"Conspiracy Theorists" are Truth-Seekers

Truth Seekers

A "conspiracy theorist" is a truth-seeker, whether or not they find the truth. 

Wow, what a loaded term that is today! So many people don't even care about what a "conspiracy theorist" thinks or says, they've been that turned-off to someone that simply wants the truth. They've already decided what these people are: extreme, ignorant, dangerous, misguided, maybe even insane. Definitely nothing useful, or good. How is it that this is where we find ourselves regarding people who simply want to know the truth? Let's put aside the absurd notion that these people have mental issues or are just seeking attention or just need to do something crazy to find some sense of adventure and purpose with their life. While those things might be the case for some, or even many, that does not discount the pursuit of truth. It's important to understand that these people are potentially what keep society from falling into complete and total darkness, For example, a good journalist must be willing to potentially be labelled a "conspiracy theorist" to simply follow the facts wherever they may lead. With that said, let's move forward.

Those who dig into narratives and "truths" that they do not find as satisfactory in their explanatory power should not be shunned or ignored. They should be celebrated. Why is it that one person can be perfectly fine with an explanation, but another person is not? Sure, sometimes they're looking for a "deeper truth" that just doesn't exist. But I guarantee you that's not always the case, and we should be cautious to confer judgement in this area too hastily, simply because the truth is too important. Like in the example I give below with Ignaz Semmelweis, what if you believe a lie, and you act on that lie along with many other people? That lie is likely to produce a very large and damaging effect.

So why have truth-seekers received such a strong negative reaction from a large amount of otherwise good people, people who I assume also want the truth? There are two main reasons I believe this occurs:

1) People conflate the inability to know something 100% with the idea that it's useless or even potentially dangerous. They want to be told by experts and authorities what's true before they're willing to believe something. This is a major lesson taught in the American public education system - certified experts teach you what you need to know, get outside of that realm, and you're likely to come across all varieties of liars and information that can't be trusted. Ultimately, the idea is that you, as an average person, can't determine truth for yourself. Sadly, many believe this line of thinking, even though most of the greatest minds in history failed formal schooling or ignored the standard methods whereby "expertship" must be attained.

2) Messaging from the media virtually nonstop says that "conspiracy theorists" are nuts and wacky, all the while rarely addressing actual topics or arguments. Frequently they will cherry-pick something that's easy for the audience to see as absurd, but they don't give all the pertinent information. It's undeniable that these media outlets often lie outright, or omit critical truths, but people are generally too lazy to question them. Usually these media organizations serve to reinforce a person's preconceived notions and bias about a given topic, so convincing them that someone they disagree with about X topic -- especially when that topic delves into hidden motives and sinister intentions -- is a liar is very easy...you simply slap the "conspiracy theorist" label on them, and you've got yourself a word that signals the exact opposite of what it actually means. The truth seeker is now a "liar".

Let's be clear about one thing off the bat: the truth does not exist simply because somebody told you what's true. No expert, no matter how smart or qualified, has the power to determine truth by fiat. They should always be questioned and verified. Obviously if they've become an expert in something, they have had to investigate, to dig, to spend time uncovering the various intricacies of the subject, there has to be a logical flow of the pieces involved, and while the end result of the research might seem paradoxical at times, for the expert to be validated in each bit of information given, their claims, their evidence and data have to corroborate their claims on the deepest, most fundamental levels.

Science & the Search for Truth

This naturally leads us to the topic of science. Science is a concept virtually sacred to our modern western world, because it aims to find the truth about any and all aspects of reality. It is definitely a noble endeavor. A scientist is a truth seeker at the core. A scientist develops a hypothesis based on all of the available evidence and data, then they set about to test it, to disprove it, to observe and analyze what's going on. Whatever the outcome, the truth will come out BECAUSE of the scrutiny, the testing, the deliberate thought and energy being put into digging and working hard to understand what's going on. It's key to note that without the theorist, you never have a scientist, and you'll never arrive at the fact of the matter, that's how science works.

Of course, we can have bad scientists that don't do the appropriate work and verify their results, or they make up data to claim a discovery where there's nothing to discover. Lies and fraud and laziness undoubtedly taint the scientific endeavor. This is true for anything, including truth seekers who are labelled "conspiracy theorists". Obviously we shouldn't give up on science simply because some people aren't as good at practicing it than others. We call out frauds and liars and we carry on, we learn from our mistakes, and the practice of science is strengthened.

It is instructive to ask the question: Why might a good scientist be hated? Or worse, why might they be silenced? Or jailed? Or even worse yet: murdered? These questions are very important, we know these things happen. Some of the most important and earth-shattering discoveries in history were made by scientists who were absolutely despised by the so-called experts of their day. This cannot be overemphasized in its importance. Those who assumed to guard the truth, and were seen as guardians of truth, were the exact people that sought to suppress the truth. If you think something about humans has fundamentally changed recently so that we're now immune to this, then you should probably just stop reading.

Detectives are Conspiracy Theorists

Sherlock Holmes is a popular example of a conspiracy theorist. There's a reason why we're attracted to his character, not only does he seek to find the mystery of the truth through theory and testing, but also because he's indomitable in his search for the truth. That mode of existence is right, and we all know it when we participate in it by watching and reading the stories. But we often don't approach our own reality that way. Unfortunately, we leave it to the authorities and the experts to tell us what happened, there are other detectives out there doing the work for us. It's sad, but even if their explanations don't make sense, or the suggested solutions go against what we know in our gut to be good and true, we often don't even ask basic questions. Have we lost the ability to think for ourselves? In many ways, I think we have.

Fortunately the truth does not care about what you believe, reality does not bend to your opinions, however well-formed or sensible they may seem to be at the time. We humans are creatures that will protect vehemently the ideas that allow us to stay comfortable, protect our ego, or validate the beliefs that seem to give us a sense of purpose and meaning within this life, where the unknown is ever-present and often terrifying.

Making Truth-Seekers Seem Extreme

It's very important that the term "conspiracy theorist" be seen as a pejorative for those who wish to deceive, because the social pressure to conform often outweighs someone's desire to find the truth. And the larger the lie, the more courage that's required to tackle it. It takes work, it's frequently not self-evident.

The masses have been trained to turn away from any person labelled "conspiracy theorist", and therefore the ideas associated with them. This works well for those who otherwise have a good capacity to reason. It's a signal to the herd: danger, this person will lead you astray, entertaining their ideas will also label you, your social status is at risk. People who use "conspiracy theorist" to discredit people are manipulative and cowardly, ignore them, you're capable of uncovering and understanding reality for yourself.

All throughout history we see the outcast often used as a scapegoat, they are on the extreme fringes of society and must not mingle with the herd, lest they be corrupted. Many cultures even ritualized this dynamic, it was extremely important that people stay in their boxes when it came to the system of control, otherwise the existing "order" set up by those ruling may quickly be seen for what it is: a sham, a house of cards, a complete and utter lie.

If you're skeptical of the need for "conspiracy theorists", then ask "who benefits from people not scrutinizing lies or inconsistent information?"

The idea is that a "conspiracy theorist" is talking about ridiculous and foolish and ignorant ideas, and likely dangerous if believed. They are said to deal in unknowables, unprovables, and theoreticals. The goal is to prevent you from thinking through the facts and information for yourself. Honest scrutiny of a lie will eventually lead to the truth. Thus some "fact checkers" will provide you with the pertinent information to "debunk" these truth seekers. Thinking for yourself is not necessary, they've protected you from yourself.

The truth is not always obvious, and often the lie can convincingly cover up the truth because there are things you may not understand or know. Many people have a hard time thinking that something could be a planned and deliberate conspiracy simply because it's unlikely or difficult to carry out without someone spilling the beans. But there are numerous examples of large-scale conspiracies that were kept under wraps for decades. It's not only possible in theory, it's happened in reality. Arrogant, ruthless, and evil people seek to hide their corrupt actions from the light of truth, they will go to great lengths to do this. Not only are large-scale conspiracies possible, but it would be odd for a conspiracy NOT to exist where dishonest people want to gain power, control, influence, wealth, etc.

Ignaz Semmelweis

A simple historical example provides an interesting window into the reality, and profound humanness, of conspiracy. We can look at Ignaz Semmelweis, the Hungarian physician and scientist that spoke what we now know to be a simple truth: disinfecting one's hands prior to invasive operations massively reduces the likelihood of infection, and therefore mortality related to certain infectious diseases was drastically reduced. With the case of Semmelweis, it was dealing with mothers in labor. He showed that mortality with mothers after giving birth had dropped drastically due to implementing basic hand-washing hygiene. When he announced his findings, the medical community around him was furious that they were implicated in causing such easily-preventable death and misery due to puerperal fever. All he did was seek the truth of the matter, he was honest and simply wanted to figure out how to prevent these mothers from dying. He held to his position against the arrogant medical establishment of his day and they ended up tricking him into an asylum, where he died shortly afterwards of a head injury he received from the guards. 

Sometimes, we think we're immune from this sort of mindset today. That is a very arrogant, and ignorant, position to take. We must be open to all possibilities that might follow from the evidence. Also, it's OK to admit that you don't know. There's conflicting evidence and you're still looking into it.

There is an important lesson in the case of Semmelweis, in addition to the obvious (hopefully it's obvious that we should not assume or label those who present opinions that go against the commonly held beliefs, or "truths", of the day). That lesson is that average people, such as normal doctors in Semmelweis' day - when their assumed beliefs and views are challenged - are willing to go to any length to silence someone who exposes their errors, flaws, or lies.

If average people are willing to go to great lengths to attack a person for something we now see as obvious and probably absurd, it's easy to see how a conspiracy about something on the level of nations, governments, elites, and billionaires would indeed be extremely likely.

Think for Yourself

No, it's not your job to solve all the world's conspiracies and uncover every one of them that have ever occurred. But it is your job to be thorough and honest when you come to a conclusion about something important, especially if you're going to be vocal about it or dismiss or attack others for their approach or conclusions. And please, if you claim to care about science, don't pretend to use a scientific approach when you don't.

Why the term "Plandemic" best describes COVID-19

You Can't Prove That!

I'm not privy to documents or phone-call recordings of someone being quoted as "OK, now is the time! Let's carry out our plan to release the sars-cov-2 pandemic". While there are lawsuits being taken up against specific individuals that show premeditated planning for this so-called pandemic we're going through, I'm working with a process of logical deduction, where all of the available facts point extremely strongly to an orchestrated plan. And it's good to remember, the devil's in the details. I want to help you see that by believing in the standard narrative, you are actually committing a very strong act of faith. I would say it's likely that you're not aware of many of the facts. If you care about facts then continue to read this article, which is merely an introduction to showing that this global catastrophe seems to have clearly been orchestrated. In this day and age, everyone should be aware that they need to dig deep for themselves if they want to be sure of anything that's reported in the news today.

A Couple Big Holes

The standard narrative is full of holes, literally from the very start. Let's take the idea of zoonoses (making the jump to humans) via the so-called "wet markets". We know at least some of the initial cases in China had no contact whatsoever to these markets. There goes that idea. But also, we have the reality of zoonoses in the natural environment taking decades to evolve to the point where it would attach to human cells to replicate. That process magically happening all of a sudden because of someone coming in contact with it in a market is extremely unlikely. The animal thought to be the origin of the virus, the bat, was reported in a scientific study of the market to not even have been sold there...another strike against the foundation of those who seek to defend the idea of a natural pandemic. They're touting this stuff still like it's an actual explanation for what's going on, it's not. It's disproven nonsense.

A Few "Coincidences" 

Perhaps you haven't heard, but there was some simulating going on the month prior to the first reports of an outbreak in China. This was called Event 201, a pandemic tabletop exercise executed by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security along with the WEF and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They tell us this exercise "did not make a prediction", but instead "modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic", which "included a mock novel coronavirus". That's an insanely wild coincidence if I've ever heard one.

But, we have more coincidences that we're told to just ignore; as if basic reason and deduction are less important than believing uncritical media reporting, which is a good sign that we're being fed what to believe. There was research going on in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), research with coronaviruses, from bats. Bats with SARS-like coronaviruses collected by EcoHealth Alliance, advised by Dr. Scott Dowell, who is also the Deputy Director for Surveillance and Epidemiology at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as the lead of the Gates Foundation's COVID-19 response team, and converses regularly with colleagues in the WHO. This research was a continuation of the research being done in Fort Detrick, in Maryland, part of USAMRIID. David Franz, former commander at Fort Detrick, is also an adviser for EcoHealth. In 2017, Franz visited the Wuhan Institute and outlined “possible joint project ideas”, which included carrying out joint “table top exercises” or simulations of outbreaks, decision-making surrounding “gain-of-function” research, and “overcoming barriers to sharing strain collections and transport of pathogens”.

Making the Leap

Many people don't understand that these bat coronaviruses can't just jump into humans. This process takes time, a lot more time in nature than it does in the lab - many decades more. You see, what labs such as WIV do, is speed up this process for what's called "gain of function" research. They passage the virus, which is growing it in iterations, passing it repeatedly through cell cultures. The cell culture you use while performing this process will eventually allow the virus to become better at attaching to those specific types of cells. In the case of SARS-CoV-2, we all know that it has an excellent ability to attach to the human ACE-2 receptors. This cannot happen in nature simply by someone coming into contact with it in a market or in the wild.

What do you suppose the odds are that a virus such as this would be reported to originate in a city that happens to have a high-security lab which does research with these very same viruses? The odds are clearly very high.

A Prescient Warning

Wolfgang Wodarg, a German pulmonary specialist, warned mid-March about the tests that were being used to detect the virus, that they could be used to make it appear there was a pandemic, when in fact you weren't getting test results that showed the proper metric for concern: a virus capable of reproducing, and thus causing disease. Instead, the tests would be unreliable as they return false positives and be meaningless as far as the reality of the spread of the disease. Imagine his shock as recently, on November 7th, the German Senate Department responded "No" to the question of whether or not the PCR tests are capable of distinguishing a virus, or parts of a virus, that are able to reproduce from ones that are not able to reproduce.

How was Wolfgang able to predict this? It turns out he had experience with how these people operated. During the false H1N1 pandemic of 2009 (it was originally claimed to have a fatality rate of 0.1 to 5.1%, but ended up at a mere 0.02%), he attempted to get an investigation into the WHO and its conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies who went on to make upwards of $18 billion from governments who bought large quantities of the rushed vaccine. And not only that, but the WHO changed its definition of "pandemic" to no longer include the requirement of "Severity". This meant that, in principle, every seasonal flu could be labeled a pandemic. And of course, many governments around the world set their policies based on the WHO declaring something a "pandemic".

So back to the tests...this time around, he called out an individual directly related to the situation in Germany. A German virologist named Christian Drosten, who we find out is the single person that the government of Germany consulted regarding the outbreak. submitted a protocol for testing to the WHO in an extremely short time period. This is the current PCR test used worldwide claimed to diagnose infection of SARS-CoV-2. Normally these protocols need to be vetted by a very thorough process, but this one was rushed through, and it has been used ever since for mass testing campaigns. Recently, Michael Yeadon, a former lead scientist for Pfizer, has talked about how these tests are giving as much as 80% false positives.

Putting it all Together

I will note again, this is only the tip of the iceberg. There is a ton of evidence of these groups and individuals being involved in various schemes that benefit tremendously from what is going on right now. 

One of course can argue that none of these prove a Plandemic is actually occurring, but I think it should be obvious there is a major problem with blindly believing the story we've been fed. It's clear to me this was planned, based on the wide body of evidence I've examined. If we learn more that contradicts all this evidence, it won't be so clear, and I will gladly stop using the term "Plandemic". Hopefully, very soon we can actually get to the bottom and source of this nonsense, but as it stands now, when all of the evidence is taken together and integrated, it speaks volumes in support of this so-called pandemic being planned.

Please, I beg you, don't take my word for it, do your own research!! Do not be ignorant of the facts. This is far too important for the future of humanity, given all the attacks we've been seeing around the world on basic freedoms that every sovereign individual deserves to have.

Deregulation and the causes of the 2008-2009 recession

The idea seems straightforward enough:

"The Great Recession has everything to do with deregulation and letting companies do whatever they want in the free market."

It's an interesting premise that seems feasible on the surface. Of course the topic has been discussed elsewhere ad nauseum, and from all sorts of perspectives. One would get the impression by a quick Google search that, because literally every article they read assumes, in some form, that deregulation and a "return" to free market principles were the culprit, it simply must be true. As is often the case with popularized explanations of things, upon closer inspection we find the devil's in the details, and things begin to fall apart.
During my search for the candid reality of things, I found all sorts of confusing articles, arguing all sorts of ridiculousness, such as Allen Greenspan and George Bush being advocates of the free market; and that their actions, which were somehow supporting free market principles, were the actual culprit of the crisis; read here if you want to be confused real good by popular economics sophistry. Indeed, policies supported and advocated by Bush and Greenspan were a part of the problem, but perhaps in a different manner than we're commonly led to believe.
One article that I stumbled upon that actually does have great explanatory power is in a blog by Arkady K. here, which I will expound upon a bit. Another great resource for the lay person is a book which I highly recommend by Thomas Woods, called Meltdown. In that book, Woods helps bring a lot of disparate pieces together to clear up the confusion and fill in the gaps, and he does it in a down-to-earth manner -- it's quite refreshing.
After thinking about all these different points of view, I personally think the explanation is fairly straightforward; I'll try and deal with it in a condensed form here.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

This Act is generally cited as the primary culprit (certainly according to Mr. Obama), ushering in deregulation of the subprime mortgage market. One will realize upon closer inspection that, as Arkady points out, the GLB Act "was passed by President Bill Clinton and supported by 155 House Democrats (out of 206) and 38 Democrat Senators (out of 45)." Clinton even said that the Act helped the crisis end as quickly as it did in that it provided a way for the big banks to merge investment and deposit branches into one institution, and at the same time said this deregulation was the cause of the crisis! In fact, many have pointed out that most companies didn't even end up consolidating, or they had already done things to this effect prior to the legislation and no issues were seen to arise from this.
The clear explanation for these contradictory aspects is that it was certainly NOT deregulation on a large scale and leftists suddenly having a change of heart in running to free market principles. But instead, it was more of the same coming from Washington. Namely, it was yet more regulation to protect and further entrench businesses that sought to monopolize the financial industry through the force of government.

So is there anything to back that suspicion besides reasonable guesses? Ron Paul, the most staunch advocate of the free market in Congress at the time, spoke out in a speech in 1999 strongly against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, some of which I've included here:

"The negative aspects of this bill outweigh the benefits. Many have already argued for the need to update our financial laws. I would just add that I agree on the need for reform but oppose this approach. Such a scenario would put added pressure on the financial bubble. The growth in money and credit has outpaced both savings and economic growth... Government policy and the increase in securitization are largely responsible for this bubble. In addition to loose monetary policies by the Federal Reserve, government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have contributed to the problem... The better alternative is to repeal privacy busting government regulations. The same approach applies to Glass-Steagall and S. 900. Why not just repeal the offending regulation? In the banking committee, I offered an amendment to do just that. My main reasons for voting against this bill are the expansion of the taxpayer liability and the introduction of even more regulations. The entire multi-hundred page S. 900 that reregulates rather than deregulates the financial sector could be replaced with a simple one-page bill."

So you have to ask, was this man speaking what he actually believed? Did he know what he was talking about? If you look at the bill and its results, do they line up with what he says? Absolutely they do. The only other remote explanation in my mind is that it was all an elaborate plan to fool people on all sides, and they all worked together to do it. As crazy as that sounds, the idea that it was meant to actually deregulate and move towards a free market seems crazier given the facts.

So, let's dig in a bit to the actual culprit(s)...

Fanny Mae & Freddie Mac

At the heart of the debacle were two entities, Fanny Mae & Freddie Mac. There are a few things that should be noted about them:

• Both of them enjoyed special privileges through government. Tax and regulatory breaks that other mortgage guarantors did not enjoy.
• They had access in various ways to the US Treasury line of credit, as they were quasi-government agencies.
• Everybody knew that because of their special stance of government favor, they would be bailed out if they failed, thus creating an incentive to deal in risky loans, i.e. a moral hazard.
• Because of these conditions, these entities were allowed to attract more capital than they otherwise deserved had they actually been subjected to market forces.

The Community Reinvestment Act

Under the guise of anti-discrimination in lending, this was quite unabashedly designed to force companies to give mortgages to people that were not at all capable of fulfilling them. This legislation really took hold and had power during Clinton's administration, which lines up well with the timeline where the housing bubble was being built, and certainly wasn't backed down during the Bush administration.

The Federal Reserve

This should be seen as the most important piece to the puzzle. Allen Greenspan, just as he was about to be replaced, led the Federal Reserve to undertake a massive increase in the amount of credit available to the market by creating negative interest rates. This credit channeled in a large way into the mortgage sectors, encouraging credit to be allocated toward a market that wasn't ready to support that investment, i.e. it encouraged malinvestment, waste. Combine this with mandates from Congress under the guise of Affordable Housing (houses for everyone!) for Fannie and Freddie to reach certain lending quotas, as they had 65% of the market share, they set the lending standards in the industry, and thus the bubble must inevitably form. As it has done time and time again throughout its sorry 100-year existence, the Federal Reserve, in collaboration with Congress, fostered a bubble which was destined to burst.

Summary

There's a lot of theories that have been thrust into the public's view that attempt to explain the causes of the so-called "Great Recession", and they all claim the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act amounted to deregulation, which then led to the terrible banking practices, predatory lending and the whole works. Nobody can actually support this claim with evidence, only misdirection and confusion. What we can factually observe is the fed's policies and their effects on the economy as credit is made artificially cheap, and the results of arbitrarily, altruistic, housing quotas mandated by Congress, and the clearly cozy relationship the certain institutions have with government, as they are bailed out, as if that wouldn't make the situation worse!

It's interesting to me how you can find a different article geared toward a different audience, with different political beliefs, and the explanation will be the same -- too much freedom, deregulation, and unchecked capitalism! Anytime one deals with economic issues, they have to be certain to dig for the facts, because somebody somewhere will want to create a popular belief for the masses to help entrench their destructive, self-serving policies...as always, follow the money!