I’m not speaking for every member here, but I see a lot of people here bashing 9/11 truth, vaccine truth, etc.This is for you:
I seriously don’t understand it, especially coming from a bunch of anarchists. You’ve been able to reach the logical conclusion that the state is a corrupt, criminal institution that relies on human suffering to exist. Going from statist to anti-statist is a huge psychological leap, and I respect that at least you’ve made it that far. But how can you believe the state is a corrupt institution of violence but then turn around and vehemently disagree with the fact that the heads of state and other institutions of power are actively seeking to inflict violence upon you? The more I study the global elite, the more naive it seems to concentrate solely on the state. A common talking point amongst us libertarians is that these people working for the state are economically stupid. But when you look at it from the perspective that they do it on purpose to further their control, it makes the most sense. I think the top dogs of the global elite are definitely Austrians. They just happen to be evil. As a matter of fact I think these men were Austrians long before Mises was ever born. But no, as an anarcho-capitalist I’m supposed to just take it on faith that the people who run the world and invented fiat currency are just STUPID, if only they knew Austrian economics they would change their ways. HA.
Conversely, accepting the existence of the global elite seems to be no problem for constitutionalists, while becoming completely anti-state seems to be a psychological hurdle that’s just as hard for them to jump as it is for anarchists to do the same concerning the global elite.
I think anarchists need to accept the global elite theory of history and that constitutionalists need to accept anti-state philosophy.
I think bashing “conspiracy theories” that are clearly facts is another form of statism, ie, religiously believing something regardless of the facts. People who concentrate on bashing Alex Jones are missing the point. How about instead of bashing David Icke, go read Tragedy and Hope by Carrol Quigley or The Impact of Science Upon Society by Bertrand Russell. How about Ecoscience, written by the current white house science czar, John “forced abortions” Holdren?
If you’re going to base your life philosophy on being anti-violence, how about recognizing it for what it actually is? Quit being so naive. If you are anti-violence, it’s not good enough to say “I want to abolish the state so therefore I can ignore the actual injustice being inflicted on actual humans in today’s actual world.” The state is just a tool of the global elite. I think saying “You should be anti-state because they are actively working on mass depopulation” is a lot more powerful than saying “You should be anti-state because I believe in objective morality, dur hur!” How about instead of thinking fractional reserve central banking is some big mistake by stupid power elites, how about believing that it was done on purpose to do exactly what it is doing today. Freedom-hating tyrants can be just as much of an Austrian as you are.
As a person who believes in several conspiracy theories, I will say that they don’t do much for you. Politics is so obviously corrupt that you don’t have to prove 9-11 was an inside job to show how awful the status quo is.
You don’t have to know that the creation of the Federal Reserve was an inside job either, but that seems to be a big deal in this scene. How is that objectively more or less important than 9/11 being an inside job? I realize that being an Austrian is a magical philosophical panacea that puts you above the rest of humanity. I get that. I’m on board with that.
Being anti-violence won’t stop a criminal from shooting you. Being aware of the real fact that he is pointing a gun at you at least gives you the chance to defend yourself.
If a conspiracy theory is relevant, its because it proves that the state is corrupt and does bad things. There are already enough non-conspiracy theory examples showing this fact. (Although, I would not have counted the founding of the Fed as much of a conspiracy theory… (: )
Conspiracy theories are tough because it’s difficult to know whether you’re getting actual research or paranoid babble. And since conspiracies are by their nature secret, it’s difficult to get one’s hands on significant amounts of reliable evidence. Then there is the defeatist mentality which they breed - “it’s all hopless, our fate is sealed by the evil bankers and social engineers, there’s nothing the humble masses can do but wait for their demise…”
It might be more productive to read Mises than to run around screaming about the NWO.
I quite vehmently disagree with the idea that the truth doesn’t do much for you. While I’ll grant you that knowing itself won’t help much, however it does do one important thing. It allows you to know who the real enemy is.
If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
Speaking as someone who has researched the world, accumulated much physical evidence, and made very signifigant personal sarcrfices doing it, I can tell you that it’s all real. Did it do anything for me? It didn’t do as much as Austrian economics and Libertarianism has, but it is more imporant in my opinion.
I just think that it’s important to know as much as you can about what the kings of violence in this world are doing, how else can you claim to be an enemy of violence? You can give lip service to freedom all day but you can’t defend it if you don’t know how it’s being attacked. I believe the non-conspiracy stuff like war and public school is the most important to concentrate on. Definitely. But once you accept that eugenics is real and that you are drinking fluoride and eating GMO, it’s a lot easier to grasp the scope of the evil in this world. And it’s not just the state. Yes, the state is the root. But there’s more to it. Not concentrating on conspiracy stuff as opposed to war and public school is one thing, but to say that none of it is true because you think Alex Jones is annoying is really just handing victory to the tyrants.
My main point is that doing both is more productive than doing just one or the other. I can read Human Action on Wednesdays and then read Tragedy and Hope on Thursdays. I can listen to Alan Watts’s podcast on Fridays and listen to the School Sucks Podcast on Saturdays. Austrians teach me why the state fails, and truthers teach me why I should avoid fluoride and GMO. They’re both important, and it gets on my nerves that both sides reject the other. Being anti-state and anti-NWO is the most effective way to be anti-violence. Rejecting the existence of the global power elite because David Icke believes in reptiles is a hear-no-evil see-no-evil approach.
The Austrians show me the philosophy, and the truthers show me the actual events that are happening or about to happen and how best to position myself in light of this information. It doesn’t take much reading or research to accept the NAP or to understand the ABCT, and I find it more productive to spend my time figuring out what power players are doing RIGHT NOW and how it will affect me. My proud complete liberty philosophy in and of itself will not protect me from control-freak eugenicists.
The problem is when you start thinking the NWO is an orginization, rather than a power structure.
Also, everyone seems to forget that the official story of 911 is also a conspiracy thoery; that the story ends with Bin Laden and the 12 saudi’s. It’s either a conspiracy thoery, or a coincedence theory. You could say the JFK thing is a conspiracy/coincedence debate, but not 911.
I think many CT’s make wild connections that don’t exist, but I learned a lot of things I didn’t know beforehand; Jeckyll Island, CFR, Bilderbergs, Skull and Bones, origins of the CIA, Rothschilds, etc
Completely, completely, completely agree. I remember watching The Obama Deception when I first started getting into politics. Alex Jones does such a good job at presenting facts, even if you don’t believe in his conclusions. The only reason I ever looked up Timothy Geithner and the Federal Reserve and everything else was because the conspiracy stories interested me and I drew my own conclusions from learning about the facts. Conspiracy theories are a fantastic way of getting people who normally wouldn’t research economics, politics, and history to do so.
It is not a problem of theories in themselves as such.
It is just that many online conspiracy theories have been very ill-researched, and after I did some serious heavyweight reading on the matter from proper hardcover books at the bookstore and did so from various sources, be it professional or casual, I found both the premises and conclusions of many such conspiracies to be incorrect.
Consider conspiracy theories about IMF. Often it is said that the World Bank, WTO and the IMF are not a solution, but the problem.
It is 100% true, but not in the way we’d imagine. The problem rather is not that such organizations are run by a cabal of evil conspiring elites (they often employ elderly professors), but that they are too sincere, and have caused much damage from their good intentions. In the name of protecting the poor world, the WTO encourages and rewards slapping of tarriffs by them, as India did recently when it slapped WTO-legal tarriffs on Chinese goods, and this has given too many poor nations the impression that there is a good kind of protectionism or a good kind of mercantilism when it is done by a different name. And then WTO’s protectionist arbitration services are labelled as free trade.
The World Bank and the IMF have ruined Africa, but by giving them too much, and not by taking anything away. Everything you hear about IMF conditions is a lie, because IMF conditions receive no compliance. They further the moral hazard and adverse selection of financially irresponsible governments that bankrupt their country, and make poor nations poorer by enriching government officials who use the force of law to parasite their nation until there is nothing left to parasite, thus having them demand IMF loans.
It is just as much true that many nonprofits have caused great damage from their campaigning of the wrong causes, such as certain consumer advocacy groups that push lawsuits to end certain cars from production simply from misleading statistics of their likelihood of failure. Different kinds of cars fail in different ways based on their make - you adopt one set of solutions and bring in another set of problems.
Great post! I would recommend those who bash “conspiracy theories” to read “Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy” by Murray Rothbard. As a conspiracist recently enlightened to anarcho-capitalist, I think a huge problem with the whole truth movement is its historians are all leftists. It’s permeated with socialist ideology, money is viewed as some inherently evil scam created only for control, gold is viewed as evil and controlled by the bankers, capitalism is viewed as exploitation etc. All these marxist ideas are present in tons of conspiracist’s writings and mind sets. Alex Jones is a minarchist, Alan Watt same thing, David Icke same thing pretty much, none of them have made the leap to anarchism and realized the dividing line that is the evils of the state vs the voluntarism of markets. They have no idea how a free society would actually be run so when it comes to solutions all they can say is “smaller government,” “tell the state they’re not your boss,” “stand up for yourself,” etc. None of those are real solutions and you can hear in their voices they know they’re not, they’ve never read Rothbard or Hoppe though so what can they do, I was in the same spot myself just 6 months or so ago.
The other thing I would add is almost all historians are leftists, so when Watt or someone reads Carroll Quigley they’re taking it in with the same leftist angle because they can’t decipher history in the same methodical manner as a Hoppe or Rothbard who can see through all their misattributions to historical events or changes causing certain outcomes etc. So the idea unionism or something raised wages and material standards of living many people reading history books might just accept as true, whereas when you understand Austrian Econ you know such things would never raise anyone’s standard of living. Same goes for, say, some depression set in because gold started to be used as a currency, in reality it’s obvious the cheap currency was overinflated and inherently causes a boom bust cycle, so clearly the return to gold at the end of the bust is merely the reaction to the currency’s collapse, it didn’t cause the currency’s collapse. This type of historical analysis is literally impossible unless you understand austrianism, so I don’t think it’s possible to really fault anyone for it. (Instead Rothbard and Hoppe should be celebrated for their incredible work)
There are two categories of conspiracy theories. Establishment conspiracy theories and non-establishment conspiracy theories.
The people who are seemingly militantly against conspiracy theories are often only against non-establishment conspiracy theories, but are the biggest suckers for the respectable, establishment conspiracy theories (The Arctic is melting! Saddam pretended he had WMD. HIV/SARS/swine flu is going to kill us all! Iran is making a nuclear bomb. The Chinese are stealing our jobs. Russia is a dictatorship that will blackmail us for oil. Our development is unsustainable. To avoid a depression we need to bailout the oligarchs and so on and so on.)
Being anti-state doesn’t mean believing in space lizards and new age crap. Anarchists are anti-statists not because they think there is some conspiracy to keep humans as slaves etc, but because state can never be legitimate, is immoral and so on.
I also noticed, that many many nutcases try to get anarchists on their side, because they think anarchists would believe their delusions more than ordinary people. But hey, even among anarchists there are skeptics and rational people so they never accept 9/11 or any other conspiracy without strong evidence AND logical and rational evaluation.
Yeah, I’m a nutcase because I don’t believe that men in caves defied the laws of physics and made NORAD stand down. Being willfully ignorant about real history is just as bad as being a statist. Either way, you have your head in the sand. Just like your average statist, you believe you are the gatekeeper of reason and logic while willfully ignoring facts. Good job.