What if the Conspiracy Theorists Win, but turn out to be wrong?

I've been studying over the years through the internet, documentaries, library research about Government corruption, New World Order and, well, I'm sure you know the story by now if you come to this board. I have believed the Government caused 9/11 to take away our civil liberties and to go to war almost since it happened. I believe JFK was assassinated by the CIA. I find the "magic bullet theory" to be a joke as the Government's story doesn't add up. But I guess through all of that, I still want to keep an open mind because the majority of people out there think that I'm crazy for thinking these things. It's very hard for me to look at it objectively, like I'm sure it is for most believers in the conspiracy. I mean in the JFK assassination there wasn't even any secret service around him when he was killed, as I've seen video footage of them being told to move away from the car, I've also seen CIA agents break down and cry saying they were told by their superior to keep their mouth shut about 9/11. But I would say the same goes for those who do not believe in the conspiracy. You choose to shrug off the information out there, we choose to accept it. But ultimately, who's right and who's wrong?

I am beginning to see more and more people look down upon the War in Iraq and Bush. I would actually say there's a lot more openmindedness to the possibility of a 9/11 coverup, yet still not really acceptance. It is said that over 2/3rds of the American people believe JFK's assassination was a conspiracy by the Government. So the scenario is, what if none of this is really true, the Government isn't out to get us, all of the so called facts aren't true, yet a civil war takes place, or a Revolution.

I mean if there was a Revolution against the Government, there would have to be a lot of people out there that would disagree with it. For instance a poster on this message forum, HowardRoark, I just use you as an example because I've seen you go to no end on this message board to deny any conspiracies. I've seen you defend the 9/11 story giving by the Government over and over, I've seen that you believe fire got through the elevator shaft and caused the smoke on the bottom of the World Trade Center building, while conspiracy theorists believe in the fact that bombs went off under it. I just have a question for you or anyone who do not accept any Government conspiracies, what would it take to convince you? That isn't meant to be taken sarcasticly either, what would it take. You probably know most of the info I know, you probably know that some Government agents tried to blow the whistle on 9/11 and warn the American people. But yet you're still positive it isn't a reasonable conclusion that our Government could carry out terrorist attacks on their people.

So I'd love to get opinions, anyone who doesn't believe in any Government conspiracy, what would it take to convince you that there is one. On the flip side, anyone who does believe in the conspiracy notion, what would it take to convince you that there isn't one. These questions I think are important to this message board, because every thread started is basically like this

Poster A: *starts topic* blah blah blah conspiracy conspiracy
posts some info about the conspiracy, gives a link blahblah.com

Poster B: no that isn't true, you're full of crap, you have no proof,
Poster A: I do too, just look at the link then everyone else that posts either takes the side of Poster A or Poster B, is really isn't getting anywhere if you think about it. How many have changed their minds in their views? Not many I see. Anyway this is just some thoughts I had about the way we all view what's going on in the world. Feel free to add you comments.

[edit on 4-7-2005 by NoJustice]

[edit on 4-7-2005 by Thomas Crowne]

Ummmm... Did you paste the wrong message under the wrong subject line, or did you just not feel like using the existing "What's it going to take" threads out there? The subject line doesn't even bear a passing resemblence to the verbage in your post. So what's up with that?

Originally posted by thelibra
Ummmm... Did you paste the wrong message under the wrong subject line, or did you just not feel like using the existing "What's it going to take" threads out there? The subject line doesn't even bear a passing resemblence to the verbage in your post. So what's up with that?

Actually, it does try again. Are you going to contribute or nitpick?

I am beginning to see more and more people look down upon the War in Iraq and Bush. I would actually say there's a lot more openmindedness to the possibility of a 9/11 coverup, yet still not really acceptance. It is said that over 2/3rds of the American people believe JFK's assassination was a conspiracy by the Government. So the scenario is, what if none of this is really true, the Government isn't out to get us, all of the so called facts aren't true, yet a civil war takes place, or a Revolution.

[edit on 4-7-2005 by NoJustice]

Originally posted by NoJustice
Actually, it does try again. Are you going to contribute or nitpick?

To nitpick, your subject is "What if the Conspiracy Theorists Win, but turn out to be wrong?"

Yet you ask of the poster "anyone who doesn't believe in any Government conspiracy, what would it take to convince you that there is one. On the flip side, anyone who does believe in the conspiracy notion, what would it take to convince you that there isn't one."

The two questions are mutually exclusive, and I'd recommend picking a better title in the future. You should consider the fact that I'm taking enough interest to post this bit of advice as contribution in and of itself; the title was misleading.

However, I'll go ahead and bite, as I've got another 4 hours to kill up here at work on the greatest holiday of them all.

I sit the fence on government conspiracies.

Are there some conspiracies going on in the government? Sure. It'd be naive to believe otherwise; it's a back-stabbing, power-grabbing job with more at stake than any other occupation. And I for one am absolutely certain there is something very scary going on between Defense Contractors and the Federal Administrations.

However, I think it is equally naive to believe that there is a vast conspiracy towards a one world government, and that our own White House is controlled by a shadow government of psychic vampire grays from Atlantis or some such nonsense. I think buying into all that is as hypocritical as it is embaressing to those of us who investigate more serious conspiracies.

For one, why in hell would someone who doesn't trust the government go running to Hollywood (another worm-riddled institution) for their answers? For another, if there were a conspiracy of such a scope, it would be out by now. No amount of crushing the resistance could stop it, pure and simple. If peasants who barely had access to one printing press managed in the past to spread the truth to others, when they lived in a time of no rights and extremely blatant oppression, how on Earth do you think anyone could manage, in this modern world, where everyone and their bloody dog has a camera phone and internet accesss, to cover up every shred of concrete proof of Shadow Governments and Aliens?

So I suppose the question needs to be clarified.

What would it take to convince me of what conspiracy? Which government conspiracy do you speak of? JFK? OWG? NWO? MLK? Jesus? Oil? Religion? Iraq? 9/11?

From your post, it would be easy to assume you mean 9/11, since that was the example you cited, but what aspect of 9/11? That our own Government did it? That they did it for oil? That they did it to enact nearly unlimited wartime powers? That they did it as a sacrifice to some demon? That psychic gray vampires from Atlantis actually used their black triangles to cause the whole illusion of it while the lizardmen beamed the towers off to the 5th planet of the funky system? What?

Specifics are needed. The more modest the claim, the less proof I'd need. The more fantastic the claim, the more proof I'd need.

Originally posted by NoJustice
So the scenario is, what if none of this is really true, the Government isn't out to get us, all of the so called facts aren't true, yet a civil war takes place, or a Revolution.

That should have been the first or last line of your post, it would have saved us both a lot of time.

Well, in answer to this question: if a revolution happens, it won't matter if none of it was really true, because history is written by the victors. The annals of history will later show that an oppressive regime of tyrants was overthrown for the 2nd time in North American History. By the time the truth were discovered, the original people who should be embaressed about it would be dead, or too old to care (or to change their beliefs otherwise).

A simpler question would be like asking Christians "What if it were proven that Jesus was nothing but a hoax". You'd have about the same impact on their mind, which is to say, none. Conspiracies, like religion, depend solely on faith to keep them alive. Once proof is obtained, they merely become history lessons.

What if?

OK fine.

What if the greatest conspiracy of all in the end, is that most of the conspiracy theories were in fact planted to lead people away from the very truth they are seeking to expose?

You can tell a lie often enough that some people will start to believe it when all that there is may indicate otherwise.

Keep it up people, you may be doing exactly what they wanted you to do.

Sometimes the actual truth is hidden right in front of your faces!

Originally posted by thelibra
What would it take to convince me of what conspiracy? Which government conspiracy do you speak of? JFK? OWG? NWO? MLK? Jesus? Oil? Religion? Iraq? 9/11?

Alright let's get specific. 9/11, people in the Government coming out and speaking against it, CIA agents breaking down crying and saying their superior told them to shutup. What's your response to this? Are they just crazy "conspiracy theorists" too?

That should have been the first or last line of your post, it would have saved us both a lot of time.

If you can't bother to read my entire post, you shouldn't bother posting a reply telling me I had the wrong topic, that was your own fault. Anyway, it doesn't matter you finally got on topic.

Originally posted by thelibra


Specifics are needed. The more modest the claim, the less proof I'd need. The more fantastic the claim, the more proof I'd need.

I too am on the fence, there are some conspiracies that need more proof to convince me, and some that enough proof has been given that I've been swayed to believe. I agree with thelibra that the more modest the claim the less proof that I would need, and the more fantastic the more I would need.

It also depends on the proof itself: where is the proof from, what is the evidence, etc. The more reliable and/or credible the source the more I'm willing to believe. I won't be swayed because someone says that their cousin whose friend worked for xxxxx told him that blah blah blah.

The stench of deception, greed and corruption undoubtedly float throughout the corridors of the White House during this Administration. From Colin Powell's fantastic powerpoint abilities to Karl Rove's slippery tongue, the criminals who need to be brought to justice are vastly approaching judgement when all who are involve will......

Go on vacation, step aside due to illegal nannygates or offer their most honorable resignations.



Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and even Librarians, they're nothing but small teeth on a gear which turns our society of man into sheeple. Hopefully, awareness will breed acceptance which can ultimately lead to justice, even if it's only 1 small war mongerer we hold trial against (give us Rumsfeld, please!) . Regarding 9/11 though, even former Minnesota governor Jesse "the body" Ventura thinks something is definantly up!...

www.infowars.com...

Word!

[edit on 4-7-2005 by syntaxer]

Originally posted by NoJustice


Poster A: *starts topic* blah blah blah conspiracy conspiracy
posts some info about the conspiracy, gives a link blahblah.com

Poster B: no that isn't true, you're full of crap, you have no proof,
Poster A: I do too, just look at the link then everyone else that posts either takes the side of Poster A or Poster B, is really isn't getting anywhere if you think about it. How many have changed their minds in their views? Not many I see. Anyway this is just some thoughts I had about the way we all view what's going on in the world. Feel free to add you comments.

You raise an interesting point...one has to wonder why those who don't want to hear about conspiracy theories would actively seek out a conspiracy discussion board.

The conspiracy theorists will never "win", because the conspiracies are always beneath the surface, outwith the mainstream, and the general perception - encouraged by those in power and the mainstream media - is that they are all insane, anti social and not worth listening to.

Again, it would depend on the depth of the conspiracy theory involving 9/11. I've heard everything from "it really was the terrorists" to "the government did it in order to get more power to achive an OWG.

Were bombs planted in the bottom Twin Towers? Perhaps. Were they purposely demolished by order (tacit or direct) by the U.S. Government? Perhaps.

I can even see justification for purposely demolish the towers. If left to fall of their own accord, the devastation to the city and loss of lives would have easily been in the tens of thousands. Perhaps, in running the scenario through their heads, they realized that time was a critical factor in preventing the greatest loss of lives, and they decided to go ahead and sacrifice the few to save the many. I could easily believe this, and even accept it as an extremely hard, but logical decision to make. It would take minimal proof to convince me of this being the case, as I listened to, then watched the entire event as it unfolded, and even then it struck me as odd how nice and neatly the buildings fell.

Does this, however, criminalize the government, or make them to be some sort of New World Order? No. It merely creates a horrible situation for any leader to have to be put in the middle of: that of choosing between the lives of the many, and the lives of the few. If you were head of your own family, and presented with the choice of choosing a family member besides yourself to die, and the rest of you go free, or have your entire family murdered, what choice would you make?

We need a bad guy. America runs on having a bad guy. In times of war, the bad guys are obvious. In times such as now, when the enemy is some unseen, unknown terrorist faction from the Middle East, it's a lot easier to make a perceived enemy out of the government that failed to prevent the catastrophe. First we praise them for their effort, but then we wait for someone to blame. When there is no clear people to blame, we blame the government for not preventing the disaster. When the government begins pointing fingers at each other to avoid going to the media guillotine, the people decide for themselves who is guilty, and who is innocent, and because no one can decide on who the culplrits are, they all become culprits. Because they are all guilty of failing to provide for protection, they must be guilty of something else too. That is when the people finally listen to the "wackos" who say all along that the government staged the whole thing. Then they make up their own stories to fill in the gaps, and people seeking their 15 minutes of fame step forward to claim they witnessed X doing Z. This lends more credibility to the conspiracy, and when the people who step forward are finally discredited, the idea is cemented so firmly in the audience's mind, that the discrediting itself is yet another step in the grand conspiracy.

This is not neccesarily how it happened, but it is a possibility that any rational-minded person leaves themselves open to. Logically, it should be much easier to believe than some invisible web of puppet-strings leading to reptillian shadow governments. Yet because mankind is inherently a stupid, gregarious sheep, they are more inclined to go with one popular thought, in order to show themselves independant of another popular thought. Rarely do they ever bother to sit down and think things out logically, considering all the most realistic possibilities first. Their line of thinking is much more along the lines of Aristotlian Reasoning, where because grass is green, and green is the color of envy, grass must be full of envy.

The saddest part of all this is that most of the time they don't even bother with that much thinking, but instead parrot some regurgitated statements they heard from "some guy at IHOP".

Or perhaps the saddest part, and greatest testimony to mankind's inherent stupidity and sheeplike nature is the fact that so many believe, and yet so little has been done as a result. Armchair Revolutionaries, all, who have been firmly convinced that the U.S. Government is worse than a worldwide terrorist organization, and yet do nothing more than sit around and spout their beliefs to people in order to impress them or gain some sense of acknowledgement for what a great thinker they are.

To be honest, as you can probably tell, the whole subject makes me sick, because either way, be the Government innocent or guilty, it is ultimately the fault of the American people. And as an American myself, I have to face the fact that I am in the vast minority of people who care enough to wait for proof before I pass judgement.

So what proof would I need?

Again, it depends. I'm going to need more specifics than the ambiguous statement "the government was behind 9/11". But as a pre-emptive answer, it would take hard evidence, instead of mere testimony.

.
Well if you can start a war on bogus info about aluminum rocket tubes magically used as centrifuge tubes,

and sell the whole idea for war on WMDs

. . . that never appear,

AND squander a 1/5th of a TRILLION dollars on it,

You can say Oops!
We are now there for Democracy. WTF? anyone buying that?

Well, then you can simply say oops if you happen to be wrong about conspiracies,

and get on with the business of good and thoughtful government like,

guarding the southern border for mass incursions there
and quit selling each and every piece of legislation to the corporate lobbyists on K street.
.

I'll believe any nut job left wing conspiracy you want, just give me HARD evidence. NO ONE on this board has ever given any. Just links to left wing kook sites with biased testimonials. I have news for you, Lee Harvey shot JFK, get over it. If Oliver Stone is your prophet you need serious help. If you want to make major leaps of faith in life based on no hard evidence, then go right ahead. You must live an exceedingly unhappy life. Maybe it makes you think you are intellectually superior to "connect the dots" or something? Ironically enough, most liberal and gov. conspiracy nuts are the most close minded of all. They spin whatever they can to fit the premise they want to believe. How come there was never all this talk of "gov. cover ups" when the trade centers were bombed in 1993? Could it be because a democrat was in office? There are small minded people out there that hate G. Bush no matter what. Anything that makes them feel like their hate is justified they will believe...belief is the enemy of knowledge. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the state of lacking intellectual reason and open mindedness display in many of these posts. Probably products of our public schools errr public indoctrination facilities.

.
Actually there are a lot of questions about the 1993 bombing. The guy the FBI was trying to get to actually use explosives didn't want to. It was supposedly a sting operations. WTF was the FBI doing presenting real explosives in a sting?

The difference is it didn't culminate in the collapse of a 110 story building killing 3000 people as well as at the pentagon and flight 93.

Clinton was in office during the Oklahoma city bombing, and it has some glaring gaps of credibility. Terry Yeakey, one of the first police on the scene was gathering evidence revealing the government lies, he commited suicide by shooting himself several time, then slit his wrists then drug himself a hundred yards from his pickup truck. The cab of his truck was described as looking like a pig was butchered in it. The doctor who refused to create fake injury reports for the ATF agents subsequently died in a plane crash. All the ATF guys were miraculously out of the office that morning. Police on scene were shocked when they found a fellow officer who helped them rescue people that morning was later reported to have died in the bombing.
.

Originally posted by Apoc
I'll believe any nut job left wing conspiracy you want, just give me HARD evidence. NO ONE on this board has ever given any. Just links to left wing kook sites with biased testimonials. I have news for you, Lee Harvey shot JFK, get over it. If Oliver Stone is your prophet you need serious help. If you want to make major leaps of faith in life based on no hard evidence, then go right ahead. You must live an exceedingly unhappy life. Maybe it makes you think you are intellectually superior to "connect the dots" or something? Ironically enough, most liberal and gov. conspiracy nuts are the most close minded of all. They spin whatever they can to fit the premise they want to believe. How come there was never all this talk of "gov. cover ups" when the trade centers were bombed in 1993? Could it be because a democrat was in office? There are small minded people out there that hate G. Bush no matter what. Anything that makes them feel like their hate is justified they will believe...belief is the enemy of knowledge. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the state of lacking intellectual reason and open mindedness display in many of these posts. Probably products of our public schools errr public indoctrination facilities.

Then, why exactly do you come on this website, just to make fun of people only? Do you even take the time to look at the information given? there's absolutely tons of it, so it's kind of ignorant to some it up into one big ball of trash and throw it away, that is if you even take the time to look at it at all. Sure there's information on this site that's fictional, but are you saying ALL of it? So conspiracy websites made up the magic bullet theory that's the Government's official story, to all the Government whistle blowing on 9/11 from people who work in the Government? I don't understand how that conclusion is logical. By that conclusion it could only mean the ones that work in the Government that blow the whistle and admit how corrupt it is must really be working "against the Government" to make it look "evil" and to support "conspiracy sites" and in risk of losing their own jobs and livelyhood. To me that's a more whacked out theory than almost any on the site. But you're free to your opinion.

So, if we're all laughable on this conspiracy site, and you have nothing better to do than to come on this conspiracy site and make fun of us, then...what exactly are you?

Stop making everything "Liberal vs Conservative" life is not that black and white. If one party was 100% right there wouldn't be two parties. I'm much more Right-Leaning than Liberal, but it's hard for me to ignore all the information that's out there that the Government doesn't even try to dispute.












[edit on 5-7-2005 by NoJustice]

Originally posted by Apoc
I'll believe any nut job left wing conspiracy you want, just give me HARD evidence. NO ONE on this board has ever given any. Just links to left wing kook sites with biased testimonials. I have news for you, Lee Harvey shot JFK, get over it. If Oliver Stone is your prophet you need serious help. If you want to make major leaps of faith in life based on no hard evidence, then go right ahead. You must live an exceedingly unhappy life. Maybe it makes you think you are intellectually superior to "connect the dots" or something? Ironically enough, most liberal and gov. conspiracy nuts are the most close minded of all. They spin whatever they can to fit the premise they want to believe. How come there was never all this talk of "gov. cover ups" when the trade centers were bombed in 1993? Could it be because a democrat was in office? There are small minded people out there that hate G. Bush no matter what. Anything that makes them feel like their hate is justified they will believe...belief is the enemy of knowledge. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the state of lacking intellectual reason and open mindedness display in many of these posts. Probably products of our public schools errr public indoctrination facilities.

unbelievable. hate speach reaches new lows

The real question is:

WHAT KIND OF EVIDENCE DO YOU PEOPLE WANT?

There is TONS of evidence about the JFK assassination. It's one thing to not believe something, but when you say that there is no evidence whatsoever, I'm sorry but you are either lying your ass off, or you are blatantly ignoring it. It's the same thing with just about every person who is against the conspiracies. They come into the threads out of nowhere and make the same claims, that there is no evidence. People are quite close minded.

the thing I dont understand about 9/11 and JFk is that if their is some big conspiracy about them why is it they get played over and over again on the news.

The 9/11 WTC was shown on the news more or less constantly for 3 days and not a thing was noticed about a secret missile or anything back then. It wasnt until a certain part of US citizens got worried because they realised that for the first time in their history they were not able to throw up an isolationist policy, that they were not safe from terrorist attack. And who better to blame for troubles in your own country than your government because you can always vote them out and the problem is gone.

Perhaps, in running the scenario through their heads, they realized that time was a critical factor in preventing the greatest loss of lives, and they decided to go ahead and sacrifice the few to save the many. I could easily believe this, and even accept it as an extremely hard, but logical decision to make. It would take minimal proof to convince me of this being the case, as I listened to, then watched the entire event as it unfolded, and even then it struck me as odd how nice and neatly the buildings fell.

I could see that as a logical explanation, but the only flaw in that is that it would have to be set up days in advance. You can't just send a few teams in with bombs and have them imploded within the hour. It's just not possible.

Originally posted by Barcs
I could see that as a logical explanation, but the only flaw in that is that it would have to be set up days in advance. You can't just send a few teams in with bombs and have them imploded within the hour. It's just not possible.

Are you quite certain? I mean, I have have only the barest knowledge of demolishing buildings, but I'd be astounded if I were to find out it were impossible for a structural engineer to look at a blueprint, say "take out these load-bearing columns here, here, here, and here" and that some C4 or TNT couldn't be procured and placed and detonated, all within an hour.

So, it's not that I'm accusing you of lying, I'm just very interested in what you base the claim of impossibility on.

I suppose the real question is: if there is a revolution, will it be because of some conspiracy theory, or will it be because the govermnent (whether a Democrat or Republican is in office is not relevant) finally crossed the line?

I don't belive conspiracy theorists will ever have great enough numbers to start a revolution and carry it through to a victory. There are just too many people who won't believe us. I have reasons I say this, and ways to explain it, but I'd rather not get into them, because I'll offend far too many people in the process.

However, anyone who believes every conspiracy theory that ever comes up is a gullible idiot. And anyone who automatically disbelieves any conspiracy theory that comes up is a myopic ignoramus (see how cleverly I use different terms to explain the same problem on both sides?).

The thing is, there is corruption in the government. There can be no doubting that. Did someone in office "cause" 9/11 somehow? Well, I suppose that depends on what you mean by "cause." If you mean, did they actually convince someone to fly planes into the towers? I somewhat doubt it, but wouldn't rule it out as impossible. Did they ignore warnings about a potential attack? Yes. Did they make someone mad enough to attack? No doubt, unless they actually staged the attack themselves.

But the government is pretty clever in cover-ups. They've had a lot of practice. If they did do something criminal to cause it, I have my doubts that we'll ever find out--at least as long as the corrupt individuals are still in office (or employed in a certain agency).

The thing that might cause a revolution will be the stifling of free speech or other rights. Then, maybe, conspiracy theorists might finally be heard, and maybe, enough evidence will come out to finally change some things.