The Illuminati want your money or something…

It’s been a little while since I came across a thread on the net that managed to wrap up a healthy dose of common conspiracy and new age concepts into one thread. Due to privacy issues with the community it is on I can neither show you the original post nor identify the person who started it.

What I can do is summarize. In short, the thread combined the following assertions:

• The BDSM tendencies of many people are the result of government mind control experiments similar to (or the same as, it isn’t clear) the old MK-Ultra program.
• Movies and television shows contain subliminal mind control messages making you want to buy stuff and remain dormant.
• Disney is in on it.
• Remember, if you don’t believe in government mind control that just means you are already a zombie!
• This mind control program is a globe spanning, multi-national conspiracy. While the “Jews” have not yet been blamed, I am sure it is only a matter of time.
• Predictably, the primary proponent of these theories has a history of personality disorder symptoms – all to be blamed on government experimentation.
• Government lotteries are simply a tool to keep “the poor” stupid and docile.
• Something called the Baha’i Faith is the true path to enlightenment and happiness as well as the antidote to the previously mentioned globe spanning conspiracy.
• Student loans are a tool of the vast globe spanning conspiracy to turn you into a slave by tricking you into a college degree that won’t make you any money. or something.
• Socialism is good.
• Karma is a real thing, enforced by universal energies.

Anyway, I am going to record my responses here for future reference. Eventually this will be useful for both a Herdwatching post and my upcoming book.

“No offense… but the globe spanning conspiracy theories that spring up around stuff like MK-Ultra is usually just paranoid ranting backed by confirmation bias and cherry picking. The source site also tends to buy into the old Illuminati conspiracy stuff as well… so I woudln’t really take too much of what it says seriously. We are well into "the government is listening in through my fillings" territory here.

While certainly projects like MK-Ultra have existed and do exist – one of the things they have shown is that deep, lasting control over innate human behavior is very, very hard and the pressure required often results in a mind that is only barely functional.

The web is full of stories from people who think they are the target of government plots – from black helicopter abduction to a guy who is positive the newscasters on the BBC can see him in his living room. They often have what they feel is compelling evidence but when you see it through a lens that is at all objective it becomes sadly clear that they have managed to work themselves up into a state where they reject anything that doesn’t fit their theory and fold and bend anythign else until it does fit.

In short? No. I have seen absolutely no evidence that the government is performing widespread mind control experiments. Not only that there is no evidence that even suggests a practicl technology for this to occour.” – Soulhuntre, about 13 hours ago

and…

“The word brainwashing simply does not mean what you think it means. Nor do those things have the power you think they do… even in the places where they might conceivably be tried.

Even in countries with totalitarian style control over the media the population is far from homogeneous and far from brainwashed. In a nation like the US or many other Western nations the free flow of information makes literal brainwashing impossible.

As for the rest of it – the "poor" don’t revolt because there is nothing to revolt against, and no advantage to doing so. What do you think "the poor" would revolt in favor of? To establish socialism? To demand communism? Anyone with eyes has seen the nightmares those systems lead to. Anarchy? Does anyone really think that is the best idea?

money ($) is far from the source of corruption – it is the counterbalance to it. Monetary systems are what allow free men to trade with each other and benefit each other in mutual productive trade. A system that did not have a legal tender in place is a system that breeds slavery, corruption and abuse of all kinds.

Those tax return incentives absolutely are a feel good measure by politicians – but the issue of tax imbalance is not what you think. The wealthiest taxpayers pay the overwhelming amount of money in the United States, for example. A look at the released preview data for the latest tax report shows us that the richest 1% of tax filers will have paid more than 40% of the income tax burden. The top 50% will account for 97% of all federal income taxes, while the bottom 50% will have paid just 3%.

The idea that the "rich" are soaking "the poor" is factually untrue. The idea then that they have to (let’s let aside that they couldn’t in the current system) brainwash us to accept this doesn’t make any sense.

One of the things we see again and again with websites like the one cited who support these types of conspiracy theories is the belief that they have somehow "seen the truth". It must be a powerful temptation to believe oneself the voice of reason in the face of a global conspiracy. It must be a powerful ego boost to believe that as one of a select group you (generic you) see behind the veil while all the sheep lay dormant.

It’s the same thing whether the conspiracy is the Illuminati, some 9/11 theory, alien abduction, the "new world order", black helicopters or the government using mind control beams. The same theories, the same tactics, the same draw to the faithful.

The thing is – it simply isn’t true. We are not a world of moronic easily led sheep kept docile by a cabal of secret masters polluting out minds” – Soulhuntre, about 5 hours ago

and (discussing student loans now)…

“You made an agreement to pay back that money. I am curious as to how you consider yourself to have been forced. You are no more a slave to your student loans than I am to my car payment. It is unfortunate you used that money int he service of a low paying career… but again that is not anything you were forced to do.

In effect someone loaned you money you did not have but wanted the use of… they did not force you to take it. It is surprising you would be somehow feeling ill used because they might want it back.

I know plenty of people who manage to live within their means… including myself. Those who cannot are not the victims of a government plot but rather their own mistakes or maybe even individual misfortune.

If "the media" was capable of "driving the masses" you would see a far less divided, far more predictable and far less contentious world than we have.

Again… I can see how tempting and seductive it is to believe that people who don’t see the world the way we want them to are under the control of some evil force. It simply isn’t true. Not only is there no evidence for it (hard or soft) but there is no evidence (hard or theoretical) behind the mechanism that are postulated for enacting such control.” – Soulhuntre, about 3 hours ago

and (contending that I will “just argue” no matter what they say)…

“When your premise is that there is a vast multinational conspiracy using mind control techniques to force people to take out loans and potentially become involved in BDSM I would have to say yes, I probably wil

l
argue.

(asserting that Americans are not taught to think or handle money well) – and yet millions and millions of us do exactly that. In fact the vast majority of people I know manage to live within their means quite nicely. If this is a mind control system, it’s deeply broken.

[snip]

(telling me to go look up the Baha’i Faith ) – I did the first time you mentioned it. There isn’t very much there that is any different. Another faith with no objective evidence that claims to be able to unify all the people of all the other faiths. As a bonus, it preaches that workign for the good of society is effectively a form of worship. If your worried about mind control, you might want to start right there. Any faith or belief system that tells you you have a duty to work for the good of others is preaching slavery. Any faith or belief system that professes the moral right to confiscate the result of your labor and give it to someone else is advocating that you sacrifice yourself on the altar of society.

(calling for “free” health care) – there is, of course, no such thing. Since health care requires resources both physical, intellectual and effort it has a very definite cost. What you actually want is for someone else to pay for it.

(proclaiming a fondness for socialism) – this is not at all a surprise 🙂

To bring this back onto your topic – no, I don’t thing that BDSM is populated by those who have been driven to it by a vast government mind control conspiracy” – Soulhuntre about 2 hours ago

and (asserting that we are responsible for “the weak”)…

“since this is the core moral argument you make and support my question is simple – why? What claim does someone else have on my effort, my resources or my time? In what manner and by what authority was I born a slave to the needs of another human being?

I earn the money I have with my own effort and my own talents. Whether I earn 100$ or $100,000,000 nothing about this reality changes – it is mine. By what right does anyone gain the ability to demand or expect that I turn something I own over to others?

If I am a millionaire do I suddenly LOSE the right to keep what I create? Is there something shameful about success that means I now unlike others no longer have the freedom to benefit from my skills but I must work for the benefit of others?

Because that is the moral road your beliefs lead to. They demand that those with the ability to earn and create labor as slaves to those who have neither. That the more someone can earn the less rights they have.

And that’s just crazy to me.” – Soulhuntre, about 33 minutes ago

For now, that is all.