Are Conspiracy Theories a Threat to Democracy?

Skeratch
Skeratch Members Posts: 1,395 ✭✭
edited October 2010 in The Social Lounge
Yea:

CHIP BERLET
SENIOR ANALYST
POLITICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES
WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, OCT. 15, 2009
conspiracy theories are not harmless. They are exaggerated stories falsely portraying a scapegoated group as plotting against the common good. Throughout the history of our country, mass movements have been built around conspiracytheories targeting witches, Freemasons, Catholics, Jews, immigrants and “Reds.”

In the 1800s, an angry mob near Boston was so enraged by conspiracy stories about Catholic priests and nuns that it burned a convent school to the ground. Between 1919 and 1921, thousands of Italian and Russian immigrants were rounded up and deported by our government based on conspiracy fearmongering falsely targeting them as subversives and terrorists.

The McCarthy period illustrated the damage conspiracy theories can do to a society. The administration of President Bill Clinton was sidetracked by waves of conspiracy theories claiming he had ordered the assassination of a key aide or was plotting a U.N. takeover of America with jackbooted troops arriving in black helicopters.

Now the “birthers” and other conspiracy theorists circulate false allegations that President Obama is not really a U.S. citizen; is planning to merge the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a North American Union or that he is a secret Muslim plotting more terror attacks. The xenophobic and racist subtext here is clear. Some people have acted on these base and baseless claims. Since Obama’s inauguration there have been nine murders where the alleged killers have been entangled in white supremacist or anti Semitic conspiracy theories.

James W. von Brunn, accused of killing a guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., feared a conspiracy
of Jews and Freemasons to control the world and keep white Christians subjugated while at the same time elevating blacks to undeserved positions of power. Other conspiracists blame Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans, feminists and ? people.

The recent “Tea Party” protests and town hall disruptions are awash in conspiracy claims and false and misleading information.
Democracy is based on informed consent — not myths and lies woven into conspiracy theories. It is unlikely that conspiracy theorists will overthrow the government. They can, however, poison the body politic; distort
and derail public policy debates; spread bigotry and paranoia and wind up some people so tightly that they commit acts of violence against targeted scapegoats. Conspiracy theories are toxic to democracy.

Nay:

JOHN E. MOSER
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY
ASHLAND UNIVERSITY
WRITTEN FOR CQ RESEARCHER, OCT. 15, 2009
angry right-wing talk radio hosts suggest that financier/philanthropist George Soros is secretly pulling the strings of the Obama White House, while equally angry “birthers” deny that the president was born in the United States. A few years ago, we heard from the left that the election of 2000 had been “stolen,” that 9/11 was an “inside job” and that Halliburton, the global oil field services company once headed by ? Cheney, was secretly behind the war in Iraq.

Conspiracy theories do seem to be everywhere in today’s society, although, like body odor, they are generally things that other people have. Are they a threat to our democracy?

One might be tempted to say so, until one recognizes that conspiracy theories have an old and distinguished place in American political history. It is hard to imagine that the War of Independence would have been fought had Britain’s American colonists in 1775 not been convinced that George III was actively plotting to enslave them. New Englanders were convinced in the late 1790s that the country had been infiltrated by members of a secret organization known as the Bavarian Illuminati, and Thomas Jefferson, it was claimed, was one of their agents.

Nor is it likely that there would have been a Civil War — or the subsequent destruction of slavery — had it not been
for Northern claims of a “slave power conspiracy,” matched only by the Southern notion that their neighbors to the North were intent on destroying their way of life. Fears of communist subversion shaped the 1950s as surely as theories over who shot President Kennedy influenced the 1960s.

Some may claim, however, that conspiracy theories pose a greater danger today because they seem to circulate so quickly.
This is certainly the case, thanks largely to so-called “new media” such as talk radio, the Internet and 24-hour news networks. Moreover, thanks to the Watergate scandal, Americans today understand that major conspiracies can, and do, exist. Yet what is striking about so many of the conspiracy theories that have found adherents throughout American history is that they all purport to identify threats to our form of government.

In addition, they represent a deep distrust of traditional authority, whether it be the government, corporations, the mainstream media or “the experts.” In other words, far from being a danger, the presence of such theories — as silly as most of them are — might actually be seen as a sign of a healthy democracy.

Comments

  • b*braze
    b*braze Members Posts: 8,968 ✭✭✭
    edited October 2010
    As ? as I think most conspiracy theories are... I'm gonna have to agree with the "nay" statement
  • Skeratch
    Skeratch Members Posts: 1,395 ✭✭
    edited October 2010
    b*braze wrote: »
    As ? as I think most conspiracy theories are... I'm gonna have to agree with the "nay" statement

    The nay is convincing, but I think the disinformation many of these theories spread are a blight.
  • ThaChozenWun
    ThaChozenWun Members Posts: 9,390
    edited October 2010
    Yes I do.

    While most are not, a few can be.
  • Alkindus
    Alkindus Members Posts: 1,677 ✭✭✭
    edited October 2010
    No, as long as democracy is a facade...an illusion of that people in general have power, that our votes count etc

    a conspiracy theorist tells us lies, just like a politicians tells us lies, makes falls promises and pretends he or she is not influenced and/or financed by interest groups/multinational companies, in fact politicians in democracies worldiwide are like marketeers they all spread straight up ? , sell ? to the people...

    how can a conspiracy theorist be a threat for democracy when democracy itself in practice is as flawed as communism is in practice? Isn't Obama on Goldman Sachs/Bernankes(read wallstreet) nuts? isn't Rutte (fresh dutch prime minister) on Royal Dutch Shell's nuts(read : rotterdamse haven/dutch wallstreet lol)?

    Conspiracy theorists in general are nuts.....but sometimes they 'warn' us, we just think they spread ? because their plight is so unplausibel we cannot believe it......I mean who would believe the likes of Bill Gates want to reduce the worlds population and tend to do that with vaccins in 3rd world countries which basically destroys the sperm/eggs of our less fortunate bros n sistas? = actually happening which freaks me the ? out and ? me of
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] rubbed off from friction Posts: 0 ✭✭✭
    edited October 2010
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
  • And Step
    And Step Members Posts: 3,726 ✭✭✭
    edited October 2010
    A Conspiracy is a plan. Point Blank. It is not a theory. People add theory to it to make people think it is a possibility and not a real actual happening. The Slave Trade was a conspiracy. The American Revolution was a conspiracy. Decimation of the Native populations was a conspiracy. The Pharmaceutical and Food Companies paying off politicians and influencing FDA officials to sanction their poisonous products for the public market is a conspiracy. Heck, the CIA and FBI openly admit there duty is to conspire.

    Everything is a conspiracy when it comes to Big Business and Government.

    They conspire all the time. It's just it is hard to connect the dots because they disseminate all this false information to throw people off.
  • Skeratch
    Skeratch Members Posts: 1,395 ✭✭
    edited October 2010
    Some excellent reasoning here.
  • tdoto88
    tdoto88 Members Posts: 751
    edited October 2010
    damn both were well written... Im in between, but leaning more towards the yes side. Although the nay does bring up good point, too many conspiracy theories are far-fetched & based on false or exaggerated claims.