# I pit the derisive, condenscending, anti-conspiriacy ... \[merged threads\] **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 29, 2012, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653 "2012-06-29T02:19:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/61 "2012-06-29T23:02:54Z")
> [@newcomer](#): > > However, I’ll copy-paste it again and request comment on it: The answer is still no. Americans are a pretty paranoid bunch of people in my experience. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/62 "2012-06-30T00:19:51Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, I doubt there is anything psychologically unusual in Americans that leads us to reject conspiracy theories. To the contrary, there is something psychological, or, rather, cultural in Americans that leads us to **believe** conspiracy theories. There are many instances in American history of vast numbers believing in British plots, French plots (associated with Thomas Jefferson), bankers’ plots (associated with the First and Second Banks of the United States and the Free Silver movement and many other instances), capitalist/ruling-class plots generally (Bohemian Grove, NWO), Jewish plots, Communist plots, Jihadist plots, U.S. Government plots, etc., etc. And leave us not forget imagined plots Masonic, Mormon, Catho- . . . sorry, Papist, Illuminist, war-profiteer . . . This kind of thinking is not always limited to marginal cranks. Sometimes it has real effects in American politics. There was an actual Anti-Masonic Party once. Anti-Catholic scaremongering was politically important in America throughout the 19th Century – many believed in an actual Church plot to take over this country.\* The John Birch Society, which was a big deal in the 1950s and made Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign possible (though even Goldwater dismissed them as cranks), was originally based on Communist conspiracy-theorizing, and still exists but it’s now based on Illuminist/NWO-CT. Many Americans still blame everything on the Jews, by ZOG!\* And then there’s the infamous “gay agenda” and “gay mafia.” And I’ve read countless screeds and blogposts connecting Obama to conspiracies socialist, Islamic, etc. See [“The Paranoid Style in American Politics,”](http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html) by Richard Hofstadter (1964). No, Americans are **not** uniquely, nor even particularly, CT-skeptical. \*Surprising successful if real. The SCOTUS now comprises five Catholics, four Jews, no Protestants! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2012, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/63 "2012-06-30T00:37:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > **JRD’s** point is that they are not counter-establishment in **effect.** Sorry, I missed the point. Of course, we can all rest a little easy, knowing that most CT’s have little or no effect at all… They waste a lot of bandwidth, but they rarely lead to major policy changes. (The Birthers did get a little scary… But Contrail Theorists are pretty harmless…) ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/64 "2012-06-30T00:56:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > No, I doubt there is anything psychologically unusual in Americans that leads us to reject conspiracy theories. To the contrary, there is something psychological, or, rather, cultural in Americans that leads us to **believe** conspiracy theories. And we still have nothing on the Middle East, where conspiracy theories practically run countries to the extent they shape their policy on Israel. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2012, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/65 "2012-06-30T01:06:00Z")
No kidding. You should see some of the media from other countries. Whereas the US Media tends to ignore CTs, they feed them. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2012, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/66 "2012-06-30T02:37:30Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > The answer is still no. Americans are a pretty paranoid bunch of people in my experience. I dunno, take any group of ~311 million people with above-average access to electronic media and simple math says you’ll find lots of paranoids, and skeptics, and fundamentalists, and atheists, and Pauly Shore fans, and lactose-intolerants, and model railroad enthusiasts… Heck, that’s the third-largest country in the world by population, and China and India are far less wired, thus lacking access to the internet-megaphone that would let them broadcast their nuttiness, of which they no doubt have in comparable or greater quantity. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2012, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/67 "2012-06-30T23:49:42Z")
Who is John Dillinger? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/68 "2012-07-01T01:11:31Z")
One of the men on the Grassy Knoll. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/69 "2012-07-01T02:06:21Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > One of the men on the Grassy Knoll. But it was Harold Canvera who made the shot. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/70 "2012-07-01T02:15:37Z")
fnord ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/71 "2012-07-01T06:18:17Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > fnord Hey, wait, what just happened in Chimera’s post? Is there something so monumentus that we’re not allowed to see it? Or did the Illuminati communicate something subliminally to us there? Is anyone else feeling an unease, a low-level prickliness, a fnord? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/72 "2012-07-01T12:47:28Z")
Nons ---
**Author:** ![al27052](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/41988e/32.png) [@al27052](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/al27052)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/73 "2012-07-01T13:58:47Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I dunno, take any group of ~311 million people with above-average access to electronic media and simple math says you’ll find lots of paranoids, and skeptics, and fundamentalists, and atheists, and Pauly Shore fans, and lactose-intolerants, and model railroad enthusiasts… > > Heck, that’s the third-largest country in the world by population, and China and India are far less wired, thus lacking access to the internet-megaphone that would let them broadcast their nuttiness, of which they no doubt have in comparable or greater quantity. This is mostly true, I’d bet. Of course, the Chinese try to keep their peasantry ignorant as much as possible, and their media is state-run, and their internet access is restricted, so there’s some difference there. However, our media was the government’s bitch up until the 70s at least, so…we can’t claim that we are all _that_ much of an exception. I mean, for Pete’s sake, the media knew about JFK’s infidelity, and FDR’s handicap, but they certainly didn’t report on it. Can you imagine that now? Not even. Not to mention all the other military and government secrets they willingly kept. ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/74 "2012-07-01T15:07:51Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > **Stink Fish Pot** was right, except they weren’t masters of propaganda. They never told their people the truth not because they did not want to but because they did not have the truth. > > I don’t have the truth. If you’d just explain what the hell it is you’re talking about, your insane ramblings would be much easier to follow. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/75 "2012-07-01T18:57:56Z")
> [@al27052](#): > > I mean, for Pete’s sake, the media knew about JFK’s infidelity, and FDR’s handicap, but they certainly didn’t report on it. Can you imagine that now? No, it’s unthinkable today. Whether anybody needs to know this stuff is an open question, but since everyone knows people like to read it, it’s going to be reported. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/76 "2012-07-01T22:46:34Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > … > I don’t have the truth. Truer words were never spoken. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/77 "2012-07-01T23:14:05Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > We’re through the rabbit hole here, people. _You’re_ just prejudiced against Rabbits, man… Investigate the Conspiracy, man… You’re just WRONG!!!one!!!eleven!!! **Kosmik** is right. Believe it, man… He’s telling you reality, man… ETA: We will all feel like fools when he’s proven _right_, man… Where’s my _bong_, man… ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/78 "2012-07-02T15:04:47Z")
> [@Kozmik](#): > > [This](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=15218969#post15218969) thread was closed. It was not my thread. The OP made some very good points which I wanted to emphasize. However, the fucking point of the OP was lost and I guess here I am defending myself and the OP and the few others who contributed to that thread. Good luck with that. The internet is mostly populated with idiots. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/79 "2012-07-02T15:16:21Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Good luck with that. The internet is mostly populated with idiots. Once again, John Gabriel’s [GIFT](http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/). ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653/80 "2012-07-02T15:56:46Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > I had it for a little while, but it turned out I couldn’t handle the truth. I think I left it in the fridge. I couldn’t handle the truth until I modified a couple of oven mits. I’ve been thinking of selling them on the internet. Do you think anyone would be interested? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-derisive-condenscending-anti-conspiriacy-merged-threads/626653.md?page=5)