Sunday, July 26, 2015

A few thoughts on conspiracy theories.

This guy gets a lot of conspiracy theories. Official White House photo. 

I was thinking about conspiracy theories the other day, as one does when you have a slow day at work. Specifically, why people make them. I don't really believe in any myself, but I do like hearing about them and they often have a large impact on the political landscape. Take our president. There are a lot of conspiracy theories flying around about him. He's a secret Muslim, he wasn't born here, and so on and so forth.

 Every president is the target of conspiracy theories but when I when I was thinking about the ones centered around Obama I came up with a theory of my own. Is is possible that some conspiracy theories are just ways to mask harder to understand or politically incorrect criticisms? Instead of saying something that is either hard to understand or dangerous to say, are people just making up these theories to make their views spread quicker then they would if they just said them rationally? I already think that most conspiracy theories are just ways to mask prejudice. After all, saying that the Jews/Illuminati/Muslims/bankers/Communists are in control of everything is just another way of saying that you don't like those groups. 

But this theory of mine is a bit different. Instead of making up wholesale lies about people, what if there are some conspiracy theories that speak to some truth, but exaggerate it and distort it in order to either say something politically incorrect or hard to understand? I think that this is the case in at least some conspiracy theories.I don't think that the people making these theories even realize what happens, but I think this does happen naturally and for all but the most outlandish and evil theories, this is part of what is going on. 

Let us start with the "Obama is a secret Muslim" theory. Let me say right now, this theory is stupid. Obama isn't a Muslim. He claims to be a Christian and he has attended churches before. And since he has spent quite a bit of his presidency killing Muslims, I think it is safe to say that he isn't a secret one. 

On the other hand this conspiracy theory does seem to speak to a greater truth. People are uncomfortable with Obama's religious affiliation. His father was an apostate Muslim, so the thinking goes that he could have sympathies in that direction, even if he never practiced the religion in any way. And Obama's religious journey isn't quite like most peoples. All accounts have Obama having very little religion in his household and for all intents and purposes he was an atheist growing up. He then converted to a radical church with a pastor that said "God Damn America" at one point. Even though he claims to be a Christian, his Christianity looks a lot different then the Christianity most American's practice. And, in my opinion at least, it never seems all that sincere when he talks about his religious beliefs compared to someone like George Bush. 

Obviously, that is a lot more complex criticism of Obama then his religious beliefs usually get. But what is going to have more of an impact? A detailed criticism of how Obama wasn't raised a Christian and only came to religion late into his life and was raised by a Muslim and a Methodist who didn't have faith or Obama is a secret Muslim? Also, by criticizing Obama as a Muslim, you also get to avoid criticizing his church, his black church, which is always nice if you are trying to avoid cries of racism, justified or not.  I think there are people out there that really do believe that Obama is a Muslim, but when they say that what I am thinking is "this person is uncomfortable with Obama's unusual religious background". I don't know if that is a valid criticism of the president or not, but it does seem to follow my theory.  

As an aside, it always staggers my mind that the conspiracy theory was that Obama was a secret Muslim. A much more plausible one is that Obama is a secret atheist. It's clear that for a decent portion of his life, Barack Obama did not believe in God.  It's possible that his religious conversion was not sincere, though I have no idea how you would prove that one way or the other. Given how religious his opposition is and was, it boggles my mind that this wasn't what was used to attack him. I don't know if people just never thought of it, or they had some political or strategic reason not to do so, but it's never really come up. Not that it matters to me either way, and I sincerely hope that I didn't just make a conspiracy theory of my own, but it just seems odd. 

Here's another example concerning our president. Allegations that Obama was born in another country have followed him throughout his political career. The conspiracy theory states that since he was born in another country, he was never eligible to be president. The whole theory is stupid because Barack Obama's mother was an American citizen. Even if Obama had been born somewhere else then Hawaii, he would still be a U.S. citizen.

So why did the birther movement last so long? Simple. It speaks to a greater truth about Obama. President Obama is a very un-American American. I don't mean that in a "he hates the country" way, but in a "he's far outside what you would consider a normal American" way. Think of it this way. What do you think of when you hear the words "average American"? My guess is something like a middle class, protestant, white, person. Does that sound like Barack Obama to you?

President Obama is many things, but he is not what you think of when you talk about an average American. First of all, his father was from Kenya and he married a white woman from Kansas and was born in Hawaii, long considered an oddball state. His parents interracial marriage broke up, and they came from a mixed faith household, Muslim and Methodist, but nobody really took relgion seriously, if they believed in God at all. He was raised in Indonesia, of all places, and in college he was part of a group of people that smoked pot called the Choom gang.

All of that just screams to people that President Obama is nothing like the average American. Except maybe the smoking pot part. You could go on to say that his experience is nothing like the average black person's either. Though President Obama may be our first black president, but it is easy to think that we still haven't elected an African American one. By almost any standard, President Obama is an outlyer. That's true for most presidents, but even among that group there isn't anyone even close to Barack Obama in terms of upbringing and life history.

The facts of Obama's life is fodder for those of us who dislike him. After all, many of the facts of his life are at odds with many people's beliefs of what an "American" should be. Though ours is a diverse and complicated nation, we still have a stereotype of what an American should look like and what their life experiences should be. Obama's experience is so far removed from most other American's that it's easy to see why people don't really consider him to be one. Once you admit that to yourself, it's easy to see why people would just take the next logical step and claim that instead being of an outlying example of an American, the President isn't American at all.

It's still factually incorrect, but it makes the birther movement make a lot more sense. When someone tells you that they think that there is some conspiracy theory about where Obama was born they aren't really talking about if it is true or not, even if they believe it. What they are saying is that Obama is so far from most other Americans that it's really a stretch to call him an American or even an African American. That's obviously politically incorrect and takes a lot longer to explain then simply saying that he wasn't born in America.

I don't think the birther movement was a fair criticism of president Obama, and the whole issue would have gone down better, in a rational sense, if people hadn't taken it that far. I think there is an argument to be made that Obama is too far from mainstream America to really represent the greater interests of Americans. That is especially true for the Black community. But the argument was never framed that way, and it ended up making everyone involved look terrible. Even though the birther conspiracy theory does speak too a greater truth about President Obama, it's still factually incorrect and easily debunked. But if the conversation had been about Obama not being a "true" American, would the issue have gotten any play? My guess is that everyone arguing it would have been denounced as a racist before the issue even got off the ground, and even if it did find a few people to advocate for that position, I doubt that it would have spread as quickly as the birther movement did since it is a much more in depth criticism of the president.

Another conspiracy theory that is about as debunked as the birther movement is the Sandy Hook conspiracy theory. The theory goes that instead of Adam Lanza carrying out the attack, the government either did it or faked it so they could pass more gun control and confiscate guns. I'm not going to spend time debunking the theory because other people have done a better job of doing so. But I will say that the fact that federal gun control efforts failed and failed hard after the shooting, and are continuing to fail hard outside of all but the bluest of blue states, that if it was a conspiracy theory to take away our guns, it failed miserably.

Again though, the theory does invoke a greater truth. Namely, there are elements in this country that want to ban guns completely and they are willing to lie and do terrible things to do so. Of course, the murder of children is not one of those things, but the media radically distorts the truth about gun violence in this country to the point you would think that mass shooting are common. They aren't and when they do happen they only rarely involve so called assault weapons, but you would never know that if you listened to the liberal media.

It goes beyond just lying though. I think that there is a very politically incorrect message, which i'd argue is true, that the theory helps cover up. It's the idea that the people advocating for and enforcing gun control are capable of great evil. It's almost never politically correct to just say that your opponents are evil, but in this case I think a lot of people think it. And once you do the conspiracy theory makes sense. After all, if you think gun control and the people that advocate it are generally evil it kind of makes sense to think that they would be capable of doing something else that is completely irredeemably evil, like killing a bunch of kids to score political points.

It's not like the government hasn't killed people over gun laws before. After all, Ruby Ridge, Waco and Fast and Furious all did happen and were all, fundamentally, about guns. It looked like the Bundy Ranch standoff was heading that way too before everyone decided to talk about racism instead. That was about guns too and there were many on the left that were salivating at the possibility of the standoff ending in bloodshed. Pointing these facts out is not only very politically incorrect, it's a good way to make your way onto a watch-list, but I do think it is true that some times that the government puts its morality aside to when dealing with guns. And the media has gone as far as to release the names and addressees of gun owners, putting them at great risk for violent crime, just to punish them for being gun owners in a blue state.

Once you learn about some of the terrible things gun control advocates have done,  it isn't much of as stretch to say that the government and gun control supporters will do anything to ban guns, even killing a bunch of children. And when you do it and people buy into it, it makes your enemies seem even more irrational and evil then they are by themselves

But this conspiracy theory is even more damaging then the birther one because it proves too much. After all it's one thing to point out that sometimes people die when the government goes nuts about guns. It's a completely different thing to accuse them of killing a bunch of children, on purpose, with a greater goal to ban guns completely. It makes gun rights supporters, even people like me who think the conspiracy theory is insane, look completely bonkers and damages our credibility.

I think if there is anything to be learned from these kinds of conspiracy theories is that you should just tell the truth. If you are uncomfortable about Obama because he isn't like you, just say it, don't make a conspiracy up about him. Don't like gun politics in this country? Make a rational argument, and don't make up a stupid theory that doesn't even sound plausible, even if it does speak to a greater truth.

In a way it makes sense to use these conspiracy theories to criticize people you don't like. After all, many people did not like Obama but were unwilling or unable to vocalize why. Giving them a soundbite helps spread criticism like wildfire. But it always comes back to bite you in the end. Once the conspiracy theory is revealed to be false, then you, and everyone who thinks like you, looks like an idiot.

I don't think any of this is done with any goal though. It just happens naturally, and if more people recognized that many conspiracy theories are just people trying to find a socially acceptable or easy to understand way to criticize their enemies, perhaps the more rational among us can actually debate the facts while ignoring the noise. Sure, some conspiracy theories are just actual hate dressed up as a debate, but many of them are based in some kind of greater truth. 


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