Conspiracy`s are about the most common thing in business or politics or for that matter its a part of growing up, they are just hard to prove.
I can not understand why it would make some people paranoid just to hear the word.
After Joe McCarthy was discredited (by a conspiracy) the fellow travelers in the media set out to make anti-communism a joke.
Anyone who doubted that the Soviets had our best interests at heart was ridiculed for seeing “a communist hiding under every bed.” Anti-anti-communism was required of all. A comedian could get a laugh just by uttering the words, “communist plot.”
This intellectual climate allowed the Soviets to wreak havoc with us, virtually without let or hindrance from any quarter.
They have done the same with “conspiracy theory.” Media bias was just a “conspiracy theory,” you see. J. Edgar Hoover’s list of Soviet agents within our government was another.
All that was needed to discredit an accusation was for the useful-idiot media choir to strike up a rousing chorus of “Oh, that’s just a conspiracy theory.”
When a person recovers from leftism, it doesn’t usually happen in an instant. It can actually take decades. A person can go through a stage of being economically conservative but socially liberal, for instance, and this conditioned response to the notion of “conspiracy theory” can linger to cloud one’s thinking for far too long.
Paranoia must surely bump up against common sense, even if it’s just in passing.