Using Lies To Promote Lies

THERE IS SOMETHING about conservatism and crackpot conspiracy theories which go hand in hand, like two peas in a pod, or two jokers in a stacked deck. Not only is this true of modern intellectual discourse, but has been a tendency throughout history; the status quo, resisting change and progress by any means necessary, and the only means necessary being the promulgation of wildly fantastic and inventive but utterly false narratives in the absences of facts, logic, or reason. Generally, the status quo, the prevailing state of affairs, economically, politically, and otherwise, within any country, culture, or organizations, is determined primarily by the people who hold the most power and influence. Human beings are notorious for their unwillingness to surrender power or influence, and are inclined to resist it as strongly as they deem necessary to retain it. Change, especially fundamental change, always represents a threat to the status quo and to those who enforce it, and benefit by retaining it. Thus it is that conservatism is the strongest force in all cultures, countries, and organization, since most people, as Jefferson indicated in the Declaration of Independence, are more inclined to accept and even suffer under the existing establishment than to take the action and make the sacrifices necessary to overthrow it by overthrowing the power of those who enforce it. and yet, in many if not most cases, change and progress ar so greatly and obviously needed that there are virtually no arguments available to use against change, so that arguments to retain the status quo, conservative arguments, must be contrived and constructed out of thin, air. Hence, crackpot conspiracy theories by nature tend to derive from within the conservative, status quo defending community. Opponents to the American revolution for independence argued that no matter how corrupt the king's government in London, it would always be preferable to American self government..for some vague reason. Slavery was defended in the United States on the basis that regardless of the deprivation of freedom of slaves, they were being given the blessing of the Christian faith, which, in any event, approves of slavery, Biblically. Women's suffrage was opposed n the basis that women have more important things to do than vote, and that, in any case, they lack the good judgment to cast votes intelligently. Conservatism, defending the establishment, without good reason. In recent years we have seen Donald Trump and his ilk, the "birther" movement, accusing Barack Obama of having been born in Africa, despite his Hawaii birth certificate and living witnesses to his birth in Hawaii. that's quite a flight of fancy, just to get rid of a progressive president. That was just plain crazy. When some extreme right wing crazy person walks into a school and kills dozens of children, out come the conservative crazies, claiming that the whole mass murder was fabricated by gun control freaks, and that the dead children were in fact "crisis actors". Opponents to legalizing alcohol and marijuana concocted schemes whereby those two chemical substances would cause blindness, insanity, or worse. Our most popular conspiracy theory today has to do with an alleged "deep states', consisting of thousands of secretive government employees deeply embedded, working to overthrow Donald Trump. Again, the same conservative nonsense. In conservative fantasy land, climate change becomes a conspiracy of the media, the Chinese, and Democrats to excuse government intervention in the economy, and social welfare programs become devious means of chaining the poor to the government dole, thus making them permanently dependent, and permanently loyal to the Democratic party. Currently, we see that any and lal investigations of Donald Trump, no matter how compelling the evidence that Trump has engaged in wrongdoing which requires looking into, become, among conservative hallucinators, a 'witch hunt", a carefully laid scheme to overthrow the government of Trump and replace it with a socialist ep state, or something even more insidious. Over the next few weeks, as the witch hunters snare more witches, and the various investigations get closer to the sordid unsavory truth about Trump and hs gang like organization, we can rest assured that the conservative community, fueled by primitive Christian passions, will continue to concoct ever more fantastic conspiracy theories to explain not only Trump's behavior, but the revelation of it. Our best bet is to stock up on popcorn, sit back, and have a good laugh, or cry.