You forgot to mention that Obama was born in Kenya and Bill and Hillary Clinton are serial killers. You did get the one where Bush and Cheney were behind 9/11 though.
A lot of our big conspiracies revolve around political leaders (those plus JFK) behaving in a manipulative or illegal fashion. The moon landing hoax is about the only one I can think of that is non-political.
As to why, I don’t know. But meh.
But a lot of our conspiracy theories are put out and supported by the political opponents of the people who they are about (very few liberals subscribe to birtherism, and very few pro-bush types support 9/11 truth).
He is an eye-witness who does not agree with the official account related to “Underwear Bomber” currently on trial. He sounds a lot like a conspiracy nut b/c he wonders out loud how can a guy board a plane with a bomb and no passport.
Oh, yes, not only he believes in conspiracy he’s also an American which in sum makes him stupid.
Darn it, the logic of this thread always gets in a way.
You know, most people here are opposed to jokes having to announce themselves by being in a special font or something. The problem is that some people are also opposed to jokes announcing themselves by being funny.
Why does the US have all the best Conspiracy Theories
Because we have the best events. Other countries tend to have duller news and hence less grist for the conspiracy mill. In fact, the rest of the world tends to depend on U.S. perfidies (real and imagined) to satisfy their own conspiracy fantasies.
Of course, Israel has a disproportionate role in feeding conspiracy lust. If they’d stop doing things like sending sharks to attack swimmers in Egypt, there’d be a lot less of that.
There are plenty of bizarre conspiracy theories in other countries, but people may not speak English so they don’t come to the attention of Americans very easily.
Nationalism can be a purely negative emotion: “All Americans are stupid” is a nationalist sentiment, just like “All Czechs are thieves” or, in former times, “Everything the Soviet Union does is wrong!”
And, yes, it is perfectly possible to be nationalist against your own country. So we have the lesson: Sarcasm only works when you’re expressing an idea people know you don’t hold.
Isn’t it just that the catchy conspiracy theories virtually always revolve around major powers? Right now, the US is the dominant power, so we get US-based nonsense like 9/11 conspiracies and talk of Obama’s birth certificate. There are plenty of conspiracy theories about Israel, due to its position as the dominant regional power. During and soon after the Cold War, there were plenty of conspiracy theories from the Soviet Union too - off the top of my head, Metro-2 (a second metro line below Moscow for the government to use in case of nuclear war), and Fomenko’s “New Chronology” (which posits that human history is about 1200 years old, and all significant history happened at most a few centuries ago). The Iron Curtain just kept people from sharing this nuttery among the blocs until recently. Going further back, IIRC the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny in India was caused by a conspiracy theory claiming that the British were greasing rifle cartridges with animal fat - muslims claimed it was pig fat, hindus that it was cow fat (so that everyone could be equally outraged) - in the era that Britain was the greatest power in the world.
Like others have suggested, I guess the reasons are that only a major power has the ability to carry out a conspiracy, and they definitely do have the apparat to do so; real conspiracies like the Bay of Pigs invasion, Soviet nuclear testing with disregard to population safety, the Israeli hit squad in Dubai, and much more actually happened and so only serve to reinforce the paranoia that spawns the conspiracy theories.
Meanwhile, in Sweden for example (which hasn’t been a major power for centuries), I’ve never once heard any real conspiracy theories about the murders of the prime minister Olof Palme or of foreign minister Anna Lindh, even though they would appear to be ripe topics, particularly as Palme’s murderer was never caught. (OK, I’ve heard theories about Palme’s death being an assassination for political reasons, but the theories lack the paranoia of a true conspiracy theory and don’t suggest any coverup - just speculation on the identity and motivation of the killer, which I think is fair game). Probably because Swedes are accustomed to the government, particularly the police, being incompetent. Meanwhile, I’ve met at least one Swede in the past week who insists that the twin towers couldn’t possibly have been brought down that way on 9/11 by being hit by airplanes :rolleyes:
Oh, MANY other countries subscribe to insane conspiracy theorites. In fact, Europeans probably subscribe to MORE crazy conspiracy theories than Americans do. It’s just that THEIR insane conspiracy theories ALSO tend to revolve around the United States!
France is FILLED with people we’d mock as “Truthers” in the U.S.! Books saying that 9/11 was an inside job were EXTREMELY popular in France, and in many other European nations.
As long as the USA is the most powerful country in the world, people in MANY countries will be quick to eye us suspiciously and ascibe everything that happens here to sinister forces.
I’m only guessing, but willing to bet that if Europeans opened their ears to what their immigrants, Roma, skinheads, seperatists, Communists and Le Pen type whackos are saying, they’d discover plenty of domestic conspiracy theories – not to mention whatever was motivating that Swedish guy who shot all those kids just recently. And I’m equally willing to bet that in polite and reasonable society, such ideas out there are hardly even ackowledged to exist – who wants to grant such nonsense any legitimacy, after all? The thing y’all find fascinating about America is how we so shamelessly and unselfconsciously wear our hearts on our sleeves.
Oddly enough, that’s EXACTLY the reason a lot of Arabs are convinced that the Mossad was really behind the attacks on the World Trade Center. Many Arabs, strange as it seems, just don’t think their fellow Arabs are smart enough to have pulled off a huge, complex terrorist attack. It’s easier for them to believe the crafty Jews were really responsible.