James, a regular (too regular, according to some) commentator on this blog has provided a very
interesting link here on so-called conspiracy theorists. This rang a bell with me because just the previous day I'd had a conversation with a guy I know on that very subject. When talking about mass immigration into Ireland he came up with the boiler-plate response 'I'm not into conspiracy theories'. This lead to a long and non-acrimonious discussion on this subject. Here I give you a précis of the points I made in rebuttal.
First, the corollary of not being a conspiracy theorist is that you believe everything your government, the 'new media', the drug companies tell you. This is so inherently ridiculous that it's strange anybody at all clings to it.
Second is the argument that the government is so incompetent that they couldn't organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewery (long list of screw-ups triumphantly follows). But this argument conflates the corrupt posturing imbeciles we see in our parliamentary chambers with the Real/Permanent government. It should be blindingly obvious that politicians come and go but national policies remain pretty much the same. The Real/Permanent government, comprised as it is of shadowy ruthless operators, is more than capable of organising a conspiracy, often with a staggering degree of brazenness (cf. 9/11).
Following on from the last is the rebuttal that a massive conspiracy could not be covered up. Government leak like sieves, that everything gets out. The famous example used to gainsay this is the Manhattan Project. This was a world-changing initiative involving massive expenditure and government commitment. Yet the secrecy surrounding it was so great that Truman - the Vice-President - admitted he knew nothing about it until sworn in as President after Roosevelt's death. Now
that is secrecy, and again the Real/Permanent government, not the public representatives, were the agents.
Finally a word on the Internet. This, possibly because of its power and the (for now) lack of control exercised over it has become a focus of derision for the conspiracy sceptics. 'Oh I suppose you got that on the Internet' is seen as a telling smugly delivered rebuttal. But the Internet is just a medium, pretty much like paper or radio. In fact of course the Internet is - potentially - a far better source of information than any of the conventional outlets for the simple reason that
it is uncontrolled and uncensored. Sure, you can get all sorts of nonsense up there and anybody can post anything. But the point is you can cross-verify in a way that's totally impossible under the prevailing conditions applying in the West today. Just try getting some contra information about the Holocau
$t™ under official outlets on and you'll understand what I mean.
So there you have it. The good news is that my friend bought into a lot of what I was saying so maybe we should build up a compendium of Conspiracy Sceptics debunking material.