Subject:
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Re: An armed society...(what if?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 25 Jan 2002 16:08:14 GMT
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Viewed:
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1885 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> In our nation (and every nation?) those with the power of wealth have a large
> amount of power over the laws of the land. They wield this power to assure
> that they keep their wealth. What degree of conspiracy is going on?
In what way are you asking? Do I think that a number of corporations are
working independently, but simultaneously, to further their own wealth?
Certainly, and the factions of each company are likely "conspiring" to
achieve that end. Are several companies working together to a single end?
Probably. Are these various and separate companies part of a single,
sprawling, Korporation Konspiracy such as has been suggested elsewhere in
this thread? I really doubt it, and I'd need to see solid evidence to
convince me otherwise.
However, the net effect can be very much the same, I grant you, so maybe
that's why conspiracy theorists insist on connecting every dot to every
other. But without dropping into another of our endless absolute vs.
relative morality debates, consider this: If I meet in secret with four of
my friends, and we form an elaborate scheme to murder you by running you
down with our car as you cross the street, do you find that "conspiracy" to
be a greater problem than if my friends and I accidentally run you down? If
so, I'd ask why the result of the intentional conspiracy is worse than an
identical result by a non-conspiracy. If not, then I'd ask what is the
point of even worrying about a conspiracy, since its existence isn't
significant to the result? In the first permutation, my friends and I
represent five corporations conspiring toward a shared end, while in the
second example we represent five corporations that just happened to achieve
the same end.
I submit that a bad end resulting from conspiracy is worse (more bad) than
a bad end resulting from accident or coincidence.
> If rich guy X figures out a great new law and presses his senator to make it a
> part of the tax code and then rich guys Y and Z read about it and love the
> loophole it will open for them, so they press their senators to support it, is
> there a conspiracy?
No. At least, not between X, Y, and Z, unless you're suggesting that X, Y,
and Z met to discuss and plan their exploitation of the loophole. X and his
senator, and Y and his senator, and Z and his senator may have conspired
individually, but I don't see how that's the same as a Big Conspiracy among
all six of them.
> How big does the C have to be before you/we find it troubling?
I like that articulation of the question!
Again, it depends on what we are trying to find troubling. Are we bothered
by the fact that X is doing something wrong, or that X is conspiring to do
it? I would be quite annoyed if X does something wrong, and much more
annoyed if X had conspired unlawfully to accomplish it. I think that's why
conspiracy to commit a crime is itself a crime, in some cases.
Let's say (hypothetically, of course) that X is a big company (in, say,
the energy industry) and the executives of X hire firm Y to serve two
conflicted interests (like, I don't know, Accounting and Auditing). Let's
further posit that the executives of X specifically coordinated an effort to
misrepresent the strength of the company, the value of the company's stock,
and the prospects for future growth, despite the fact that the executives
knew about the company's impending doom. Let's additionally suppose that
the executives actively liquidated their own stock when it was at a high
value, that they later prevented employees from doing the same (even when
the stock was tanking), and that the false assurances of prosperity
themselves prevented employees from making informed stock desicions. And,
just for fun, let's imagine that company X played a major role in a recent
Energy Council meeting. All hypothetical, of course.
Would that be a conspiracy? I'd say so. How many people were involved?
Who knows, but probably upward of a few hundred. How wide was the scope?
Not very--it was limited chiefly to the company itself and, hypothetically,
a few government employees.
Now, was the end made worse because it was an end orchestrated by
conspiracy? I'd say so. However, it is a plot within a single (admittedy
large) hypothetical company, but it's not a conspiracy across companies and
nations.
That, again, is what I'm describing. A conspiracy can obviously exist,
and can even involve dozens of people. I don't accept that a single unified
Conspiracy is at work trying to usurp our gun rights or to keep quack
homeopathic "medicine" out of the mainstream or to establish One World
Currency. There are others (but not you) who see A Single Hand at work in
all things.
> There are 'rich guys' out there teaching the sheep how we can start to exploit
> these same loopholes.
Can we please include "sheep" accusations in Godwin's law, too? I mean,
I'm not in the habit of calling conspiracy-theorists "paranoid, raving,
credulous buffoons," so I find it petty and annoying that non-believers of
conspiracy theory are called sheep.
> it rings of other conspiracy conversations that I've had in which
> conspiracies were passed off as impossible simply as a premise. Why?
> Were the events surrounding JFK's death a (or part of a) Conspiracy? How
> many (or few) people had to be involved? Fifteen maybe?
Watergate and Iran/Contra are other good examples, as was the bombing of
the WTC, and I agree that all of these certainly involved conspiracy.
My objection, though, has always been to people who identify every
misdeed, malfeasance, and impropriety as part of some huge and insidious
Plot by the Secret Masters to Control Us. As I mentioned, a conspiracy can
involve as few as two (or one, I suppose, but those aren't usually listed as
conspiracies). A Capital-C Conspiracy is, to me, not a matter of height,
but rather of breadth
Umberto Eco has written eloquently on the difficulties of maintaining
exactly that sort of conspiracy, though I'm annoyed that I can't recall the
title of the particular essay at the moment (no doubt I'm subject to
mind-clouding rays projected by the Tres).
> I have been involved in conspiracies (of a much less significant nature) with
> nearly that many people who seem to have kept secrets for over a decade.
But the scale or significance is the key, not to mention the "two can keep
a secret if one is dead" bit (was that Twain?) I mean, I'll come clean and
confess that I (along with several "illuminated" buddies) conspired to
switch locks on about two dozen lockers back in high school, and none of us
broke the code of silence until I did just now. But as the number of
conspirators increases, the chances of any one of them spilling the
beans--even accidentally--increases as well. A huge and insidious
multi-national Conspiracy, whose perimeter is everywhere and whose center is
nowhere, is unlikely.
Here's a link on a related discussion:
http://skepdic.com/illuminati.html
Overall, you seem to be saying that several small conspiracies are
equivalent to One Big Conspiracy, or at any rate that there is no difference
between small and Big. If not, could you elaborate on your precise intent
and opinion? I've commented on a lot here and may have missed the kernel.
Dave!
(hiding under my desk so the High School Locker Conspirators can't find me)
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: An armed society...(what if?)
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| (...) Like any self-respecting and haughty high-born conspirator, I much prefer the term "great unwashed" to "the sheep." So let's go with that please. (...) Actually, I think existence of such is mandatory, but you say unlikely, how fascinating. (23 years ago, 25-Jan-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | The Sheep (was: An armed society...(what if?))
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| (...) exploit (...) I'm not sure if this was tongue in cheek or not, but just in case... In this segment of my note, the sheep were not the conspiracy nuts, they were the masses of people who, not knowing how to take advantage of the system (and (...) (23 years ago, 26-Jan-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: An armed society...(what if?)
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| (...) not (...) [snip] (...) In our nation (and every nation?) those with the power of wealth have a large amount of power over the laws of the land. They wield this power to assure that they keep their wealth. What degree of conspiracy is going on? (...) (23 years ago, 25-Jan-02, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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