A Few Good Men...

A little while ago, an oil geologist friend of mine recommended that a I read a novel called, "The Shell Game." My friend said that the author, Steve Alten, had come up with a pretty impressive piece of conspiracy theory. I'm not much of a fiction reader-- particularly modern fiction but my friend strongly suggested that I read it. He simply said, "People actually believe this." So trusting my friend as I do, I decided to give it a read.

First, let me say that it's an impressive piece of fiction. Well written and timely, I definitely enjoyed the time I spent with this book. Do I recommend it? Sure, it f you are a sane, rational adult who has some sense of how the government actually works. Unfortunately, this book will appeal to stupid people just like The DaVinci Code. Alten goes to a lot of effort to surround insane suppositions with actual fact, giving his conspiracy theories the whiff of the truth. In that sense, it is an impressive piece of work. Obviously, he has an axe to grind with neoconservatives. But just as obviously, he's pretty unclear about actual neoconservative doctrine. Admittedly, the term has been co-opted by members of the current Administration but I'm of the belief that if you are alluding to scholarly discipline, you really ought to have some of it.

The thing about well written conspiracies is the fact that you cannot conclusively disprove them. The DaVinci Code was replete with this type of innuendo. The Shell Game is well-written and well-thought out (for the most part). Occasionally, it went to far in trying to tie up loose ends which only served to distract from the weight of it arguments. Be that as it may, it would be pointless for me to dissect all the little fallacies and misconceptions that the author complied to tell his story. Still, I do feel like I need to address this conspiracy nonsense. So here it goes.

First, let me start with my nemesis, Rene Descartes. I'm sure readers of my blog are quite sick of hearing me rage against him. Well, too bad. Personally, I never tire of besmirching Descartes-- such is the malice I direct toward him. His philosophy for determining validity is the source of an incredible amount of stupidity. To those that are unfamiliar with this, I will briefly explain. Descartes believe that you determined the validity of an idea by testing it against your own experience. This form should be recognizable because this is what most people do. Now, admittedly, on a day-to-day level, this modus operandi is fine. But what if you encounter an idea that is beyond your realm of experience? Do you automatically label it invalid? If so, how do you grow? All real growth is dependent on experiences that expands your understanding;that forces you to question your conception of the world. Descartes simply doesn't allow for that. More than anything, his form is a justification for ignorance.

Sp what does this have to do with conspiracies? Hang on, Im getting there. A good friend of mine hates Fox News. Vocal and virulent in his hatred, he rarely misses an opportunity to malign the network. I asked him why one day. His answer was that Fox was biased. I asked him how did he know? Was he ever involved in any situation that made Fox News? Could he disagree with the reporting from a first-person point of view? He could not. I pointed out that the only way he could accuse someone of bias is if he was personally involved in that event. Otherwise, it's just another uninformed opinion. I cite this example as a classic example of the negative effects of Descartes. Another friend once said that Fox was biased because most of the country is liberal. I asked him why he thought that. He answered because most of the people he met were liberal. I offered that this was more a factor of where he lived, worked and socialized (San Francisco) than what was actually the state of the country. It's pretty easy to have a skewed view of the country if you use the Bay Area as a meter. I think Berkeley just discovered that fact.

The funny thing is this. People who believe in conspiracies rarely know a soldier, government agent of any anybody for that matter who makes his living where the rubber meets the road. I'll tell you why I believe above all reasons why we actually landed a man on the moon. Because those men, John Glenn, Gus Grissom and their brothers are simply not the sort that would lie to America. Not a huge lie like that. You don't get to that position without displaying the strongest ethics and character. Those men would not and could not have been coerced into such a charade.

Let's look at the World Trade Bombing. Lost of silly people believe this to be an internal demolition. These same people often learn about explosives from the internet. The thought is because the building collapsed under its own weight that demolitions were placed at its foundation. I'm not going to get into the physics of this because that's not the point I'm trying to make. What I will say is this. People would have had to place those explosives. Those people would have to had been very good at their jobs and more importantly, proven their reliability on other clandestine jobs for God and Country. You would not use a rookie for something like that. Men who are chosen for that kind of work have to display tremendous reliability and intelligence. They are also judged on their patriotism. After all, you wouldn't train a man to do all manner of dangerous things if you thought there was the possibility that he would use those skills against you. Now given all that, does anybody reasonably think that men like those would willingly kill American citizens on such a grand scale? Or is it possible that these men who are often highly educated in civilian schools could be fooled so easily into thinking that it was for the "greater good?"

The sad thing is that most of the people here in San Francisco do think it's possible. But that's only because they usually don't know any of the type of men I'm talking about. Unfortunately, those men are in short supply in the Bay Area. Berkeley should thank God above for the United States Marine Corps. It's highly unlikely they could muster enough good men to defend themselves from a marauding band of Lilliputians.