Re: Which of the Following Would DP Count As Conspiracy Theories and Keep From the BN
Now the premise I am using for my answers is this. I hear about the event with no prior knowledge of the event, but with an understanding of how the system works.
Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Watergate Break-in: I would have bought that it was a possibility from the beginning. Politicians have a history of being "dirty". Plenty of Presidents played "hardball" either getting near the line, or crossing it. Plenty of other high level officials absolutely crossed it (we've had two VPs resign in disgrace).
I don't know if I'd even believe the initial stories. I don't mean the page 7 in Section B of the local papers that reported a break-in, but the initial stories hinting at the high origin of the crime. I'd figure people would be split on that one.
Moon Landing: I would have bought if from the start without hesitation. Too many people would have to be in on the scam...scientists, public officials, the media, friends and relatives of astronauts and NASA employees. Logistically, this is inconceivable
I can't for the life of me understand how anyone could make a conspiracy out of that. The Telly Sevalas airplane chase in Capricorn One was fun, but that movie plot doesn't fit the real world. But people now believe most fervently. How many people thought it was fake on July 20, 1969?
Not many, I wouldn't think.
Flight 800 Crash: If you mean, was it a terrorist act, my first reaction was that it was a crash based on a design/mechanical flaw. This is a typical reason for airplane crashes. I didn't consider the possibility of terrorism. And as to the lightning strike theory, I've been in a plane when a bolt of lightning hit it. I'm still here as is everyone else on the plane.
Not that so much. I'm graduate of Syracuse University, and had twenty or so classmates blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, so I don't consider terrorism itself to be a "conspiracy theory", even though it is, of course a crime of conspiracy.
The conspiracy theory aspects of what happened to Flight 800 would be seeing the news and immediately jumping to the conclusion that it had to be the result of some government plot, a US government plot, to be specific, and then refusing to look at the evidence and reasoning that disproved that.
I would have switched my judgement about a fuel-vapor explosion if evidence of a bomb surfaced, or sufficient evidence of terrorist involvement. But it never did, and the evidence of the fuel-vapor boom was conclusive.
So, really, the "conspiracy theory" bit has to cover not just the fact that a conspiracy existed, I mean, it only takes two people to conspire. It has to involve intricate plots, secret people moving behind the throne, improbable or impossible connections, denial of fact, and patently false interpretations.
A simple (or complicated) terrorist plot to steal occupied passenger jets and crash them into national landmarks isn't enough to qualify as a conspiracy, but if we can make those terrorists the tools of the CIA or the Bush-Cheney-OPEC Secret Cabal, and have ninjas roaming the WTC planting invisible explosives....well, hey then, we've got ourselves an industry!
WTC Collapse: Upon first hearing this, I thought a plane accidentally crashed into the first tower. I would not have believed that it would have been a terrorist act. I cannot wrap my head around anyone who would kill themselves and thousands of others for the stupid reasons that they did, or expect any positive result to come from it.
Okay.
But did you think a rogue group of governemnt agents caused the event? No, of course you didn't, right?
Obama's Birthplace: Not believable. It is not reasonable to believe that someone running for President would scam like this. Too many official records.
It's incredible, I agree.
The problem is....it's not impossible.
And his refusal to come clean on the matter is what gives it life.
The first time I heard it I said, like you, "No, it's too easy to check."
But no one's been able to check. When I first read the stories, I thought "conspiracy kooks gone wild". But the evidence of forgery is plain on the released document, and the process of court challenges and dismissals and subsequent retribution is following a too familiar and too predictable pattern.
The people should demand the issue be resolved by the release of Obama's birth certificate and put an end to it.
JFK/RFK/MLK Assassinations: If you mean that these were not "one man operations", at first glance, I could believe that there was more to each story. All three were high level people who had many enemies and many who wanted them out of power. Conceivable.
Well, even John Wilkes Booth had assistants. Irrespective of the high status of the victims (why shoot them, else?) did you think for an instant when you heard of the killing that some high government official or some other nation had a role in it? That would be the defining line between "jump to CT" and "awful breaking news".
I was eight when RFK was killed, so I'm not going to pretend that I gave any of those much thought when I first heard about them.
The October Surprise (alleged deal of Reagan with Iran in 1980): On face value, before any evidence was shown, I would not have bought this in any way. Making a treaty with an enemy who was keeping 52 of our citizens in captivity in order to win an election is not something that I believe a statesman would do.
Ted Kennedy is alleged to have asked the Soviet Union for help in defeating the re-election of Ronald Reagan in 1984. No, I'm not going there. On the face of it, it sounds like total lunacy. But the so-called "October Surprise" was kept alive and even investigated by the Democrats in Congress, to die of intense embarassment after Clinton was elected and it was no longer ever going to be useful.
I would call that one a Madison Avenue Conspiracy Theory, something a professional politician either crafted himself or adopted for his own purposes, but kept his fingerprints off it.
Flourine in Water: Wait...ARE YOU TELLING ME THERE'S NO FLOURINE IN WATER?!!!!!!
Heck, I use stannous flouride mouthwash every night, per dentist's orders. But back in the fifties that was the cause celebre of the John Birchers. It's a commie plot, I tell ya.
So.
We have news stories that are clearly factual and won't in general raise any special suspicion's of where Machiavelli is playing today (Pan Am Flight 103), we have stories that eventually become the centers of controversy (Flight 800, WTC), though it's often impossible to see why (Moon landing? that's just weird), things that look like a conspiracy theory and are (Watergate), and things that look like a conspiracy theory and may not be. And that's how I class the Obama birth thing.
It certainly sounds strange.
It certainly could be just as strange and unlike as it sounds. I do not buy conspiracy theories and if this issue didn't have the facts and the logic behind it, I wouldn't pursue it.
But...there's the [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan]Legend of Pope Joan[/ame] to consider. A female pope. How about that.
It violates no laws of physics, no rules of basic human nature, and no rules of logic that Obama might not have been born in Hawaii, and it hasn't been proven false by contrary evidence.
So it's implausible, but not impossible. hence is it a "conspiracy theory" or a question?
