Are conspiracy theories destroying democracy?

TDawgRex
reply to post by Wirral Bagpuss

 

I equate conspiracy theories to thinking. Not buying the line being fed and seeing if there is something else not being said.

I equate them to exactly the opposite - to accepting "the word" of someone who invariably has no verifiable evidence and almost invariably something to gain, and who panders to fear, paranoia or some other aspect of personality in order to obtain their objective.

they also invariably denigrate the "debunking" with words or thoughts like "you can't trust the MSM", shills, sheeple, etc rather than addressing the actual evidence.

reply to post by Wirral Bagpuss


I think a much better question would be, is democracy POSSIBLE without people who question its validity? How can one garuntee the strength of the democratic society, without being prepared to question the motivations of its administration?

Democracy REQUIRES that citizens living under its auspices, pay attention to what happens around them, so that they can make a properly informed choice about who they want to run the place in the next parliament (read, make a properly informed choice about whose blatant lies to believe). A failure on the part of the citizen to do this, means that eventually the system itself will surely fail.

Well, I don't see how a conspiracy theory could destroy Democracy. That's kind of like me saying that the big bang theory would destroy America. It doesn't make much sense.

Sure most conspiracy theories are false, and just flat out goofy, but at least people are out there questioning things. Our media never questions anything anymore. They just give us the news and then go on to the next story. Sometimes they discuss it more, but they don't try and dig very deep. And when nobody is really trying to find the 100% truth, you'll have to wonder if anything your being told is even true. And if it is true, then how much of it is true?

And when people are being feed a bunch of lies, and nobody really realizes it, or may not even be bothered to care, then that just gives more incentive to keep on doing it. And we all have seen that the media has exaggerated stories, or maybe even artificially inflated them. Because at the end of the day, the media doesn't really care about the news. The MSM media companies are owned by corporations. And the whole purpose of a corporation is to make money. They aren't concerned with the best stories, or digging really deep into them, they just want to show stories to attract viewers. And usually the news is just handed down to them. If it is a government associated story for example, they usually just get the info straight from the government. And then pass it on to us. They don't take the time to see how accurate it is, they assume that it's already true. The media is basically just a information middle man.

Democracy was doomed from the start. All it takes is people realizing that they can vote themselves benefits. That is the larger the group within a democracy, the more likely a consensus would follow impulses of the group and not the common good.

As to conspiracy theories, well some of them are far out there, but many are not. Many "conspiracies" are simply the truth. As to those who dismiss all conspiracies as purely rubbish, I would question their reason being on a conspiracy site. Cointelpro in action.

Aloysius the Gaul

TDawgRex
reply to post by Wirral Bagpuss

 

I equate conspiracy theories to thinking. Not buying the line being fed and seeing if there is something else not being said.

I equate them to exactly the opposite - to accepting "the word" of someone who invariably has no verifiable evidence and almost invariably something to gain, and who panders to fear, paranoia or some other aspect of personality in order to obtain their objective.

they also invariably denigrate the "debunking" with words or thoughts like "you can't trust the MSM", shills, sheeple, etc rather than addressing the actual evidence.

I don't buy into every CT, nor I buy into whatever scientist spouts some new finding because they are being proven wrong daily. Just as the MSM and oft-times alternative media are.

I've actually uncovered a few CT's in my time, not that any of them had far reaching world wide consequences. Some were internal power politics, but involved multiple players who were conspiring to ruin others careers. Others were to cover up some wrong doing on their part.

So yes, I equate it to thinking, maybe following up on a hunch or gut feeling. Investigators do it all the time.

reply to post by TDawgRex


Things that actually happen are not theories!!

And while you might think that science is being "proved wrong every day" it is being done so by........SCIENCE!

And moreover "wrong" usually means "not quite as perfect as you might have thought" - Einstein did not prove Newton "wrong" - he filled in gaps that Newton did not know about!

As long as you understand that "the current science" means nothing more than what we can verify right now, and it is always subject to review and improvement, then science "being proved wrong every day" is not actually a problem.

so it remains a lot more reliable than anything else!

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


While I do agree with you for the most part. I just disagree that CT'ers are unthinking.

I don't blindly hurl myself into the camps of Truthers, Birthers, and such. But I do think about what they say and how their evidence is presented, and then I decide whether it requires further pondering or whether to ignore them.

Wirral Bagpuss

The more information we have about what governments and corporations are up to the less we seem to trust them.

Are conspiracy theories destroying democracy?

Interesting debate taking place on the BBC website about conspiracy theories. Alot of anti conspiracy theories bashing going on as well in the comments section. If there were no conspiracies then how come we have corrupt politicians who were only caught after investigative journalism caught them in the act. I seem to remember a certain break in at a hotel being the downfall of a certain world leader (Watergate) for example. Need I go on? I thought readers here might be interested in following the debate

As to what we know about Democracies is that they tend to destroy themselves. As soon as the people realize they can vote themselves free money and other benefits like healthcare the whole system implodes on itself. Not one democracy survives to much more than 200 years.

reply to post by stumason

If you're alluding to the fact the US is a republic, it is still a democracy. I am still totally baffled why this is such a difficult concept for some Yanks to understand.

It's shockingly obvious, actually — though so silly you may have trouble believing it. They're fanatical Republican Party supporters who hate Democrats so much democracy has become a dirty word for them, even with a small 'd'.

It is, true, however, that the USA was not founded as a democracy in the sense most people would use the word today. 'We, the people' were intended to be a small, educated, landholding, slave-owning elite. Most of the Founding Fathers were dedicated elitists who despised the common folk. They drew up their famous Constitution in secrecy, and ensured that it offered the right to vote only to people like themselves. Many of them wrote contemptuously of democracy, and claimed, like some modern Republicans, that democracy has no survival value.

The process of extending the franchise began very quickly, though. Its earliest cause was one or other faction wishing to protect its interests against those of another by increasing the number of votes it could harvest. It was a very slow process; Americans of African origin had to wait nearly a hundred years for the vote, native Americans longer still, and women the longest time of all — nearly 150 years.

America is a democracy all right — now. Some Americans still haven't got the message, though.

reply to post by Wirral Bagpuss


No, Obama and his Fascist administration are. This guy lies on a daily basis. I pray he gets impeached every day.

OneManArmy

imod02
I think we are losing something very important and we need to find a balance again

Our souls?

Yes we need to get our souls back.

I did not want to use the word souls as it seems to upset some of the members ( many dont grasp the fact that the word soul can be used without any contact to religion , and i did not feel like explaining it today ). Perhaps it is our soul that has been taken away, our belief in what is right and honest. There seems to be no feeling of good any more, just a feeling of different levels of bad, and we start to see less levels of bad as good.
I believe you are right, I want my soul back.

reply to post by Wirral Bagpuss


I think we should rephrase that so it says "Are conspiracy theories destroying the illusion of a democracy?"
It's obvious that not all CT are on the same playing field! I also believe we are seeing the infusion of many
outrageous such propaganda to instill a distrust for those hypothesis that are plausible!
We even see truth being made to seem as though it is CT and all this is done to make the reader not know
what to think or believe! The way to distill the propaganda from the plausible theories is to realize the link
to an end game! Like the 911 theory on whether 911 was an inside job! We can look at the result of such an
attack and see massive preemptive warfare in the middle east that would have been impossible to pull off
if 911 never happened! We can also look at the destruction of our constitution to determine there is a definitive
agenda behind the 911 conspiracy and though we don't have all the facts on who did the actual acts or how the
trade center was demolished we can see the results of this tragedy in the changes that are all around us!
I will never be one to take anything for truth because we will never know all the facts and no matter how much
research we will attempt to do we may never have anything but bits and pieces of the puzzle that is reality!
With any puzzle there is that Aha moment when our minds finally realize what the final image is likely to be
even though we are unsure of the context of it!

No, I'm pretty sure it's the social and political structure of reality.

Destroying democracy? No.

Democracy works great when there is no corruption. Finding out about lies and corruption should make democracy better and more trust worthy. If it doesnt then there is simply MORE corruption.



Democracy is like simple Math, if the numbers dont add up at the time of an audit, you've done it wrong.

Actually, you do need to go on. Watergate happened when journalist's still had integrity and spent their time searching for the truth. Can you maybe give some modern instances where journalist's have actually broken conspiracy stories? It seems to me that whistleblowers have brought the light to most recent conspiracies. Modern journalists seem to be mostly involved in making up news and suppressing news that is contrary to party agendas.

OneManArmy


It isnt that rare at all. I have found that a LOT of the theories I learned about 10-15 years ago have either come to pass or have been "admitted".

WMD's, global financial meltdown, paedophile politicians, co-intel pro, Iran Contra, MK Ultra, police corruption, government corruption, the rise of the police state. I could go on.

I perhaps should have been more precise. I meant that theories that originate in the conspiracy theorist sphere have a really poor strike rate. The ones you allude to weren't solely the preserve of CTers and weren't by any stretch of the imagination their chief concerns. The really big stuff of the last decade or so - 9/11, NWO, aliens and UFOs, FEMA camps, depopulation - none of it has come to pass or been proven.

Yes, occasionally as part of wilder theories CTers have posited stuff like the things you claim as victories. But really - to say that stuff like "police corruption" and "government corruption" are things that only Conspiracy Theorists have agitated about - that's just nonsense.

JuniorDisco

Alex Jones was very vocal about the global financial meltdown AND why it happened. It was being forecast since at least 2003.

Well quite. But like Marxists before him he predicted 12 of the last three recessions

Seriously though, show me somewhere that Alex covers the detailed reasons why the crisis occurred. "Banksters wanna steeeel your money" doesn't count.

Aloysius the Gaul


I equate them to exactly the opposite - to accepting "the word" of someone who invariably has no verifiable evidence and almost invariably something to gain, and who panders to fear, paranoia or some other aspect of personality in order to obtain their objective.

they also invariably denigrate the "debunking" with words or thoughts like "you can't trust the MSM", shills, sheeple, etc rather than addressing the actual evidence.

I suppose it comes down a bit to your view of what conspiracy theories actually are.

Most CTers see the world as a place of unified subterfuges, so when 'real' conspiracies come out - Iraq WMD say, or Watergate - they claim that as a sort of pyrrhic victory, one facet of the grand illusion cracking for a moment. Even if, when they think about it a bit more deeply, those revelations couldn't possibly fit a truly logical conspiracist worldview.

As a slightly stretchy analogy, imagine somebody thought (for some reason) that everyone in the world was Chinese. Every time they see a Chinese person they go - "hah, look, I told you!" while ignoring all the other non-Chinese people they see.

On the other hand people like you (and indeed me) see CTs as a specific type of delusional trope, constructed by people without much reference to reality. So when they claim victory for predicting the banking crisis for example, it seems ludicrous to us.

JuniorDisco

OneManArmy


It isnt that rare at all. I have found that a LOT of the theories I learned about 10-15 years ago have either come to pass or have been "admitted".

WMD's, global financial meltdown, paedophile politicians, co-intel pro, Iran Contra, MK Ultra, police corruption, government corruption, the rise of the police state. I could go on.

I perhaps should have been more precise. I meant that theories that originate in the conspiracy theorist sphere have a really poor strike rate. The ones you allude to weren't solely the preserve of CTers and weren't by any stretch of the imagination their chief concerns. The really big stuff of the last decade or so - 9/11, NWO, aliens and UFOs, FEMA camps, depopulation - none of it has come to pass or been proven.

Yes, occasionally as part of wilder theories CTers have posited stuff like the things you claim as victories. But really - to say that stuff like "police corruption" and "government corruption" are things that only Conspiracy Theorists have agitated about - that's just nonsense.

JuniorDisco

Alex Jones was very vocal about the global financial meltdown AND why it happened. It was being forecast since at least 2003.

Well quite. But like Marxists before him he predicted 12 of the last three recessions

Seriously though, show me somewhere that Alex covers the detailed reasons why the crisis occurred. "Banksters wanna steeeel your money" doesn't count.

911 came to pass in 2001

The clampdown on freedom as a result of 911 is not up for debate, its undeniable.
The deaths of millions in the middle east as a result of 911 isnt up for debate either. Could be regarded as depopulation, as could standing idly by while tutsi and hutu tribe members are being chopped to pieces.

As for the police corruption, Im talking about covering up for paedophiles for example, I dont generally see that in the MSM, Im talking about the way they get away with murder, thats generally sanitized(justified) before it gets anywhere near the mainstream.

Alex Jones had guests that were predicting the housing bubble would burst, I mean damn, we didnt need experts to figure that one out for ourselves. Vastly over the odds bonuses for bankers extortionate fuel prices, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. Its that only a few in society even give a damn. The rest want their slice of the pie.
There are economists out there that arent on the corrupt payroll that will and have for years openly spoken about how a centralised fiat monetary system controlled by private foreign owners is not in our interest. Many people were too busy sticking their fingers in their ears shouting "I cant hear you" to have even noticed, just as long as they got that loan for the must have fashion accessory of the season, the sad thing is, many still are chasing the bling.

Yes, conspiracy theories are destroying America just like Deep Throat and Watergate destroyed Nixon's presidency.

reply to post by Wirral Bagpuss


They may be destroying democracy, but they keep the Republic alive and paying attention.