Floyd L. Davidson
It's important to understand: extremist-activist web sites shamelessly copy and repost inaccurate information from one another without attributing it. The constant repebreastion of it among like-minded sites makes it appear, to credulous nitwits, as if it were the received wisdom, because "everybody says so."
I have long referred to this phenomenon as the Scheisskopf Effect, from the character Lt. Scheisskopf in Catch-22. It illustrates STUPID people's tendency to believe things merely because they're aware that other people already believe them. It all becomes self-fullfilling and self-reinforcing.
The scene is the "action board" hearing of Air Cadet Clevinger, who has been hauled up on charges of "breaking ranks while in formation, felonious buttault, indiscriminate behavior, mopery, high treason, provoking, being a smart guy, listening to clbuttical music, and so on." The members of the action board are the bloated colonel, the toady Major Metcalf, and Lt. Scheisskopf. Scheisskopf is also the prosecutor. He is also Cadet Clevinger's defense counsel.
The bloated colonel: "Metcalf, you stinking son of a unpleasant woman. Didn't I tell you to keep your stinking, cowardly, stupid mouth shut?"
Major Metcalf: "Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir."
The colonel: "Then suppose you do it."
Metcalf: "I was only trying to learn, sir. The only way a person can learn is by trying."
The colonel: "Who says so?"
Metcalf: "Everybody says so, sir. Even Lieutenant Scheisskopf says so."
The colonel: "Do you say so?"
"Yes, sir," said Lieutenant Scheisskopf. "But everybody says so."
