1st Amendment attacked. Hoax

(looks up with a look of shock and bewilderment)

WE CAN'T?! 

(sighs heavily and slowly hops away, leaving a trail of depression from disbelief)

I feel so used....so bamboozled.  

Explanation: Censor this ...

I have a very strong apriori faith that whoever is president is evil ... in spite of any facts to the contrary.

Faith has to be stubborn!

I can also fully 'believe' in this hoax as no facts are supported [Thanks Grace, that was mighty fine digging work you did ] ... if it was factual I wouldn't be able to believe in it ... I would KNOW it was true.

But it isn't true and so therefor I can believe what I want.

Knowledge and Belief are two very different things that 99.999% of people confuse for the same thing.

Personal Disclosure: I believe what I want when I want as beliefs are mutable ... however one can't change a fact unless you invoke magic and or God.

For example ...

[Fantasizes]

Ima angel ...

[Reality sets in ...mom calls and says do your washing OL]

[Fantasizes MORE]

Ima demon sent to punish sinful dirty clothes!

Fact is I wouldn't of washed my clothes [that would take a miracle ... see here ===>] unless I fantasized because another fact is washing clothes is boring unless you are some kind of freak ... looking at you mum!

Hows that for free speech?



Magic works!

It's a hoax, my dear guohua.

President Obama said no such thing and, frankly, that this hoax exists, and that people believe it, speaks positively to the President, not to his detractors.

Speak the truth about what he's up to, that's great... start to lie... well, that says that the truth doesn't have much going for it.

(Personal disclaimer: I have never voted for President Obama and do not support him. But neither do I support lies.)

First, this is not Obama detractors speaking a lie. This was a hoax perpetrated upon us by someone who likes to come up with real enough sounding and seeming stories that people believe them at first sight, in order to get ad money from all the hits the page gets when people share it. The perpetrator could care less about politics or the truth, so long as they are making money.

As for the people believing it possible.. it is not out of a hate for Obama that it becomes believable, it is out of knowledge of history.

Right now, there are a lot of people (quite frankly one could say that it is quite nearly a majority of the country, at least the majority out of those who speak on such things) in the United States who believe it is wrong to name the suspect/shooter in these mass shootings thinking that getting their name in the news is why people go on these mass killing sprees, believing that it glorifies the crime and the criminal to name him in the papers and news programs.

That is fact. It is not a hoax.

Now for history. Do you remember when people were being killed by drunk drivers, they still are yes, but back in the 80's I think it was. (My aunt was actually killed by a drunk driver, its why I remember all this so well.) Well, MADD formed, a special interest group, and started lobbying and wanting laws changed. Remember back then?

Do you also remember when they began doing check points? And there was a huge outcry about that, as it is a violation of our constitutional rights, but on the other side of that outcry was MADD and all their supporters, no they said, we need these to keep the children safe from drunk drivers.  And the first possible case was taken to the supreme court to fight for our constitutional rights.

This was a huge deal at the time, I remember it well. It was determined then, in the supreme court, that while check points are indeed a violation of our constitutional rights, that the end justifies the means. That is exactly what was written in one justice's conclusion. The end justifies the means.

So, in the case of the hoax story, the writer proposed that, during a time when there is a huge outcry against a thing, just like there was a huge outcry from MADD and their supporters long ago, that some small measure of the freedom of the press was taken, which is the likeliest time for us to loose constitutional rights. A time when the loss will be accepted and even supported by the majority. A time when it looks like a perfectly reasonable thing, like those constitutional rights should not matter in this particular instance.

Now, in this country concerning the last batch that really was taken from us; we have checkpoints inside our borders asking for proof of citizenship, we have drivers license check points, we have drunk driving check points, we have check points all over the place... a blatant violation of our constitutional rights.. but it started because it was "for the children" "to keep us safe" it started by saying the end justifies the means.. the government just took it from there, as time went on.

If we are ever going to begin loosing our freedom of speech, or freedom of the press or any other freedom, it will begin in this manner. It will begin when there is a high level of support for something, and it will be fought on that one basis alone, then, the government will take full advantage of that loss over time. Slowly enough that is is accepted and not much noticed, because by then we will have been used to that violation. 

So yes, I believed that it could happen, but that belief did not stem from any hatred of Obama nor any desire to make him look bad. I believed it because it looked like a plausible story, I believed it because of the name NBC, and I believed it because history in this country tells me this is how it will happen again. History tells me if they want another constitutional right, they will grab it when where is a lot of support for it, during a time when they can say, it is to "keep us safe" and is "for the children"

Was I taken in for a moment over one man's get rich quick scheme in this instance? yes, I was. That is my bad, and something I will learn from. But it doesn't make me an idiot either, and it certainly doesn't make Obama a saint.