Posted on 07/07/2013 9:57:25 AM PDT by pinochet
Often, when a Freeper proposes an idea that seems too crazy to be true, we totally dismiss him, and describe him as one who wears tin foil hats. One year ago, nobody would have believed that the American government spies on everyone. If someone had suggested such a thing last year, he would have been dismissed as a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist.
What other theories have respectable American conservatives dismissed in the past, that may be true? I keep thinking back to Robert Welch of the John Birch Society of the 1960s, who suggested that there exists a communist conspiracy among elites in academia, to indoctrinate American youth in communist ideas. According to this theory, American communists realized that they could not take over the devoutly Bible-Believing American nation of the 1950s, with an armed revolt. America had too many Bible-Believers with guns, and they could not take over America with an army like they did in Russia in 1917. They also could not teach directly from the books of Marx, Engels, or Lenin. The American Commies are supposed to have developed a clever means of injecting communist ideas whenever they talked about American history or society.
According to this theory, college graduates would enter government institutions and implement communist ideas, without realizing that those ideas are communist. Mainstream conservatives such as William F. Buckley excommunicated Robert Welch from the "respectable" conservative movement, and dismissed him as a nut. When you think of Obama, Pelosi, Clinton, Schumer, Van Jones, Gore, Patty Murray, Ginsburg, and all those other leftists in public office, did they end up that way by accident? What about those college graduates doing the Occupy Wall Street stuff? Is that also a coincidence?
Were the Birchers wrong about everything?
When my son was in about 8th grade in 2004, he noted that his history teacher spent a week on Joe McCarthy. I asked him why he thought his school would teach about a senator from the 1950s. Even then my son knew the score. He said it was to make kids think that anyone who was worried about communism was nuts. — from the mouths of babes.
I should send this over to my extreme left wing mormon neighbors.
I can still remember the Clinton years and “Bubba the Love Sponge.”
We on the right understand the differences between conservative, paleoconservative, neoconservative, right-leaning libertarian, etc.
Conservatives like Buckley understood the difference between liberals, Fabian socialists, communists, etc.
Unfortunately it seems as if all of us "ists" have been played for fools. While those of us who attempt to have enough consistency in our philosophies continue to be frustrated in our hopes for a better future, the amoral pragmatists run the show for their own financial betterment.
It's a good thing that most people (liberals included) believe in some form of a free market so that the greed of others converts more readily into jobs and cheap products for the rest of us.
The second time that our combat forces took at break while the Ambassador of North Viet Nam went to DC for three weeks of “talks”, I knew something was up. An Intel friend told me that the VC and the NVA were out of ammunition and the three weeks was necessary to bring supplies in from Russia and China. That was when the lights went on and I decided that we were being lied to about the war.
I haven’t trusted a word that any politician has said since I was 21.
Conspiracies themselves are extremely common, and consist simply of two or more people in a communication loop to commit a crime, and can be as simple as two people knowingly cashing food stamps they aren’t entitled to, or as large as the Sinaloa cartel. Now someone outside the loop may suspect a crime involving two or more people, but may not have solid proof. There is your conspiracy theorist. Unfortunately the media, popular culture, and less than ethical people cashing in on the gullible (jones, coast to coast etc), have made the term “conspiracy theory” a dirty word, instead of just an observation made by people who can connect dots. Now are there BIG conspiracies involving nations, national security, and the wholesale takeover of society? Of course, we’re living in it, and one would be naive to think otherwise.
Liberals play word games, they will go to great lengths to point out how Obama doesn't fit the strictest definition of a marxist. No matter, he has a marxist foundation, he just puts it in a different package.
My thoughts exactly, alloy steel.
I have been annoyed for some time with the seeming fixation of people these days with “safety”.
Every newscast is loaded with stories about safety -— what laws are being proposed to “make you safer”; what products are being recalled because they might not be safe enough; how you should hide in the basement to be safe during a possible thunderstorm.
People no longer tell a departing guest “Good-bye”; now, it’s “Safe travels.”
We no longer wish each other a happy holiday ... It’s now, “Have a SAFE and happy holiday.”
I used to see the insurance industry’s hand in all this.
That might not be the case, though.
After all, how does a courageous (and, therefore, formidable) opposition arise from a populace that has been taught to value “safety” above all else?
Just sayin’
Also, every police detective is a paid professional conspiracy theorist. It’s their friggen job.
Sorry, just doing my job! ;-)
The Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City was known ahead of time to the FBI. They had infiltrated McVeigh’s training camp at Elohim City. Google “black ops”. It was a false flag provocation used as a pretext to crack down on the emerging militia movement.
The John Birch Society was right about almost everything. Their attack upon Wall St. and the “Liberal Eastern Establishment” oligarchy is a lesson that has sadly been lost as subsequently conservatives have chronically rubber stamped any and everything Wall St. has in its game book.
People who want their fellow citizens to freely choose a more regulated and progressively taxed society are liberals. Those who want to force this upon their fellow citizens are communists.
There is a difference. If a small cadre of well financed leftists takes over and somehow forces us into despotism that's communism. If our fellow citizens freely choose with their votes to give us government controlled medical care, highly progressive tax rates, highly regulated markets, etc. then the people will get what they deserve, and the more intelligent minority will have to vamoose or suffer alongside the mob.
We conservatives had an edge for quite a well. We've had plenty of opportunities to make our case and push back the tide. We have mostly failed because most people just aren't buying what we are selling: more personal responsibility, more prudence, more saving, less binge buying, less meaningless sex, etc.
Our "leaders" are businessmen who use conservatism to sell products to a niche crowd, politicians who milk conservative ideas into lifelong careers, and talk show hosts that make big bucks providing the "other" side of the issue.
The Republicans have seen the light. They know that conservatism just doesn't sell. They are searching around for the "next big thing" that will be just different enough from what the Democrats are offering to give people a reason to vote for them. It will most likely end up being some bastardized version of libertarianism that pretends to be more pro-business than the Democrats.
After all, we're going to have to invigorate the business climate if we're going to be able to afford all of the goodies our fellow Americans need and cherish.
“I have been very certain that the US Government spies on everyone they can and has done so for at least a decade.”
The very first database of Big Brother overtly spying on Americans started with driver’s licenses.....then came Social Security.....then military service numbers. However, that was just the start.
Rules #3 and #40 also apply in this case. Thanks for the head-slap.
I psychologically evaluated many patients. Some were schizophrenic with or without hallucinations. One day the lady I tested was in a mental hospital and she was sure the Mafia was after her. She had taken her children and hidden in the woods so the Mafia wouldn’t find her. I searched her background to be sure she had no reason to think the Mafia was after her.
A psychologist friend and I discussed this case and I said I made sure there was no reason for her to believe the Mafia was in her life. The psychologist said, “Yes, if we tested Jesus Christ today, we’d put him in a mental hospital because we would not believe anything he said.”
We had a responsibility to be sure the patient could not be telling the truth. Would we put a tin foil hat on Jesus Christ today and put him in a mental hospital? Don’t make hasty decisions on what you are told until you check it out thoroughly - what you hear or read might be the truth.
The obamacon is the single biggest con job ever pulled anywhere in recorded history, but we just don't know it...yet.
And, with that, I yield the remainder of my time.
your husbands sausages
cheese... moose... sister...
With all that said, I need to take a shower.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.