Debunking The "Conspiracy Theory" Theory.

This ridiculous terminology has long been used to suppress legitimate debate. It's time to explore what it really means and why its offensive to the authentic use of human reason.

It was a few years ago that I was chatting with a friend about the whole notion of conspiracy theories. His comment was so simple, but it got right to the point—“The conspiracy theory is the conspiracy theory. Human beings conspire. Governments conspire. They always have, they always will.”

His point ultimately underscored that the very use of the term “conspiracy theory” is a tactic used to suppress investigation, and even conversation about certain topics.

What’s more, the “conspiracy theory” tag is often used on “theories” that can actually seem obvious. Let me give you four examples:

*The “conspiracy theory” phrase came into vogue when it came to questioning the government’s narrative on the JFK Assassination, that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. You might ask why, given that every single president has deranged people who hate them, that this one in particular fell victim to gunshots. You might ask why that Oswald himself was murdered just days later. You might note that JFK was talking behind closed doors about pulling out of Vietnam, thus supplying motive. You might further note that JFK’s most notorious enemy—Alan Dulles, whom he fired as CIA Director—was a part of the Warren Commission that decided Oswald acted alone. You bring these topics up. And you’re told simply that it’s a conspiracy theory.

*I recall back in college reading about the push for a New World Order—the idea of transferring sovereignty from nation-states or to international institutions and ending the idea of nationhood that has more of less governed the Western world since the Westphalia Treaty of 1648. I was told that was a conspiracy theory. Then I would read the writings of Strobe Talbot—appointed as the #2 man at the State Department by Bill Clinton, and openly admired by both Bill and Hillary. Talbot directly said that abolishing the nation-state was their objective. Doesn’t matter. It’s still a conspiracy theory. Even when they openly admit (or brag about) their objectives.

*To move into our current context, how about the notion that the COVID-19 “vaccine” is safe and effective? Recently, on an e-mail thread, I forwarded a link to the book The Pfizer Papers, a collection of primary source documents taken directly from the Pharma giant’s clinical trials. The documents show Pfizer knew how flawed—even potentially dangerous—that this vaccine was. The book was put together by Naomi Wolf over at Daily Clout. I got an e-mail back informing me that Daily Clout and Naomi were “right-wing conspiracy theorists.” Never mind that the book is just a collection of Pfizer’s own documents. Never mind that Naomi Wolf worked in the Clinton Administration, has long been a liberal feminist icon, and voted for Joe Biden in 2020. She’s still not just a conspiracy theorist, but a right-wing one at that.

*Then there’s the presidential election of 2020. We all watched the unprecedented act of six battleground states, five of whom had Trump with a decisive lead over Biden, suddenly decide to stop counting for the night. We were to just accept that these six states acted independently of each other. We were assured that counting would simply resume during normal business hours on Wednesday morning. Then we were told that when the vote count had changed in Biden’s favor in the middle of the night, it was all still okay. Then we were told to ignore the fact that the State Department’s own guidelines for detecting election fraud in “other countries” include looking at sudden stoppage in the vote count as a key red flag. Ignore all of that. Anything other than the notion that 2020 was the most secure election in history was simply a “conspiracy theory.” A “debunked” conspiracy theory no less.

In light of all this (and there’s plenty of other examples we can pull), I trust I can be pardoned if I’ve come to see the tag “conspiracy theory” as just a tacit admission that something is actually true.

The need for human beings to confess aloud is deeply rooted in our nature. It’s fundamental to the Catholic Church’s sacramental life. It’s the Fifth Step of 12-Step programs and considered a lynchpin to progress. I’ve come to see the “conspiracy theory” accusation as just some weird, disjointed way that our betters confess to their own sins.

Shifting the Narrative

As much as I’d like to take the “conspiracy theory” accusation as a de facto confession though, that would also be overly simplistic. While it should certainly raise an eyebrow, we really have to go one step further and simply stop giving these narratives any power at all. I think the way to do that is to simply take the word “conspiracy theory” and junk it entirely. If someone uses it, respond the same way a judge would at trial if a lawyer introduces irrelevant evidence. Just dismiss it out of hand.

Instead, the question to ask on all our beliefs is this—are we narrative-based or are we evidence-based? That is, what’s the basis for what we think? Let’s be honest—not every corporate media narrative is going to be wrong. Even the majority that are will still likely have some truth in them.

More important, not every dissenting narrative is true. When you turn off corporate media (which includes local news), as we have, you can expect to enter into a long process of sorting through alternative sources of varying accuracy.

To pick one example, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, I believed voices that included Sidney Powell and her claims that mass fraud was induced by the voting machines. I got annoyed when media people I liked, notably Tucker Carlson, directly challenged Powell. But Tucker was right—courageously right, in challenging his own audience. People like Rich Baris at Big Data Poll, or lawyer-pundit Robert Barnes were right when they said the focus on machines was a massive red herring—that all you really needed to do was demand signature match on mail-in ballots (did the person’s signature on their ballot envelope match the signature on their driver’s license ID). There was no need to create dramatic tales.

That’s just one example. Today, I’m surrounded by alternative media voices I trust, from Tucker, Baris and Barnes, to the guys at The Duran to Glenn Greenwald, Steve Bannon, and a few others. And I’m rarely shocked by “breaking news” anymore (That last sentence has the feel of “famous last words,” as Divine Providence can always shock us. But you get the point).

All of the above have been accused of pushing “misinformation” or “conspiracy theories” at some level. But those very phrases are the essence of narrative-based thinking. Those words are used to manipulate your emotions and control your thought patterns. The question should really be, what is the evidence-based narrative?

Let’s be fair—our side has to produce evidence as well. But I would ask those that believe mainstream narratives, or recoil from anything labeled a conspiracy theory this question—do you have any real basis for believing them, other than a vague “everybody thinks this?” (FYI, not everyone does, but even that is beside the point).

There was a meme floating around on Facebook recently that summed up my thoughts, saying “People demand 100 percent evidence to debunk theories that they accepted based on no evidence whatsoever.”

I recently did a video here called The Burden of Proof. I said one of things I find frustrating about election fraud and vaccines is that no matter how much evidence you bring forward, if there’s anything at all you can’t explain, people dismiss you on that basis. When, in reality, that’s a burden of proof that is only required in criminal law cases when a person may be sent to jail. Civil cases—and by extension these important public arguments—don’t function on the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold. It’s simply about each side building a preponderance of evidence (50.1%) for its side. It’s time for those who accept mainstream narratives to step up and really back up their own claims rather than taunting us for only reaching the 80 percen threshold (without the benefit of subpoena power).

I’ll wrap this up with a more light-hearted example. As a sports fan, the buildup to March Madness is on my mind right now. The Big Ten Conference is one of the most powerful in terms of driving media narratives and their teams are always highly regarded going into the tournament. They also consistently flame out and underperform, with the exception of Tom Izzo’s Michigan State. It was last year that a friend of mine really started going off on a text thread about how overrated the Big Ten is. We’re all from the Midwest, so it was a passionate  discussion and the conference’s main defender finally said, “Why does it matter?” My friend accurately replied, “It just means that when I hear how great the Big Ten is, I don’t have to believe it.”

Sometimes, it really is that simple. We’re all just peasants. We have very limited power. But we do have the power to control our own interior life and what we choose to believe. As human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, we have the gift of reason. We don’t need to give that away by simply believing every mainstream narrative—or being told we’re not allowed to even consider alternatives on the grounds that they’re “conspiracy theories.”

“Conspiracy theory” is just a bullying term meant to make you feel all twisty inside and scare you off. All of us—whether you’re a conservative or a liberal, whether you’re a Trumper or whether you hate the Orange Man, are worth more than that.

“Built in our very nature is a desire to know about the world around us so that, ultimately, we may rise to an understanding of Him who is Truth itself.” –Pope St. John Paul II