Q-Nuts: "It's the Great Storm, Charlie Brown"

Yeah, let’s face it: Lucy voted for Trump. And Schroeder didn’t vote, but dabbles in QAnon theory.

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I really like the panel where the character shouting “get Nancy” looks like Sluggo (not a Schultz character)

Gotta say I was not expecting Linus to be a racist.

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No, but he was prone to following cults.

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The parable of Lucy And The Football perfectly captures Moscow Mitch and the Democrats.

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Linus has long been a personal favorite because he’s smart and has high morals, but honestly, in thinking about it, he also has a CLEAR religious streak, so maybe it just fits that he would slowly slide towards fundamentalism and then finally into full-blown Qanon conspiracy land. (sadly)

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Far-right anomie is not anarchist, as Bakunin pointed out 150 years ago

Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism censure. I do not content myself with consulting authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognize no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.

If I bow before the authority of the specialists and avow my readiness to follow, to a certain extent and as long as may seem to me necessary, their indications and even their directions, it is because their authority is imposed upon me by no one, neither by men nor by God. Otherwise I would repel them with horror, and bid the devil take their counsels, their directions, and their services, certain that they would make me pay, by the loss of my liberty and self-respect, for such scraps of truth, wrapped in a multitude of lies, as they might give me.

I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed upon me by my own reason. I am conscious of my inability to grasp, in all its details and positive developments, any very large portion of human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labor. I receive and I give-such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination.

Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State

Querdenken and Qanon have rejected the bootmaker in favour of absolute faith in someone who says that if you nail horseshoes onto your feet you will never need boots again.

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I think this is the sad thing.

Quidiots and Trumpsters weren’t always worthless pieces of shit. They were friends and parents and productive members of society who slowly got one-more-lied into where they are now.

In computer science, we have the Garbage In, Garbage Out principle. A process that works perfectly, and reliably processes it’s data, produces garbage output when given garbage input.

And that’s the scary thing… given the inputs that they have received and accepted, some of them are acting rationally. Those traitors actually believe themselves to be patriots. Those rascist fuckwits actually consider themselves to be heroes.

They don’t have the ability to rationally examine their inputs and determine that they are fake. They have been put into a system of self-reinforcing lies and taught to distrust anyone who disagrees, and to trust anyone who agrees; and they get the same lies from 14 different sources; and they have gotten consistent lies for years and years. It is a compelling web of lies, half-truths, and outright propaganda- but lies, half-truths, and outright propaganda from trustworthy sources like national news chains, the President of the United States, Senators and Representatives, trusted news advisors, and mass media. Sources that are easy to believe; all reinforcing each other.

I don’t know how to deal with them. But I do know that they need to be dealt with, and they are getting dangerous. We can hope that some will realize that everything they have been told is a lie and to embrace the “libs”… but; well. Not many will. Some will. I hope.

I don’t know if the fact that many of them are processing things in a rational basis makes it easier to deal with them or harder to deal with them.

But I do know a lot are going to get violent and destructive when their lies come crashing down around them and their worldview is suddenly invalidated. Some of them would rather die than have their fake reality replaced with the real world; and they aren’t the take themselves out without hurting other people kinds…

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Although I rather prefer the old US practice of fixed terms and notice required on the works. “©1967 Joe Blogs” give you enough information to determine the probably copyright status of a work and at least a head start on figuring out who might still hold the copyright.

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In the earlier days of the strip, Lucy would tell the elaborate untruths to a credulous Linus, as shown in the musical “You’re a good boy, Charlie Brown.”

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I saw this and I think it is tangentially related. This is the kind of thing we are seeing with QAnon, and I wonder if it isn’t somehow related to an overall doubting of reality.

What is it about social media? Maybe the professional looking presentation of the site itself lends credence somehow to the unbelievable garbage. Flat earthers, chemtrail people, lizard alien conspiracies, the Internet is becoming the Olympics of one-upmanship for people who want to prove reality isn’t real.

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Think I’m gonna differ with you here. If Biden had actually “stolen” the election, the rational responses are: lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits; peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins and civil disobedience; general strike; publicity. Their [irrational] response was: violence. These people are not rational. (But, I mean, that is what Republicans are now: the cynical wealthy few at the top, the irrational many who comprise the base.)

Is that the same as Coup Anons and Free dum-dums?

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Someone told him that Franklin was secretly plotting to take his security blanket away.

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That one isn’t new or invented in Russia. 2014:

The piddly amount of heat from a lighter vs the huge amount of energy required to melt water, smh.

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I think you answered it: The Schultz Scream.

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Ah, Bill Elder would be smiling if he saw this. Great job Ruben, you learned well!

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This is beautiful. Charlie Brown isn’t the Blockhead he thinks he is. But Linus, wtf, gather yourself dude.

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YMCA has 4 letters and 4 periods after each one. 4+4 = 8. And there are 9 Supreme Court Justices. 9+8=???See!!! It’s all true!,

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Q is Putin.

But Linus is the true believer in The Great Pumpkin. He is otherwise a highly logical intellectual, except for that ONE THING he burns a torch for: the Great Pumpkin. So, the cartoon is spot on. Schultz was onto the fact that the smartest people can often be the stupidest. Lucy is like this, too, but it comes out in a different way, more like pure rage. Linus is just Mr. Blind Spot.

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