Redonkulous Redneck: JD Meadows!

It's possible that this post will get me in big trouble but I'm more than willing to take the risk. I was born and raised in North Mississippi so I know quite a few people here. A few years ago, I watched a disturbing documentary called White Power USA that contained a segment about Ripley, a small town about an hour north of Tupelo. They interviewed JD Meadows about his "Tea Party" organization but discovered that he had, apparently unknowingly, entered the dark world of "white power" racial supremacy. I felt sorry for him at the time.

Now, however, he has shown his true colors today by making some very nasty comments against the 58% of us who voted against prop 26, the "Personhood" amendment. I'd like to publish those for you but someone deleted them from Sen. Alan Nunnelee's page.* Suffice to say that Meadows considers us all to be murderers and "just as bad as rapists." He seems to think we're all out to kill him or that we all wish he had been aborted. I don't know where he got that idea but his paranoia is disturbing. Some people in the conversation chose to block him and he blocked me. Nevertheless, it does him no good because I still have access to his Facebook page and his old MySpace page - the Tweenky is everywhere and not so easily removed. 

*Edited to add a sample of his comments from Nunnelee's page. Thanks to a kind contributor who supplied me with this!

Since Meadows' uses somewhat violent rhetoric to intimidate people, I thought it might be worth letting him know that not everyone is scared of him. I'm not afraid so I thought I'd show you a collection of his posts. I'd like for everyone to see who this guy is and what he is trying (but failing) to hide. Let me say now for the record that all this information is available to anyone who is not blocked. JD, for all his computer knowledge, apparently doesn't know how to fix his privacy settings very well. Or maybe he just doesn't care.

JD's biggest gripe today that started this whole thing is abortion. He's 100% against it and apparently for personal reasons. I don't know them and I'm not going to speculate but, when he says that we 58% want him dead, he's absolutely wrong. We don't advocate abortion - we advocate informed choice. I find it fascinating that he thinks abortion doctors should be tried for murder and that he thinks the 58% are murderers but yet he doesn't say anywhere that I've seen that the mother is a murderer and should go to jail. What's chilling here is his perceived endorsement of violence to stop abortion. If someone kills an abortion doctor, how is that person any less of a murderer? JD has an answer for that:

This appears to be a sanction for any person to shoot an abortion doctor or perhaps a pregnant woman seeking an abortion on sight going into the clinic. If that doesn't chill your blood, I'm not sure what would. But JD seems to think that someone is after him, still trying to kill him after 30 years, and he's ready:

He's armed and he's ready to kill you if he perceives a threat. If the threats against him were real, I'd understand, but does he really think pro-choicers want to kill him? Does he think anybody gives a damn if he tore a tag off a mattress he bought? Yes, he thinks the government is out to get him personally and, by the gods, he is ready. Would he actually use violence if he believed he were being attacked?

Perhaps so. Lincoln deserved to be murdered according to JD and everyone that supports an equal USA instead of a confederacy built on slavery should be murdered too. He's going to need a lot of ammo to carry that out. If you didn't know JD, you'd be tempted to think that his statement is about race but I don't think it is. JD is more focused on freedom and I think he feels that Lincoln was trampling Southern rights.

Not so for Brian Pace who "liked" that comment. You may remember Brian from the video - he's the real deal.

Pace is big on white power and says clearly in the video what he stands for. He also mentions how he suckers in folks like poor JD who think they are just being politically active in their local Tea Party and pulls them into racism. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Speaking of politics, JD is very big on freedom for him but, as we've seen, not so much freedom for women. He really seems to detest Sen. Alan Nunnelee (which I can understand). However, JD's comments seem very vulgar and crude coming from someone who claims to be such a "true" Christian:

Nunnelee is evil, JD says. Reminds me of the time Phil Bryant said that we 58% were evil. JD also describes Nunnelee as "shit." How Christian of you, sir. Speaking of which:

So Christians can only vote for Ron Paul and, if you don't, you're no better than a beast. I guess if you're being led around, then you're kind of a slave. Is that where the rest of us belong, JD? Enslaved to you and your "superior" friends like Brian Pace who seems to have bought hook, line, and sinker into the NWO conspiracy theory.

Yes, indeed. I'm sure my dad would just LOVE to know that he is "Satan incarnate" because he's considering a vote for Romney. He might lose his deaconship over that. LOL!

Mitt Romney is described by JD the Christian as "human garbage." JD also described the 58% as garbage today. So any living human who does not agree with JD is garbage, has no value, and should be killed. But a fertilized egg that can't think or feel anything is sacred and untouchable. I find this kind of value system to be immoral and cruel. But am I being unfair to JD? Am I making too much of his violent imagery?

I don't think so. I think JD is pretty clear that he'd at least like to take out many of us who don't think like he does. I feel like he could be a pretty dangerous guy if he was put in the right kind of situation. Does this blog post about him qualify? Maybe...I don't know. I might be putting myself at risk exposing him like this but I think it's really important that someone has the courage to do so. Behaviors like this survive and spread because they are mostly hidden underground. Exposing them to the light of day is kind of like catching the vampire in the sunshine - it sure takes a lot of the power out of their bluster. Needless to say, however, I won't be going to his house and I certainly won't be doing business with his company. I don't want a dime of mine going to support someone like this.

So if I go missing or end up dead, you might check with some of these guys first. But don't worry - it will have been worth it to give this month's Redonkulous Redneck award to JD Meadows. Congratulations, sir. You've more than earned it.

The Triad of Belief: Pt 3 - Credulity

Let's quickly review our line of belief and how we define these terms for the purpose of this discussion:

Skepticism is following the evidence wherever it leads. Denial is refusing to believe no matter how compelling the evidence is. Credulity, therefore, is believing in something no matter how compelling the evidence against it is.

Some people need to (or think they need to) believe. The easiest place to see that is with religion. It doesn't take a lot of rational thought to realize that not every religion can be true and that most traditional religions require belief in things that are highly improbable. Yet people persist in these beliefs no matter the evidence against. They want to believe. They need that belief in order to cope or make sense of their world. 

The same is true in politics. Consider those who take a hard line regarding their politics. Typically, they'll cling to the candidates and positions that are approved by the party with little to no regard for the truth. In fact, if you present people with evidence against their beliefs, they are likely to dig in further and cling even tighter to their position.

Of course, both of these examples are stereotypes. There are many people in the world who do have more nuanced views or are skeptical of some things. In fact, most of us can be at any position on this line depending upon the subject matter. Let's look at some other ways in which every day credulity can be misleading or harmful.

There are some people who believe that UFOs are alien spacecraft and that we've been visited before. Some folks even believe that our world is already being guided (or maybe has been invaded) by these creatures. They believe this so strongly that every odd occurrence, every single anomaly, becomes confirmation of their belief. And no matter what rational evidence or sound explanations you provide, they will dismiss you as part of the cover-up or simply blind.

The same goes for most any conspiracy theory whether it be regarding the Illuminati, the New World Order, the JFK assassination, communist/socialist takeover,  fad diets, detox, homeopathy, or other junk. There will always be those credulous people out there who cling to something outlandish and unproven to make sense of their world. Dare to challenge them and, at best, you'll be accused to being part of the conspiracy. Laugh at the idea of the NWO and you'll hear something like, "You're blind to it now but wait and see. You'll wish you'd listened to me when they take control." Challenge someone's ideas about detox or alternative medicine and they'll accuse you of being paid off by "Big Pharma." 

The problem here is not that people believe something that's untrue so much as that they believe it so strongly that they simply cannot question it or allow you to question it. It has become dogma for them and is no longer open for debate. They may waste their time, money, and energy on these ideas with little or no obvious harm yet, as these unsubstantiated ideas spread, the more time, money, and energy gets wasted on them. Eventually, they may reach critical mass where they become like politics and religion - belief systems in which each person is absolutely sure s/he has the right answer and to hell with anyone who dares to disagree.

How do we find that healthy point of skepticism? It's not always easy. Every one of us has beliefs that we cling to ferociously whether they were taught to us from childhood or whether we developed them on our own. Some of these beliefs make up our core identity and, as such, are difficult to challenge. But that challenge is precisely what we face if we wish to be people of truth. For if we can learn to be skeptical of the things we think we know best, then we will have retained our ability to learn, to be flexible, and to be humble before the vast body of knowledge that exists in this world.

From my own past, I must admit that I was a very credulous child. I believed 100% in Christianity, in the supernatural, in ghosts, angels, fairies, UFOs, aliens, Nessie, and Bigfoot. I believed anything and everything I was told because: 1) I wanted to believe it, and 2) I was taught to trust adults unquestioningly. It took me many years to apply my skepticism to these things and, believe me, it was difficult. It hurt. It was a little scary and very disheartening. I thought my world was going to be dull and dreary if I accepted that this stuff probably doesn't exist. 

Instead, I find out that reality is much richer than I ever could have imagined. I count myself fortunate to have gotten out of credulity and into skepticism. Now I don't feel like I'm wasting my life fantasizing about what can never be true. Instead, I'm delving deeper into what is demonstrably true and I'm loving it!

Ask yourself today what pet beliefs you hold that need to be challenged. You might be amazed. After all, we are presented with tons of information everyday (thanks to TV and the internet) and we need some way to separate fact from fiction. How do you do it? How do you know you're doing it right?