This time, the stupidity doesn’t flow from my obviously crazy relative, but from another relative of mine who is simply oblivious and subject to minor lapses. She’s the kind of person who can really believe an urban legend, and the juxtaposition of an old UL and something I’ve never heard before will form my OP.
First, the old UL: ‘They’ have a cure for cancer, but won’t release it because they make more money treating it. Never mind that the first person to break ranks with the cure would be not only wealthy beyond his wildest dreams but also the World’s Favorite Human Being, a shoo-in for all of the major philanthropic awards, and have a shot at immortality in story, song, major motion picture, statue, town name, and offspring with supermodels.
Not long after she recounted the above, she plumbed new depths in purblind lacklogic ignorant stupidity. She claimed that Mexicans don’t get cancer. You know how people once got all hyped about how sharks don’t get cancer and sucked down shark gristle until they were afraid to stop walking for fear of suffocation? She apparently believes it to be true, except replace ‘sharks’ with ‘Mexicans’.
‘They’ apparently have a dark secret:
[Charlton Heston]
The cure for cancer is Mexicans!
[/Charlton Heston]
Not someone I know, but on a radio call-in show the other day, a perfectly reasonable-sounding, intelligent woman said that “they put chemicals in the food to make you want to eat them”, her example being the Lays Potato Chip phrase “you can’t eat just one”. According to her, without these added chemicals, we’d not ever want to purchase junk food. It doesn’t taste good in and of itself, oh no, it’s some insidious chemical added to make us crave these foods. And, they add chemicals to deliberately make you fat and ill so you will have to go to the doctor and spend money on prescriptions. Note that it isn’t the inherent fat and calories of the item itself, oh no, those won’t make you gain weight! No, it’s some grand conspiracy chemical additive so that they can make money on prescriptions. The radio host said, “Thank you, you’ve given us a lot to think about!”
I lived close to the shore of Lake Erie for a few years, and on a visit to the beach one day, in a year where the water levels were down a bit from previous years, I heard the woman sitting next to me tell her adult daughter, visiting from out of town, that the state adds water to the lake each year to help the boaters. I think she imagined it as a big hose, like when you add water to the pool. Come on, lady, it’s one of the Great Lakes, and it’s our source of water! Where are we getting this mysterious water that we’re adding to the lake? Our water comes from the lake! And it’s huge! But she really seemed to think that state employees were controlling the water levels
In a discussion of the Georgia state capitol flying the Confederate Battle Flag, a defiant woman said to me, “It’s not like the Federal government can come down there with guns and make them take that flag down.”
“I don’t know why everyone thinks Einstein is so smart. All he did is that one thing.”
I wasn’t around for the next one, but my sister tells me about a recent Thanksgiving dinner where a relative insisted that peanut butter companies cut the cost of their product by adding grasshoppers to it to make it crunchy. Yes, this was an adult.
An old boss of mine when I worked in a hardware store.
Woman brings in electrical product that’s working intermittently.
Boss: “what rating fuse have you got there?” Opens it up. “Oh, you’ve got a 3 amp. Well no wonder, this needs a 13 amp.”
Product still working intermittently.
He did this over and over again. I tried explaining fuses to him a couple of times but gave up. Occasionally it worked, when the thing had in fact blown its fuse, and this method fixed the problem, and he’d look smug and go “See!” to me.
One that leaps readily to mind was back around '87, when a friend of mine and I went to see Pink Floyd on their Momentary Lapse tour at Exhibition Place in Toronto. (The one where Benji Hayward got stoned and drowned himself in Lake Ontario – probably in response to Dave totally butchering the first verse of One Slip) We had floor seats, roughly in the center but back in section C, so still pretty far from the stage. Prior to the opening of the show my friend was commenting on the massive towers of speakers they had on either side of the stage.
“I’d love to have those in my back yard,” he said, probably half-seriously, too.
At that moment, one of the two bubbleheaded groupie wannabes in front of us turns around and says, “I don’t think they’d fit.”
Back in high school I was on the debate team and regularly came up against stupid statements around which whole arguments were built.
During the year in question, we were debating ocean policy for the conservation of marine natural resources. My team ran a fairly standard “establish more marine reserves” case.
Of course, instituting such a policy would cost money. At least half of our opponents latched onto this fact to declare that instituting our plan would lead to the extinction of the human race.
You see, the US already has a budget deficit. If the government spends any more money, we’ll plummet into a Second Great Depression. As we all know, the last Great Depressions was the sole factor contributing to Hitler’s rise to power, thus a Second Great Depression would obviously produce Hitler II who would in turn spark World War III. This would then lead to Global Nuclear Annihilation™ and thus the extinction of the human race.
That working outside the home causes lesbian. Really & truly, someone told me thing when hearing me talk about “My sister, the lesbian.” It seems if women are not allowed in the work place, they have to find a man to support them. If women can support themselves, they are free to “become” lesbians.
And witches. Don’t forget that. I learned it from a late night TV preacher. Wopmen who work or, God forbid, go to a pubic university become lesbians who have abortions and practice witchcraft. (Just why a lesbian would need an abortion was not fully explained.)
Did you know that saying, “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache,” is actually a form of witchcraft? Yes! It is! Subconciously, you’re trying to dominate your husband by cutting off his nookie supply and any form of trying to tell your husband what to do is witchcraft. (I would SO hate to be that guy’s wife!)
I’ve mentioned this one before, but it still boggles my mind. At work, there was a discussion regarding open-heart surgery and the fact that surgeons had to open the chest and go through the ribs.
Co-Worker (yes, she is from West Virginia): “They do? I thought the ribs were here (patting her stomach). I thought up here (indicating her chest) was just boobs an’ lungs an’ stuff!”
That having a bad relationship with one’s father makes one likely to be an atheist because one can’t relate to the loving father promised to Christians in the Bible.
This is based on a recent listing of 50 famous atheists, all of who are Famous, (many of whom are dead) and who had bad relationships with their fathers.
While not as mind-numbingly stupid as some of the other comments listed in this thread, it was part of a sermon in a church I was thinking about attending regularly. That sermon was preached on the day which was my first and so far only visit to the church. And I probably wasn’t going to be a regular attender there anyway, because I’m picky about the types of music I want in church, and they didn’t do things to my satisfaction, and atheists having bad relationships with their fathers wasn’t a major point of the sermon, (Comparing God the Father to a human father was a major point), but still . . .
Even as a Christian with a mostly good relationship with my father, the casual assumption that the most important thing these 50 famous atheists had in common with each other, after being famous and atheist, was bad relationships with their fathers just baffled and annoyed me.
(With a friend, gazing up at the stars in the night sky) Friend: The sun is a star, isn’t it?
**Me: ** That’s right. Friend:<looking around> Which one?
When ex-wife and I were buying our first new car, years ago, the salesman was trying to make small talk with us while our credit application was processing. He noted that Jill was pregnant, and the discussion went in that direction: his kids, our kid-to-be, etc. I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but he ended up cautioning Jill to chew her food really thoroughly, so that it could pass through the umbilical cord and get to the baby.
I posted this before, but it the Stupidest statement someone around be has ever made was a teacher I wanted to forget. Mrs. Predham taught history I think in 7th grade. She said in class that
I asked to go to the principal’s office. She asked me why. I said
She got upset and told me
I walked out immediately. I would like to say the class got up and followed me or at least clapped, but only one friend clapped. (If I was to write this as a movie they would of course all follow me out)
I went directly to the Principals office, told the secretary I just walked out of my class because the teacher was crazy. I only had to wait about 5 minutes.
He let me tell my story. Admonished me for walking out of the class and said he needed to talk to my parents but he would confirm my story. I had to wait in the office until the next class.
At the end of the day, I was called back to the office and the Principal said he was approving my class switch as he confirmed my story, directly from Mrs. Predham.
I was happier and she was gone at the end of the year. (Yea! no tenure yet)
My father-in-law insisted that rats were adult mice. We never could convince him that the two are completely different critters. He believed they were the same animal at different growth stages to the very end of his days.