises of the Confederacy is convinced that this is merely a ruse. What is really happening, according to the folks in the crowd wearing the “Did You Miss Me Yet” and “Info Wars” shirts carrying signs that say “Dissent is not a Conspiracy Theory,” is that this is really just Obama “invading Texas,” and after awhile he will send in his secret platoons of “Sharia fighters” and make Texas Muslim….
Fortunately, it seemed that some of the folks there were not part of the tin foil hat crowd, and they can be seen face-palming and showing utter frustration with their fellow county residents and the ridiculously hard time they give the Army representative. You really gotta feel bad for this Colonel who is merely trying to prepare his troops for overseas operations. One “sane” person does manage to get a question and words of support in, but he is quickly drowned out.
In a transparent attempt to pander to the wackjobs, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called up the Texas Guard (a collection of wannabe soldiers/peace officers), ordering them to “monitor” (i.e.- stand around impotently) while the Special Forces troops work through their eight weeks of training. Right; as if the Texas National Guard poses any sort of threat at all to highly trained Special Forces soldiers. I’m not certain what Abbott seems to think a gaggle of weekend warriors will accomplish…except burning through large sums of tax money. Unfortunately for Texas taxpayers, money has never been an issue when it comes to Texas politicians pandering to the foaming at the mouth, barely coherent Tea Party rabble in their midst.
Watching the video, I found myself feeling sorry for the poor colonel at the meeting, who seemed to genuinely want to have a meeting of the minds (there were none to be found in Bastrop County) and calm jittery nerves. There was nothing in his words or demeanor that any reasonably intellectually adept biped could take as posing a threat. Then again, if you’re convinced that it’s all a false-flag operation designed to distract you while The Black Guy in the White House © and his evil homosexual Muslim overlords plot your demise, nothing will convince you otherwise. You know what you know…and ain’t nothing gonna change your mind. The good patriots of Bastrop County KNOW what they know, and no amount of fact or reason will change that.
Today, Bastrop County. Tomorrow, it could be East Bumfuk, OH, or Elmendorf, IA…because InfoWars says that small towns in the middle of nowhere are EXACTLY where World War III will start. It can be exceedingly difficult to discern where the parody ends and the serious conspiracy theories begin:
You see, there are these Wal-Marts in West Texas that supposedly closed for six months for “renovation.” That’s what they want you to believe. The truth is these Wal-Marts are going to be military guerrilla-warfare staging areas and FEMA processing camps for political prisoners. The prisoners are going to be transported by train cars that have already been equipped with shackles.
Don’t take my word for it. That comes directly from a Texas Ranger, who seems pretty plugged in, if you ask me. You and I both know President Obama has been waiting a long time for this, and now it’s happening. It’s a classic false flag operation. Don’t pay any attention the mainstream media; all they’re going to do is lie and attack everyone who’s trying to tell you the truth.
Did I mention the ISIS terrorists? They’ve come across the border and are going to hit soft targets all across the Southwest. They’ve set up camp a few miles outside of El Paso.
How do you reason with people gripped by the ironclad conviction that all of the above is the gospel truth, and that those who can’t it see are dupes under the influence of the NSA, Rachel Maddow, the Trilateral Commission, and George Soros? The truth is that you can’t reason with people who live and breathe conspiracy theories. Their minds are shut so tightly that allowing competing thoughts and ideas in would be tantamount to treason. Above all else, these people are ‘Merican.
My problem is not that people are predisposed to believing truly inane, ridiculous, and impossible to prove assertions. Willfully and aggressively stupid people have always been among. That will become even more true as anti-intellectualism and distrust of science grows. No, my problem is with those too stupid to know they’re stupid, people who sincerely believe themselves to be of the highest intellectual and moral character…while really being impossibly clueless.
Greetings from our new idiocracy, where people would believe day is night and black is white if they read it on InfoWars, The Drudge Report, or saw it on Fox News. Because the truth is out there, people.
Yes, it most certainly is.
