Yes, but what you describe is a conspiracy - just one that you were in on! I mean this was a most awful conspiracy to persuade Americans and others to acquiesce to a very dangerous war on completely false pretenses! The fact that something extremely important can be hidden from most people because the media have been persuaded not to report it or investigate it, is terrible in a democracy.
Indeed, without the ready cooperation of the news media, most of the conspiracies - including that to destabilise President Trump - could never have got off the ground!
Perhaps this is only a semantic argument?
David
David,
Yeah. Maybe there is some semantics involved, but there's more to the argument than that, IMO.
Looking at the dictionary definitions of "conspiracy" the trend is to define it as a
secret plot to do something that is
unlawful or harmful.
1. For national security reasons, lots of things the government does are, out of necessity, "secret". So it really isn't fair to assign the label of "conspiracy" to activities, that by their very nature, must be secret. Sometimes I get the sense that people think that there should be no secrets. Well, that is impossible. Should the govt have told the press and the world that on June 6, 1944 troops are going to hit the beaches in Normandy? How about the capabilities of our spy satellites? How about the names and methods of our intelligence operatives that are penetrating Islamic terrorist networks? How about the true long term goals and bottom lines of diplomatic negotiations? Of course not.
2. That qualifier of
unlawful leaves a lot of grey areas in the picture. If the govt wanted to promote the mass use of psychedelics (which I am highly skeptical of) it wouldn't have been unlawful because LSD wasn't illegal at the time. Certainly studying psychedelics wasn't a crime per se. Giving aid to jihadi groups in Syria was actually unlawful because there are laws against aiding and abetting terrorists. Is a little white lie about an enemy torpedo boat to help nudge the public to accepting a war to stop the spread of communism a crime? If a govt agency wants to help dairy farmers and, to do so, promotes a food pyramid that suggests that consuming more milk and cheese is beneficial, is it a crime? Or is it just a form of advertising? I said up-thread that I only think that a legal definition of criminal conspiracy makes sense.
3. If the govt is doing something that many people know about and the media fails to report it to a wider swath of the population, is that a crime? Or, more generally, is controlling the flow of information a crime? What responsibility does the citizenry have for informing itself? There is nothing in the Constitution or the body of law that I am aware of that says the media must report fairly and accurately on each and every topic that might be of interest to anyone. If the media does a sloppy job is that a crime? If the media cooperates with govt agencies and insiders to only report on certain stories and in certain ways so as to maintain connections and info flow, is that a crime? It might stink and be suboptimal for the populace, but is it a crime? If some media outlets have ideological bias and they allow it to leak through into their reporting, is that a crime? How would you remove bias from humans? How would you remove sloth and stupidity? Maybe you'd let the free market function and let people decide to access alternative sources of "news" (which is what is happening today). Where is the crime? Again, people just being people is not a conspiracy; even if you wish people could be a little more stellar in their conduct.
4. Since conspiracies must be unlawful by definition, then shouldn't legal standards of evidence and proof be required before we decide that a conspiracy has occurred? But I don't hear that from all the promoters of conspiracy theories. It's all rumor, innuendo and conjecture that would never pass the "beyond the shadow of doubt" or "Beyond reasonable" standards of the court room.
5. Many laws have an
intent component. Is simply falling into a classic group think situation participating in a conspiracy? If people really believe something, even if it isn't real, and then act on what they think is in the best interest of the country and it all screws up and creates a real problem, it that a crime?
6. If a group of people - say wealthy power brokers - gets together and decides that the world be a better place (or more profitable for the group) if governments would do certain things and then they ask people in governments to do those things, is that a crime? What if the governments generally agree that the group has come up with some good ideas and the governments actually more or less go along with the plans the group promoted? Is that a crime? Or is it just people being people?
An example would AIPAC and America's dedication to Israel. Yes, AIPAC spreads a lot of money around Washington ("It's all about the Benjamens" a mean double entendre said by a nasty sort in Congress recently). But does anyone seriously think that the USA would abandon Israel if not for the money? What with all of the Christian conservatives? I think not.
So, you see, by the criminal/unlawful standard that the dictionary says must be present for something to be a conspiracy, most topics that conspiracy theorists like to discuss, really aren't conspiracies. Rather, just people being people. True that maybe a lot of other people don't like what they are doing, but nowhere in the definitions of "conspiracy" is there anything about the interaction not being liked by a critical mass of people.
In other instances the "secret" standard is met, but not necessarily the criminal aspect. The government, by definition in matters of national security, must maintain secrecy.
But mostly I object to the poor standards of evidence that conspiracy theorists apply. IMO, a good idea would be for some wealthy donors to establish a mock court. Get lawyers to take on these conspiracy theories, pro and con. Put them before randomly select juries. Call in expert witnesses. Really do it. Then let an impartial jury decide.
Oh...ever notice that these conspiracy theorists never take their cases to court. I mean if you really believe the govt was behind 9/11 and blew up the World Trade Towers (f'ing idiotic, btw), then why the hell haven't you gone to court with all your proof? You could
at least bring action in civil court on behalf of one or more of the victims families. Right? So? Where is the case? Not one single case? Yeah, because no one thinks that their stupid conspiracy theory would hold up under legal standards........so much better to just keep quacking away to zombified true believers on the internet than to put up or shut up.
Sometimes the theories do end up in court and are soundly defeated, yet they persist - for example the idea that law enforcement is committing a genocide against African Americans (despite there having only been around 12 unarmed blacks killed each year by law enforcement nationwide and most of those involved an attack on officers). When these cases go to court, the court rules in favor of Law enforcement and, in many instances, the "racist" system is run by black mayors and black police chiefs and some of the officers directly involved are black. Conspiracy theories are resistant to contrary evidence.
Here we run into another problematic aspect of conspiracy theories. If the theory was ruled against in a court of law, then the theorists would just say that the court was in on the conspiracy. These "theories" are in violation of Popper's rules;
they are unfalsifiable. Any contrary evidence just becomes part of the conspiracy.
Also, in fairness, I think there is a pure entertainment aspect to the conspiracy theories. They're the camp fire stories of the modern age. So let's enjoy, but not get too serious about them