Can't tell if dumb bigots... or trolling (actually, I'm pretty sure it's trolling)

A few days ago while lurking around one of several skeptic Facebook groups that I belong too I came across this article from a website called Pink News.

The article was in concern over a flyer that was being posted around Clintonville, Ohio for... well, you can see for yourself:

Weirder things have happened, i suppose. Straight White Guy Festival, anyone? http://t.co/0mQKcItnOS pic.twitter.com/kib7tlx9hz
— Lauren Bagley (@TheREDison) July 18, 2014

Yes... you're reading that right. It's a flyer for a Straight White Guy Festival.

Now, I know many of you are probably thinking "this can't be real, right"?

Well it could be real because despite our society's advances in the field of race relations, there are still racist people in this country, but I don't think it's real, and I have several reasons why I believe this is so.

Lets take a look at what is not on this flyer that most would have had.

First, there's no contact information of any kind on these flyers.

Most racist groups would have placed on such a flyer either a mailing address, or a phone number, or an e-mail address. At the very least they would have put a website name on there inorder to help promote their group if they were unwilling to place on the flyer direct contact information.

The second thing that caught my eye is that the flyer doesn't say who is putting on and sponsoring this festival.

Any racist or bigoted group that was putting on and sponsoring such an event would not have left their name off. Most hate groups want people to know that they are sponsoring such an event in hopes of recruiting people into their group.

At the very least they would have put the name of a front group on the flyer in an attempt to hide who is really organizing this so called festival, while at the same time trying to recruit new members.

Now lets take a look at what the flyer does say on it.

First is the title of this "event" Straight White Guy Festival.

The name of this alleged festival looks more like something a dumb college frat boy would have created and doesn't realize that this sort of thing is racist and bigoted as hell, rather than a person that is part of a racist and bigoted group.

Now before anyone says it I'm very well aware that bigots are not known for their intelligence, but atleast they would try to come up with something a little more creative than that.

Second thing I noticed about the flyer was that it contradicted itself.

The flyer says "Come help us celebrate our enjoyment of being straight white and male" but it also says "Everyone welcome".

If this festival is intended for straight white males then how come the flyer is also saying that anyone who is not straight, white, or male can attend?

A racist and bigoted group would never have put "Everyone welcome" on such a flyer. They either would have put nothing on there, or they would have made it very clear that only straight white males would have been allowed to attend (or atleast straight white people).

The final thing about this flyer that leads me to believe that someone is trolling in real life is that while there is a location for this "festival", a date, a time, and that beer will be available, according to WBNS-10TV no permits have been taken for such a festival, and while I'm not sure of the local laws concerning festivals at local parks, most places would make you apply for a permit to hold such an event, and to sell beer at it.

Taking all these things into consideration I can only come to the conclusion that this is some kind of joke.

I'm not sure if the person that created these flyers intended on them being racist or anti-racist, but it's still pretty offensive either way.

Ofcourse it could be real and some racist group is intending to hold a festival without getting or knowing they have to get permits first, as well as not knowing how to make a proper flyer.

If they have their festival they'll find out the hard way that you need to have the proper permits.

Facebook needs to start enforcing it's own rules!

Yesterday I saw something on Facebook that really p*ssed me off!

Granted I see lots of things on Facebook that p*ss me off (sometimes on an hourly bases) but the things that usually get my teeth grinding are just rude, or offensive, or ignorant, or all of the above. What I saw wasn't neither rude nor offensive, but it sure was ignorant, and it was definitely dangerous.

What ticked me off was an infograph posted on Green Med Info's Facebook page concerning a "study" about "GMO" insulin (which all insulin is) that claimed that certain people with type 2 diabetes can develop type 1 diabetes from injecting insulin. (Link to original post here)

While people with type 2 diabetes can develop type 1 diabetes over time there are usually several factors that can cause this, such as a person's diet, or whether they exercise, or if they take the medication that has been prescribed to them, or genetics. Insulin is not one of the causes. Infact it could prevent a person with type 2 diabetes from developing type 1 diabetes.

What gets me so angry about that post isn't just the sheer ignorance of it, or how outright dangerous it is for the people at Green Med Info to promote something like this (because despite the fact that it promotes quackery and fraud medicine, better known as alternative medicine, people do listen to and take "advice" from that page) this type of "info" could kill a person with type 2 diabetes if they take it to seriously and decide to stop taking insulin. Either that or result in a person developing type 1 diabetes, or slipping into a diabetic coma, or losing a body part. The very worst thing that could happen is that the parent of a child with type 2 diabetes reads that and decides not to give their child insulin and what I listed above happens to that child, and there is little they can do about because they are at the mercy of their parent (unless they tell a teacher or family member about what their parent is doing and that person gets the authorities involved).

Now, back to the original reason why I'm writing this.

I, along with many other people reported this post to Facebook hoping that the social media website would take down the post due to the fact that it could cause some people to do something that was dangerous and hazardous to their health, and warn Green Med Info not to post something like that again.

Facebook has done nothing.

As many of you have probably found out over time this isn't the only time that Facebook has failed to remove a post or a page that promotes stuff that's either dangerous and/or violates it's own rules.

There are lots of pages on Facebook that promote a great amount of medical misinformation that in the hands of an uninformed person could cause that person to do something that results in their death or the death of others. The biggest violators of this would be anti-vaccination pages and HIV denialism pages, two types of groups that promote medical misinformation that has led to multiple deaths. Such pages should not be allowed because the "information" they a spreading is harmful.

Then there are the pages that promote bigotry, which antisemitism seems to be the the one mostly promoted.

While the spreading of medical misinformation may be dangerous and for some people questionable whether or not it violates the rules, promoting bigotry in what ever form it may come in clearly violates the rules.

Now sometimes Facebook will do the right thing and remove a bigoted post or page, but more often than not it just doesn't happen and the person or people running the page continues to spew hate speech.

Facebook needs to better enforce it's own rules and take down posts and pages that violate it's own rules and promotes things that are dangerous.

I'm aware that the main reason why the people at Facebook do not often take down these pages is because of free speech concerns, and while I do understand that reasoning the fact remains is that Facebook has a set of guidelines and rules that everyone is suppose to obey, and when they don't enforce those guidelines and rules they become meaningless.

I know that Facebook is a private company and can remove any content it so chooses to. I just wish it would start doing so.

Anti-Vaccination Critics shutdown: How Facebook should prevent and punish Anti-Vaccination supporters (or anyone) who wrongfully get their critics banned from Facebook?

Over the past couple of weeks it's been revealed that Anti-Vaccination groups and their supporters on Facebook have been launching false flag attacks (and I don't mean types that Alex Jones thinks happens every time a shooting or a bombing or a natural disaster occurs in this country) against groups that are pro-vaccination and/or critical of anti-vaccination groups and their supporters and propaganda. These false flaggings have unfortunately resulted in the temporary (yet still wrongful) banning of multiple people and groups from Facebook who are critics of the Anti-Vaccination movement. This needs to stop. Infact not only does this need to stop, but the people who are making these false flag reports need to be punished.

While many of you have some ideas on what should be done inorder to curb false flag reporting (which I would love to hear from you in the comments section) I have a few suggestions of my own:

The first thing that needs to happen is that Facebook needs to make it easier to challenge a complaint and a ban. While you can do this even now, it's not an easy process. Plus a person should be given a chance to defend themselves before a ban is about to occur. No more automatic bans unless a certain amount of time has gone by after a complaint was sent (I say a minimum of six hours).

Now the second thing that should happen to help curb false flagging abuse on Facebook is that those that do abuse the reporting system need to have their ability to report posts and groups and individuals that they don't believe should be on Facebook more difficult. Granted I'm not saying they should be left unable to report someone or some group that really does contain offensive or illegal content (unless they continue to abuse the system even after restrictions have been placed on them, then their ability to report groups and people should be taken away, and they should be banned temporarily) but the process should be made more difficult for those that abuse the system, and probably should include a screen shot of any content that is being reported upon, as well as include more details about why something is being reported.

Going along side with the second suggestion that I believe Facebook needs to do inorder to curb false flagging abuse, after a person has already had restrictions put against for false flag abuse, if they do report someone or some group for their content and Facebook determines that it doesn't violate their policies, the person or group should be informed that someone sent a complaint against them that was struct down, and the person or group should be told whom that person is, and given the option of whether or not they want to block that individual.

Now these couple of suggestions might help against individuals who abuse the reporting system, but what about groups that do the same thing and organize their followers to report individuals and groups inorder to silence them (this can apply to any group, not just the anti-vaccination groups)?

First, for groups that do frequently abuse the reporting system, first give them a warning, then a ban if they continue, then a longer ban with a warning that if they continue to abuse the reporting system that their page will be removed and deleted, and if they continue to abuse the system, then Facebook should remove and delete that group.

The second thing that should be done to these groups that abuse the reporting system is that they should have the ability to control what is and isn't posted on their page and who can and cannot post on their page restricted as well.

Anti-vaccination groups (along with chemtrail, anti-GMO, fundamentalist groups, and generally any group that promotes conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and bigotry) are notorious for blocking people and deleting any posts that they make that either counter-argues something that was posted in the group, or criticizes the group. One of the things that Facebook can do as a way to punish a group that abuses the reporting system is to alert the person whom has had a post deleted, or has been blocked, and give that person a chance to dispute the deletion or blocking. If they chose to try to prove that the deletion or blocking was unwarranted and didn't violate any of Facebook's rules, then Facebook will restore the post or unblock the person from the group, and also leave the group unable to delete anything else from that person, or block that person.

Now, do I believe that Facebook would do any of the things that I have suggested here? No, but I think that we all can agree that Facebook does need to do something inorder to curb false flag abuse.

5 Things I've noticed about... Social Media

Social media is probably one of the greatest inventions of the computer age.

It allows people from all over the world to interact with other people that under normal circumstances they would never have had a chance to interact with, and it has become an outlet for many to express either their thoughts or emotions.

Now there are a lot of things that I have noticed about social media (trust me, it's a lot) but I have narrowed to five different things.

So here are five things I've noticed about social media:

5. It's basically blogging.

Probably one of the biggest things that I really have noticed about social media that a lot of people probably overlook (mostly because they don't have a real blog site) is that everything that I can do on social media I can basically do on here. From posting photos and videos, to writing up long, drawn out rants that I hope people would read first in it's entirety before commenting on it, I can just as easily do here as I can on Facebook (only I can be a little more creative here with my posts).

I guess you could say that blogs (especially those that you can comment on and interact with the author) are the first types of social media. Infact some websites that are considered by many to be social media websites are actually blogs. Probably one of the best examples of this is Twitter which many people regard as one of the largest social media websites in the world. Infact it's actually a mirco-blog website in which many people express their thoughts on... 140 characters at a time.

4. They always change stuff.

Probably one of the biggest complaints about social media websites is that every once in a while they will change something about it that some people will complain about, regardless if the change is a good or a bad thing.

Many times these changes are minor, and are often times not that noticeable, and is really nothing to get in an uproar about, but sometimes the changes are major (like a complete redesign of the whole layout of the site's pages) and is something that no one has any say in whether or not they want to keep the old style that they have gotten use to and have modified to their liking.

3. They have a weird way of enforcing they TOS agreements.

Whats easier to get removed from a social media website? A picture that a model has uploaded of themselves in a skimpy bikini that doesn't actually violate the site's TOS agreement, and might be being used for legitimate business purposes, or a rant about Jews that clearly violates that website's rules about hate speech?

If you answered the picture of a model in the skimpy bikini, then you answered correctly.

The fact is that social media websites are probably far more likely to remove content from a user, or punish that user in some other way, for content that would only be offensive only to the most uptight or jealous of individuals and doesn't actually violate the TOS agreement, and doesn't hurt anyone, rather than remove content from someone whom post harmful and/or bigoted content that really does violate the TOS agreement of the website, and could incite a person to commit violence or do something else that is harmful.

Because of social media websites seeming unwillingness to remove content that really is or could be considered harmful or bigoted, and because it's just so easy to create a new account incase a person is kicked off of a social media website...

2. It has become a haven for whack jobs.

Social media is a great place to interact with like minded people who share the same or similar interests as you do. If I want to join a group for Walking Dead fans that's no problem because there are several of them on Facebook. Or if I want to join a group for skeptics, no problem there either. If I want to join a group that promotes conspiracy theories, or alternative medicine, that unfortunately is also no problem because there are a lot of groups like that on Facebook alone.

The fact is that social media has attracted a lot of people who believe in either really strange and/or possibly harmful stuff (i.e. conspiracy theorists, pushers of alternative medicine, bigots) mainly because it's both far easier and cheaper (most often times free) to set up a page on a social media website than it is to completely create your own website. You also have a better chance of reaching more people as well.

Now of all of the different types whack jobs on social media, there is one type of whack job that truly loves it, because...

1. It's become a paradise for stalkers.

Back in the pre-social media days if you wanted to stalk someone you really had to put some effort into it. Now many stalkers don't have to do much of anything inorder to stalk someone. All they have to do is check their victim's social media page and know where they're going or where they are at and really don't have to do much if any investigating inorder to do their stalking. Heck some stalkers don't even do that and stalk people exclusively online.

Social media is such a time saver for stalkers that if they are psychologically capable of it they can actually have a social life while screwing with someone else's life...

All joking aside, stalking is a big problem on social media, and while it is partially because some people put out more information about themselves then what they really should be putting on the internet, the main reason why stalking is such a big problem on social media is because people who stalk via social media do it because it is easy, and because they believe they can get away with it, which is not always the case. Infact some people might stalk a person over the internet and not even realize it. Also many people might get stalked on social media and not even know it.

Help stop DMCA abuse and homophobia at the same time

Today I found out that former U.S. Navy chaplain turned far right fundamentalist Christian and notorious homophobic, Gordon "Dr. Chaps" Klingenschmitt, manged to get Right Wing Watch's Youtube account suspended after filing a series of bogus copyright claims (I.E. a DMCA attack) because the page hosted several one to two minute video clips showcasing his blatant bigotry.

This is the second time this has happen in the past two weeks (read about it here, here, here, and here) and despite already having restored it once after RWW filed a counter claim that clearly demonstrated that they do infact have every right to use those video clips under the FAIR USE Act (not to mention the 1st Amendment, which also allows Mr. Klingenschmitt to continue to spread his hate speech, as well as allows me and RWW to call it hate speech), Youtube decided to side with "Dr. Chaps" and took down the page again.

Youtube is ofcourse notorious for taking down both videos and entire pages after someone files a false DMCA claim, and not even doing any investigation into the claim to see if there is any validity to the claim (as is the case here). The way that Youtube handles these DMCA claims basically allows most people to get away with suppressing information about a group, or a single person, or themselves, that puts them in a bad light (again, as in the case here). That, or it's used as a form of information gathering because Youtube requires a user to send a certain amount of personnel information that would be made available to the person filing the DMCA claim to begin the counter claim process.

This type of abusive behavior needs to stopped, and it can be stopped, and here are a couple of ways you can do that:

First, you can go to Youtube's Twitter page and tell them to restore Right Wing Watch's account and to revise there takedown policy to keep abuse like this from happening (go here to ask them).

Second (and the one that I most recommend), you can sign a petition started by Right Wing Watch and it's parent group, People For the American Way, asking Youtube to restore RWW's account, and to stop abuse of it's own takedown policies (go here to sign the petition).

This in my opinion is just another example of why the DMCA needs either a heavy overhaul, or needs to be repelled entirely and replaced with something much better, and also what lengths that a homophobic bigot will go to (or really anyone with a extremist and/or harmful agenda) inorder to suppress criticism not only of themselves, but also what they claim to believe in.

5 Things I've noticed about... 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

A few months ago I did one of these "5 Things I've noticed about..." articles on the people in the 9/11 Truth Movement, and it had me thinking to myself "what about the conspiracy theories that the people in the 9/11 Truth Movements promote?"

So what about those conspiracy theories, and what are some of the biggest things about them that just stand out? Well, I've noticed a lot of things about them, and I've narrowed them down to five different things.

So here are five things I've noticed about 9/11 conspiracy theories:

5. There are a lot of them.

Probably one of the biggest problems with the 9/11 conspiracy theories is that there are more than one of them, instead of just one that the people who believe in and focus on.

For some people these can be confusing not only because they are all very different, but they are mostly not even connected to one another.

Not only can they be confusing, but they are also progressively more bizarre as well.

There is the let it happen theory, the controlled demolition theory, the drone plane theory, the nuke theory, and even the no plane/space lasers (which is so bizarre a person in the 9/11 Truth Movement debunked it).

I guess you say that the 9/11 conspiracy theories are a lot like the JFK assassination conspiracy theories in that not only are there more than one theory to what happened, but also because...

4. There is apparently more than one perpetrator.

Besides there just being more than one 9/11 conspiracy theory, according to these conspiracy theories, there is no solid conclusion on who the "real" perpetrator is.

Some people claim that it was Al-Qaida, it's just that those in the government allowed them to attack. Some people say that it was a collaboration between the government and Al-Qaida. Some people believe it was just the government, or Israel, or the Illuminati, or someone else entirely.

It just seems like none of these conspiracy theorists who claim that 9/11 was an inside job can agree upon who did it, and how they did it. Of course that isn't very surprising to me, because...

3. The biggest promoters of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are kooks.

Now I'm saying that all people who believe in the 9/11 conspiracy theories are kooks, but the biggest promoters of these theories are.

There's Alex Jones, whom constantly promotes conspiracy theories on his radio program, thinks everything bad that happens is a false flag attack, and just starts yelling and making incoherent rants.

There's Mike Adams, a promoter of pseudoscience and medical quackery (especially dangerous types of medical quackery), as well as other conspiracy theories.

Finally, there's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, whom in addition to promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories, is also a holocaust denier, and is antisemitic.

They are of course not the only one's who promote the 9/11 conspiracy theories, but they are some of the biggest ones, and many of the other promoters of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are just as nutty (or possibly fraudulent) as these guys.

2. They contain a lot of bigotry.

Many conspiracy theories contain forms of bigotry within them, and 9/11 conspiracy theories are no different.

A lot of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are antisemitic, either indirectly by blaming several prominent Jews of being involved in the attacks, or blatantly antisemitic by blaming Israel, and that all the Jewish people who worked at the World Trade Center were in on it.

Besides the antisemitism within these conspiracy theories, these conspiracy theories are also racist as well, because many conspiracy theorists try to justify their belief that someone other than some people from the middle east had to have done this because people from the middle east (and Arab people in general) are not mentally capable of planning out and doing such a thing, or if they did, then they would have had to have had help from either white people or Jews, or have been allowed to do this.

1. They've all been debunked.

Every single 9/11 conspiracy theory has been debunked. From the "let it happen" theories, to the controlled demolition theory, to the really crazy no plane theories, not a single one has ever been proven to be true, or have been shown to hold up to any sort of evidence, or even hold up to logical arguments.

In fact they have all been debunked for years now, and some skeptics no longer even debate and debunk the people who make these claims, either because they have determined that those people are either to stupid to figure out that none of these conspiracy theories are true, or that they are to self deluded to be able to see that what they believe to be true is not, or that they are mentally ill, or they are a liar with an ulterior motive.

The fact is that all of the evidence surrounding the 9/11 attacks point in only one direction: Al-Qaida and the 19 members of that terrorist group who hijacked those planes and flew them into the sides of those buildings, and no one else.

5 Things I've noticed about... Homophobics

Homophobics are individuals whom for some reason or another hate (or more likely fear) homosexuals. Now while there are many things that I've notice about homophobics, I've managed to narrow it down to five things.

So here are five things I've noticed about homophobics:

5. They're gay.

When I use the word "gay" I don't mean that they're happy people (because most of them aren't) or, as what some high school students mean when they use the word "gay", that they're stupid (although they are, but that meaning really should stop). No, what I mean when I say that homophobics are "gay" is that they really are gay...

Not only have there been several notorious homophobic individuals that have been caught in gay sex scandals (and several more are suspected of being closeted homosexuals too), several studies suggest that people with strong homophobic beliefs are actually themselves homosexuals.

4. They're arguments against homosexuality is based off of fraud studies and emotion.

If you ask a homophobic person why same sex marriage should remain illegal, and why same sex couples shouldn't be aloud to adopt children, and why homosexuality itself should be outlawed, they'll give you a number of different "reasons" why. The problem with the arguments that are often given is that they are often emotionally based rather than fact based, and that religious beliefs, going against nature claims, and slippery slop fallacious are often times used as covers for what is really a person's emotionally based prejudices.

Sometimes of course these people will not only give an emotionally based reasons for continuing to discriminate against homosexuals, they will actually give you "studies" that "show" why homosexuals should be discriminated against. The problem with this is that these studies are not produced by any credible medical or psychological organizations, and are in fact often produced by anti-gay hate groups. These studies are considered to be questionable at best, but often times are considered to be outright fraudulent and nothing more than propaganda.

3. They don't seem to understand the harm they are causing.

Because of homophobic politicians creating laws like DOMA and other state laws and amendments outlawing the legal recognition on both the state and federal levels of same sex marriage, this has caused both financial and legal troubles for many same sex couples.

Besides the political aspect of the harm they're causing, they're causing a lot of social harm as well. They've made some people believe that it's perfectly acceptable to mistreat homosexuals, and homophobia has caused families to break apart because someone (usually a parent) couldn't accept a family member who was gay (usually a child of said parent).

2. They're shrinking.

There's not as many people who believe that homosexuality is wrong and that same sex marriage should be illegal as there was ten years ago, or even five years ago. In fact some surveys suggest that a majority of Americans now believe that same sex marriage should be legal.

In fact most of the time when it comes to homophobic beliefs people tend to go one way, and that is they get over their fears and prejudices about homosexuals and accept that homosexuality is okay. In fact it's pretty rare for someone who isn't homophobic to develop homophobic beliefs, and usually the only people who this happens to are ex-gays (which are homosexuals who have been brainwashed into believing that they aren't homosexuals).

1. They're failing.

Over the years homophobics have been failing more and more to influence anyone other than fellow homophobics. Where once threats of boycotts by homophobic groups against companies for making gay friendly policies or advertising in a gay newspapers would actually get those companies to drop those policies and ads are now being ignored with no harm coming towards them. On the other hand, when there was a boycott against Chick-fil-a due to it's COO's (along with the WinShape Foundation and the company in general) support of anti-gay groups, the boycott was successful and lead to the company ceasing of support of anti-gay groups.

They're also failing in politics too. Same sex marriage is now legal in 12 states and the District of Columbia, and is legal in 15 counties (along with civil union and registered partnerships in eight states and 17 countries). In fact many religious groups (including Christian religious groups) now support gay rights and same sex marriage as well.

Eventually homophobics will have no say what so ever in politics. People won't vote them in, and they'll be treated just like any other bigots.

5 Things I've noticed about... The Westboro Baptist Church

A lot of things are said about the Westboro Baptist Church (mainly negative) and through all that is said, there a certain things that church tends to do.

So here are five things I've noticed about the Westboro Baptist Church:

5. They believe God hates everyone... but them.

According to the Westboro Baptist Church, God hates everyone (or at least anyone who offends Fred Phelps in even the littlest of ways), and according them everyone (but them) is going to Hell. This even includes people who might share a similar ideology to the church's ideology, but that the church's leadership believes that those people are still going to Hell simply because their hate towards a certain group isn't up to the church's standards, or that they don't hate all the groups that the church hates.

4. They don't mind lying.

Despite being a sin (and according to the Bible a very big one), they have no problems lying, whether it be announcing that they a going to protest somewhere and then not showing up, announcing that they a going to protest somewhere, not showing up, and then photoshopping a picture of them protesting at said place, or just saying things about people that are simply not true.

3. They alienate everyone.

Literally no one can stand them, either because of their blatant bigotry, homophobia, antisemitism, anti-Americanism, or just plain psychopathic behavior. Even the Klu Klux Klan can not stand them, even though they have a similar ideology with the Westboro Baptist Church.

Their actions have made so many people angry that there are now laws to try to curtail their protests, and that the public at large wants their IRS tax exemption to be revoked, and for the government to officially declare them a hate group.

Also, no one cares if someone attacks them. In some cases people believe that it's a good thing to attack them.

2. They encourage their members to be psychopaths.

The leadership of the Westboro Baptist Church encourages it's members to show no empathy for anyone, to have no remorse what so ever for causing anyone pain through their actions, to be happy that they are causing people pain, to be happy when someone dies, to pray that certain people die, and to be happy with the thought thought that someone might be in Hell. In fact they tell they're members that not doing this stuff will get them sent to Hell.

If that is not psychopathic behavior, I don't know what is.

1. They're cowards.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church will protest just about anything, just as long as there are enough police officers around to protect them from the public who might use force to get rid of them.

They're not going to show up anywhere where they don't think they're not going to get enough security to protect them, or where they may be harmed no matter how much security they have. In fact it's even been suggested that communities stop giving them police protection during their protests just to keep them away.

They also haven't taken on Scientology either. Maybe they're afraid of getting harassed and sued by them.

What is an Embarrassing Conspiracy Theory?

For several months I've been writing a series of blog articles called Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories, which by the title alone most of you can tell are about conspiracy theories that have been dis-proven to the point where there is no reason for anyone to continue to believe in them, or just sounds insane, and thus anyone who continues to believe in these conspiracies should be embarrassed that they believe in them.

Now, I don't list all conspiracy theories as being embarrassing to continue to believe in (although many of them are). In fact I have a list of criteria that a conspiracy theory needs to meet at least 3 parts of in order to be considered an "embarrassing" conspiracy theory.

So, here is a list of what I consider to be the criteria for what a embarrassing conspiracy theory is:

1. The conspiracy theory has no evidence to back it up.

Many conspiracy theories simply have no evidence what so ever to prove that they exist, be it physical evidence (real or made-up) or eye witnesses (credible or non-credible).

2. All evidence presented has been discredited and/or dis-proven.

Many conspiracy theories are based upon evidence that, while might be accepted to many conspiracy theorists, has been either discredited and/or dis-proven through a scientific process, an independent investigation, or is shown to be a logical fallacy.

3. Some or all evidence that has been presented has proven to the fraudulent.

While some conspiracy theories are based on evidence that has been discredited and/or dis-proven, there are some conspiracy theories that are actually based on evidence that has been proven to be either fraudulent, or is at least strongly suspected of being fraudulent, or may even be a hoax that has just gotten out of hand.

4. Eye witnesses have been proven to be unreliable and/or liars.

Some conspiracy theories have eye witnesses who either claim to have witnessed certain portions of a conspiracy happening, or to have been part of the conspiracy itself. The problem with this is that many times these people either cannot back up their claims, or others have proven their claims to be false, or they constantly change their claims.

5. The conspiracy theory appears to be propaganda.

There are some conspiracy theories out there that do appear to be nothing more propaganda created to promote some sort of political or ideological agenda, or some type of pseudoscience or medical quackery.

6. The conspiracy theory has an obvious bigoted slant.

There are in fact some conspiracy theories out there that are obviously made up simply for the purpose of justifying one's continued hatred towards a certain group of people, or to continue to justify the discrimination against a certain group of people.

7. The conspiracy theory itself sounds ridiculous.

As the old saying goes "if it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is" and in a sense the same can be said for a conspiracy theory. If a conspiracy theory sounds to crazy and to illogical to be true, then it probably is not true.

Why I refuse to Debate Bigots

I'm sure we have all encountered a bigot on the internet, be it a someone who who hates black people, or Hispanic people, or Jewish people, or Muslims, or homosexuals, or just anyone who is different from them.

Recently on the Thrive Debunked blog I encountered a person who not only greatly believed in the pseudoscience of numerology (to the point where he thought that Thrive's release date of 11/11/2011 meant that the movie's creator, Foster Gamble, created the movie as part of some type of Illuminati/occult dis-information campaign), but also thought that a "Jewish-Zionist" (his words) conspiracy was responsible for the 9/11 attacks...

At that point in time I decided that I would no longer have any discussions or debates with this person.

The main reason I decided not to continue any further discussions with this person is because I know it would be pointless, because bigots and people who believe in bigoted based conspiracy theories tend to be the least reasonable people there are.

Not only do bigots like this person tend to be less intelligent than non-bigots, they also tend to be extremely stubborn, and are usually unwilling to give any ground what so ever, or even acknowledge any sort of logical or fact based argument what so ever.

Now usually it would be pointless to debate even a non-bigoted conspiracy theorist as they tend to have clouded judgement, and usually they have an unwillingness to accept reality, but at least they are not so unreasonable that they believe that certain groups of people are either beneath them, or out right evil because of a that group's religious beliefs, their race, their ethnic background, or their sexuality.

Bigoted conspiracy theorists tend to be the more hostile then your average conspiracy theorist as well. They usually descend into posting vile comments on the internet much quicker then a no-bigoted conspiracy theorist usually would, and they even sometimes post comments that would be considered threatening, or are in fact directly threatening someone, or post other types of comments that would draw the attention of law enforcement.

Bigoted conspiracy theorists will tend to sometimes believe in the more bizarre conspiracy theories that are out there, and simply put the more bizarre a conspiracy theory a person believes in, the less rational and reasonable a person tends to be, and they are usually much more paranoid then most people as well.

In addition to all of this, they also tend to post and publish information that they know is completely false in order to try to make it appear that their beliefs are justified, or at least reasonable.

Bigots usually tend to feel that any arguments made against their conspiracy theories is nothing more then dis-information, and thus "proof" that the conspiracy theories that they believe in are factual. This is the main reason why I do not debate bigots, because I do not want to fuel their belief that the conspiracy theories that they believe in are real, and that the only real way to fight them is to refuse to debate them at all. This is my way of telling a bigoted conspiracy theorist that their beliefs are so false that it will not even warrant my attention, and that hopefully isolating them and not giving them any attention will make them rethink their beliefs.

5 Reasons why People keep Believing in Debunked Conspiracy Theories

I've wondered why do people still believe in certain conspiracy theories, even after they have been totally debunked, or proven to be logically improbable.

From my observations of conspiracy theorists, I believe that there are five main reasons why some people still believe in conspiracy theories, even after they have been debunked.

Here are those five reasons:

5. Misinformation

Some people keep believing in conspiracy theories simply because they haven't seen the correct information on certain incidents, or groups, and they might not bother to actually do any research on such things either, or, they have relied on and believed the misinformation for so long, they end up rejecting any factual information, because they believe that it is in fact, not factual.

4. Bigotry

Some people continue to believe in debunked conspiracy theories simply because they are bigots, and any conspiracies that involves people of certain races, or religions, or ethnic groups that they don't like, in their minds, must be true, because their bigoted minds won't allow them to think rationally about people who are different from them.

3. Distrust

Many people continue to believe in conspiracy theories simply because of distrust in either the government, or corporations, or certain political parties, or secret groups, or whatever, and they just can't get past their distrust to see the truth.

Most of these people tend to have grown up in environments where they are taught to distrust in people or groups with power. Other times this distrust comes from personal, negative experiences, with either the government, or a large business, or certain groups.

2. Stubbornness

There are some people out there who actually don't believe in conspiracy theories, but continue to proclaim belief in conspiracy theories, simply because they're to stubborn to admit they were wrong.

Sometimes this stubbornness is not simply because of ego, but because of the fear of losing friends that they have made within conspiracy theorist community, or losing contact with family members who might also believe strongly in conspiracy theories, or just the fear of being said "I told you so" by skeptics and debunkers.

1. Mental Illness

Sadly, some people just can't believe that a conspiracy theory isn't real, even if the conspiracy theory itself sounds so crazy, that most other conspiracy theorists wouldn't believe it, simply because their mind doesn't work right.

Because mental illness can prevent a person from thinking rationally, and or critically, and makes them either uncontrollably paranoid, or delusional, it might be impossible to change their belief in a conspiracy theory, unless of course they are given mental health treatments, and even that might not be enough to stop their belief in conspiracies.

Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: Homosexual Agenda

There is this conspiracy theory that's being floated around by the Conservative Christian movement known as the "Homosexual Agenda". What this theory is based upon is the belief that homosexuals are actively trying to destroy what is consider traditional morals and values, and them remaking it into their own.

The reason for this conspiracy theory is probably because there is this continuing belief that homosexuality is a choice, and not something that someone is born with, as many psychologists and biologists contend. Because of this belief it is believed that homosexuals must "recruit" people into homosexuality, and that they target children for this, as they tend to be vulnerable. This has also led to the belief that homosexuals also have a higher rate of being or becoming pedophiles. This belief is not supported by any credible studies, and the only studies that do claim this are done by organizations that have a real anti-homosexual agenda, and are very biased in nature.

Because of this belief that homosexuality is a choice, in their minds, homosexuals must be actively trying to change society into something that is corrupt and perverted. It is believed that homosexuals are trying to do this through getting the government to legally recognize same-sex marriage and increasing legal protections under the law. From what I have seen, this isn't true at all. They just want society to accept them equals, rather then reject them simply because they're not sexually attracted to people of the opposite gender.

There is also this belief that homosexuals are trying to create laws that are aimed at destroying Christianity. This comes from the belief that homosexuals can not be Christians. Neither of these beliefs are true at all. In fact there are many homosexuals who are Christians, and in fact there are several homosexual, Christian preachers, who do preach in mainstream, Christian church denominations.

The biggest problems with these beliefs is that not only is there no proof that legally recognizing same-sex marriage and increasing legal protections is actually damaging to society, not doing so might actually be more damaging to a society which is changing it's attitudes towards homosexuals, not to mention the fact it's basically treating a certain group of people like second class citizens. This, and anti-homosexual propaganda spewed out by politicians, makes some homophobic people feel justified in committing acts of violence towards homosexuals, most especially homophobic teenagers, who might already live in a homophobic environment.

Homosexuals don't want to destroy society, and they don't want to destroy Christianity, they just want to be accepted and treated like equals, and not like second class citizens.

Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: Holocaust Denial

(Disclaimer: I considered not posting this because it is a very sensitive subject, but I also felt it needed to be posted as a way to help getting people who do "believe" in this to finally admit they are wrong)

The Holocaust was the most horrendous acts of mass murder in human history. It killed six million European Jews, and maybe just as many people in other ethnic groups and religions as well. Despite all of the imagines of this horror that has been burned into our minds through photos, videos, testimony from survivors, the soldiers rescued them, and even members of the SS, there are still a group of people who don't believe, or at least they claim they don't believe, the Holocaust happened.

Of all the conspiracy theories there are, Holocaust denial is one of the most disgusting and bigoted conspiracy theories in the world. This conspiracy theory is so offensive, it is illegal to promote in 17 countries, including Germany, and people have gone to prison because they promoted it in those countries.

Not only is Holocaust denial apparently anti-semitic at it's core, it's actually believed by many people who study bigotry, that even people who claim the Holocaust didn't happen, don't even believe it themselves, and that the only reason they deny the Holocaust is to "justify" their own anti-semitic beliefs.

The other "curious" thing about Holocaust denial is, is that it only seems to focus on the Jewish population, and doesn't focus at all on the other groups that were murdered in the Holocaust. This is further evidence that Holocaust denial is purely anti-semitic.

Many historians and scholars consider Holocaust denial so flawed, so biased, and so bigoted, that they refuse to debate Holocaust deniers at all because they don't want to give them a false sense legitimacy.

I'm not sure if this is the most embarrassing conspiracy theory there is, but it's definitely the most disgusting.