I will start compiling memes I see on Facebook, mostly without comment. These of course are anecdotes; they’re the equivalent of “people are saying” comments from a certain former president, though unlike him, I have Facebook share counts to indicate that some people, at least (usually thousands), are in fact sharing these thoughts.
The motivation here is to save these for reflection in 5 years or 15 years, when it will be hard to believe that American society (and to a certain extent others around the world) went so haywire and irrational that large portions of it would simply reject life-saving medication, based, as far as I can tell, on allegiance to their social groups, and their resentment of people in science or government “telling them what to do.” Fine; more of them will die from covid, and it’s hard to feel sorry for them.
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https://www.facebook.com/rightwingwatch/videos/1124388384757586
America is God’s garden, says right-wing pastor Shane Vaughn, and Christians are called “to pull out the weeds of liberalism [and] to pull out the disease of democracy.”
https://www.facebook.com/dondammassa/posts/10218974696987709
Has anybody tried unplugging Texas and plugging it back in
Jesse Bering: https://www.facebook.com/jesse.bering/posts/10161221415989046
Admonishing people who do not know the difference between a peer-reviewed study and an OAN talking heads segment to “follow the science” is probably not the best strategy. The psychology behind motivated reasoning means that they think they *are following the science.
Via Chris Barkley, from August 2020:
If more American Christians listened to Jesus, they’d be the first ones wearing masks in a pandemic, the first ones condemning children being taken from their parents, the first ones demanding refuge for exhausted foreigners fleeing violence, the first ones opposing police brutality, the first ones declaring that black lives matter—not the last ones.
Margaret Atwood:
States that ban abortion should pay for prenatal care, very expensive deliveries, health insurance, and upkeep of the child after it is born. That’s where the concern seems to cut off with these people. Once you take your first breath, it’s out the window with you. Who’s going to pay for the orphans and the dead women? It is really a form of slavery to force women to have children that they cannot afford, and force them to raise them
And my favorite for now, from Isaac Asimov:
Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves and guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.
