Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories
NY Times ^ | May 21, 2013 | MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER

Posted on 05/29/2013 10:37:07 PM PDT by neverdem

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-58 next last
Introduction to 0.7 Seconds to Conspiracy; Proving Conspiracy
1 posted on 05/29/2013 10:37:08 PM PDT by neverdem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem

It is a conspiracy.


2 posted on 05/29/2013 10:42:47 PM PDT by ThomasThomas (A bad hair day is not a mental issue, or is it?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

a turning away from politics and traditional media — which only perpetuates the problem.
*******************
Are they saying eat your peas? It’s a conspiracy!


3 posted on 05/29/2013 10:47:13 PM PDT by Irenic (The pencil sharpener and Elmer's glue is put away-- we've lost the red wheel barrow)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
>"Psychologists aren’t sure whether powerlessness causes conspiracy theories or vice versa."

Who, and why would you axe a psycologist about this?

Some conspiracies are REAL!

Tell me Nixon didn't conspire to cover up Watergate!

Tell me Barry Soetoro isn't conspiring to cover up his true identity, among many other high crimes, and misdemeanors!

4 posted on 05/29/2013 10:51:38 PM PDT by rawcatslyentist (Jeremiah 50:32 "The arrogant one will stumble and fall With no one to raise him up; And I will set)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

You’re normally such a fastidious poster. How did this happen?


5 posted on 05/29/2013 10:53:42 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by Nature, not Nurture™)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories
6 posted on 05/29/2013 10:54:03 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

IF we had politicians who simply called a spade a spade we’d have less conspiracists.


7 posted on 05/29/2013 11:16:48 PM PDT by Amberdawn
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

8 posted on 05/29/2013 11:19:13 PM PDT by mirkwood
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: rawcatslyentist

“Tell me Nixon didn’t conspire to cover up Watergate!”

Whenever Watergate is mentioned, rational people should immediately come back with the facts. To wit:

Both parties wine and dine moneyed citizens as part of their efforts to obtain donations. They try to get the citizen’s head spinning by inviting him to any event that will put him in the company of the famous and powerful.

At that particular time, the demonrats had expanded this itinerary to include treating potential donors to the services of prostitutes, paid for out of DNC money. You know, Joe Sixpack’s ten bucks that he contributed to have a voice in our representative republic.

That was a felony. Actually, each instance was a separate felony.

Some of Nixon’s subordinates, without his knowledge, decided to try and obtain documentary proof of this, with the intention of exposing the dims’ felonious behavior. Unfortunately for America, the people of South Viet Nam, and mankind in general, they were not practiced and proficient criminals. As one might have guessed, they made a hash of it.

Nixon’s subordinates, then, were guilty of conspiracy to expose multiple felonies involving the improper use of DNC funds to pay prostitutes.

When his subordinates finally told him the truth, Nixon decided it would be best to cover up this trifling indiscretion. This was entirely reasonable, in view of the heinous crimes that the media had covered up for Roosevelt, maybe Truman, certainly Kennedy and Johnson.

Later, they even covered up murder for a sitting president.

The demonrats, knowing that they had the media in their pocket, decided to lie, lie, lie, and spin, spin, spin, and artificially escalated this tempest in a teapot to the status of a (barf alert) “constitutional crisis.”

They had a few reasons for knifing Nixon.

1. Nixon had been involved in the effort to root foreign agents of influence out of the State Department and other government posts, which was an unforgivable sin against the Evil one.

2. The huge cloud of dust they raised with their hysterical blather about Nixon’s “crimes” completely obscured the reason for the break in: multiple demonrat felonies, involving a vice that most of America still found repugnant.

3. Nixon’s Vietnamization program had succeeded, and he was on the brink of Peace with Honor in Viet Nam. That would have been a ghastly defeat for the left.

4. And, of course, a hodge-podge of obvious reasons: To embarrass the GOP, to demoralize the Silent Majority, to move the demonrats further to the left, and to forestall any good things Nixon might have done in a second term, with reelection off the table. You can probably name others.

With their customary shameless dishonesty, the left has elevated the Watergate incident to near-mythical status, like the assassination of Abe Lincoln or the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. This needs to be contradicted with the truth at every opporknockety.

I think it’s important, because every time a lib realizes that one of the left’s axiomatic propositions is nothing but lies and deceit, the possibility exists that he will begin to question other planks in their platform.


9 posted on 05/29/2013 11:29:07 PM PDT by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: steve86
You’re normally such a fastidious poster. How did this happen?

What happened?

10 posted on 05/29/2013 11:32:34 PM PDT by neverdem (Register pressure cookers! /s)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: ThomasThomas

So, some woman named Maggie, writing for the NYT, tells me what to believe. Sure, I’ll buy that.


11 posted on 05/29/2013 11:56:06 PM PDT by dagogo redux (A whiff of primitive spirits in the air, harbingers of an impending descent into the feral.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

Why do rational people buy the NY Times?


12 posted on 05/29/2013 11:57:09 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dsc; neverdem; rawcatslyentist
Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories
>> Who, and why would you axe a psycologist about this?
>> Some conspiracies are REAL!
>> Tell me Nixon didn't conspire to cover up Watergate!
>
> Whenever Watergate is mentioned, rational people should immediately come back with the facts. To wit: [...]

We don't even have to go back to Nixon: Fast & Furious is a good example of a conspiracy [in execution, cover-up, and 'investigation' all-three] or Benghazi [there's no way all the weirdness there can be explained by mere incompetence/miscommunication (and have no real resolution/punishment)].

Ah, but we don't even have to get directly into politics! Some conspiracies are, shall we say, functional in nature.
One example I like is from New Mexico, which has a constitution that prohibits any law from abridging "the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms for security and defense, and furthermore explicitly preempts city & counties from it as well: No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms... and yet the state, county, and municipal courthouses all prohibit weapons therein... even if the citizen, not accused of any crime, is required by the law to be there (jury duty).

Inquiry into the validity of such rules invariably leads to (a) dismissal, and/or (b) justification/rationalization*, and/or (c) redirection**. All disempowering*** and designed [if not consciously then unconsciously] to preserve powers assumed by more local governments that is actually barred to them.

* i.e. "we don't allow guns on school grounds either." (Despite that also violating the law.)
** The state rep refers to the AG, the AG refers to the State's Supreme Court, the Supreme Court refers to the Bar, the Bar refers to lawyers...
*** You apparently cannot even challenge such illegitimate, contraconstitutional 'laws' w/o violating them... but to do so is to implicitly acknowledge that 'law's' authority and bind yourself to a position of weakness: that of the accused.

13 posted on 05/29/2013 11:58:26 PM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

I didn’t read the article because I do not want to support the New York Times with my browser clicks.

Did Maggie Koerth-Baker discuss the phony conspiracy theories advanced by the New York Times and other leftist ‘news’ outlets concerning the Bush administration supposedly outing Valerie Plame in order to punish her idiot husband for “telling the truth”?

No, I didn’t think so.


14 posted on 05/30/2013 12:24:11 AM PDT by Zeppo ("Happy Pony is on - and I'm NOT missing Happy Pony")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Government lacking transparency is what leads to conspiracy theories.

Telling us nothing, leaving dozens of questions unanswered, citing “national security” for blocking the release of any documents.

THAT is what causes conspiracy theories.

That and all the consipracy facts we have learned about that are over 50 years old. A lot of conspiracy facts have been revealed over the years.

It is my duty to remain skeptical and not to trust my government.


15 posted on 05/30/2013 12:30:27 AM PDT by Freedom_Is_Not_Free (Free goodies for all -- Freedom for none.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dsc

Great post.


16 posted on 05/30/2013 12:30:33 AM PDT by LurkingSince1943 (Former War Criminal)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: dsc
Obama wouldn't qualify to carry Nixon's briefcase.

Nixon was a world leader who solved “unsolvable” problems. His transformation of LBJ's “morass” in Vietnam and his outreach to China demonstrated his strategic vision. At home he ended military conscription and founded the all volunteer military, a measure that began defusing the antiwar movement and civil unrest.

In Obama we have a $400,000-a-year event planner.

17 posted on 05/30/2013 1:01:54 AM PDT by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Amberdawn
IF we had politicians who simply called a spade a spade we’d have less conspiracists.

And more playing cards.

18 posted on 05/30/2013 1:12:54 AM PDT by BerryDingle (I know how to deal with communists, I still wear their scars on my back from Hollywood-Ronald Reagan)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

While I don not buy into this conspiracy theory and many others the problem for the people is that the Government does regularly lie, cheat, cover-up and even murder to do so. It actually takes a bit of discernment to know which are nutjob theories and which are not. Lots of people do not have the discernment.

Facts (all the facts taken in their absolute context) are the only arbiters between conspiracy and truth. Anything else may or may not be a signpost but how do you know the destination without the facts - are you being led up the garden path or to truth?

Mel


19 posted on 05/30/2013 1:20:48 AM PDT by melsec (Once a Jolly Swagman camped by a Billabong.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Insanity is a very common problem today.


20 posted on 05/30/2013 1:52:00 AM PDT by count-your-change (you don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-58 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson