There is a difference between a healthy skepticism and unhealthy paranoia - or damn cruel manipulation of people for political reasons.
A lot of conspiracy theories from the past were based on a combination of skepticism and lack of some technical knowledge (in my opinion), but Sandy Hook is the first one I’m aware of that was just flat, vicious denial … ism. No, wait, there was one before that, the first use of the term “crisis actors”, but I can’t remember …
I was told to my face that the Boston Marathon bombing was a hoax.
I would say, no. Brits, Europeans etc believe in these conspiracies in roughly the same numbers. Many of the CT’s may originate in the US, and cerain CT’s are more popular there too, but we believe in this stuff almost as much. I think the popularity of CT books and documentaries in Europe(certainly the UK) will back this up. Heck, Channel4 during the 90’s was basically the broadcasting arm of Graham Hancock Inc. Hancock is not quite as nutty as most CT’s, but he is not far behind.
Well, I can see some people confused because at the time he was known as *Edwin *Lightyear, and he was second.
But for point of reference, around here I get a bit more contact with Latin American media, and a lot of people in this part of the world operate on the presumption that anything officialdom and corporate media tell you is a fabrication, and whatever’s to the contrary however implausible must be looked at favorably.
It’s not that dark and certainly not deep in the internet. Infowars and the sites belonging to it will spew this CT stuff about every event that happens in the news. People tend to think of it as an anti-Obama right wing site when it is actually very equal opportunity about conspiracies. It just so happens that Obama is in the White House. Since he says that every single thing that hits the news is a conspiracy, Alex Jones is either totally crazy or an evil man who preys on the fears of the mentally ill. Since I have heard him speak at length and he seems to be reasonably intelligent and sane I’m going with evil. His sites have become crazy central for CTers.
Tell him to you believe there is no internet. It’s all made up.
On a more serious note. It’s sad. The father of one of my childhood friends started getting into an anti-government fringe group. This happened after we were adults, but he sold their home in Salt Lake and moved out into the desert to get away from the government. It was really sad to see someone lose their mind that way.
We need more people like the OP’s neighbour. Well, I do. See, I don’t shoot much anymore. I have at least half a dozen Evil Black Guns that I’d like to sell, and the hysteria would drive prices up. Heck, we might even be able to convince these people that ammunition would be restricted too, and I could sell my Colt and Uberti Colt replica cap-and-ball revolvers!
I think Sandy Hook CT, in particular, is a sort of way to resolve cognitive dissonance. It was so horrific, such a pointless, senseless tragedy-and so easy to identify with-that I can see needing to believe it just can’t have happened. The world can’t work like that. Also, I can see some people, the ones who believe most strongly that the completely unfettered right to bear arms is sacrosanct, really don’t want this to be true. It’s unsettling.
obbn: Question for you: How much would you have been chuckling about your neighbor’s comments about 9/11 if you had known someone who died in those attacks?
The truth commission later established what all people knew when Monsignor Romero was assassinated, that he was killed by the extreme right wing in El Salvador to shut him up so he would not continue to talk about the then ongoing repression of the Salvadoran people.
Even though I was a kid I knew then. When I read that headline I knew that what that newspaper was reporting about the civil war was an insult to my intelligence.
Threats to my family (not related to the Bishop but the family had some connections to him and that was one of the reasons) convinced my parents to flee and to take their sons out of El Salvador in the 80’s)
In the USA I got to know how many Americans did not agree with what was going on in EL Salvador so I got to appreciate media that did work more honestly, that lasted until I found about talk radio and many other reprehensible sources of information appeared.
So nowadays it depends on what source the information is coming from and one has to always check their sources.
I can’t have any sympathy with that attitude; we are referring adults of “normal” intelligence, not children or other innocents. I think it is irresponsible to allow one’s self to be lied to and misled to this degree. For heaven’s sake, we blame rape victims for being misled. I think we can expect adults to show a little critical faculty.
I also don’t find Sandy Hook an especially horrific slaughter of children in schools; they all bother me. (I’m pretty perturbed about those in fast food restaurants and work-places, too, even when ‘only’ adults are murdered, but I grant that those of minor children in schools are the most disturbing, at least for me.)
I don’t mean to play Most Disrespected Tragedy, but no one denied the Towers collasped and thousands died that day. I can’t really described the special hollow despair one feels when someone just flat denies something happened.
[Again, let me assure you, I appreciate I do not know the special pain of those who lost someone in the Towers, in my turn.)
I believe we are on the verge of a New American Revolutionary/Civil War, led by a coalition of the NRA, State Militias, Freemen, Sovereign Citizens, White Supremists, etc, and they will consider YOU the enemy: YOUR neck of the woods is Babylon…full of Philistines which need to be purged to make way for REAL Americans with Real American Values (fire and brimstone protestantism, universal corporal punishment for children (hell, now that I think of it, more than a few adults oughta have some public whippin’s too ), ALL capital crimes WILL have public capital punishment, and you BETTER be a good hunter.
America is the New Canaan, which must be made into the New Israel. :dubious:
Don’t worry about Big Government…worry about Big Civilian Population.
And I counter this with Democrat nutjobs who believe the 9/11 attacks were organised by the Bush administration, or the administration had advanced knowledge and failed to act for nefarious reasons.
I dunno. A good friend of mine is a devotee of Alex Jones, and believes all the crap he spews. He believes the U.S. government was behind 9/11, that Sandy Hook was a false flag, etc. But other than believing in this nonsense, he’s a great guy.
He knows not to bring up his conspiracy theories with me. In return, I won’t poke fun at his beliefs.
In a thread where everyone else is using the term CT to mean “Conspiracy Theory/Theorist”, that was a jarring choice of abbreviation. At least to this reader.
Who knew they had their own police force? Thought Police I guess. Or maybe they’re the folks who show up first and remove all the awkward evidence and plant all the desired evidence before the media has a chance to get involved. Thereby making the media truly unwitting dupes of the Official Version of events.
The mind boggles at the power and influence of the CT Police.
Actually they got better, that poll (and Research2000 was discredited just about then by Nate Silver and repudiated by DailyKos) is from 2009, a more recent one shows Democrats only going for it at 24% and Republicans by 17%.
Independents though have a bigger trouble with 29% of truther loops among them.
Unfortunately regarding Birther stuff, Republicans are not getting better:
It is better to counter what Enola Straight said just by pointing out that unlike in the past the military (in southern states) is not going to be dependable for the ones that will try the civil war option.
), ALL capital crimes WILL have public capital punishment, and you BETTER be a good hunter.
At least to this reader.