I'm not going to say climate change is a hoax. I won't say Covid-19 was the flu re-branded to sow fear and consolidate power and wealth in the global elite. I'm not telling you that the vax is killing people, that the 2020 election was stolen, that the world is secretly run by a macabre collection of billionaire mafioso families, that people at the head of our governments are sanctioning human trafficking and pedophile rings, that the Ukraine war is a money laundering operation, that the WEF is run by Satan-worshiping hacks, or even that Charles Schwab and Bill Gates are real-life Bond villains.

What I will say is that "conspiracy theorists" have a pretty damn good track record over the past 5 years, and it's beginning to shed light on the shady dealings of ne'er-do-wells among the political class. It would behoove us greatly to consider why. Why do these whack-jobs get lucky when billion-dollar news corporations flatline the truth over months and months?

Before I dig into it, let's start simple, with one current event and the responses to it. A 6 year old boy in Kentucky recently took his mother's gun to school and shot his teacher. In a very short time, people were saying it was motivated by race. One woman suggested that if it was a black boy taking his black mother's gun to school and shooting a white woman that the kid, his mother, his family, and everyone they knew would be in prison for life because of systemic racism.

Except the boy WAS black. His mother was black, and the teacher was white. People want to throw hands because they don't know how to process an event so horrifying, so they filter the headlines through their worldview to call on "facts" as they see them, creating a suitable enemy for target practice. As confirmation bias goes this is pretty extreme, but it's what conspiracy theorists are constantly accused of.

Is that what they're doing?

Take a look at Alex Jones, the nutcase that was recently demolished for suggesting the Sandy Hook shooting was faked. Why did he think that? Was it because the family chosen as the mouthpiece for that tragedy is posing in a photo with Obama taken a few days before the shooting, including the dead daughter, even though they had no connection to the President? Was it because there's footage of the father of that girl joking with news producers just seconds before delivering a tearful speech about gun control? Is it because CNN's live footage turned out to be a military drill executed miles away at a totally different school?

All of that is true, you can look it up. All of it has been formally debunked as well - not that it's false, but that they don't necessarily add up to a bad B-movie plot. 

But you can't read that and honestly tell me there's no cause for suspicion, especially when you start to combine it with related information, like school shooters are almost all autistic, being fed the same drug to treat it, and somehow come to possess tens of thousands of dollars of firearms even though they live in a trailer park. That's hyperbole, but it's not far from the mark.

It's not fair to call these conspiracy theorists crazy without at least understanding the source of their suspicions. It's easy to dismiss what sounds foolish until you realize that this is actually sound journalism. You follow leads because sometimes they guide you to that one informant that blows the lid off a scandal and you end up winning an award for uncovering what nobody would have otherwise believed. Just ask Bob Woodward.

You also need to consider motives. Does the federal government have a reason to stage school shootings? Are they really that evil? Oddly, the same people who tend to denigrate the conspiracy theorists in our midst say no, even though they're prepared to rattle off a list of the United States' evil-doings at the slightest provocation.

Once the door of suspicion is open, other data begins to amplify it, some false, some believable but not verifiable, and some blatantly true.

The point is that these people aren't generally entering into their position blindly, but those of us who condemn them usually are. Ha-ha, look at the stupid people who aren't in lockstep agreement with the rest of us. Meanwhile, there's an elephant standing behind our chair and the emperor is nude on live TV.

We scream that Fox News is faux news and place all our bets on legacy media, but when you look at them in hindsight, Fox has been right WAY more often than CNN. By the time that information surfaces, however, the headlines are buried and we're on to the next big scandal. Roll your dice, because who the hell knows what's actually true?

I have a degree in journalism, and while I never ended up in that field I use what I learned (then and since) quite a bit. Despite the wailings of weekend keyboard warriors, independent research is valid and not restricted to a handful of credentialed scholars. Here's a huge secret for you - most of those "scientists" do not have access to any more privileged data than you do and they've never personally verified the facts. They read published papers and apply experience and critical thought (though sometimes not) to reach their conclusions. Peer-reviewed means the majority of those opting into the discussion haven't found flaws with the methodology and are in general agreement with the conclusions. It doesn't mean that the collection of doctors does not include Samuel P. Booger greenlighting a dissertation on climate change with his PhD in Mid-Eastern Anthropology.

Flat earth is another big one for me. I DO NOT BELIEVE WE LIVE ON A DISK so don't come at me, but I'm bothered by the people who dismiss or mock flat earthers without looking at and trying to understand their arguments. They have some pretty impressive data to back up their claims, but instead of providing a reasoned response, we attack them with memes. All that tells me is that most globe earthers have no idea why they believe they're standing on a ball except that's what they've been told and it's good enough for them. Maybe those people aren't a government-programmed herd of intellectual sheep, but that's damn sure what they sound like to people who have the audacity to ask questions, to challenge the narrative. That's exactly why the flat earth movement has momentum--not because these people lack reason and only believe what they're told, but because everyone else does. 

When you begin to lose faith in the things you were always told were true, when you're told that truth is subjective, when nature itself is questioned and supplanted by a subjective reality, phrases like "trust the science" have no meaning at all.

Back to Alex Jones and the original point I meant to make when I dropped his name. He screamed for years about the illuminati and he was laughed at for it. Well, it turns out that the illuminati is mentioned repeatedly in the national archives by the founding fathers, and was at one point led by Thomas Jefferson until he was nearly assassinated in a power struggle, and the goodwill intended by that organization was exchanged for a cabal of power-hungry Bond villains worthy of bad B-movie plots. I looked it up myself after watching two podcasters try to debunk him in real time during an interview. Jones led them to his sources, and everything he had been saying ended up based on publicly accessible government documents. The most famous conspiracy theory in history turned out to be at least partly accurate.

Does that mean there's a secret organization pulling the strings of world governments today? Not necessarily, but this crazy conspiracy theorist was more well informed than the overwhelming majority, and if that wild rumor is based on fact, what else lies beneath the surface just waiting for someone with the courage to look for it?

I'm not saying you should buy into all the half baked theories out there. I'm a skeptic, and I question even my own firm beliefs on a regular basis. What I'm suggesting is that we prepare ourselves to assimilate information, recognize the sleight of hand that comes from processed news and dig deeper, source the data and verify it for yourselves, have long form discussions instead of exchanging intelligence for wit and third party memes. Hold yourself and others to a higher standard, and don't give your allegiance to people whose best (and sometimes only) defense is mockery, headlines, and comedy routines.