#299: Chuck Norris

Some might at this point have expected creationism apologist and philosopher of religion and education Warren Nord. But Nord decided to take his ball and walk home in June 2010. And Misha Norland, who founded and runs the School of Homeopathy, is British.

Good ol’ Chuck Norris, however, is as American as born-again evangelicals and Walker Texas Ranger. In fact, Norris is both. In addition, Norris is an infomercial actor, a columnist for WorldNetDaily (and Creators Syndicate), an author of several incoherent religious books (“The Justice Riders”), and a political activist who has campaigned extensively for Mike Huckabee (and he has even endorsed Roy Moore). In 2009 he also announced on Glenn Beck that he might run for president of Texas. His WND screeds are remarkably incoherent and insane (and dishonest), even for Norris. At best, they bring quote-mining to a new level. It is therefore rather remarkable that he has been invited to provide a weekly column for Politico, but so it goes.

As an infomercial actor he has promoted fitness equipment, Bible study and prayer in public school. Norris (with his wife Gina) is on the board of directors of the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public School, a branch of the Taliban that – you guessed it – campaigns to put the Bible on the curriculum of public schools. For Norris’s own take on “kicking and punching the Bible back into public schools”, see this. He works tirelessly to unmask the vast atheist conspiracy that exists and whose goal is to outlaw Christianity in the United States (and evil Obama’s primary goal is to take our guns away). The atheists have a lot of power: “Though the majority of Americans continue to claim to be Christians, a Gallup poll discovered 45 percent of us would support an atheist for president. Such a survey is a clear indication that the secularization of society is alive and well.” Clearly a result of atheist brainwashing. Norris has promised that if he were elected President he would “tattoo an American flag on the forehead of every atheist”, so that their secret powers are destroyed and it would be hard for them to work undercover in government etc. Similar measures have been used to identify and mark problematic minorities in society before, with some success (depending on how you see it). Admittedly, though, the atheists are only the second biggest threat to America, after illegal immigrants. There’s also a U.N.-grounded “world government” conspiracy, and to show his bipartisanship Norris has also run with some traditional granola hippie crankery, such as genetically modified organisms conspiracies and “health freedom” rhetoric. He’s even dug staunchly into antivaxx.

Norris is also a Biblical literalist and creationist. He is about as clueless as Ray Comfort. But can you guess what Norris thinks is to blame for the VT shootings?

Norris is a staunch opponent of gay rights and public schools condoning homosexuality. He was a champion of California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage, and criticized the gay community for “interfering” with the democratic process (apparently by existing and having a stake in the outcome, as opposed to the Mormon church and the evangelicals in California who … well, the point should be intuitively clear if you have the intellectual abilities of Chuck Norris). If you wonder what his take is on abortion, and how he came to his position, you may look at this.

As an extension of his fitness advice, Norris has recently taken to passing out medical advice as well. The level of expertise displayed corresponds roughly to the level of expertise he displays in his discussions of evolution.

In 2008 he was the commencement speaker at LibertyUniversity, which is apt. And in 2010 he was given the title “Honorary Texas Ranger” by Texas Governor Rick Perry. That tells you more about Perry than about Norris.

“Chuck Norris facts” are not funny.

Diagnosis: Dense as a rock, but surprisingly dangerous (not because of his martial arts skills), Norris seems hell-bent to be wrong on absolutely every issue, and succeeds to a rather remarkable degree.

#2998: Gary Heavin

Gary Heavin is the Texas-based founder of the fitness chain Curves International, a conspiracy theorist, a raving fundie lunatic and in general most of the things that are wrong with the world. Heavin is the author of a number of books (like Curves: Permanent Results Without Permanent Dieting and Curves On the Go) and his fitness chain was at one point the largest fitness chain in the world. More recently, Heavin and his wife Diane have been producing wingnut and fundamentalist films, including Mission Air (2013) and the 2016 action adventure film Amerigeddon (written by Heavin and Chase Hunter and directed by Mike Norris) about a takeover of the US by a UN/globalist-supported terrorist organization, which is about as subtle in its political commentary as you can imagine: it is basically a breathless summary of a wingnut conspiracy theorist’s fever dreams, in which the characters are simple mouthpieces for the views these conspiracy theorists have themselves (the good guys) and those they imagine anyone who disagrees with them really have (the villains), and the movie has been aptly described as “your drunk uncle rambling at a Christmas party as he wears a tinfoil hat” as it covers everything from crisis actors to one-world government fantasies (yes, Alex Jones was indeed involved in the movie because of course he was); it’s got anti-GMO messaging, too.

 

And note, not the least, how prominently Amerigeddon proudly displays its endorsement by the Oath Keepers – Heavin apparently enjoys something of a deep affiliation with that group, having for instance reportedly donated significant sums of money to them. As for the contents of the movie itself, Heavin views it as something akin to an educational film, writing at the time (2016) that a “shadow government” that worships Satan was using then-President Obama as a “puppet” to further its interests through “anti-American policies” like “the open border, the import of un-vetted Syrians, the decimation of our armed forces and the financial bankrupting of our country”, policies that “can best be explained by understanding the true intent of the globalists running our country”; the movie apparently provides that explanation. And apparently those elites aren’t, ultimately, human: According to Heavin (on InfoWars – Heavin was for a time a mainstay on the show), the Nephilim still roam the earth today and are actually demons, and although God has been trying to “cleanse the DNA” from humanity by destroying these entities, libruls of the deep state work hard to preserve their demonic bloodlines by judicious intermarriages. Among the worst representatives of the demonic deep state are, of course, the Clintons, which is “a machine that has a trail of bodies as far as you can see” – everyone who dares stand up to them should fear for their lives.

 

As such, the 2016 election did, of course, have a significance far beyond what you’d immediately think; according to Heavin, the election represented a “great battle” between globalism and nationalism, as foreseen in the Bible, “and this globalism the Bible predicts is going to happen,” it is “going to be led by the Antichrist himself. You know, you’re going to have to take the Mark of the Beast to buy or sell.” As for the mark itself, Heavin (with Alex Jones) of course tied it to Apple CEO Tim Cook’s discussion of a cashless society and how the Apple logo, in their feverish imaginations, represent the apple that Eve ate in the Garden of Eden. Whether the subsequent election results falsified a Biblical prophecy is unclear, but conspiracy theorists are not deterred by contradictions.

 

And although Trump apparently put in a brave effort to combat the deep state during his first presidency, he was up against a formidable foe. Indeed, as Heavin sees it, the whole COVID-19 pandemic was a weaponized virus created by “the powers that be in this country who want to destroy Trump’s presidency” (its effects on the rest of the world was just collateral damage). It is worth (or whatever you call it) quoting Heavin in some detail here:

 

“We know that it’s a weaponized virus because we see the RNA strands that were put into this virus from HIV, from MERS, and from the SARS virus [no, he does, for obvious reasons, not mention his sources]. There’s no way this could have happened in nature. So somebody built it, there’s no question about that. The question is who did, and who unleashed this on the world. I’m afraid that the powers that be in this country who want to destroy Trump’s presidency, who want to eliminate China’s threat to our hegemony – and by the way, there is a byproduct of this which is a depopulation effort. We’re going to end up providing some solution to our Social Security elderly problem. This sounds terrible, but this collateral damage to the American people, I believe was a desirable byproduct for the people that are in power”

 

Apparently even Texas Governor Greg Abbott lent an ear to Heavin and his ramblings, though it should be noted that Heavin was apparently not completely satisfied with just meeting Abbott, for according to Heavin, he was “trying to get to Trump to make him aware that this is not a nonevent. This is a very nefarious act against him”. Meanwhile, Heavin’s own promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID was published by NaturalNews, who, on their side, presented Heavin as something of an expert on the issue mostly because he said what they wanted to hear but also because Heavin runs a gym and claims that he had “talked to doctors”.

 

Heavin is, of course, also a 9/11 truther –although he is officially just JAQing off – having promoted a number of false claims about the terrorist attacks, including the claim that no plane wreckage was found at the Pentagon and the claim that Building 7 was brought down by a controlled demolition. But of course, the ample evidence that Heavin’s nonsense is, indeed, nonsense doesn’t count for much to Heavin himself; Heavin’s got a different source for his evidence: according to Heavin, God Himself revealed to him the truth about 9/11 –and although he is aware that critics who care about facts dismiss his claims, he also notes that “ridicule is a strategy of the Enemy”, so the fact that he is criticized and his claims refuted is itself evidence that he is right. And once again, the real culprits behind 9/11 is the secretive and powerful “shadow government” that controls the world, “that wants us to die to have a diminished population,” and which is “setting us up for disaster”; Heavin knows this because he has “sensed that people that are in positions of influence” don’t care about or like Americans and that they support the creation of “a one world government.” Also immigration, of course, which is a deliberate government plot to incite unrest. And so on.

 

Diagnosis: We suppose Heavin will take this post as evidence that we’re the Enemy, but it’s hard not to ridicule someone as ridiculous as Gary Heavin. But he does have some influence, apparently, and America has learned the hard way not to dismiss angry clowns just because they are confused, incoherent or silly.