Nah man, you're wrong--we totally can never overthrow the American government with rifles. Get fucking real bro. That time has passed--and the entire logical/reasonable thought construct that led to the inclusion of the provision the citizens should have the right to bear arms has all but disappeared. This did not come out of "not liking tyrannical leaders" but rather out of concern for the very real and present damage they had done to our particular situation (as colonists/early Americans then). It was a fail safe against what had plauged the world for 1000 years or more.
That trend is now gone, and it is due in large part to this policy. I'm not saying take everyone's guns away, but the policy itself is rather moot if you take into account the historical significance and meaning. This is akin to laws that govern the ways in which slave ownership was regulated.
They don't matter, we can't have slaves--the shit is over.
To steal a quote from Dexter (forget who said it): The fat lady isn't singning, she's getting dry humped in her dressing room.
As far as conspiracy theories dude, look man--I am all for you having the right to think what you think. What I'm not for is your right to go around being aghast at people and calling them names and treating them as something less than yourself because they "just can't see" or "don't want to see" the NONE proof that you have. All of that nothing is pretty hard to look at, and I just don't appreciate being called a moron, or a conformist, or a sheep, or what-have-you, because I choose to deal with what is tangible and right in front of my face.
I'm a scientist, that's sort of my thing--I apologize ever so much for it, but you'll have to forgive me if I change nothing about myself in accordance with the zero proof you've brought to the table.
Your concept of proof and mine are very different from one another's and this is something else which I can readily accept--but again I would appreciate the same respect from you.
Over the course of our exchanges on the boards, this type of respect and goodwill has been slowly withered away. Hey, I'm a dick sometimes--I take responsibility for my half, if you take responsibility for yours.
What I'm not going to do, is say nothing and be a doormat for someone who is effectively calling me out and saying I'm the fool--when it is my firm belief that he, in fact, is the fool.
Your folly does not bother me, and I'm even willing to discuss it politely and with an open mind--so long as it doesn't seek to implicate me personally. That is not the form arguments of this sort should take, especially when we can at the VERY least agree that there is some dispute about what the truth really is.
If we start at that point, and agree the truth is disputed--we can exchange our ideas with mutual respect. Often we will disagree, if not always. I think that's probably outlined better in this instance than anything. I mean, saying that 20 fuckin 5 year olds being murdered is a government conspiracy....to me that's downright wrong to go there. It doesn't make sense, what you're saying.
You think there's a conspiracy by people who want to reduce gun violence to use gun violence to drive that forward? That they'd just sacrifice some kindergartners? It doesn't make sense, where is the money in this? In political corruption, you follow the fucking money--I don't give a shit what you say. Have you ever been actually active in politics? Like in a political office, or even at an election hq?
I have. It's the money, bro--I promise.
What is this going to sell? Less guns?
That's retarded.
I'm not saying nor did I EVER say that no conspiracy theories have merit.
As a scientist, my skepticism is built into the fucking word itself honestly. It's a theory, that's a thing--with a discrete meaning, and for all intents and purposes that meaning is you don't have a fucking clue.
At the very best you can call it an educated guess--but in reality its more like a guessed guess. You go around and dig up shit, and you guess thats credible--and then you see something else and you guess something about it because of the other thing you guessed was credible--and you just build and build and build like this.
What I want you to know dude, and this is for real, is that this is a psychological pattern. This is how EVERYONE who gets waaay to into conspiracy theories acts, by and large. This is a medically elucidated and studied schema.
You can take that one of a few ways:
1. It's nothing, continue (my guess for what you'll do).
2. Think about it for a second and dismiss it.
3. Believe that this validates you, because other people also develop their thoughts in this way.
4. Realize that maybe you should take a step back from all the "research" for awhile and just live life as if everyone isn't out to get you, or everyone with power isn't out to exploit it, or everyone at "the top" aren't all in cahoots. I.e. just take a fucking breath of fresh air from this shit, even if only for awhile--realizing that it's absolutely caustic to a person's personality.
5. Realize that perhaps you have a problem. (I honestly don't think this is a case, because you don't seem like a true crazy--you just seem like you go waaaay too far with this stuff, and you're almost in the habit of trying to draw connections with everything now).
6. Fuck you, Squiggly.
I'm not trying to therapize you, I actually dated a chick who went around to all the doomsday preppers, conspiracy theorists, and what-not in our area for her psych thesis. She developed a VERY CLEAR profile that you are following, that was present in EVERY SINGLE one she could find--even those from other literature.
This doesn't necessarily say you're crazy, so don't think I mean it that way: it doesn't even mean the preppers or whatever were crazy. What it says is that this is patterned thinking, and that was the point of the thesis.
What it might mean, if you want to turn this on it's head--is that you're just as much a sheep as the rest of us, you're just a different breed of sheep.
Like I said man, the mind tricks us--it wants to draw all these connections, it wants things to make sense, to fit together, to feel right. That's not some touchy feely shrink shit--that is science. Functional MRI has demonstrated this notion CLEARLY. It's one of the most well studied things in psychology, and it is why eyewitness testimony is so untrustworthy. Your brain inserts things where there are holes. If you set out to solve something, you will--you just might not be right.
Your brain can, will, and does trick you into forming complete thoughts out of incomplete ones.
What the chick found with her research was basically that, yes, there is a pattern here--and also that there was a progressive deterioration in terms of their opinions versus the norm (non preppers). The longer they identified themselves as having followed this type of conspiracy/doomsday mentality--the more out of whack their scores were.
I'm not saying you're nuts, I'm just saying--if they're all out to get us, they'll all be out to get us a few months from now also. The rebel cause doesn't need you on board 24 hours a day, especially not if it DOES end up causing you damage.
I don't know who's right or wrong--I can't be more clear about that. Maybe I'm the crazy one for not listening to you--may be. I just actually happen to give a shit if someone is trying to do the right thing by exposing bullshit (of which there certainly IS plenty going on)--and they end up damaging themselves instead. It's something to look out for, it IS NOT A DIAGNOSIS AND IT IS NOT AN ACCUSATION OR AN ATTRIBUTION. I am qualified to make none of these. It is ONLY food for thought.
All I know is what I know, and that's why I stick to what I know. If you can't bring me proof to disprove what I know--then my belief/opinion isn't going to budge a nanometer, because I didn't come to my beliefs and opinions lightly.
So as for the loaded argument about whether or not I need documents in my face or I won't believe anything--no, I'm not that critical, but I'm also not impressionable or suggestible.
I need something, anything, solid to hold on to before I can go thinking the government killed a bunch of people--be they workers in a tower, or kindergartners. I don't believe the government is efficient or well-oiled enough to pull off any of what you're suggesting.
They're all a bunch of morons, like the rest of us--that's plain to see. To my mind, there is no uber "shadow agency" that magically has its shit together in a world where no one else does.
We're all a bunch of fuck ups and it's shows, across all nationalities and distinctions. I don't think the argument really NEEDS more than that in order to explain all the stupidity in the world.
I'm a scientist, dude. PLEASE TELL ME you are intelligent enough to grasp why I don't just believe what you say, and why I question a lot of your "proof". If you truly don't understand that, then it is certain that you need a break from your "conspiratorial" activities.
Scientists deal in certainties. Accuracy and precision--that's all I'm asking. You just categorically never have that in these arguments. Never dude.
A lot of what you say has merit to it, and god damnit you give a shit. That's important--not a lot of people give a shit anymore. However, consider this: if what you say is true about all these conspiracies and what not--then you and I are even more clueless than I think we are.
That only makes your assertions more unreliable in the end. Even if you're right--you're probably wrong.
Someone who thinks they "cracked the conspiracy" (the source of most of your information) is usually nothing more than a person who really needs to feel important, and doesn't--yet.