Posted on 02/21/2009 6:34:26 AM PST by Crimson Politics
Conspiracy theories are an infection indeed, a cancer that grows in many different forms by pretending to be unrelated to each other. When they all have a number of important common traits. They all come from the human desire to explain events that make sense. The problem is, not everything makes sense. When John F. Kennedy was shot, the conspiracy theorists had theories because they simply could not believe that some nutcase would do it for such a vague reason (insane people complicate everything).
It's a part of human nature, to question something that's too simple. If you ask Einstein though, all of his theories were extremely simple and he rejected complicated theories that weren't as simple.
I'm sure many of you at one point in your lives believed in one conspiracy or another right? Maybe you figured out some conspiracies or learned about them that aren't even on the list right?
Most Americans at one point found it interesting to read up on "Moon Landing Conspiracies" or "9/11 Conspiracies" or "Pyramid Conspiracies" or even "Alien conspiracies." They are all very similar to each other and they all made one guy very rich!
(Excerpt) Read more at crimsonpolitics.com ...
Naw, pimping for you web site here is not cool newbie.
You lost me when the writer whose article you posted lumped religions with conspiracies.
What would you call Bama's stimuli package.... would it fit the profile of a 'conspiracy'?
Why? Is religion not a conclusion taught to you by your parents which you choose to believe after the evidence?
It’s definitely NOT on the same level as a conspiracy theory. It’s faith, but it doesn’t exactly require 100% evidence to believe. It’s a belief after all. There’s nothing wrong with religion, so I don’t see why you’re complaining.
It would, but I’d hope now that it passed, that it actually does have some positive effect on the economy; even if it doesn’t pull us out of recession completely.
Hmmm, I wonder whose trying to ‘infect’ us, and for what reason.. Maybe it's the ‘Trilateral Commission’, or the ‘Skull and Bones Society’, or...
Just about every nation in history fell victim to a conspiracy from within. Or do you subscribe to the Lone Stabber with the Magic Dagger theory on the assassination of Julius Caesar?
Our own Revolution and Civil War were conspiracies.
Did you write this? Why didn't the writer provide any substantiation of the pro-Ottoman view?
Excellent point.
Obama as a marxist thug who would bow down immediately to muslims was a “conspiracy theory” that has been proven to be true within 30 days.
Conspiracy is not the same as accepting matters on faith. Note the Wikipedia definition:
“A conspiracy theory alleges a coordinated group is, or was, secretly working to commit illegal or wrongful actions, including attempting to hide the existence of the group and its activities. In notable cases the hypothesis contradicts what was, or is, represented as the mainstream explanation for historical or current events. The phrase is also sometimes used dismissively in an attempt to portray a person or group’s views as being untrue or outlandish.”
Note particularly the term conspiracy refers to illegal or wrongful actions. And the article you posted said plainly that religion is a conspiracy theory. If were you to put down that comparison as mere sloppiness rather than animus against religion, I have no reason to accept the other assertions in the article.
Ahhh, RIGHT!!!
Carroll Quigley was Bill Clinton’s MENTOR at Georgetown and he praised Quigley in his acceptance speech, thanking him for forming his world-view.
Conspiracy?? NAAAHHHHH!!
“Tragedy & Hope” Carroll Quigley, Macmillan Co, NY 1966 Partial pages 949-950
The radical Right version of these events as written up by John T. Flynn, Freda Utley, and others, was even more remote from the truth than were Budenz’s or Bentley’s versions, although it had a tremendous impact on American opinion and American relations with other counties in the years 1947-1955. This radical Right fairy tale, which is now an accepted folk myth in many groups in America, pictured the recent history of the United States, in regard to domestic reform and in foreign affairs, as a well-organized plot by extreme Left-wing elements, operating from the White House itself and controlling all the chief avenues of publicity in the United States, to destroy the American way of life, based on private enterprise, laissez faire, and isolationism, in behalf of alien ideologies of Russian Socialism and British cosmopolitanism (or internationalism). This plot, if we are to believe the myth, worked through such avenues of publicity as The New York Times and the Herald Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post, the Atlantic Monthly and Harper’s Magazine and had at its core the wild-eyed and bushy-haired theoreticians of Socialist Harvard and the London School of Economics. It was determined to bring the United States into World War II on the side of England (Roosevelt’s first love) and Soviet Russia (his second love) in order to destroy every finer element of American life and, as part of this consciously planned scheme, invited Japan to attack Pearl Harbor, and destroyed Chiang Kai-shek, all the while undermining America’s real strength by excessive spending and unbalanced budgets.
This myth, like all fables, does in fact have a modicum of truth. There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960’s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies (notably to its belief that England was an Atlantic rather than a European Power and must be allied, or even federated, with the United States and must remain isolated from Europe, but in general my chief difference of opinion IS THAT IT WISHES TO REMAIN UNKNOWN (emphasis added) and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.
The Round Table Groups have already been mentioned in this book several times, n6tably in connection with the formation of the British Commonwealth in chapter 4 and in the discussion of appeasement in chapter 12 (”the Cliveden Set”). At the risk of some repetition, the story will be summarized here, because the’ American branch of this organization (sometimes called the “Eastern Establishment”) has played a very significant role in the history of the United States in the last generation.
The Round Table’ Groups were semi-secret discussion and lobbying groups organized by Lionel Curtis, Philip H. Kerr (Lord Lothian), and (Sir) William S. Marris in 1908-1911. This was done on behalf of Lord Milner, the dominant Trustee of the Rhodes Trust in the two decades 1905-1925. The original purpose of these groups was to seek to federate the English-speaking world along lines laid down by Cecil Rhodes (I 853-1902) and William T. Stead (1849-1912), and the money for the organizational work came originally from the Rhodes Trust. By 1915 Round Table groups existed in seven countries, including England, South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, and a rather loosely organized group in the United States (George Louis Beer, Walter Lippmann, Frank Aydelotte, Whitney Shepardson, Thomas W. Lamont, Jerome D. Greene, Erwin D. Canham of the Christian Science Monitor, and others). The attitudes of the various groups were coordinated by frequent visits and discussions and by a well-informed and totally anonymous quarterly magazine, The Round Table, whose first issue, largely written by Philip Kerr, appeared in November 1910.
It’s an infection by human nature :).
And sometimes an infection by authors who make money off of this.
Conspiracy is a conclusion that is given and accepted by a number of followers, and then evidence is provided for them to continue believing. This is the same as faith.
Did you really think Scientology was pure faith with lots of evidence?
The fascination with conspiracy theories isn’t the primary disease. It is a symptom of a deeper illness. So much that happens is evil and seemingly inexplicable so it is human nature to try to make sense of it.
Why are the democrats and most republicans so single mindedly intent on destroying wealth? It seems inexplicable. And the explanation that they are stupid or wicked people is just not satisfying.
I understand your viewpoint, and I don’t entirely disagree. Having said that, I like to judge things by their own merit. My point is, you have to take the good with the bad. I personally believe most conspiracy theories are goofy, people do reach a conclusion and then try to support it. But, if I say, they are all goofy, then that would make me a fool. You are correct, most things do have a simple explanation, however sometimes there is a boogeyman. I believe we should listen, I think most reasonable conservatives can judge BS from a rose. JMHO—JM
In spite of your sanitized definition, “conspiracy” as used in the article, in legal jargon and in Wikipedia is a derogatory term. It is a combination of persons for illegal purposes. You may feel that describes religion but I don’t. If you want to be taken seriously about conspiracies, you would do well not to lump religion generally with conspiracy. If you wish to content that this or that religious or quasi-religious movement is a conspiracy, that’s another matter. And, no, I have no desire to debate Scientology.
rut roh
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