I’ve mentioned several times that I’m only about 97% sure of anything, and that my mind can be changed using the right argument. So, every once in a while, I like to question something that I believe. It’s not that I doubt myself, it’s just that I want to make sure that I haven’t convinced myself that something is true when, in actuality, it isn’t.
The other day, I asked two of my neighbors if perhaps we were wrong and that there was nothing to the idea that the election was stolen by fraud. They both looked at me like I was crazy. I assured them that I hadn’t gone insane and that it would be healthy to make sure that we hadn’t deceived ourselves.
So, I asked myself, was there was really election fraud or was the election fair? Am I seeing what’s actually there and not just what I want to see? Maybe there are reasonable explanations for what happened and I’m crazy for believing Biden cheated.
If I’m going to believe that there was no election fraud, and that Biden won the election without cheating, I’d also have to believe the following:
- I’d need to believe that the vote counting suddenly stopped nearly simultaneously in multiple states because everyone was tired.
- I’d need to believe that the thousand (and counting) people who have sworn that they witnessed election fraud were all suffering from a shared delusion even though they were located in multiple vote counting stations across multiple states.
- I’d need to believe that the partisan observers were forcibly removed and blocked from monitoring the vote count because there was nothing to see.
- I’d need to believe that windows of vote counting centers were boarded over because the glare of the moon was distracting the vote counters.
- I’d need to believe that 300,000+ votes counted after hours in Pennsylvania, and were mostly for Biden, are legitimate votes.
- I’d need to believe that the laws of probability and statistics no longer apply.
- I’d need to believe that people brought coolers, backpacks and luggage into the vote counting center in Detroit because those people were either having a picnic, going hiking or waiting for a ride to the airport.
- I’d need to believe that when Joe Biden said that they had put together “the most extensive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics”, it was just the nonsensical ramblings of a senile old man.
- I’d need to believe that any claims of election fraud are “baseless” just because someone said they were.
- I’d need to believe that more people can vote than there are registered voters.
- I’d need to believe that it’s OK for election officials to change voting rules on-the-fly even though they don’t have the authority to do so.
- I’d need to believe that there’s nothing hinky about Republicans winning house seats but Trump losing to Biden in the same precinct.
- I’d need to believe that, out of an abundance of caution due to the virus, they decided to keep election observers all crowded together well away from where the counting was taking place.
- I’d need to believe that it is useful to recount votes without also verifying the votes are legitimate.
This clearly isn’t an exhaustive list but I think I can safely stop here since covering more items likely won’t change the results. No sane person would or could believe any of those things, with the sole exception of item number eight.
The good news is, I’m not crazy. The bad news? A lot of other people are.
