Skeptic Project

Browsing over Ben's shocking manifesto, I'm struck by a couple of thoughts on these "one world government" and "tyranny is advancing" type CTs. This is Alex Jones's main narrative so I'll classify this topic as being AJ-related.

What amazes me is how strongly people can believe in these theories while they are totally divorced from the experiences in their own lives. The CTs shriek about "tyranny" and "loss of freedom," yet they are unable to identify any significant curtailment of their own personal freedom, or any consequences of these evil NWO plots that affect them personally.

What I'm getting at is not quite as simple as the "mañana" thing, that the worst effects of these tyrannical conspiracies are GOING TO happen but have not happened yet. Most believers in these CTs are very fond of pointing at things that have happened recently and saying "Ooo look, it's happening now." But take the stuff they DO point to as indicative of "advancing tyranny"--it's not very significant.

Case in point: when Danny was still here we tried to pin him down about what freedoms he had lost in his own life as a result of NWO conspiracies. The only one he mentioned was that there was a metal detector in his school. CTs love to point to stuff like this--surveillance cameras, security measures, body scanners at airports, etc. I admit I wish we didn't have to have this stuff either, and I dread flying because of all the security procedures that feel invasive. But am I really "less free" because I have to walk through a metal detector or take my shoes off? How is this loss of freedom, exactly?

I would assume that most people would fear a totalitarian government because they expect it would result in significant loss of personal freedom. Typically that would manifest itself in loss of control over major life decisions or basic lifestyle or intellectual choices--someone else telling you where to live, what you can read or watch in your home, who you can or can't marry, where you can go, etc. Yet not a single one of the "warning signs" pointed to by NWO and 1WG CT's translate in any way to curtailment of these personal freedoms. There is a huge disconnect between what these CTs think is going on, and how it affects them personally.

I just can't get my head around that. If you live in an un-free society, it's not like there's going to be any doubt about it. It's not like you're going to wake up and have the ability to spend your day downloading Alex Jones videos, reading Bill Cooper books and then sit there and wonder, "Hmm, do I really live in a democracy or a tyranny?" What do these people think life under a totalitarian regime is like? They must think it's pretty cushy, if it's indistinguishable on a day-to-day basis from living in a free country.

This is the same bone I have to pick with the teabagger crowd. They shriek that health care reform is the end of freedom in America. If they really think that, it's clear they don't understand what freedom really means. If the difference between living in a free country and living under an oppressive dictatorship is so incredibly subtle that you have to be "woken up" by Alex Jones videos in order to recognize it, what does that say about how "oppressive" it really is?

Argh. Depressing.

Here are some videos that might interest you and others too:

"Steven Pinker: A brief history of violence"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk

Description of the video:
"Steven Pinker charts the decline of violence from Biblical times to the present, and argues that, though it may seem illogical and even obscene, given Iraq and Darfur, we are living in the most PEACEFUL time in our species' existence."

Worth watching. Especially for CT's, since they think they are going to be chipped anyday now and loose their rights.

And video ("CNN: Conspiracy Theorists Are Potential "Suicide Warriors" & Are Mentally Disturbed") posted BY a CT (just look at the description), where John Avlon discusses the dangers of believing in conspiracy theories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXuLZyvQi_M

The comments the video has gotten are lulz-worthy, yet John Avalon is right.

I never understood CT's and right-wingers' obsession about Waco.

To hear them tell it you'd think the FBI called down the thunder more or less arbitrarily on a group of totally innocent people. In reality the Branch Davidians were a spooky doomsday cult armed with gazillions of heavy weapons, led by an insane spittle-streaked wacked-out nut job who thought he was Jesus and regularly raped 11 year old girls.

That seems to constitute a pretty clear and present danger to society.

The FBI was wrong to wipe them out how, exactly?

There's ample evidence to show the Davidians started the fire with some kind of an accelerant, probably gasoline. Even if the fire was started by a flash bang, I don't know how it invalidates the sexual dictatorship going on in the compound, especially over children. Alex Jones seems to forget this, and calls them just a "peaceful religious sect" and considers them Christian martyrs.

Like OK City as well, they forget that Big Tim admitted to doing it, flat out, he did it. Of course they hasn't stopped them from providing me with two sources, one showing how the government really did it, and one showing how Tim did it but only because he was brainwashed. They don't seem to realize the glaring contradiction there.

You're right though Muertos, I've also had a hard time of having people give me examples of how their personal freedoms have been limited by the NWO. And yes, surveillance seems to be their only example.

I often find them ignoring North Korea and Iran, real totalitarian regimes today, and instead comparing the US or NWO to the Nazis or regimes of yesterday. I imagine that's because if you point out these problems really do exist today, you have to admit your country is no where near as bad as those. I also typically tell people how comparing automated ticket cameras at stop lights to mass executions of ethnic, religious, or other groups is not only stupid and childish, but also trivializes people who did and continue to suffer under actual tyranny.

Instead of being sent to a concentration camp in North Korea for talking out being tyrannical and one step away from Nazism, having to get a driver's license is only one day away from a pit of bodies.