More Right Wing Nut Jobs

So, they inaugurated Obama again as President of the USA yesterday.  Except that they didn't - he'd already sworn the oaths and been inaugurated the day before in some kind of secret ceremony at the White House.  Just what went on in this secret ceremony?  What oaths were sworn?  Did he swear allegiance to the Illuminati?  Were there human sacrifices made to ensure a successful second term?  We need to know what Satanic pacts Obama made on Sunday!   That's undoubtedly what the right wing nut jobs are saying.  Weaving yet another conspiracy around Obama in order to explain his 'unexpected' victory over Mitt Romney and call into question his suitability to be President.  Why don't they just admit that their real problem with Obama is that he's black?  But there are plenty of whacko conspiracy theories doing the rounds right now without me making up new ones.

One which has recently caught my attention is the one which claims the recent US school shootings were organised by the White House as part of a plot to disarm Americans through strict new gun controls.  Now, even these nutters obviously realise that accusing Obama of having conspired to kill young children and their teachers, so they further elaborate their theory to claim that the deaths were all faked and that the supposedly dead children are actually all alive and well.  Apparently a whole town has conspired with the Federal government to fool the media.  If anything, claiming the deaths were faked is even more offensive than claiming the incident was a government conspiracy. According to these clearly disturbed individuals, the grief of the parents of the dead children is entirely faked.  Which is a pretty disturbing thing to suggest.  Of course, this sort of theory isn't confined to right-wing nut jobs in the US.  I recall that some years ago I came across someone on a UK message board claiming that Madelaine McCann, the little girl who vanished whilst on holiday with her parents in Portugal some years ago, had never actually existed and that her disappearance was a UK government plot to divert media attention way from Iraq.  Which is pretty offensive.

What lies at the root of all such conspiracy theories is a reluctance to accept reality, especially when reality contradicts your own belief system.  Now, the vast majority of us, confronted by events which challenge our world view, will reassess our position, try to take on board the new developments and accommodate them within a modified version of our belief system.  The conspiracy theorist, on the other hand, simply create their own version of 'reality' in which any facts contradicting their beliefs are dismissed as part of a conspiracy designed to subvert the 'true' reality.   So there you have it - if you don't like reality, just make up your own version in which right is wrong, black is white and lunacy is sanity.