Jade Helm conspiracy theorists are kind of dumb. Who knew?

[eridani]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/27/1387860/-Jade-Helm-conspiracy-theorists-are-kind-of-dumb-Who-knew

The Boston Globe went to Texas to find out why a large segment of the American population has gone insane, or more specifically, why they are convinced that a military training exercise named Jade Helm is in fact an Obama plot to take over Texas and put his enemies, by which we mean a scattered passel of rural Texas lunatics, into camps. For some reason.

The short and almost depressingly obvious answer is because Obama.

Interviews with residents of this community illuminate the distrust that has developed across deeply conservative America — fueled by anger at the White House and Congress and a sense among many that the federal government is no longer on the side of the people it is dedicated to serve.

Which, I suppose, is a given. If you're the sort of rube who is so hostile to the first black president that you're already willing to believe he's a secret Kenyan, or Muslim, or any of the other things that even sitting congressmen were willing to pipe up with then believing he's going to use his secret Muslim powers to brainwash the military into invading Texas is not much of a step. I wish, however, we put more emphasis on pointing out that people who believe these things are not "conservatives" or "patriots" or any of the other things they wish to be called. They're mostly just deeply stupid.

“What comes home in the conservative consciousness is: The government is hostile to me,” [Bastrop County GOP chair so-and-so] said. “And if he’s already unleashed the IRS on us, is it a big leap to think he’d unleash the military?”

Yes, actually, it is a very big leap—even if you have convinced yourself of the hostile and IRS parts, "and now the military is going to invade Texas" is indeed a leap. It speaks to the mind-set, though; this other fellow is my enemy. Therefore, he is conspiring against me and doing illegal things, and about to do not just illegal things but nation-shatteringly loopy things. Because I am freedomz, and he is not.