How many "wackos" are there in the US

Ok, before I offend someone let me just state that I mean “wacko” in the most charming possible way and only in relation to my own culture (Sweden).
The main one was Creationists. This is unheard of here and frankly I didn’t believe they existed in developed countries until I found out about them on the net. How many are there? Seems to be a lot.

Militia members. These paramilitary groups that seem to have opinions not quite in line with the government, to express it dimplomatically, how many gun-tooting militia members are there?

Non-feminist women. Using the word “feminist” as I know it, meaning someone who wants equal rights for women. From what I understand there actually exist women that oppose that.

I don’t need hard numbers, in case there are none, a guesstimate will be fine. Of course “lots” or “hardly any” is a bit too vague. Would also be cool if you could give me a brief explanation on how they fit into your society.

Thanks.

:slight_smile:

Since the definition of “wacko” is not clear cut, you will not receive a definitive answer. The three groups you specifically mention do not have roll call lists available for viewing. And if such lists ever existed, their membership rolls would constantly be changing.

Thus this thread is probably better suited to IMHO.

Since there is no factual answer, I’ll move this to IMHO for you.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator

I realise that there will probably not be an accurate headcount, but surely there must be some form of information on this (especially militia members I would assume).

Is it a thousand, several thousands or tens of thousands.

At it’s high point, various watchdog groups counted about three hundred groups on the extreme far right, though getting an accurate count of the size of each was quite difficult. Most of the militia groups chose to quietly disband after the Oklahoma City terrorist attack in 1995. However, some people are worried that the extremists may be migrating to new groups that are slipping under the radar.

As for creationist, they make a a large portion of the American population. According to a 2001 Gallup Poll 40% of the respondents believed “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so” (These would be the Young Earth Creationist types) and another 37% believed *“Human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process,” *
with only 12% of Americans believing God had nothing to do with man’s creation. 6% of people had know opinion.

As an American, it appears that the examples you give are the types of people we generally call “conservatives.”

Personally, I consider “wackos” to be descriptive of people on the fringe. Not necessarily small in number, just extreme in opinion. There are lots of Creationists in the US (much to my chagrin), and it’s not unusual for religious-oriented TV programs to use opinion polls to demonstrate how “right” they are.

One element of the American political definition of “conservative” means “small government,” and the para-military types (who like to call themselves “Patriots”) push that to the extreme of “no government.” Or, at least, no government outside of your backwards, inbred, one-horse town.

As long as we’re still on the “conservative” end of things, you could probably add militant anti-abortion groups (ie. clinic bombers) to that list of wackos.

But I would have to say that there are plenty of “wackos” on the opposite end of the spectrum. You’ve got PETA, for example, who do all sorts of crazy things to espouse their belief that animals deserve more rights than humans. There are also the “tree-hugging environmentalist wackos.” Then again, I think these types exist in Europe, too.
D

It depends who you ask. As noted, “wacko” is a pretty subjective description. While I self identify as conservative, I’m atheist and, by your simple description, feminist. There are deep schisms concerning what is feminist, and some of the extremes on that front can certainly be considered “wacko.”

So, methinks you’ve posed a meaningless question.

Actually, there is a factual answer to the question. It is the total population of the United States minus one(me!).

The eternal optimist, there, Czarcy.

Eh, this should have gone to the Pit. 'Cause the “wackos” will be here shortly, and things won’t stay civil for long.

Anyway, the US has a nonreligious (officially) government and a largely religious population. There are large numbers of American people, especially here, who aren’t religious in any way, but the polls seem to indicate that at least a simple majority of Americans identify with a religion of some kind. I don’t know how many of those people are Creationists, but I’d expect at least a plurality.

Now, would I call those people “wackos”? Well, I’d call them ignorant and I’d hope they’d get some real science education, but I can’t call them “wackos” simply because a “wacko” is someone who is actually insane. If you posit that a plurality of all Americans are insane, you must come to the conclusion that the insane can act mighty sane in all respects.

Which negates the whole notion of insanity, really.

Militia members are rare. I live in Montana, the region most associated with militias, and I’ve never met a member and I’ve never seen a compound. I’ve heard news reports some years ago, and I can imagine that there may be a few living in the backwoods somewhere, but the absence of evidence leads me to suspect they must be vanishingly rare.

Also, note that very, very few gun owners are militia members. People own guns for numerous reasons, and to assume that all gun owners share a rather outrageous political doctrine is simply absurd.

Finally, I identify with the Libertarian Party. If you don’t know, that is a political party that does advocate a reduction of the size of government down to a level unheard of in modern Europe. However, very, very few Libertarians would advocate violence or other such asocial methods to achieve that end, and I would go as far as saying that those that do are not really Libertarians.

No, I’m not done yet. Nor am I flaming you. I’m simply stating my opinions of your opinions, and hopefully giving an American perspective on them.

As for anti-feminist women, yes, there are a few who would advocate the reversal of eighty-plus years of women’s liberation and voluntarily give up the vote, equal wages, and, indeed, any hope of living outside the home. But guess what? You guessed it: They are in a very small minority.

If you define anti-feminist as not agreeing with NOW, you’d get a larger group, simply because plenty of women think NOW is no longer speaking for anyone but itself. My mother, for one: She was a stay-at-home mom while I and my brothers were young, and she resents the idea that a woman is any less if she chooses to raise a family instead of pursue a career. NOW, in her mind, performed a valuable service in the 1970s, but has since become a self-perpetuating group of professional offenderati.

If my mom’s a “wacko”, well, I don’t think I need to tell you where to shove it. :wink:

How do these people fit into our society? Well, how do fringe groups fit into yours? Pat Buchanan, someone whom you would doubtless consider a “wacko”, has never come close to winning the Presidency. In fact, the most important role he’s ever played was being the Candidate of Choice for old people from Florida during Indecision 2000. :smiley: (If I need to explain my jokes, just ask.) I don’t know numbers, and I really have no way of tracking them down, but numbers really aren’t important: The impact they usually have on society is nil, aside from laugh value.

I think we have to more clearly define this?

Do you mean people who own guns? People who carry guns?
People who don’t trust the government? People who run around in military fatigues? People who train in paramilitary style?

Or someone who is all of the above?

You can find a lot of people in the US who fit into the first three catagories. (Catagory three will emcompass a large portion of the population on both sides of the spectrum).

People who do all of the above are far more rare.

NOW (the National Organization for Women) has never taken the position that a woman is any less if she chooses to raise a family instead of pursue a career. I understand that you are saying that that is your mother’s take on it and not necessarily yours.

Historically, feminist organizations have supported the idea that people of both sexes should have the right to choose between those options, to combine those careers if they choose, or to make other choices – and to be equally respected for their choices.

I believe I am correct when I say that women who choose to work at home raising families and involved in homemaking activities can thank the feminist movement for seeing that their contributions are valued by the justice system and the Social Security Administration.

Stoneburg, it is misinformation such as this which perpetuates the myths that undermind the heart of feminism: the theory that economically, politically, and socially, both sexes should be treated equally.

The Southern and Mid-western portions of the USA are particularly affected by anti-feminism because of the influence of many fundamentalist churches. Many of these churches still teach that women must obey their husbands and be subserviant to him.

I can’t give you numbers at all. They would fluxuate constantly anyway.

I live in the South. I think that Creationists probably do have a majority here, especially in rural areas, but not all of them are pushing to have it taught in the school systems and not all of them make it a big issue. For most it is just a private religious belief.

I have never met anyone that I knew for certain was in a militia.

Thanks for the answers :slight_smile:

I’m a bit surprised at some counter-questions or statements. Maybe I was unclear, so I’ll just clarify.

No, I don’t mean that everyone who has a gun is crazy, and I don’t understand where you got that from (I know several people who own guns, and I think Sweden has about an equal amount of guns per capita as the US). With the “militia wackos” I ment people that are part of some form of anti-government group, are armed AND are organised in a para-military manner.

I explained what I believe is the meaning of feminism, and this happens to be the way it is explained in the dictionary: “Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes”. I don’t care what you associate with feminism or what extremist groups call themself feminists, I was intrested to hear how many women do NOT want social, political, and economic equality for women. The most correct way in my opinion, to describe them is as anti-feminist.
On to the answers:

Creationists - 40% (This was a lot higher then I would have guessed, my guess would have been maybe 5%)

Militias - They seem to be almost non-existant (I was given the impression from films and media that they were if not common then at least not very uncommon)

Anti-feminists - No real answer yet
It seems that people will be taking offense to me calling these types wackos (even in the most charming possible way). I’d like to point out that I stated initially that I consider them extreme relative to my culture and upbringing. I am sure there are plenty of people here (err… here as in Sweden, not the SDMB) that will be considered wackos by a majority of Americans, I’m probably one of them :wink:

Anyway, thanks for the answers so far. :slight_smile:

Damn…Czarcasm got there first!!

I opened this just to post that, can i have my ten seconds back?

Let’s put this another way.

If 2-5% of the population are stark raving loons, (and that probably isn’t an over-exaggeration);

300 Million Americans = 6 to 15 million total nutjobs.

Which is more than enough to fill every oddball group you can imagine.

(9 million Swedes = 180,000 to 450,000 nutball swedes)

What’s worse, if we assume that only in person in 200 of the general population (0.5%) is dangerously insane, that’s still 1.5 million scary dangerous people in the USA and 45,000 in Sweden.)

** One point five million really really scary people… **

And the population of New York City is… ?

:smiley:

Stoneburg asks:

[Hank Hill voice]

Just what in the hell is a gun-tooter?

On second thought, I don’t wanna know.

TMI! TMI!

[/Hank Hill voice]

Technically, by federal law, there are two forms of militia in the united states: the organized militia and the organized militia.

I’m paraphrasing a bit here, so bear with me:

The organized militia is all males between 18 and 45 capable of rendering military service if called upon, the national guard, and the naval reserves.

The unorganized militia is everyone else.

There are a few organized state militias, but they are fairly inactive, or just don’t get much media attention. Most of them perform some form of monthly drill, typically without weapons. They may or may not receive any state-level funding.

Gun-tooters. Huh. Y’all have some real wackos there in Sweden, Stoneburg? :stuck_out_tongue:

mmmmm, Swedish nutballs.

You sure you don’t mean meatballs?