We should all be defending conspiracy theorists

--for the same reason any ethical person would defend rape victims rather than rapists, no matter how the victims dress. Not saying we have to defend the theories per se or agree with them, just defend the people who are trying to figure out what is actually going on in the face of constant lying and secrecy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=395401&mesg_id=395401

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I'm not going to rush to the defense of someone who claims, for example, that the world is controlled by 12 Jewish bankers in Switzerland.

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But that was a nice try.

I'm going to bed now.

--just asking you to focus your wrath on the liars and secret keepers who are driving the poor guy nuts.

Some people are asking legitimate questions.

Some are so blinded by their distrust of this administration that they see EVERYTHING as a conspiracy.

Some are just nuts.

You always have to cover your tracks until you take Absolute power.
Then,not so much.

It's just a COINCIDENCE that the money going out of Trimpac matched, to the nickle, the money going in from corporations....

It's just a COINCIDENCE that the contractors used to collect bodies in New Orleans is the same one that got in trouble for horrible things in Texas (it's a COINCIDENCE that these creeps always seem to come out of Texas)

It's a COINCIDENCE that the best person for the job on the Supreme Court is the personal counsel for B*sh.

... so many coincidences....

Spend hours and hours on these boards defending whatever official government conspiracy theories are in fashion. Are they fanatics or something else?

as a 'conspiracy theorist' i get so pissed that Im the labeled one because i was the damn truth, but blinded by the light over here is a patriot.

they are practicing deception, some of them.

But I'll defend it!

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We should all attack the conspriacy theories in the same manner in which we attack scientific theories. In order to determine veracity. It's a damned shame that the people who voice these supposed "theories" don't seem to understand that the concept of EVIDENCE is paramount when attempting to prove a postulate. If conspriacy theorists could only recognize when their thoery is invalidated then maybe the debate would be worthwhile. Until then I will continue to poke holes into any and all theories that are thrown out there without evidence to back them up. And please read this article on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method">Scientific Method before you attempt to claim something is evidence when it is clearly not.

--that those others are presenting all of their data in the open and with complete honesty. This is not the case with our current rulers--they are deliberately lying and withholding evidence. What are people to do when they can't GET the damn evidence, and still need to figure out what is going on?

When you try to figure out anything about 9-11 or the 2004 elections, you are putting together a picture puzzle with half the pieces missing, hidden by those who are deliberately attempting to fuck over the public. People are naturally going to get out their magic markers and fill in the holes with material from their own speculations in an attempt at getting a complete picture. Some of these conjectures probably look pretty much like the missing pieces, others are plausible but wrong, and yet others wildly out of whack. We really can't know until we recover the actual pieces. Direct your wrath toward those hiding the pieces and not to the folks with magic markers, please. (Nothing wrong with pointing out flaws and inconsistencies in the conjectures, though.)

I'm talking about using the method. A theory is ONLY as strong as the actual evidence. If there is evidence then that evidence must stand up to scrutiny. Conspiracy theorists often (not always) refuse to accept refutation of thier evidence (such thatit is). My contention is that the scientific method should be applied to any and all theories and if that theory doesn't stand up then it should be refuted. Period. If someone continues to push a theory that has been shown to be a crackpot theory than that person is rightly held up for ridicule (such as the ID'ers or people like Richard Hoagland).

Blindly saying "oh look at crackpot absurd theory of the week...Bush is evil, Skull & Bones, MIHOP!!!!!" is counterproductive and frankly stupid.

And the government should not. What I am asking you to do here is to be Claude Steiner, helping the paranoids to see that they are being made crazy by being lied to and having information that should be public withheld from them. Their theories are by definition concocted without access to all the necessary evidence. Your commitment to help them get a better handle on truth by taking on the liars and secret-keepers could very well lead them away from their wilder speculations.

is refuted that I am attacked. Anyone who wishes to push these outlandish theories should spend a little time educated themselves as to what actually constitutes evidence. The VAST majority of these theories have no evidence to back them up. None. Speculation? Yes tons. Hearsay and conjecture? A preponderance. Evidence? Not a shred. I will not continue to pander to the more absurd theories out there. When someone posts about chemtrails, sylphs, MIHOP, weather control, earthquake control, Atlantis, Area 51 alien coverups, crop circles, or any of the other truly junk theories I will continue to either ignore them or hold the theory up for ridicule. Until such time as real evidence is provided (and before any of you ignoramuses respond with "evidence" please read the following:

Scientific Method
Woo Woo Credo

I will not sit here and accept the idea that I shoudl be defending this ignorance.

There is widely available evidence (not any of which is secret or a demonstrated lie) to refute the rest of them, but the Bushies will flat out not let people look at all of the 9-11 evidence, which is why people try to fill in the blanks. It's true that you can't get the real picture of what really went on by doing this, but I prefer to attack the liars and secret keepers rather than those attempting to make a minimal defense of their own sanity.

Conspiracy theories happen for real psychological reasons. People often have a need to know that things happen for a reason. To this end they will concoct convoluted theories in order to have some gain reassurance that things happen for a reason.

Conspiracy theories are simply put often more an emotional reaction than a reasoned one. This is not to say conspiracies do not happen. Its just that the more complex and far reaching they are the less likely they are.

They inevitably apply more and more variables to the supposed conspiracy, completely ignorant that they are destroying the feasibility in the process.

It's like that ridiculous argument in the Kennedy assassination, that 250 people (or whatever the number) died prematurely in the subsequent years. TIA and others here like to argue the mathematical unlikelihood of that to prove a conspiracy. It was hilarity to the moon and beyond.

The marriage of conspiracy theorists and amatuer statisticians is truly entertaining!

... are not created equal.

Some of them are simply ludicrous.

Doesn't make a damned bit of difference one way or another. Criticize the rapists, not the victims.

Can't do that. Besides the "12 Jewish Bankers" CT, we got Contrails, dynamite in the levee, and Bldg. 7 was imploded CT's.

LOTS of accusations and "Hmmmm?" but short on evidence that didn't come from somebody's FIL's mistress' hairdresser's gay lover's veternarian's assistant...

Some of this shit being put out there makes the "Grassy Knoll" look like FACT.

their claims, and are open to a peer review or investigation of said claims.

But then again, so are Rove and Masons. :evilgrin:

Your comparison to rape victims is convoluted, I fail to see a comparison. People who offer theories about current events with little or not evidence should not be defended out of hand. Arguments need to be rationally assessed, if the argument is not supported by the current facts, the person making the argument should be admonished.

Failure to provide evidence of a type which clearly supports a "conspiracy theory" brands the individual, and those which associate, as irrational and therefore easily dismissable. I, for one, am glad DU banishes unsubstantiated conspiracy theories to oblivion.

Attack the people who are withholding those facts, not the people being gaslighted into a kind of insanity as a result.

Their elevators never did go all the way to the top.

Again, I don't agree, I fail to understand your passion for this debate. How can you make a judgment without facts? You cannot even be sure that a conspiracy exists, let alone, that anyone is withholding facts. I approach conspiracy theories like I do any other hypothesis.

Observation, collect data
Hypothesize, evaluate the data
Test, cross reference, compare information
Conclude

Your frustration is obvious, but how can you have a cogent argument in the absence of facts. You must have some particular conspiracy theory which you find appealing?

The problem with conspiracies, when they are real, they are almost never suspected. When they are suspected, they are almost never real.

Blair says possible Iran links to Iraq bombs

Reuters
Thursday, October 6, 2005; 8:01 AM

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Thursday that evidence pointed to Iran or its Lebanese Hizbollah allies as the source of explosives used in roadside bombs in Iraq, although Britain did not have conclusive proof.

Not even a wee bit of evidence presented, only the word of a known liar and mass murderer. The liar even admits: "However we cannot be certain of this at the present time."

But there it is, meeting all your criteria for banning. Would you ban this "unsubstantiated conspiracy theory to oblivion?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/06/AR2005100600456.html

If they have a good tale to tell, it shall be listened to.

If they have to stretch too far to connect the dots, it shall be pointed out.

They have as much right as anyone to voice their opinion. That's about as far as I'd go in defending em.

The line between idle speculation and conspiracy theory is drawn when the desultory dots of information provided by your nightly news affiliate become connected through critical thinking.

Given the cataract of indictments which threaten to wash this administration into the rigid appraisal of history textbooks, it's mind-boggling to imagine an informed American who still believes that high-level governmental conspiracies have not taken place.

Indeed, the worker is constantly conspired against by the factory owner; the burgeoning lower classes, constantly conspired against by the established wealth base.

It is simply historically incorrect to say that conspiracies - ones that have taken lives, brought inordinate wealth to individuals of dubious morality, or condemned innumerable people to abject poverty - have not taken place, and it would be a failure of reason for a thinking individual to dismiss modern claims as alarmism.

Each claim must be weighed on the basis of its own merit and verifiability. For example, I do believe that the global elite have an interest in implementing population reduction strategies. This is not based on tangible evidence such as documents or a videotape; rather, it is an inference based on general principles.

When someone claims to have knowledge of Orgone energy, however, I am much more skeptical. This claim falls well beyond my sphere of scientific knowledge, and would require real tangible evidence to proves it to exist beyond the realm of naive pseudoscience.

However, some are all too quick to cry out in protest when a catalytic idea is introduced to them. This willingness to hide one's head in the sand - I think - is much more poisonous than simple gullibility.