In advance of September 11 and the perennial attempt to post a 9/11 conspiracy diary on Kos, I took a look through the various conspiracy theories out there and looked for the common threads among them all. From Birthers to Truthers, Kennedy assassins and faked moon landings, black helicopters to Area 51 coverups, in the end they're all about the same.
Evidence? We're just asking questions: Most conspiracy theorists don't actually have any physical evidence to support their theory, no witnesses that could corroborate their claims, no paper trail from what would be massive heavily coordinated operations. If you ask a CT for evidence, you'll usually get the reply that "I'm just asking questions", and dammit, this is still America, right? Any evidence they do profer is usually an inconsistency in "the official story", an inconsistency that they insist negates the entire story and thereby validates their own theory. The burden of proof is, therefore, on the government to disprove the conspiracy theory, not the responsibility of the theorists themselves, who are just exercising their right to question authority. Evidence? That's for the other side to come up with.
The more outlandish, the better: The crazier the theory, the more fervent its adherents. The government didn't just know in advance that terrorists would try to attack the World Trade Center, they sent demolition teams to rig the towers, crashed military planes full of explosives into the towers, hijacked four airplanes using Israeli agents (while kidnapping 19 hapless Arabs and sequestering them somewhere), fired a rocket at the Pentagon and then hid three commercial airliners and all their passengers. President Obama wasn't born in Hawaii? That's right, his family plotted 48 years ago to insert bogus birth announcements into the Hawaii newspapers, planning for that fateful day in 2008 when he would be elected President and impose socialism on America. Any inconsistency in "the official story", or worse, evidence that compromises the conspiracy theory, is cause for adding on another layer to the conspiracy, becoming more and more complex to try to keep the theory together. However, the theorists who probe every facet of the official story draw the line at rigorously questioning their own theories.
The Government is incredibly competent, except when it's not: The U.S. government is chock full of the most talented and dedicated individuals who ever walked the planet, able to plan and execute the most complicated operations involving hundreds of people without error and in absolute secrecy. No member of an operations team has ever broken secrecy, even decades later. No deathbed confessions, drunken slip ups, no regrets for the horrors they've caused that might encourage someone to turn themselves in and tell the whole sordid tale. Not even an opportunist looking to cash in on what would be the biggest story of the century. Except that these super soldiers seem to make the most rookie mistakes that thankfully our conspiracy brothers have easily uncovered. A secret government team quickly and covertly set enough explosive charges to bring down World Trade Center Building 7, while it was still occupied, knowing that the main towers would fall in such a way as to damage Building 7 but not enough to bring it down. And yet, they forgot to set the charges to make it look like the building collapsed of its own accord rather than as a classic demolition. Back in 1963 a crack CIA hit team craftily set up Lee Harvey Oswald to look like a crazed lone gunman taking a shot at President Kennedy, but then inexplicably decided to set up their own shooters on the grassy knoll in front of the motorcade, making it incredibly obvious that with Oswald shooting from behind there had to be more than one gunman. I'm sure the CIA operatives were embarassed when that was uncovered. Ditto those NASA fools that forgot to turn off the fans in the film studio when they faked the moon landings, resulting in a fluttering American flag on the supposedly atmosphere-less moon.
The Brave Band of Heroes: Every conspiracy theory has a staunch set of defenders who, unlike the cowardly media, corrupt bureaucrats and cowed citizenry, Will Not Be Silenced. Yes, they think, they laughed at me before and, OK, they still do, but they won't be laughing when I expose the greatest conspiracy in American history. When the so-called experts disagree with the conspiracy, it's just more proof of just how deep this conspiracy really goes. In the conspirator's mind, everyone actually agrees with him, but is too afraid to stand up in public and be counted, unlike our brave band of heroes working diligently to expose these dastardly crimes. Explosives experts say you can't rig the WTC to explode without anyone noticing? That's because they're all scared of losing demolition contracts, but they know the truth. The faculties of the nation's engineering schools haven't come out in support of the 9/11 conspiracy claim that the towers were brought down by explosives? They're obviously just afraid of losing tenure and research grants.
I like reading conspiracy theories the same way I like to read good science fiction. But unlike good science fiction, these stories always have the same plot line, the same cast of characters, and they never do seem to end.