Originally published at: CNN's Rick Santorum says "We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here," then dismisses Native Americans | Boing Boing
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Pictured: Santorum consuming maize in a city named after a Creek woman who married into a Seminole tribe in modern-day Mahaska County.
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If only we could harness his idiocy for good. We could power cities with it.
Honestly, is it possible for conservatives to NOT lie? Why did the founders decide to try democracy when Europe hadn’t had it in millennia? Could contact with the Iroquois Nation have had something to do with it? MMMmmmmmaybe?
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(In the state named after the Ioway people.)
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For someone who’s spent years beating the anti-immigration drum you’d think he’s show some sympathy for what happened to the native americans.
But I guess he’s ok with immigration if it’s Europeans illegally entering a country
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Rick Santorum is racist. I’m not sure this is newsworthy.
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I lack sufficient anuses to properly express my disgust with and derision of santorum.
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If you want to know what Santorum means just Google his name.
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I mean, aside from the obvious odious racism, they didn’t “build a country from nothing”. They basically franchised England, and then changed it to be better for themselves.
They modded England, some would even say they just made a skin.
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What an odd turn of phrase “birthed a nation”. It’s almost like he’s trying to wedge that phrase in no matter how awkward it is. Whatever could the reason be? /s
ETA @DukeTrout got there first
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What’s this? Rick Santorum in the news again?
Paging Dan Savage…
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It really is a ridiculous mix of racism and theocratic sophistry, all in service of naked land and resource theft.
What would it mean for the U.S. to reckon honestly with this foundational Big Lie?
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Santorum’s statement is not a lie. It’s bullshit. With a lie you set out to tell an untruth and to deceive. The people on the receiving end get a falsehood about the subject (“birthed a nation from nothing”) and your state of mind (“Santorum believes this.”)
With bullshit you don’t care at all what is true and what is not true. This can be something minor (“the Cards are gonna take it all this year.”). Or something major (“They hate our freedoms.”). The only concern is how you can say something that furthers your own interests in some way. So it’s not only a deception of fact (“birthed a nation from nothing”), it’s also a deception about Santorum (“I want these people to think of me in this way,” along with “I need to get into the next news cycle to be relevant again”).
So, in Santorum’s case, and in the case of most GOPers, there’s no concern for what is truth and what is untruth. He probably has no clue either way how Native history played (and plays) out. He doesn’t care. He only cares how his base will react to something he says. If Santorum felt his base would respond positively if he said “Everything we have we owe to Native Americans” he would have said that. Because he’s a bullshitter. It’s not that he doesn’t understand the facts of history–it’s that he couldn’t care less what those facts are, only how his statements serve his interests.
In many ways, bullshit is much more dangerous. At least with a lie, it’s tethered to truth in some way, and the liar is aware of it and has some relationship to the truth, even if it’s to walk in the other direction. And you can position yourself in relation to a liar pretty easily. A bullshitter isn’t bound by any conventions regarding truth–their statements are entirely self-serving. What comes out of their mouths is only motivated by their worldview and how they can use it to serve their interests.
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If they had to deal with facts and real world issues, they would need to stop being what we in the States recognize as “conservative,” but the rest of the world recognizes as fascism. So in answer, no, it is not possible.
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As I said before, this guy can get fucked.
Time to get these websites trending again…
www.spreadingsantorum.com
www.santorum.com
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That would be fortunate, on account of having burned through nearly all the natural resources that were on the land before it was colonized.
Cultures aside, this nation was birthed from much, but there will indeed be nothing left when it dies.
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