Reply #59: I neither stated nor implied anything of the sort

[Caution]

Americans have a cultural bias towawrds distrust of authority. It's part of what makes us Americans. In general I think that it is a very good thing, but it also makes many who have not learned the skill that is critical thinking (which I firmly believe should be taught as a mandatory class in High School) more prone to accept any wild theory that "questions" the "official" explanation. It never ceases to amaze me that there could be 99 pieces of hard evidence to support something but we as Americans will cling to the 1 perceived inconsistency as teh item which disproves. We do it in the news as well. I couldn't tell you how many of my friends are considering home schooling or private school because of violence in public schools. millions of kids attend public schools safely every day but three or four insane children kill another 20 or so kids and suddenly "schools are no longer safe."

The rght has been using this mentality to harm the left for decades. They have undermined our faith in public education (making Columbine to be the rule and not the exception), medicine (distrust of doctors, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, the incredible rise of quackery in this country is truly disturbing), science ("Intelligent Design" and the global warming "skeptics"), the destruction of power within the judiciary (activist judges), the insanity of the drug war and the war on women (the pro-life movemnt, the so-called "partial-birth abortion" ban, the so-called "conscience" laws which allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense brith control. This all stems from the inability of the average American to think critically and to weigh the preponderance of evidence against the one or two small exceptions which the right clings to.