I got an email about a conspiracy this morning. According to an article in Pravda, a woman in Texas has filed a lawsuit alleging all sorts of abuse from George ‘Dubya’ Bush.
I don’t want to make any judgements about the woman, but… Reading the actual article reminded me of something reported in News of the Weird a couple of years ago:
1994 — From November until late February, Brenda Butler Bryant filed 335 lawsuits in federal court in Philadelphia, accounting for one-fifth of all new cases; each one, said Judge Jay Waldman, was “frivolous” and unintelligible. He quoted from one against the Social Security Administration: “Big Mac? Slave Master Now? No slave ain’t master now. Ride them cowboy. Terrorist, radicals and militants in authoritative roles to provoke violent crimes Cecil B. Moore.” Several recent filings have included, as co-plaintiffs, The Pep Boys, whom Bryant describes as her sons.
Granted, it’s not quite that bad, but it is still reminiscent of the whole “Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster Killed!” blather that occasionally gets vomited by some of the more extreme right-wingnuts.
Basically, all that Pravda has is that someone has filed a rather lurid lawsuit. Anyone can do that. What matters is how you do it… I mean, if you’re not going to win based on the merit of your case, you need to try to get points for style.
Here are a few pointers for aspiring conspiracy theorists:
- Try to find the most insignificant or pointless details about the event. The more bizarre the better. Every inconsistency or unexplained detail you can dredge up can be offered as evidence of a conspiracy. If a single glove is found at the scene of a crime, ignore any possibility that the glove may have nothing to do with the crime!
- If there are contradictory detials, omit them. If there is missing information, draw attention to the fact that it is missing. By hinting that there is more to your story than you can safely say, you make it seem more ominous.
- Even the most direct denial can be cast into doubt if you play word games. Rely on words such as ‘allegedly’ and ‘supposedly’ to dismiss hard facts.
- While we’re on the subject, personal statements provide huge opportunities. Anyone denying that there is a conspiracy must obviously be benifitting from it, right? Once you’ve attached them to the conspiracy, any denials they make can be cast into doubt. This is most effective if they chose to use from a ‘spokesperson’ or even better, an ‘attorney.’ Nobody honest would hide behind a lawyer, after all…
- The more bodies you can find, the better. And make sure every death is presented as ‘mysterious!’ All accidental deaths are ‘suspicious,’ and every self-inflicted death must include the phrase ‘ruled a suicide,’ to imply just the opposite.
- When an actual autopsy contradicts a ‘mysterious death’ theory, dispute it; when none was performed because none was needed, claim that ‘no autopsy was allowed.’
- If someone dies of undisputably natural causes in the middle of important events, then the timing itself should be made as suspicious as possible. Heck, go ahead and call it convenient…
- Most importantly, don’t let facts and details stand in your way! If your chronology of events is impossible, who cares? It’s not like anybody is going to check up on this stuff . . .
I’m sure I’ll come up with more guidelines later… I’ll post them to the comments if I do.