[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
There is such a thing as real conspiracies and I can give you examples of lots of them but it is incredibly callous and despicable to claim that people that lost their kids in an idyllic Connecticut town were lying or were part of it. That is about the most offensive accusation that I can imagine and it makes no sense.
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If I was in your position, I would be strongly tempted to respond with a modified version of following speech from Billy Madison.
And hey, wouldn’t you know it, virtually all the prominent actors involved in those stories stopped spreading the information when it was shown to be wrong. Sure, there are probably still democrats who believe the Iraq war was all to line Cheney’s pockets, but they aren’t in congress or the news, and if they are, they’re not talking about it.
Those voices will get louder and louder as we get close to the election. But it is nothing new. I heard it about Bush at the end of his second term. I heard it about Bush if he lost after his first term. I heard it about Clinton. People have been probably talking about it with presidents long before the internet but they couldn’t easily find each other. I think most presidents at the end of 8 years can’t wait to be ex-presidents.
Robert Anton Wilson had a brilliant concept that I think about in reponse to wacko conspiracy theories: the strange loop.
The wacko CT has a small breadcrumb trail of evidence they find that suggests a mountain of other evidence is a lie, is manufactured by the government/trilateral commision/Zionist Conspiracy/Illuminati, or whatever.
Wilson asks: if this conspiracy is capable of manufacturing the massive amount of evidence pointing toward the Holocaust/moon landing/Sandy Hook massacre, surely they could have manufactured the tiny amount of evidence that you think exposes them? If you’re willing to believe in the big conspiracy, how can you possibly believe the evidence that leads you to believe in the big conspiracy?
RAW had all sorts of fun things to say about conspiracy theories and he specifically poked fun at precisely the tendency of CT’ists to regard a lack of evidence as proof of the conspiracy, in precisely the way **Ranger Jeff **describes.
It was an article in “The Atlantic” that I read years ago. I’d have to look it up.
Looks like this is the background to that story. The Atlantic article is mentioned.
I don’t think you read my post all the way through if you think I’m saying most people believe GWB attacked Iraq because it was a risk.
…But why would they manufacture that evidence?
You don’t understand. It’s a false flag to deflect attention away from the true conspirators. :smack:
No, even if they manufactured evidence exposing themselves it would still be admissible because it exposes them. You’re allowed to use any tools the conspiracy gives you.
Earlier today I pointed out to an antivaxer how bizarre it was that he was accusing the pharmaceutical company Merck of coverups/malfeasance, but just a few posts earlier had been quoting the Merck Manual in an attempt to blame a rare disease on vaccination. He couldn’t see any hypocrisy or irony in that.
I mentioned that upthread and gave that link. There were actually two things that are separate but have been mushed together by rumor.
The link you provide and I provided earlier refutes the rumor that one particular fire engine was found with stacks of blue jeans. The contention was that members of the FDNY were looting during the rescue and before the collapse of the buildings. Given that it was a very short period of time and they were quite busy it seems ridiculous.
Well it seems that the accusations all came from a book by William Langewiesche. He reported being told about the blue jeans being found neatly stacked in a fire engine when it was uncovered from the rubble. He did not have any named eyewitness accounts. Basically nothing that could be verified and little more than rumor. By the accounts given those who tried to verify the story narrowed down the fire engine to be Ladder 4 using the locations given in the book and maps of the scene. All members of Ladder 4 were killed. Pictures were found of Ladder 4 being unearthed and no blue jeans are seen. That rumor appears to be false. There is no evidence other than some rumors that any member of the FDNY was looting during the rescue.
There was certainly looting in the retail concourse under WTC 5. However, that area did not collapse. It was open for anyone to enter after the buildings came down and the fires were out. There is no evidence that It was FDNY during the rescue. It happened in the weeks after 9-11. It was discovered by a NY National Guard company. The site was massive and not exactly secured. Rescue workers from every where were there. As well as all manner of volunteers. Construction workers. Regular people. Steve Buscemi. It is possible that some of those there to help also looted. It is also very possible that criminals used the confusion to cloak their activities and went there specifically to steal. Two men were arrested for looting from the Tourneau store. Neither of them were FDNY. [This](http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/nyregion/a-nation-challenged-underground-looting-is-reported-in-center-s-tomblike-mall.html?pagewanted=1) is a pretty decent story about it from the time.
So the two stories, one true one not, have been combined into one in many minds.
Why would someone waste the time to steal blue jeans, of all things? How much would each be worth, $20?
There are just people out there that have to believe that there is some mysterious cryptic crap going on in the world, and it makes them feel intelligent to have figured it out. It’s really not unusual. I had at one point thought it was mostly older people, but then I stumbled onto 4chan, and the conspiracies people on there believe in. Once they are anonymous, they have no problem talking about them.
It doesn’t help that our education system never actually sits down and teaches rational thinking in any real way. Critical thinking is class work only, not a life skill that is taught. A lot of CTers learned a different way of thinking that has led them off the deep end.
And once you get deep enough, there’s no turning back, since anyone trying to help you is in on the conspiracy. You have to start early. Explain why conspiracy theories don’t make sense before they’ve started believing in them.
While I don’t believe Sandy Hook was a hoax, using the argument that our government is so inept or incapable of maintaining secrecy is a faulty generalization. You can cherry pick all the evidence you want of government ineptitude, but when it comes to serious clandestine operations, it’s a very different story. Yes, Bill couldn’t keep his diddling secret, but if you want to topple a government, it’s no problem. Conducting the Bin laden raid in a (hostile) country, sure. Do something really embarrassing, and it’s even more important to keep it quiet (like syphillis experiments on blacks and Guatemalans).
Unfortunately, the actual misdeeds of the Government only feed Conspiracy Theorists. If they did “a”, why couldn’t they do “b”? If they completely lied about the Golf Of Tonkin incident to get us into a war, then why not another war? Like those babies yanked out of incubators. It took over 60 years to officially acknowledge the Guatemalan syphillis experiment. People wonder, somewhat justifiably, what we’ll find out 60 years from now…
RAW is ?
uncooked, but that’s not important right now.
Robert Anton Wilson, author of Illuminatus! The Illuminatus! Trilogy - Wikipedia
In context, almost certainly RobertfnordAnton Wilson
What if you just find this stuff to be interesting and funny?
Quote Star Wars canon many people do. But called weird, they are not. (Did I do a good Yoda there?)
Or I look at it the same as pro wrestling. I know its not “real” but its still fun to watch and follow characters.