This is like the reasoning of an anorexic - “I can still see fat. Look at when I sit, there’s a fold of skin at the bottom of my stomach. My friends could still call me fat and you know what, they’d be right!!”
No matter how far back we retract our claims, no matter how carefully we circumscribe our every word with “facts” and “evidence,” the fact remains that the apologists for State power will never stop calling us “conspiracy theorists” until we actually join them as apologists for State power. So, to hell with them and their bully-words. Heretic. Traitor. Witch. Spy. Terrorist. Conspiracy Theorist. These are all intimidation-words, power-words, words whose function in language is analogous to the function of the night-stick in the police-officer’s hands.
Well historically speaking the two biggest conspiracy theorists were Hitler and Stalin. Hitler saw a giant globe-spanninsh Jewish conspiracy and Stalin saw an infinite number of slightly smaller conspiracies.
So I think libertarians would do good to fight conspiracy theories… of the state (“Iran will make a bomb and nuke Israel!”). It is always the first order of business.
I understand where you’re coming from; you are saying that conspiracy theorists are simply rebelling against the state’s monopoly on truth. This is great in principle. The problem is that it is an open ended battle that is often not fought against the state but any and all facets of reality itself.
Literally any batshit crazy theory can be said to be knowledge that the state “doesn’t want you to know”, so this is a slippery slope and should be used with caution. As a libertarian I obviously think that the state is deceitful in nature and has proven to be a source of lies.
The difference is that it’s often not Big Brother who is labelling people conspiracy theorists in order to marginalize their message. It’s rational, independent members of society. Skeptical people who keep other skeptical people in check.
The Niburian Council conspiracy theorists, the reptilian NWO conspiracy theorists, the 2012 end of the world conspiracy theorists–they are just that–conspiracy theorists.
Funny how Penn and Teller, who are well-known for their skeptical point of view, turn around and call conspiracy theorists a bunch of fucking assholes. As for me being a conspiracy theorist, I’ve never liked labels, but I think questioning things should always be appreciated, no matter what Bill “Tool” Maher thinks.
classic misdirection! Probably a survival tactic for people who have to endure intense scrutiny in the public eye, because of other controversial opinions. Great picture of jones btw
Didn’t think about that. I guess I believed that they meant what they said because in a casual interview, I heard Penn reference how he still thought conspiracy theorists were nuts.
A lot of conspiracy theories are both prima facie ridiculous, totally unverifiable, and not particularly actionable information. So people who go around talking about reptilians are probably either nuts or disinfo agents. Notice that I didnt say reptilians dont exist. I wouldnt say such a thing, because I dont have that information. Since its not very actionable, theres no real pointin attempting to verify or disprove such a thing. But if someone hasnt gone through a rigorous epistemological study, I canforgive them for thinking that (some) conspiracy theorists are nuts if they got cornered in a bar once by somebody obsessed with reptilians.
I strongly dislike Bill Maher as well, but that clip demonstrates the mentality of many 9/11 truthers: go into a live taping of the show and yell garbled and disembodied phrases like “Building 7!” and “Plane in New Jersey!”. Not only is this antiproductive for spreading ‘awareness’, it’s crude and obnoxious. I’d throw his ass out of my show too.
@Malachi, I agree that most conspiracies are not based on actionable information. Sort of the whole mysticism idea that can never be proven nor (wait for it…) DISPROVEN! And that’s the crux of the problem because Conspiracy Theorists tend to be satisfied for this to be good enough evidence to merit yelling about it.
I just watched a David Icke documentary, and there was an interview with Alex Jones. Jones said that Icke is like a turd in a punchbowl (eloquence) because he has some great ideas about the way the state can blind people to the truth so that they can operate illicitly. However, he turns it all sour when he throws in the blood drinking lizard rapists. This, essentially, is why I dislike libertarian 9/11 truthers and their kin; they discredit and disparage the reputation of libertarians with their tin-foil hat sensibilities.
The official explanation for 9/11 is a conspiracy theory, so I dont think theres anyone on the planet who isnt a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Sorry but it has to be said.
Which resulted in a conspiracy of terrorists who wanted to punish the us by hijacking these planes. Thats all well and good. Who financed the operation? Not important. Hmmmmmmmm
Oh, of course 9/11 was the product of US foreign policy blowback. But is this a conspiracy? To me, a conspiracy has to have a desired and conscious ends.
No, I’m talking about those who believe it was robots piloting the plane or that the plane was a projected hologram.
A conspiracy is when a bunch of people get together (in cahoots) and make secret plans. It happens every day, holograms and robots are neither necessary nor sufficient.
It all makes sense to me now. The moon landing actually happened, but as it turns out, Neil Armstrong was actually a cyborg. He landed at Area 51 just after the flying saucer was departing from Roswell, and then began overseeing the construction of the plane that would fly into the first tower. He then put on a disguise as a middle-eastern man and constructed the passangers of the plane, where they teleported themselves into the future and flew into the building.
