You’d never know it to look at me, but I love a good conspiracy theory. I’m a pudgy little mother of four, college-educated, a food writer… I quilt for Pete’s sake. But, part of me loves the creepy feeling I get from haunted houses, Stephen King and a nice, juicy conspiracy theory.

I think I've figured out why people get addicted to these theories. They love the idea that the world is not random at all. One skinny nervous dude couldn’t have shot the greatest president who ever lived (choose your own skinny dude and greatest president). Surely something like a little PLANE couldn’t bring down two of the most neat-o skyscrapers ever. Jim Morrison can’t DIE.

Yeah – that stuff.

I love the little hairs on the back of my neck standing up when I see what I call a “nose presser” photo, blown up to 2000x its possible sane resolution so I can see what might be a shadow of a something under a wing of a plane… that moment of doubt makes so much more sense than the idea that regular human beings just DECIDE to become suicidal terrorists bent on causing mayhem. The “Evil Government” idea is a much more comforting option than someone human who breathes, feels and possibly loves Scooby Doo stabbing someone with a box cutter and trying to kill as many people as they could with a plane. Nah…

We all know in the back of our minds that anything can happen at any time. This idea that - indeed - chaos reigns, is in a brain file somewhere between other intelligent realities like Friday being garbage pickup and “righty-tighty lefty-loosey.” When something bad happens – I mean really bad – it’s our job as American adults to stand around and say, “Gosh, I didn’t think something like that could happen to US!” The random event doesn't have to be collective. When it's your house, your car, your kid, your life that goes boom - it's our societal responsibility to say, "HUH?" It's a lie - but a comforting lie.

Conspiracy theories help us believe that the world is not quite that random. We all know that we’re statistically more likely to be struck by lightning and gang raped by sharks holding a winning PowerBall ticket with newly prehensile thumbs than we are to ever be involved in a terrorist attack. We also know that our parents had the Cuban Missile Crisis and a string of political leaders that got shot. Shit happens, kids. Hold on tight.

It’s been almost a decade since 9/11. JFK is in grainy black and white. My kids call Julia Child “That old-timey cooking grandma.” There are red M&Ms again. Last time I flew, I didn’t look around playing “Spot the Sky Marshal.” I was much more concerned at the sad state of the beer selection. (Corona, PBR and Heineken? Really?) Personally, I enjoy not the conspiracy theory itself, but rather the fight and the proof it’s crap. The straw man arguments are HILARIOUS. It’s like Sudoku for your creepy side to watch two geeks of equal vocabulary but staggeringly incongruous levels of common sense rip each other to shreds over minutiae.

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Geek #1: Here are 250 audio recordings of trained firefighters and policemen saying that the WTC collapses sounded like demolitions.

Geek #2: Are you aware of the definition of the word “simile?”

Geek #1: “Are you questioning the experiences of the surviving firefighter heroes of 9/11? That is REALLY vile.”

Geek #2: “Where is the evidence of explosives?”

Geek #1: “The towers came down and the firefighters said it was a controlled demolition. Aren’t you paying attention? The fires couldn’t have brought down the towers. Steel doesn’t melt until over 2000°F, the fires never went over 1200°F. Explain that!

Geek #2: “The steel didn’t melt. It was compromised. No one ever said the steel melted.”

Geek #1: “There was molten metal in the basement.”

Geek #2: “Was it proven to be steel?”

Geek #1: “Who says it wasn’t? Besides, if it was aluminum, that could be evidence of thermite.”

Geek #2: “I hate you.

Geek #1: “Your mother’s a whore.”

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Yeah – that’s about how it goes.

How could I NOT be entertained by that? If you don’t believe me, go check out the movie Loose Change. (Link is to a debunking watcher's guide, but the links are there.) Then check out their forums. Just in case you need the warning - here are their forum rules:

...if you are a self-professed "skeptic", please note the following arguments will be either ignored or erased, as they have no merit:

 

• "too many people would be involved, so your conspiracy is bogus"
• "all the people involved must be paid off, so your conspiracy is bogus"
• "you guys are still alive, so your conspiracy is bogus"
• "our government is too dumb to pull this off, so your conspiracy is bogus"
• "our government would NEVER do this, so your conspiracy is bogus"
• "screw you guys, your conspiracy is bogus"
• "you guys are all in this for the money"
• "you guys are all Bush bashers"
• "you guys are all Liberals"
• "you guys are all nuts"

That pretty much frees up the forum for an open discussion of facts, doesn't it?

So, now that John McCain is in the news for being attached to a bunch of conspiracy crackpots through some random hoop-jumping and an Arizona sheriff, one must wonder, what’s the harm? What IS the harm in a bunch of folks sitting around trying to make an elaborate wrought iron fence out of Occam’s razor?

It seems to me that unfortunately the ability to believe that a minimum of hundreds of government employees could knowingly commit mass murder on national television also lends itself to being able to believe lots of other things. Find your friendly neighborhood white supremacist and ask them several questions without interjecting your own thoughts. Ask them where Obama was born. Ask them what happened on 9/11. Ask them whether we should have the legal right to execute illegal immigrants. Ask them who killed JFK. Then, if you haven’t already been beaten to death for laughing at them, ask them what they think of the Arizona immigration law.

In the past few months, John McCain’s previously conciliatory and rather sane immigration stance (I'm being kind - see?) has dissolved into “How fast can we build that wall?” I suppose that political analysts have decided that the votes he loses from his base by not pushing for an electrified Mexican repellant system at the border were outweighing the possible Hispanic vote he might gain by being semi-centrist.

Now the white supremacists, conspiracy nuts and militia whackadoodles are involved. In spite of the fact that I can tell you exactly who SAYS they saw Jim Morrison’s corpse before it was interred in Paris, I can’t follow how they are all connected to John McCain. But, I do know that I like being on the side of the people who believe that folks are just folks and maybe they shouldn't be shot on sight.

Somewhere between Mohammed Atta and Mother Teresa lie our neighbors – both in the world and in our homes. Some neighbors are jerks. Some neighbors are meth junkies. Some neighbors break the law. Some neighbors are like Hazel that lives behind me and obsessively picks at leaves wearing long sleeves and jeans in 104° heat.

 

They are all human and sometimes chaos reigns.

It's hard work to change our government. It's hard to decide how to deal with people coming into our country illegally. It's hard to decide how to alter tactics or policy to avoid terrorism or prevent it through security. It's really easy to say we have no choice. We can blame it on Obama or Bush or Clinton or Bush Sr. or Reagan or... but in the end, there's a reality. There are dead bodies - bodies of our border patrol officers, bodies of illegal immigrants, bodies jumping out of an office building on fire - which of these are we responsible for and which can be blamed on politicians?

People often ask me at this point - What's YOUR answer?
That's where conspiracy theories really come into their own. It's a comfortable place to be when you believe that you don't have any power to control your own destiny other than what you and the militia of your choice might do. It relieves us of the responsibility of illegal immigrants being shot dead in our names because if we really had any control then we'd be responsible for that, wouldn't we?

I'll be thinking about that while I vote.


Read all about it:

John McCain's Race Problems on The Daily Beast

Screw Loose Change

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See what I do when I'm not pissing you off.

That photo of Hazel is MINE.
MINE! MINE! MINE!
I had to take the chance of that old bat seeing me photographing her through the back door - so if you steal it, I will turn you into a toad.