Huck,
Arguing with conspiracy theory folks will only raise your bloodpressure.
It has been said that: “History is written by the winners”. It has also been said that: “Conspircy theories are history written by the losers.”
When one’s side loses an argument or election (or just doesn’t like the situation) despire the ‘obvious’ superiority of your side’s arguments, some folks ‘explain’ the loss by spinning all sorts of conspiracy theories. You don’t need any evidence. In fact, you can claim the absence of evidence only proves the hidden power of the conspirators. Doing the work of developing better arguments or putting for better candidates is just too hard too do. It’s just so much easier to develop some elaborate theory.
As you point out, conspiracy theories to explain the success of the opposition are not limited to either side. The left has their theories and the right has theirs.
If you think yesterday was bad here on freerepublic, you should have been here just after 9/11 when freerepublic was inundated with Truthers. JimR finally purged most of them.
FYI: my first comment after hearing the news of Osama’s death was ‘The conspiracy nuts are going to go nuts’.
Can you clearly define this term as you apply it to fellow FReepers?