Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

 Well, finally.  I've probably mentioned this before: but I used to be a conspiracy theorist. I was a Mulder-type, X-files, quasi-militia supporting, conspiracy theorist in the 90s. I believed in the UFO thing, I believed in the government plot to keep that a secret, and I believed in the one-world government bullshit. Somehow, and thankfully, this was separate from my devout religious belief, but that's probably because I was raised Catholic. The Vatican was dealing with its own conspiracy at the time: only that one was real and they were doing it. The coming "New World Order" was definitely a thing in my mind. At this point in history, the NRA was tilting towards the batshit conspiracy theory haven that they have become. It was around this time that they called federal law enforcement officials "jack booted thugs" causing George HW Bush to turn in his lifetime membership. They did so as a response to both Waco and Ruby Ridge, which the perception was that

"It is generally believed in England among students of this conspiracy that John Maynard Keynes produced his General Theory of Money and Credit at the behest of certain Insiders of international finance who hired him to concoct a pseudo-scientific justification for government deficit spending-just as the mysterious League of Just Men hired Karl Marx to write the Communist Manifesto." Mother fucker that's a hell of a sentence. I mean, the words all have independent meanings but, damn, put this shit show together and it's all kinds of wrong. Where do I even begin? Well, if a student turned in a paper and this sentence was contained, I'd fail it. There are two qualifiers here that are doing way too much work: "it's generally believed" and "certain Insiders" (which would be fine if they were named). Conspiracy theorists like to do two things: one is overload with citations and sources. I've mentioned this before: but it's designed to em

 " Instead, the liberals have showered the President with dead cats, while most conservatives have maintained a glum silence, and thus the Administration has been 'little credited' for 'much genuine achievement."--Allen quoting Conservative columnist Stewart Aslop regarding Nixon. I'm not up on my slang, not now, not in the past, not anywhere. My personal slang is usually stuff I lifted from movies or books and is obscure enough where I sometimes have to explain what I meant. I'm familiar with it though, and while I've had friends laugh at me for not quite getting "imma" on the second try, eventually I come around. I mention all of this because I have no idea whether "showered the president with dead cats" is a good thing or a bad thing here.  What further complicates this is that we've begun Chapter 7 "Pressure From Above and Pressure From Below;" but we are still continuing Allen's rant against the liberal foreig

 One of the more funny underpinnings of this book is that the author is claiming that Nixon is too liberal. If you're new here, that's not a typo. Richard M Nixon was too liberal for Gary Allen and the John Birch Society. These are the type of people that thought Eisenhower was a Communist so we should be aware of how extremist they were. I say were, because today, they'd be right at home in the mainstream of the GOP.  A friend of mine pointed out some of Nixon's accomplishments that the left would approve of today: he continued the policy of desegregation begun under Kennedy and continued under Johnson. He opened trade with China which we can debate about now, but such trade prevents wars. Nixon also created the EPA after a river in Ohio caught fire because of the pollution (there is an urban legend that it was Lake Erie). Nixon is famous for acting like a crazy person, which was on purpose...his plan was to act like this so that Ho Chi Minh would be afraid of nuclear