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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   38487 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023

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I don't agree with the claim that RFK Jr is "essentially a left-wing version of Alex Jones." While both seem prone to spreading conspiracy theories and to hold many false beliefs, Jones has much crazier beliefs (at least comparing the beliefs that both have expressed in public). For example, Jones has claimed that globalists built the LHC to create a portal to let in evil elves/demons to ensalve humans. That's a whole different disconnection from reality compared to anything I've heard RFK Jr claim.

Also see my comment above for my attempt to briefly fact check the claims that the OP mentions RFK Jr making. While overall they don't inspire great confidence in RFK Jr's accuracy, at least a couple of the claims are correct or arguably correct and also fairly surprising.

The classic insane Jones belief was "chemicals in the water are turning the frogs gay". RFK Jr. holds a similar belief.

(of course, it's not actually insane in a factual sense; what makes a belief insane in the social sense is the status of the holder, not the factual basis of the belief)

But before they can eliminate RFK Jr by obtaining a default judgement against him for One Billion Dollars, they're going to need to break any remaining associations with "left-wing". Shouldn't take long; I've seen a lot of right-wing COVID vaccine skeptic support for him.

It may be that the classic "insane Jones belief" was "chemicals in the water are turning the frogs gay" however I don't think that's close to his actual craziest (publicly stated) belief. In general, it is possible that someone is known for being crazy and is crazy, but is not crazy for the reasons for which they are generally believed to be crazy.

For what it is worth, Alex is also right a decent amount of the time. He is also bat shit crazy some of the time. More importantly he is always entertaining. If you think of Alex as a court jester who occasionally tells truth but often is just a crazy clown, then he is a fine chap

My point was basically that Alex Jones's peaks of "bat shit crazy" are much more extreme than RFK Jr's. I agree that Alex Jones is entertaining, but that's very distinct from the question of his level of craziness.

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