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These were some of the first articles I posted on my website. I did not put dates on my documents at that time, but they were written around 2003 and 2004. Contents
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1) Tear JerkersI would divide conspiracy theories into three categories. The first is the “Tear Jerker” category. These are the “Feel Sorry For Me” theories. It is difficult to avoid crying when you hear these sad theories. This category of conspiracies shift the blame from the majority of people to a small group. These conspiracies are the most popular because people enjoy pouting, and we prefer to blame somebody else for our problems. We like to imagine that we are an Underdog who is abused by the Overdogs. We want people to cry for us, and we want to cry for ourselves. The Drug Dealer Conspiracy is an example of this category. It shifts the responsibility for drug use away from the drug users and onto a small number of drug dealers. It encourages us to cry for the drug users rather than tell them to be responsible for their behavior. The Helpless Voter Conspiracy is another example of the Tear Jerker category because it shifts the responsibility for our government away from the voters and onto a mysterious group of evil people. It encourages us to cry for the American people rather than tell the voters to be responsible for their government and quit blaming our crummy government on some small group of lobbyists, Neocons, or Special Interests. The Liberal Media ConspiracyAnother conspiracy in the Tear Jerker category comes from Republicans who believe a small group of evil liberals are in control of the media and are giving us idiotic news reports. We could call this The Liberal Media Conspiracy.Some Republicans are so serious about this that they paste bumper stickers on their car with such messages as “I don’t believe the Liberal media”. I agree that American news reports are at the 12 year-old intellectual level, and I agree that our news reports are primarily sexual titillation and entertainment rather than news. However, I don’t believe we are helpless victims who must spend our lives feeling sorry for ourselves. We can have better news reports whenever we want them. It may be true that a small group of liberals dominate in our media, and it may even be true that those liberals are conspiring to destroy America. However, they are not forcing any of us to buy their stupid news magazines or newspapers, nor can they make us believe what they tell us. As with drug dealers, the people in the media can only offer their products for sale and hope that we purchase them. We can easily refuse. The proof is people such as myself. By the end of high school I had become so disgusted by the television news and the commercials that when I left home at age 19, I made a decision to never get a television or subscribe to any newspapers or news magazines. If everybody in America was like me, every newspaper, news magazine, and television station would have faced bankruptcy long ago, and they would have reacted by providing more intelligent programs. Also, companies would have reacted by making more intelligent and informative advertisements. Nobody is forcing us to watch television news, nor is anybody forcing us to subscribe to newspapers or magazines. Rather, the American people are choosing to give financial support to companies that offer stupid news, sexual titillation, and Hollywood gossip. As with drug dealers, the news reporters are simply offering the American people what the American people want, with no regard to whether their product has any value. Unfortunately, it’s difficult for most people to face the possibility that the television news is stupid because our friends, relatives, and neighbors prefer the stupid news. We don’t want to blame ourselves or our friends for the problems the world suffers from. We want to shift the blame from ourselves to some mysterious group of evil monsters. We want to make excuses for ourselves and our friends. We want to feel sorry for ourselves and our friends. Therefore, we avoid telling our friends and relatives to stop providing financial support to the companies that offer stupid news reports. Instead, we try to convince ourselves that our friends watch stupid news because some small group of evil liberals are trying to destroy the nation. Or, if you consider yourself a liberal, you will blame the crummy news reports on the right wing extremist, Republican, Neocon, fascist, Nazis. Some people blame the crummy news reports on Jews or Zionists. Some Christians complain the media is controlled by atheists. Regardless of who you blame the crummy news on, you are feeling sorry for the American people rather than encouraging them to take responsibility for their behavior. Dollars are VotesIn a free enterprise economy, consumers decide what the news reports will be like. Every dollar you spend is a vote for the particular product and the particular company that you spent the money on. The American people determine which companies and products survive according to how they spend money.For example, by purchasing millions of Harry Potter and other fiction books, consumers create an enormous demand for fiction books. By purchasing billions of dollars worth of drugs, they provide tremendous profits to the drug dealers, or to the CIA if the accusations of them dealing drugs are true. There is an incredibly large gambling industry in America because millions of Americans love to gamble. A lot of people complain that organized criminals started the city of Las Vegas are in control of many gambling operations. However, all gambling operations would have gone bankrupt long ago if there were no customers for the gambling. Organized crime syndicates might operate the casinos, but you are I are not required to become their loyal customers. The Dumbing Down ConspiracyAnother conspiracy in the Tear Jerker category is that the American public school system is dumbing down the American children. I would call this the “Dumbing Down Conspiracy.”According to this theory, a small group of liberals, neocons, fascists, atheists, religious fanatics, Nazis, or Zionists have gotten control of the American school system, and they have created schools that cause wonderful children to become lazy, irresponsible, and stupid. I went to public schools in California, and I will agree that our school system is pathetic. In fact, I was in high school when I came to conclusion that our school system was lousy. For example, there were no courses that taught useful skills, such as carpentry. The school didn’t even explain what a home mortgage was, or what the difference is between adjustable mortgages and fixed-rate mortgages. Our school systems did not seem to be preparing us for the world. I became so disappointed with our school system that I never bothered going to college on the grounds that it would be just a waste of my life and money. I came to the conclusion that I could learn faster on my own. Although I believe our school system needs to be redesigned, I don’t believe our school system is capable of turning us into idiots. Or have I been dumbed down so much that I don’t realize the Dumbing Down Conspiracy is true? I’ve seen news reports that claim Asians and Jews do better in school, and better in jobs, than other Americans. Do Asians and Jews have some resistance to the dumbing down process? If so, is it because of the food they eat? Or is it genetic? Or is it something their parents do? I also hear that students in Europe, India, and Japan do better in school than American students. Is that because the Liberals, or which group you believe is responsible for the Dumbing Down process, have not yet acquired control of the school systems in those nations? While I agree that the American school system is lousy, I don’t believe that schools make us into idiots, nor do I believe that we are helpless to fix our schools. We can make a better school system any time we want. However our school system is not going to get better unless we do something to make it better. Nothing improves by itself. We have to discuss how to make our schools better, and then experiment with some of the proposals. But that requires we get a better government, and it requires we stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start realizing that we are not helpless victims. It’s difficult for parents to face the possibility that their children are “average” or below average. Instead, most parents convince themselves that their children are geniuses, and that their children appear stupid only because a few evil people in the school system have caused them to become stupid through a mysterious process called “dumbing down”. Since there is no “Smartening Up” process for parents to use to counteract the Dumbing Down process, we are helpless to stop this Dumbing Down. I find it amusing that many Republicans who believe in the Dumbing Down Conspiracy do not accuse the school system of dumbing down President Bush.
Perhaps the
Republicans are
correct that the liberals are
dumbing down the students, and perhaps George Bush is one of their
greatest achievements.
Or perhaps the reason
George Bush
got elected is that the schools have
dumbed down the Republicans so much that they can’t distinguish between
leaders and
unemployable rich
kids.
Climb Down From Your PedastalMost people will always be what we call “ordinary” or “average” simply because that is the definition of those words. And a large percentage will always be “below average”. Most people do not have any exceptional physical or mental abilities. Only an idiot would believe that it’s possible for most people to be “above average.”Unfortunately, this is a difficult concept for most people to accept. Most people prefer to fantasize that they and their children are geniuses, and that the reason their talent doesn’t show is because some mysterious group has dumbed them down. Everybody’s natural tendency is to assume that they are flawless specimens of the human race. When I’m home alone, for example, I think of myself as a normal man. It is only when I go out in public and see other men that I realize that I am very skinny and weak. After being home alone for a day or, I return to my normal condition in which I consider myself to be an ideal specimen of the human race. Then when I go out in public I am once again reminded that I am skinny and weak. This cycle has been going on for decades. My mind cannot completely adjust to the fact that my body never grew to a normal man’s size. I suppose this cycle will go on for the rest of my life. In case you think I’m exaggerating about this, just take a look yourself and the people you know. When you are home alone, don’t you think of yourself as one of the most educated, intelligent, and talented people? And when you go out in public, don’t you often discover that you are not as special as you thought? Leaders should be Impressive, not DisgustingWhen we have a government of alcoholics and lunatics, we feel superior to our leaders. By comparison, if we had intelligent, respectable people in our government, the citizens would be reminded every day that most of them are just “ordinary” people.An intelligent government would help keep the arrogance of the citizens under control. The government we currently have is making our situation worse because it causes people to feel superior to their government. The Devil’s Music ConspiracyAnother conspiracy in the Tear Jerker category: the Devil’s Music Conspiracy. This theory was most popular in the 1950’s and 1960’s. It is similar to the Dumbing Down Conspiracy because it claims that wonderful children are transformed into freaks. But instead of blaming this transformation on schools, this conspiracy blames it on Devil’s Music.Perhaps this theory developed when people noticed that most of the people who attended rock-and-roll concerts were very badly behaved. Some would scream during the concert as if they were insane, many of them had drug or alcohol problems, and many of them had criminal backgrounds. I was 8 years old when I watched the Beatles on their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan show in 1963, but I could not hear the music because the women in the audience were screaming so much. I was only 8 years old, but even I was wondering what was wrong with those women. Why go to a concert if you are going to scream so much that you cannot hear the music? And why are the audiences at classical music concerts so much better behaved than the people at rock-and-roll concerts? My assumption was that rock-and-roll concerts were attracting a lot of unhappy and neurotic people. However, many adults came to the conclusion that rock-and-roll was transforming wonderful teenagers into lunatics. This then led them to the conclusion they must stop rock-and-roll music in order to protect the American children from brain damage. Parents of badly behaved teenagers do not want to face the possibility that their children are badly behaved due to mental disorders or lousy parenting. Instead, most parents want to blame their badly behaved children on something such as rock-and-roll music, or the school system, or South American drug dealers. But blaming the bad behavior of children on rock-and-roll music is ridiculous. Some of the people who listen to classical music, bluegrass, and other styles of music also listen to rock-and-roll, but the rock-and-roll doesn’t cause those people to become lunatics. We can see the same situation with alcohol, food, and credit cards. There are lots people who drink beer, eat food, and use credit cards without ever suffering from alcohol problems, obesity, or credit card debt. Unfortunately, not many people want to take responsibility for their problems. The Tear Jerker type of conspiracies are extremely popular because they make us feel good about ourselves. These theories allow us to fantasize that we, our family members, and our friends are the most educated, the most intelligent, and the most responsible people. These theories allow us to shift responsibility for our problems onto some group of monsters. By the way, the fact that millions of Americans believed in the Rock-And-Roll Conspiracy is evidence for the theory that the government killed musicians in an attempt to protect the American children from the Devil’s Music. Have you noticed that lots of musicians died from overdoses and accidents during the past few decades? Were all of the deaths truly accidents and suicides? Or were some of them murders? It is difficult to figure out because it’s easy to disguise their murder as an accidental abuse of drugs. And many musicians have such strange and unhappy lives that we are not surprised when they commit suicide or die in fights with each other. During the 1960s and 1970’s, as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and other entertainers died of drug overdoses, I was thinking to myself, “Musicians certainly are stupid.”
Brian Jones, of the Rolling Stones, drowned in his swimming pool in 1969. A 27-year old man in better physical shape than most of us, cannot figure out how to swim in his own swimming pool. What sort of idiots are these people? How can such stupid people create music?
When Elvis Presley died in 1977, visions of children appeared in my mind. There were kids in my junior high school drinking more alcohol and using more drugs than Elvis Presley, but they never died. My conclusion was that Elvis must be even stupider than I thought he was.
A book from a person with the pseudonym Salvador Astucia has evidence that the FBI killed lots of musicians. The FBI wants us to believe that musicians are simply too stupid to take drugs and swim. But after reading Astucia’s book, I think the FBI was a believer in the Devil’s Music Conspiracy, and they decided to protect the American people by killing musicians. It makes me wonder if the plane crash in 1953 that killed Buddy Holly was really an accident. Maybe the FBI protected us from that guy, also. The USA: Land of PoutingAre these Tear Jerker conspiracies as popular in other countries as they are in America? Did Britain’s version of the FBI believe in the Devil’s Music Conspiracy and help the FBI kill musicians? Do other nations blame South American drug dealers for making them take drugs? Do other nations complain that their school systems are dumbing down the children?It seems that all nations believe in these Tear Jerker type of conspiracies, but they seem more popular in America. I think the reason is because America has always had a strong Feel Sorry For Me attitude. America has attracted a lot of people who like to promote the fantasy that they are Underdogs who are abused by Overdogs.  American children are raised in a society that encourages us to believe that we are being mistreated and abused by mysterious people. We are encouraged to blame our problems on other people, and pout over our helplessness. Growing up in America is like walking through a forest infested with ticks. You have to constantly stop and look at your opinions to see if you picked up some of the self-destructive attitudes of your fellow Americans. Unless the American people stop pouting and hating, and start becoming responsible, I don’t see how this nation will survive. |
