Neal Rauhauser on Conspiricism & Competance

Here’s an oldie but goodie from Neal Rauhauser’s blog where he talks about supposed conspiracy nuts and their supposed cognitive deficits.

Now first off there is such a thing as conspiracies.  Indeed, to enter into a conspiracy to commit an illegal act is generally against the law in most states.  All a conspiracy is, stripped down to its essence, is an agreement among two or more people to commit a crime or illegal act.  If you believe the mafia exists, you believe in the existence of conspiracies.  Indeed small conspiracies are proven to exist all the time.

But of course there are truly nutty conspiracy theories that abound.  It is a matter of historical fact, on one hand, that the assassination of Lincoln was in fact part of a larger plot to essentially decapitate the Union government to give the Confederacy a chance to jump-start the rebellion.  John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators attempted to kill numerous officials at the same time as Lincoln, but each and every one of them failed except Booth.  On the other hand the balance of evidence is that the claims that anyone shot Kennedy but Oswald is claptrap.  Likewise theories that the freemasons, the jooooooos or the illuminati, or some combination thereof, secretly control the world are of the nutty variety.  And so one has to distinguish between the pedestrian conspiracy theory that is proven to occur on a regular basis and the nutty stuff; and most people can grasp the difference intuitively.

The interesting thing is that Rauhauser himself is associated with numerous nutty conspiracy theorists.  For instance, he openly associates with a 9-11 truther and with Wiener truthers.  For your information, a Weiner truther is a person who thinks that Congressman Anthony Weiner was set up and didn’t send dirty pictures to a lovely co-ed after all, despite the inconvenient fact that he confessed to it.  But it isn’t those kind of conspiracy “nuts” he is talking about in this piece (safe link).

I apologize for the quality of the reproduction.  I printed it out months ago and this is the only remaining copy of it; and the site it came from is now private.  Still, you should start in about the middle of the page under the heading “Conspiracism & Competance.”  It provides a fascinating look into Rauhauser’s mindset.

For one thing he alleges that there are “Internet predators who seeks [sic] out and manipulate conspiracists.”  In short he alleges that there is a conspiracy to manipulate conspiracy theorists, which is... kind of a conspiracy theory, Neal, you know?  So as is typical with Rauhauser and his associates what he accuses you of being, is what he really is.

But look also what he thinks should be done to people he has decided is part of the conspiracy to manipulate conspiracy theorists: “[i]nternet predators who seeks [sic] out and manipulate conspiracists should face job loss, jail time, public & private humiliation and any other consequences that can be arranged for them.”  (Emphasis added.)  Of course he also says one should “[b]reak no laws, but otherwise respect no bounds of polite society with regard to your actions against such persons.”

Likewise the conspiracy theorists should “tormented in any way one can devise, with no ethical concerns regarding their personal mental safety.”

Of course the problem with his “break no laws” admonition is that even if he means it (which I doubt), he doesn’t seem to know what is illegal.  I always tell people that if it is wrong, it is usually illegal, somehow.  Not always, but usually.  The idea that you can do a truly vile act to someone and not technically be breaking any laws is generally a myth.  So for instance when he suggests that one should “[c]onceal reality, present pretense, and outright simulation... if you have the time and talent to wield it” he doesn’t seem to understand that all of those actions can easily cross the line into illegality.

And Rauhauser’s post contains this warning to all that tangle with him:

This Is Not A Game.  People have been sued, outed, arrested and assaulted.  We should see a couple of lawyers disbarred and losing their jobs in the first few months of 2012.  People about to have their lives shredded due to their own unethical and criminal conduct often double down with attempts to silence their critics, not realizing that they succeed only in confirming what the world has long suspected about them.

No, Neal, we know this is not a game and you aren’t playing around.  We recognize how dangerous you and your associates are to freedom of expression.  Which is why we are rising up, to peacefully and lawfully stop you and your associates’ reign of terror.  Because this is not the way to settle our political debates—by intentionally destroying a person’s life or even get them jailed on false charges because they dared to speak freely about you and your associates.

And, incidentally, working with others to destroy a person’s livelihood and reputation?  Yeah, that can break a few laws...

---------------------------------------

Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.