So my brother (bless his heart) is a big conspiracy theorist. He’s even been visited by the Secret Service for his rantings to the Social Security Administration. He will regularly post things on Facebook about CTs- sometimes I let it go, sometimes I reply with a Snopes link, sometimes I comment… mostly I let it go because he’s my brother and I don’t want to be argumentative with him.
Tonight he posted two things about the bombings- one was a picture of a naked guy getting arrested, with the headline stating that it was the dead brother, and how could he be alive and walking if he was dead, huh? I didn’t comment on that, but apparently it was a bystander to the firefight that was arrested and stripped by police to make sure he didn’t have a bomb on him or whatever. The other thing my brother posted was the Boston commissioner supposedly slipping up and calling the brothers actors- supposedly this means that the whole thing was faked (by Obama!) and the public is being fooled. This time I did comment, saying that law enforcement often calls people that perform acts actors, and it didn’t mean what he thought.
I am curious but don’t want to ask him or any other [del]nutbag[/del] conspiracy theorist or wade through a bunch of this stuff online, so I’ll ask here. What would be the point of the government faking all of this that has happened in Boston? Is it a big ploy so that Obama can take our pressure cookers? Or what? Just trying to understand this one.
I think some of them believe that fake attacks will scare people into allowing a one-world government that will let Jews/The Illuminati/whatever run things and put freedom-loving people into UN/FEMA/whatever concentration camps and confiscate all of the gold and guns. But I’m not sure they’re consistent.
But everything bad now receives these conspiracy theories. It’s not anything special about Boston that’s causing the crazy people to flock to it, it’s just their hobby and they do it for everything. Go on Twitter the next time something big and bad happens, and search for “false flag.” They start yelling about it within minutes.
It was a false flag attack to serve a couple of purposes. One, distract people so that CISPA can get passed, and so that people would be more willing to give up their rights.
Also, there really wasn’t a bomb. It was all staged. :rolleyes:
I won’t get started on the theories surrounding the Waco explosion.
I think there are two reasons behind most, if not all, conspiracy theories.
First is that it’s easier and more comforting to believe that there’s someone or something controlling the world, even if that thing is evil, than to believe that we really are living in a random, chaotic world where random nutcases exist and can so severely affect us. Having a shadowy force behind the scenes gives people someone to blame.
Second is the feeling of being special when you know something that other people don’t. If you can see through the smokescreen of lies being put out there, then you are smarter than the rest of us. You belong to an exclusive club of knowledge that the rest of us don’t have access to.
I totally understand your confusion, Alice. My brother went all conspiracy theory on the Newtown, CT shootings. He is convinced that the government decided to kill a bunch of children to convince us that we should let them take away our guns.:smack:
I agree that this is a large part of it. To these people history can’t be and is not an accident. Everything happens as a result of someone making it happen.
One one hand, I think it’s a good idea to not blindly accept everything you are told. However, why would you not believe CBS, ABC, CNN, etc. but you instead believe some crazy conspiracy theory from a blog or email with no proof to back it up? I think people writing these crazy conspiracy theories are either doing it for political reasons or just because they like to throw a flaming bag of shit into the room and run.
Like one e-mail my friend received about the “Obamaphone” that stated Obama is giving free cell phones to poor people. Sort of half true, there is a program to give phones to poor people but it started under Bush!
I have a friend who believes in every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike.
My friend: The Boston Marathon bombings? It was red flag operation orchestrated by the government. Those two guys? They were actors! The real perpetrator is a Saudi guy whom they are protecting.
Me: Wow! So the FBI, CIA, DHS, and Boston PD were duped by the federal govrenment???
My friend: No… they’re in on it, too.
Me: So thousands of government employees are in on it? Why has no one broken ranks and sold their story to 60 Minutes for a few million dollars?
My Friend: Well, because they would be quickly killed by the government.
Me: And why are they implicating Muslim terrorists? Wouldn’t it better serve Obama’s agenda to implicate a right wing extremist, of the likes of Timothy McVeigh?
My Friend: Well, uh, it’s all part of a master plan to get us in to new wars overseas.
Because the Right is freaked out because there is a black Democratic President and these two Bombers didn’t fit their world view of what Terrorists are supposed to look and be like so obviously it had to be a trick of some kind.
The funny thing is is who probably benefited the most from this attack was the NRA and the gun manufactures they represent because I believe the change in attention off Gun Control let the GOP kill the bill with less hassle than they otherwise would have had but that doesn’t seem to be a part of any of these conspiracies (that I have seen).
Actually it started under Reagan (for landlines); Bush extended it to cellphones.
Also, under Obama (i.e. during his administration) the FCC has actually done a major crackdown on fraud in the Lifeline program, saving an estimated $280million in 2012 and projecting a $400million savings from fraud prevention in 2013.
And finally, the program isn’t funded by taxpayers, but by fees paid by telecommunications providers (although obviously there may be a pass-through of costs to the consumer).
Ah, okay, the false flag theory makes sense. Well. it doesn’t make sense, but it’s an explanation. It must actually suck and be exhausting to constantly be looking for and believing these crazy theories that your government is against you and doing things to hurt you, so I kind of feel sorry for my brother, who is actually a very nice and gentle person, if a bit simple-minded, and his ilk. The ignorance-fighter in me wants to correct all of his FB posts about these things, but I know that it wouldn’t do any good, so I’ll probably just ignore them from now on, like everyone else does.
I have met quite a few people who believe in these conspiracies, and I am still trying to figure out the root cause behind it. Many are intelligent and reasonable in all other respects, but it’s as if they go temporarily insane when the talk about their latest conspiracy theory. I don’t get it. What is it about them that makes them want to believe this stuff?
:smack: