Conspiracy Theories and the Government

[dcan]

The people who believe this stuff have little to no understanding of basic physics or economics. I see it now with the "Amurika wants an internet kill switch to take over your facebook!" Sorry, looking somewhat from the inside, they have no idea what they are screaming about. But because these things affect national security, the people who know can't talk much about the issues, which cedes the playing field to the other team. And the public doesn't know who is right, just that one side is making claims and the other side does a sometimes lousy job refuting them.

Even when people know the truth there are those who intentionally lie to gain power like this. In the 1980 election Reagan was killing Carter for ending the B-1 bomber program. Carter finally had Reagan read into the F-117 and B-2 programs in the design phases, and explained that the B-1 bomber was a piece of crap that had no business flying and was foisted on the public by contractors pushing around Congress. Reagan said "wow, that's really impressive, thanks" and walked out to his next stump speech screaming about how Carter was weak on defense for killing the B-1 project. And Carter could say nothing in his own defense, just like Eisenhower couldn't until the Garry Powers shootdown proved he wasn't asleep at the wheel after all.