Here's a sample (but not necessarily representative) post (from March 19):
A well-known conservative pundit disses liberals for being interested in “conspiracy theories”:
As commenter Bruce Arthurs remarks:
Liberals have always loved conspiracy theories because raising the specter of foul play and dirty tricks is an easy and convenient justification for ignoring their own political and policy failures.You can understand why this particular writer is interested in cutting off talk about “foul play and dirty tricks,” seeing as he’s Oliver North.
As commenter Bruce Arthurs remarks:
I dunno, but when someone who actually took part in a secret conspiracy at the highest levels of government says conspiracy theories are bunk…Yeah, imagine suspecting that people in the White House might be illegally conspiring with terrorists, drug dealers, and hostile foreign powers. Liberals sure are nuts.
The reason I bring this particular post to play here is so I can once again say: conspiracy theories are not theory. I see no reason to feel like a nut when considering them. Often enough the best you can do is speculate on the evidence, and a collection of leads and probabilities/possibilities is all you'll get. But to label someone a tin foil hat wearer for considering them is an act of ignorant or intentionally misleading people. One of Electrolite's commenters has put it very well:
...People have conspired since before the pyramids were built. Brutus and Caesar. Gilgamesh, for crying out loud. The attachment of bogosity to something as real as hydrology and as old as architecture should strike people as odd and highly significant. It's one more line of defense, behind which real actual certified 100% conspiracies can play out unaccused. Scum like that that rises toward Washington can immediately snap back, "Conspiracy theory!" the way they did for a while about "...things you read on the internet..." But it has another, more desirable effect. Besides relegating anything that even smells like accusations of conspired action to the back of the room, it enables weaker minds to ignore that insistent warning buzz they keep hearing. It's a slamming down of the lid to Pandora's box.
(P.S. If you dig into some of the FOIA and declassified documents of CIA, NSA, and black budget military projects, you might have to quit scoffing at people who wear tin foil hats, too.)
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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