The pestilence of Conspiracy Theorists

What is it about events that cause people to invent "alternative explanations" that purport to tell the "truth"? Why is it so hard for people to understand that much of what happens happens because someone made a mistake or that the political or military infrastructure was not prepared for such an event?

Pearl Harbor happened because the United States did not take seriously the threat from Japan until it was too late. Who would have thought that Japan would have the audacity to attack the much larger United States?

Who would think that a nobody named Lee Harvey Oswald would have the nerve to kill the President by shooting from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository? After all,it had been 62 years since the last assassination. The three previous shootings had been from up close and not from distance. So why would anyone think of that?

Lastly, who would seriously imagine that 20 hijackers would be able to take 4 planes and either crash them into buildings or attempt to? While there was an alert of such a potentiality who could honestly predict that such a thing would occur?

People who resort to belief in conspiracies to explain events are either stupid or intellectually lazy people who do not want to do the research necessary to understand why something happened. These people are generally not knowledgeable nor do they seek to acquire knowledge about history, politics, warfare, or people from other regions.In place of actually seeking the reasons why these events happened,they construct an interpretation of the events from a scraps of information they get from dubious sources. They do so in a manner that coincidentally conforms with what they already hold to be self evident truths.


The genesis of these logic and fact-deficient theories are the crackpots out there who ARE learned in certain fields.These people develop their theories of certain people or institutions. Then once something big happens--like a 9-11--they take said event and spin it into a yarn that involves story that is as complex as it stretches the very limits of believability. They then transmit their theories to these like the rat flea does to the rat, to souls who then spread the contagion like the rat spreads the Bubonic Plague.

The most infuriating aspect of conspiracy theorists is how much credibility they give to obscure persons on the internet whose only claim is their theory or their involvement in some controversy. That these people have no established credibility among people in their respective field matters not to the faithful. What they say is the truth. It is everyone else who is gullible, stupid, or blind to the truth. It couldn't be that they themselves are stupid, gullible, or so wedded to a particular view point that they will believe anything that appears to confirm it.They can never explain why we should believe so and so over the government or other independent researchers.

I despise conspiracy theories because it isn't a honest interpretation of events, but the excrement of warped minds who manipulate facts of a case in order to fit their world view. Like-minded people still give credence to the infamous forgery The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion that so influenced the Nazis' and other anti-Semites.The physical and emotional damage caused by the purveyance of that ignoble tract has been incalculable.

Furthermore, it impedes the honest efforts to get at the truth. We all know that the government hides things from the public in order serve their own interests or even out of a legitimate desire to protect us. The fact is we should not know everything. Anyone who thinks that we should does not understand mass psychology or war.

But there are times when we do need to know. That is why we have the Freedom of Information Act(FOIA), investigative journalists, researchers, scientists, etc. That is their job.They still will present it in a biased light, but at least you know that they are giving an effort at telling the story in a forthright manner.Their reputations are on the line. They have to be or else they won't have a job.

What does the generator of a conspiracy theory have to lose? He already is relegated to obscurity. If certain "facts" he uses are proven to be without merit he can always chose to dismiss or alter his story that minimizes the contradictory evidence. He can basically say what he wants without much fear of losing his reputation or job. Who will care enough to scorn a nobody?

"All we want are the facts, ma'am" are the words Detective Joe Friday used to utter on the 50's TV show Dragnet and just like Friday what we seek are the facts which will hopefully lead us to the truth.You can only get there by studying all relevant subjects of a specific event. You have to be diligent, scrupulous, and open minded towards any idea that is supported by logic and facts.

What you cannot ever to do is to surrender your cognitive faculties t to misguided persons who long ago succumbed to their own prejudice and ignorance.

Intellectual laziness may not be a sin as religion defines a sin, but it is one in my book.Nothing is worse than a person who eschews the explanation based on research acquired in a methodical, logical, manner for one that is based on the selective use of facts and which openly appeals to the bias of the ignorant and naive.

If you want to know why something happened, study it. Be thorough. Do not limit yourself to studying that one incident, but also look at similar incidents in other places and different times. The best way to understanding is to approach it as a historian does a subject or a good detective does a case.You'll be much closer to understanding why something happened than watching Zeitgeist on Youtube.