Conspiracy theorists are in the news a lot these days. These people are crazier than shithouse rats, but they are not in any way new to the world.
I am sure there are those who believed that it wasn’t really Jesus Christ who died on the cross and that it was all just a big plot to make Pontius Pilate and the Romans look bad. There were probably those who thought the Bubonic Plague was a hoax and didn’t really wipe out millions of Europeans in the 1300s. Anne Boleyn was never beheaded, William Shakespeare was illiterate and never wrote any plays, if there even was a William Shakespeare, and the two world wars of the 20th Century never happened.
Of course, in our day, there was no moon landing, Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy, George W. Bush personally lit the fuse which caused the twin towers to explode and fall and Saddam Hussein is alive and well and running a bakeshop in Baghdad with his partner Osama bin Laden. And, naturally, the Titanic is still in one piece and doing just fine in the sea near Newfoundland and rich people helicopter onto its deck all the time and use it for weekend hideaways.
All through the ages, being the sheep that we are, we keep getting the wool pulled over our eyes. But at least in the old days, conspiracy believers tried to come up with some evidence for their claims. Never-before-seen videos of Kennedy’s killing that proved a new and shocking theory, engineers who say the planes couldn’t have possibly brought the towers down, only explosives set at the base of the buildings could do that.
But now, in 2021, there is a whole new approach to conspiracy mongering. In the past, nutjobs had to make at least a stab at coming up with some evidence to explain their insane theories. But now, no evidence at all is required. In fact, the absolute absence of any evidence is all the evidence you need to declare that “they” are hiding the truth and that “they” are so good at it, that no one can even find the evidence.
Because through all these centuries, “they” have just been getting better and better at concealing what only a few special people among us can see.
So the best conspiracy people nowadays are those who have not a shred of evidence for any of their claims. They should become lawyers.
“Your honour, I have absolutely no proof that the accused man sitting here murdered his neighbour on the night in question.”
“Guilty!” yells the judge. “Lock him up!”
Sounds about right.
©2021 Jim Hagarty
