Obviously fox news, right wing radio, reading only the IBD and WSJ is rife with mis-information, but they believe absolutely they are on top of events and know what's what more than everybody else. You can tell this because the fact they "know" what's what causes them to want to share it freely with everybody....forcefully and aggressively.

34% of conservative republicans. 17% overall

http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Little-Voter-Discomfort-with-Romney%E2%80%99s-Mormon-Religion.aspx

Some people can be very intelligent and have 0 common sense,

what you want to believe than to actually think about it and try to make an intelligent informed decision.

Naturally every decision is tainted with personal bias and subjectivity and information boundaries, but for christs sake it sounds like your friend is in serious denial.

has very poor critical thinking skills because it seems she was unable to discern the contradiction in the firestorm over President Obama attending a CHRISTIAN CHURCH - Church of Christ and the bizarre notion that he is also a Muslim. The interesting thing is John Sununu is Palestian and a rightwing nutjob and until 1988 was anti-Israel.

...and I think she thought I was passing on some sort of unverified, partisan spin.

Had we been together in person, instead of talking on the phone, I could have pulled up the videos of Wright's famous statements.

But today, I think her "might not be possible to know some of these things" comment was because she didn't know how to process this new information.

Because they believe he's a Muslim, and all Muslims are terrorists, and he palls around with terrorists, he was born in Kenya, with a fake birth certificate, he's a socialist, communist, who wants to destroy America, take guns away and he's fully responsible for gas prices, unemployment and the national debt. Worse still, his middle name is the same as that Saddam guy who had WMD.

They actually believe that.

Majored in electrical engineering, dean's list.
Career airline pilot.
World traveled.
Best Man at my wedding.

Birther.
And Obama is a Muslim.

Hard for me to deal with this level of stupidity in a guy I used to be very close to.

He believes Obama's a liar, right? That Obama's keeping his supposed Muslim beliefs a secret?

Because this woman actually believes that we elected a president who openly claims to be a Muslim.

It's as if she saw so many "Obama = Muslim" memes that she took it to be a known, verified fact.

He's still full of shit and it's hard for me to come to terms with that.

Just the normal GOP race baiting

These right-wing paranoid schizophrenics need to get out of their bigoted mindset.

how fucking stupid is she?

I'm currently averaging around 3.3, and she's at about 3.7 or 3.8.

I understand people not following politics. What I don't understand is, people with Internet access not thinking: Really? Our president is Muslim? I should see if I can find that backed up by a legitimate source. Instead, she accepts it as fact, and lets that so-called "fact" bother her.

Rain Man could count hella numbers, but I don't think he was "intelligent".

Otherwise seemingly functional people actually believe that Obama's on some sort of mission to destroy the U.S. from the inside.

with 'so what?' the nonsense would stop.
obama could be a member of the jedi church, and i really wouldn't care.
*shrug*

"So what?" has been my answer the couple of times I've heard that. Then, I ask "You do know about Section 3, Article VI of the US Constitution?" (Que crickets)

Usually met with a blank stare or apoplexy.

"Muslim" is just the latest code word to characterize scary Black people who'll take away the White Way of Life.

Because gambling's been going on back there a long long time.

I just never expected to hear it from someone who otherwise appears to be intelligent, and who is not saying it in a conspiratorial manner. It makes me wonder how many others (who don't come across as nutjobs) really believe this without questioning it.

Or wonder wonder.

I have a really good friend who is almost 70, Vietnam Vet, and is very new to the Internet surprisingly. He is a member of his vet unit group, Blue Stars I think, and some of the chain emails he gets are incredible. I believe that if he got an email that said the sky is green and Obama was actually born on Mars, he would believe it. I try my best to try and explain that everything he reads on the Internet isn't real.

Those e-mails have made me lose any last bit of respect I might have had for conservatives. Do you know what they do when they get one of those e-mails that they know is bullshit? They forward it to everyone anyway, hoping the recipients will be stupid enough to believe it. What kind of person does that? Not one that I want to have anything to do with, that's for sure.

Sadly I think my friend truly believes them. I do all I can to politely give him the other side of the story. But he is older, set in his ways, served with these people and has a gullible/naive look on life.

So I do my part when I can, and shake my head when I can't. He is not an evil/mean person. He was a Huey pilot and is in a losing battle with cancer caused by Agent Orange. He doesn't even realize he isnt the target audience of Romney. He lives on VA disability, I've tried to tell him that he is the %47 that Rmoney wrote off.

Some exceptions, yeah yeah yeah.

Never gets old.

She thinks that Obama is a Muslim from Kenya. She's says that we can't elect Obama in 2012 because he'll force us all to become Muslims. She also claims that, if Obama is elected, "The Arabs" (her wording) will invade us and overthrow our government in order to install a Muslim theocracy. She loved that Obama 2016 (or whatever it was called) movie, and is recommending it to everyone.

working to put Americans under Sharia Law. Many of the same people would with equal fervor claim that he is waging a war on religion to make America a secular socialist-atheist state. I don't know how they square those counter claims - but they do and they are serious.

I have been regularly following this YouTube video (note the millions of views) partly just to follow the comments and occasionally try to correct misinformation:

There is no reasoning with him. I tried. He persisted. I unfriended him on Facebook. I will not give him any of the space on my new feed to spew that crap.

A survey was done of Ohio Republicans and many gave Mitt Romney credit for Osama Bin Laden.

(Not even Bush, but Romney)

and I see no reason for you to call me a liar.

Like I said in up above in another reply, it's not like I was unaware that this BS is rampant. But I never expected an otherwise-intelligent person to be so disconnected from current events and so reliant on FB friends as a source of information that she would actually believe that Obama is a professing Muslim.

I thought that crowd was limited to two types: liars, and those with very low IQs who fell for the lies. And even then, I thought both groups were limited to the "he's a secret Muslim" line.

I didn't call you a liar. I just don't believe anyone can be really shocked by this after four years of it unless you've lived on an island, are very young or drank the Koolaid until now. I'm sorry that it's such a sensitive topic for you.

WTF did I just say in my reply to you?

and thanks for your concern

in this day and age They don't believe that they only know he's black and they can't come out and say that's why they hate him so much they use birtherism or say he's a Muslim which is Religious discrimination and just as wrong as any other type of discrimination

don't give a shit! That's what republicans do. They make a big mess when they are in power, then when they are out of power they sit on their big fat hemorrhoidal buttocks, make up shit, and then point their brown stained fingers at democrats for not cleaning up their mess fast enough.

insisted that was the case and seemed to be unaware that this was no longer common knowledge. I know a majority of Americans believed that in March 2003 and about 70% or more of those who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 still believed it then. But I found it it mine boggling to learn that a serious number of Republicans still believe it - even now.

I knew many fellow students when I was in college that had high GPA's but were as stupid as a mud fence.

Even if he were a Muslim, that has nothing to do with the fact that he's the best qualified candidate for 2012. Geez!

Hitler was a Christian.

But this encounter revealed to me the extent of what Rachel Maddow calls "the bubble" that so many conservatives have come to occupy. Before yesterday, I assumed "the bubble" meant things like Fox, Limbaugh, and Free Republic.

But this conversation yesterday completely floored me. This is a woman who once decoded Descartes for me (on the fly, and without any previous exposure to his work) when I couldn't understand any of that. And now I'm suddenly learning that she appears to consume and regurgitate all her "news" from her church friends' Facebook posts.

are among the most insular little worlds one will ever find. Of course, in such a group you might have doctors, lawyers, accountants and lots of otherwise educated people. But one of the social dynamics of fundamentalist church groups is that fellow believers are really the only people who hold opinions that count. There is a suspicion borderlining on paranoia about the world of non-believers. Thus there is a strong tendency to discount any information that does not come from believer sources. If you accept that your band of believers holds a special truth about the nature of the universe that the world cannot comprehend and only the true fellow believers can comprehend - one is going to end up knowing all kinds of things for certain that simply are not true.

I get emails on a daily basis for idiots trying to persuade me that Obama is a Muslim. This morning's buffet of emails including (yet again) the picture from 2008 where Obama is holding the book about "post America". They're still screaming about that one!

I think people have a lot wrapped up in their identity, especially folks who identify as evangelical Christian. They have a lot riding on being accepted by their group and believing the "right" things. I think that they will "believe" what they are told because it is literally a part of who they work hard to project to the world. The Republicans have done a masterful job at taking over evangelical Christianity and molding it for their own purposes. An evangelical Christian will be applauded for believing a thrice married drug addict when he lies about our Christian President who is a devoted husband and father. Their group acceptance, social support, and identity depend on it.

...but I guess occasionally wearing clothing styles that originate from outside dominant U.S. culture is part of the job. I don't think wearing this outfit makes him Vietnamese.

that even if he was, it doesn't matter one iota. The Constitution- which many of them claim to revere- forbids religious tests for public office. End of story.

Being an evangelical Christian, she's likely one of the millions of people who believe the human race began with a couple of naked people who conversed with a talking snake. NOTHING these right-wing nutbags say or believe surprises me any more.

Bottom line: people can convince themselves of anything.