In the Broadway show, "The Book of Mormon," there is a song called. "I Believe." The song includes a number of things that you must believe in order to believe in Mormonism. For example, according to the song, Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri, and in 1978, God changed his mind about black people.
I was working on a parody about the last election titled, "Obamalot and The Book of Romney." I was going to use "I Believe" to talk about crazy things that Republicans believe. I have written about Republican's and their beliefs before. In a post titled, "It's All About Faith," I talked about how Republicans use the language of belief so that they do not need to provide actual data backing up their statements (i.e, "This President is one who, I believe, does not love America like I do.").
More Belief below the fold
As the Republican Party proposed cutting food stamps by $39 billion over the next 10 years a couple of congressmen had stories of he obvious fraud occurring in the program. One talked about two young fit people who paid for their groceries with an EBT card (i.e, food stamps), another cited someone using it to guy Alaskan Crab Legs. While nobody disputed the crab legs story, some in the media bubble questioned the congressman's ability to determine eligibility by the appearance of the recipients. I don't believe that either story is true. However, I do believe that the congressmen believe it happened.
I recently had a conversation with one of my right wing friends. I told him about how a Texas Judge was disenfranchised by the new voter ID law where the polling place happened to be her own courthouse! He responded that he believed that this would not actually be a big problem for people (This was before it also happened to former Speaker of the House Jim Wright). I told him that voter fraud was not a big problem.
He believed it was. I cited hard data that studies show it occurs in thousandths of a percent of the time. He responded that he believed it happened more than that. I said that yes, I know he believes that, but he does not have proof to back it up. He said he believed he did have proof. He never cited it. Worse still, he probably believes he did cite proof- the proof being that he believed it.
I do not believe that the woman who told Michele Bachmann that her daughter became autistic after getting a vaccine exists. The doctor who told Todd Akin that in a legitimate rape, women's bodies can shut the whole thing down was likely riding on a unicorn.
They believe that the restoration of higher tax rates on the wealthiest 2% will wreck the economy despite the evidence from the Clinton administration that the opposite is true. When confronted with the economic statistics of Bush 43, they just say he didn't go far enough. When confronted with the fact that supply side economics does not work, they say it hasn't worked YET.
They believe that calling their policy pronouncements pro-growth and pro-freedom means that they are. They believe that factual analysis contradicting their beliefs are skewed and (Todd) akin to personal attacks. They believe that when Stephen Colbert says that reality has a liberal bias, he is being serious.
In the movie "Constantine," Keanu Reeves tells the Archangel Michael that he "believes" and Michael responds that he doesn't believe, he knows and there is a difference. The Right "believes" and acts on that belief as if it is knowledge, even when what it believes is demonstrably untrue.