Why do you have such a distrust of the government/establishment?

The government/establishment has not done anything to earn my trust.

Do you see everything as a government plot?

Yes. Government is run by humans and humans always have an agenda, including myself.

And how do you respond when proven wrong?

Pick up and move on.

Also, what do you think of people laughing at you (like I do) at [1] /r/conspiratard?

If I wanted to be popular, I would think like the majority. Your laughter makes me only pity the people, like yourself, who lost their imagination.

Let me flip the question. What has the government or the big corporations that run the government ever done to earn your trust?

I think it's niave to assume that all conspiracy theories have the same validity. Most people here probably get a good chuckle from posts like "George bush is a lizard person". Just because it's posted to this sub doesn't mean everybody believes it.

To blindly dismiss all conspiracy theories is just as bad as blindly believing all conspiracies.

Excellent perspective, great comment.

If I buy a camera I don't need the people who make it to tell me it works. I can find out by myself. Same thing with the government.

What an absurd analogy ! the Government is not an item you purchased from a store, which you have complete power over. The Government is an entity made of individuals who have a common goal to guard their own interests. Even if that means they have stampede over you to guard those interests.

You are so naive

Good day..

Patriot Act, AUMF, NDAA... Are you really okay with warrentless wiretaps and indefinite detention?

http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/conspiracy#Etymology

To breathe together.

No, everything is not a government plot. Sometimes things just happen because the world is a fucked up place. However, that doesn't mean the government doesn't plot some righteous shenanigans. I would ask you: What reason has the government given you to believe they can be trusted?

It's called Occam's Razor.

You do know that there are legit proven conspiracies, correct?

You realize a lot of what the government says are assumptions.

Edit: Or fabricated

invoking Occam's Razor here achieves next to nothing. it's possible that it achieves the opposite. the complexities of working government almost suggest that it's more likely for conspiracies to arise, just like they did in ancient Rome, or Victorian England, or... any other place with government. so by Occam's Razor, the simplest explanation is that, historically, government breeds conspiracy by its own nature, hence the conspiracies. The trouble is that the only thing that reveals them is time. We don't know what the current conspiracies are. Hence all the theories.

This seems to be what anyone that doesn't have an imagination throws down as a defense against a conspiracy theory. Making the fewest assumptions possible right? You assume the government is inherently good. I assume they are inherently bad. There is one assumption made on both accounts. Show me an argument that is worth debating instead of proposing another theory of believing in things.

It doesn't take a long list of events to shake the trust that one has in those who have power. If you would like one though, here it is http://conspiraciesthatweretrue.blogspot.com/2007/01/list-of-proven-conspiracies-from.html?m=1

Only straight out fools would trust anyone or any agency with a long a tedious history of lies, murders and corruption.

The Operation Northwoods( government declassified documents) should put anyone with any functioning brain cells in the conspiracy theorist camp. A world history book not written by Americans would help too.

If you say it would make anyone a CT, why are you guys a minority?

You think we are a minority? Millions of books and millions websites are written by minority right? keep believing that. There is no census on conspiracy theorists.

You think you are a majority? Hah!

um.. there is 126,013 readers while tardvill has 13k.

What are you doing here? You clearly aren't hear to invoke interesting conversation. You are merely getting your naive jollies off by making simple arrogant responses. Do you seriously believe that 9/11 was done by "towel head terrorists," who have a a predisposition of hatred because of their religious beliefs?

After watching Loose Change I really started to question everything. My boyfriend recommended it, he lived in NY during 9/11 and he thinks it was a black operation, but doesn't believe most other conspiracies. I do not trust the government at all. I don't support anything they do, and I hate that they take so much money out of my paychecks. I don't really care when people laugh at me, but I personally like looking deeper into stories than what's reported on the mainstream media. It's empowering to see the world in a different way than the herd.

To me, it's the 9/11 commission report: They found the hijacker's passport on the ground in NYC...but they didn't find the black-boxes? It's isn't physically possible. It just isn't, unless he chucked it out the window before crashing ha.

Also, what do you think of people laughing at you (like I do) at /r/conspiratard[1] ?

It shows just how much time you devote to being childish.

Not really. Many of us get a good laugh looking at some of the stuff you write.

Keep in mind, some contributors to this forum think the same thing about people like yourself, except the difference is the contributors here don't go trolling conspiratard to make their fragile egos feel a little better.

That's OK. But I would bet that most of you believe that because you watch CNN that you're "up to date and informed on the most important news." You hate Fox and say that they are completely unreliable, yet trust other major news sources. But you refuse to realize that you can't trust major news sources. The truth is scary, and none of you want to believe it.

I watch Fox.

There you go. I'm not surprised. You probably listen to everything they say

Where do I get my news? Do I ignore the news?

I'm not telling you where to get your news, I'm just telling you not to believe what they say. Sure, if they report a story about something that's OK, but I'm saying to question what they say. The media tends to state their own opinions in order to get you to think the same way.

Everybody does that!

That's not the media's job though. The media isn't supposed to be gossip. It's supposed to be non-biased reporting. What these major media outlets are doing is called yellow journalism. The fact that they practice this, makes them untrustworthy talking heads, all of them.

EVerybody who?

Every person has a bias.

Yes but you'd might be surprised about the amount of people who get their thoughts from major media sources. Take the Trayvon Martin case for example. Right away, the media put up pictures of him when he was 12 years old. This, and the phone call sparked anger. The media was quick to jump the gun. They told the story of this innocent black "child" who did nothing wrong. We still don't know the whole story. If that's not enough, the media usually doesn't follow upon these stories. I have seen very little about the case. This shows that they (Jewish Media) wants to instill anger amongst the blacks towards the whites. You may ask "why" and you'll probably write me off as a lunatic, which is fine, but they control 96% of the media. It is also believed that they have a major say in politics. Some people think that the Jews are mad. Mad because throughout history, they have been oppressed. Now, they want to get back at the whites who kept them down.

The group of international elites making up the NWO umbrella their funds and power over all media, both liberal and conservative. They all report the same garbage and that's how they manipulate the masses.

You can always do your own personal investigative research.

I just have to ask- do you honestly not notice it when the commentators (O'Reilly et al.) start talking about the leftist agenda? Every time Obama tries to get something done, they say it's the first step towards Communism or Marxism. Democrats have a global agenda, liberals have a global agenda, NAACP and GLAAD have hidden agendas, atheists are trying to kill religion, scientists are all part of a big scam, environmentalists are just trying to take money. "First Step Discourse" - the belief that seemingly innocuous events are actually leading towards sinister ends.

Do you not hear it, do you look past it or do you just not care? And I ask again: are you just here to bully us because we are easy targets?

Last time I checked, getting elected to a position of power (or just being there) doesn't automatically make a person sprout wings and a halo.

But it doesn't make them grow horns either.

But according to you, as soon as someone is an authority figure, they always act in the interest of the people they are supposed to represent. Never do they use their positions to do anything in their own self interest. Never have any group of people ever came up with a plan to screw over other people. Never. Not until the television reports it.

There are only two kinds of conspiracy theories IMO, kosher approved, evil Nazis , Muslims, etc, and non kosher approved, basically anything that brings up Jewish involvement in Bolshevism, Zionism, and international central banking.

It's pretty well established now (esp. with docs now coming out from FOIA requests and declassified CIA docs) that the US government is willing to experiment on its people. If one studies people in swarms, what they buy when, and what they feel and think when, the people can be controlled. When controlled, the people controlling gain. Government agencies have access to any and all of your communications at this point. Still. I don't distrust the government completely. I have roads and water and heat. Police, firemen. I know some of these people. They aren't brainwashed, they're just doing their jobs. I'm not a maniac about it because the government is made up of people, and people are generally pretty wonky when it comes to handling situations, therefore government is going to be a little wonky- it wont always get things right.

What really freaks me out is people with money. Lots and lots of money. To me that is far more dangerous than Yog Sothoth living in the Pentagon communicating with interstellar lizards from the crystal dimension. *edit for clarity: when I say people with money I do not mean any specific race or culture, blood or creed.

it honestly always peaks my interest. i think people should interpret and collect facts and produce their own opinions. in my personal endeavors into conspiracy theories there are just too many things about what we have been told and other information that has been gathered that are contradictory for us to just blindly accept what we are being told. some crazier than others yes. but i like to compile my own understanding of events

troll alert!

To set the record straight, I am not a conspiracy theorist.

Why does it bother you so much that other people are?

It doesn't bother me, I just want to know.

Read the etymology link. Being a conspiracy theorist means believing that groups of people are working together to attain secretive goals. Anyone who has ever talked about the liberal/conservative agenda, the Liberal/Conservative agenda, the gay/straight agenda, the atheist/religious agenda, the military agenda, the environmental agenda, etc. IS a conspiracy theorist. But you choose to pick on one specific group of people who have gathered on an open forum.

Why? Are you just a bully?

Chafuter, by saying "I am not a conspiracy theorist". What exactly does that mean?

I believe that almost everything you call a "conspiracy" can be explained away logically.

Setting: 1950's:

CT: "You know those guys who used to be called the OSS before they hired former Nazi intelligence officers and changed their name to CIA? Well, they are performing mind control experiments on unwitting people."

You: "Haha! Even though this is the first I've heard of it, you are so stupid for saying that!"

Setting: Late 1970's

Newspaper: MK Ultra, who's goal was to create a mind control victim, was in operation for decades.

You: "I knew this all along. They wouldn't do anything else like this again though, trust me. People would talk."

What do we call conspiracies and how does your definition of 'logically' differ from ours? I'm quite interested. Tell me all about what I believe in.

All of us follow or contribute to this sub for our own reasons. To say that you're "not a conspiracy theorist" is semantically akin to saying that you believe every person or group of people is completely honest about its goals and intentions.

You decided somewhere along the line that a "conspiracy theorist" was a paranoid schizophrenic with a tinfoil hat and anyone who followed the sub must be a legit CT, by your artificial definition. You came here to be a bully.

So. I call myself a conspiracy theorist. What do I believe in? Tell me why it is dumb and paranoid to believe what I do. Please please me, bully.

Some conspiracies are absolute garbage. But when it comes to political games, it's naive to agree with and accept everything politicians tell you. And how can we know that everything the media says is factual? I think it's good to question sources of major events and info.

you are an idiot.

how does that advance the conversation?

there is nothing to advance. go stroke your ego with like minded idiots in another board.

i hope most CT's are not like this...

conspiritards? I hope all of them are not narcissistic idiots.

do you not believe in conspiracies in general?

This person does not believe in the paragraph either.

Yes.

But it doesn't make them grow horns either.

I watch Fox.

It's called Occam's Razor.