People prone to magical thinking are the problem.

[EmilyAnne]

Think of them as Pilgrims.
While walking through a forest one afternoon in 1632, they pass an unusually knotted tree.
The Pilgrims marvel at such strange knots.
They decide the knots mean that the next deer they pass is really a witch.
How can anyone prove otherwise?
And how can anyone prove that the deer hasn't already disguised itself as a bird and flown into the settlement to make all the babies sick?
And if the babies don't get sick?
Its not because they were wrong about the knots and the witch-deer disguised as a bird.
Its because that one old lady fasted a whole week, thus defeating the witch/deer/bird.
Until the next time......

Its this sort of magical thinking that we are dealing with on a large but, thankfully, less extreme scale.
A teacher in New Jersey who teaches her class a song she wrote about President Obama isn't just an overzealous teacher.
She is actually a representative of the Obama administration on a mission of total political indoctrination.
This song is further proof that we are now a totalitarian regime living under a Nazi dictator.

This same sort of magical thinking is the basis of the birther movement.
The magical thinker sees the 1930s art of Rockefeller Center as proof that President Obama is a Communist.
And the ACORN prostitution videos as representative of President Obama's personal moral code.
Everything is tied together, everything is ONE and it all means something bigger and scarier than anything the world has since since Hitler.
And Stalin.
And anyone else bad.

How can rational people take on such magical thinking?
What do you say to a person who not only believes that we should be on the look out for the Anti Christ, but thinks that the President of the United States could very well be it?
When we argue about birth certificates and death panels and organized plans to indoctrinate children and that President Obama does not equal ACORN, we are basically arguing about the Anti-Christ.

[anonymous171]

1. You don't say anything. You marginilize them and if they resist you crush them.

Simple as that. I have no patience with Reactionaries.

[ZombieHorde]

2. Aren't the vast majority of us prone to magical thinking? K&R

[rebel with a cause]

5. I am a bit of a magical thinker....

but these people are just bat sh*t crazy in my opinion!:mad:

[johnaries]

3. Terrible analogy. There are plenty of people who indulge in

"magical thinking" who still think rationally and logically when it comes to the mundane.

People tend to believe what they want to believe, whether it's "magical" or not. There are some who realize this and feed false information in order to manipulate others.

Discredit the manipulators.

[Flabbergasted]

4. He's not condemning all "magical thinking," just highlighting why it is so difficult to

communicate, or argue with those in a completely different world.

[saltpoint]

6. There are some folks out there who believe that the Anti-Christ walks

among us at this hour.

Descriptions vary. It's evidently a 'he,' he's "foreign," he's cosmopolitan, he's quietly manipulative, he's all-knowing, he has specific political affiliations, or not, he eats Aunt Jemima pancakes, he is birthmarked like Gorbachov or tattooed like George Mitchell.

The descriptions lay out like a smorgasboard of personal features. Walk through the line and put whatever you want on your plate. Freckles? Check. Red pubic hair? Check. Accomplished bassoonist? You bet.

[ginnyinWI]

7. there have always been religious fringe crazies.

Wasn't it about a hundred years ago, or so, that there were people who climbed up to the top of a mountain to await the end of the world? And so it goes...

The difference is that today they get on our teevees where we can see them, and on our computer screens.

And yes, some of them have a kind of split personality about it: most of the time they act and think normally, then when they go to church they zone into the fantastical. It's like they are bi-lingual. Most of them sensibly keep quiet when not with their own kind. But then there are the others.