Conspiracy Theory
These days, political discussions quickly boil down to facts vs fiction. Unfortunately, there is no obvious ownership of the facts. Are the "crackpots" telling the truth or making up elaborate scenarios based in wild imagination? Is the government telling the truth or making up some sanitized theory of convenient plausibility?
Emotions get out of control when topics such as 9/11/01, OKC, Waco, Ruby Ridge, or JFK come up. There are those that blindly believe anything the news reports. There are those that believe any rumor that disagrees with the mainstream news. There are also people that support and believe in both sides that either love or hate conspiracy theory.
However, one wonders who benefits from conspiracy theory. Some claim that the theories are created as a subversive mechanism to make people question the government. Some claim that they are natural phenomenon created by years of government secrecy. Some even claim that these conspiracy theories are needed by the government in order to cloud the issue when they do have something to hide.
Unfortunately, there is no easy or obvious answer. There are people that profit from conspiracy theory. There are people that wish to promote distrust in the government. Also, the prolific nature of conspiracy theory does give a significant amount of plausible deniability to the government in that they can dismiss any fact or story as "false" by lumping it in with other things that have been coined "conspiracy theory".
That being said, any three of the above cases can be made with significant plausibility. Was Ruby Ridge an example of bad cops killing witnesses when their operation went bad? Was OKC a failed plot by the FBI to "save the day"? Was 911 an attempt to garner support for the war on terror or to make a leaseholder rich? Was the banking crisis created in an attempt to destabilize the economy and collapse the middle class?
We are unfortunately drawn into a world of "IFs". The support or detraction of any theory boils down to "IF" this is true or "IF" that is false. The items in question are almost always just out of reach. The information could be classified. If there is information that is classified, then only those with access to that information will ever know the truth. (assuming that classified information is accurate in the first place.) While National Security is an important reason to keep some secrets, it is also an aspect of the information haves and have nots.
In a situation where one party to a discussion has access to some earthshaking revelation that makes everything clear and the other does not, they are NOT free to share the information. While they may find it frustrating that somebody "doesn't get it", the other person is just as frustrated that "maybe", "somewhere", exists something that answers the missing "IF".
Even if granted that information, they would likely view it with suspicion as the creator of the information is only as factual as "they" or "them", whoever "they" actually are.
In short, conspiracy theory is a great tool for a government to use to separate the info-haves and info-have nots thus propagating the long standing unknowing that allows a government to function in secret 99% of the time.
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