Good Morning...America's original Tin-foil Hat Bunch founded

[Okla-homey]

Dec 9, 1958: John Birch Society founded

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab7/Okla-homey/birch250px-USOutOfUN.jpg
Perhaps best known for these and similar signs all over rural America

52 years ago today, in Indianapolis, retired Boston candy manufacturer Robert H.W. Welch, Jr., establishes the John Birch Society, an organization dedicated to fighting what it perceives to be the extensive infiltration of communism into American society.

Welch named the society in honor of John Birch, considered by many to be the first American casualty in the struggle against communism. In 1945, Birch, a Baptist missionary and U.S. Army intelligence specialist, was killed by Chinese communists in the northern province of Anhwei.

The John Birch Society, initially founded with only 11 members, had by the early 1960s grown to a membership of nearly 100,000 Americans and received annual private contributions of several million dollars. The society revived the spirit of McCarthyism, claiming in unsubstantiated accusations that a vast communist conspiracy existed within the U.S. government.

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab7/Okla-homey/birchuntitled.jpg
The society was no fan of JFK.

In the 1960's the Birchers ran a campaign against the flouridation of drinking water, claiming it was some sort of sinister plot. "General Jack Ripper" in the movie "Dr. Strangelove" was based upon the John Birch Society's anti-fluoridation campaign

Among others, the organization implicated President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. However, after the debacle of Senator Joseph McCarthy's public hearings in the early 1950s, America became more wary of radical anti-communism, and few of the society's sensational charges were taken seriously by mainstream American society.

The society opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying it was in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and overstepped the rights of individual states to enact laws regarding civil rights. The society is against "one world government", and has an immigration reduction view on immigration reform. It opposes the United Nations, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and other free trade agreements.

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab7/Okla-homey/birch200606nasco_home_page_09.jpg
The very idea of this international commerical corridor drives Bircher's crazy

The John Birch Society remains active today, and its members seek "to expose a semi-secret international cabal whose members sit in the highest places of influence and power worldwide."

[Harry Beanbag]

http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab7/Okla-homey/birch250px-USOutOfUN.jpg
Perhaps best known for these and similar signs all over rural America




I don't see anything wrong with this at all.

[MR2-Sooner86]

Sounds like a pretty cool group of guys.

[The]

Sounds like a pretty cool group of guys.

With bad teef.

[MR2-Sooner86]

With bad teef.

Eh, nobody's perfect.

[saucysoonergal]

SicEm is a member, nuff said. ;)

[OhU1]

We've got a few of em on this board. My uncle was either a member or parroted the Birch dogma. Federal Reserve conspiracy theories, IRS is unconstitutional, ect. No set or facts or logic could ever dispel a notion once my uncle got it in his head. He was a very intelligent man but seriously lacking in critical logical thinking skills and a master of rationalization to sustain his silly views.

The best debate tactic with a person such as this (or a creationist for that matter) is to nod, smile, and say "yep, I sure can't argue with that". It will save you hours of wasted time and save your brain from painful headaches.

[Mississippi Sooner]

We've got a few of em on this board. My uncle was either a member or parroted the Birch dogma. Federal Reserve conspiracy theories, IRS is unconstitutional, ect. No set or facts or logic could ever dispel a notion once my uncle got it in his head. He was a very intelligent man but seriously lacking in critical logical thinking skills and a master of rationalization to sustain his silly views.

The best debate tactic with a person such as this (or a creationist for that matter) is to nod, smile, and say "yep, I sure can't argue with that". It will save you hours of wasted time and save your brain from painful headaches.

I remember once when I was about 14 years old browsing through some of my uncle's books and came across a copy of The Politician by Robert Welch. Something about the amateurish looking quality of the book drew my attention, so I started reading through it. I couldn't believe it. It was basically this long, drawn out tale of how Dwight Eisenhower had been groomed through his whole life to be "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy."

I didn't know what to think of this, so I asked my mother if she'd ever heard of it. She started laughing and told me that Welch was the leader of some group called the John Birch Society, and they basically thought that everyone in America that didn't belong to their group was most likely a communist.

The strange part was, I know my uncle didn't think that way. Far from it, in fact. I have no idea why he ever came to be in possession of the book. I guess I was afraid to ask.

[Leroy Lizard]

We've got a few of em on this board. My uncle was either a member or parroted the Birch dogma. Federal Reserve conspiracy theories, IRS is unconstitutional, ect.

They sound like Libertarians. :D

[SicEmBaylor]

They sound like Libertarians. :D

My old chapter of the John Birch Society were far closer to the Libertarian side of things. They were vehemently anti-neoconservative. I've never found a better informed or right thinking group of people than the John Birch Society.