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The problem is that conspiracy theory and moral panics are not victimless crimes. I grew up with an ultrarightwing christian conspiracy theorist who claimed my
by panicthrowaway 7y ago
The problem is that conspiracy theory and moral panics are not victimless crimes. I grew up with an ultrarightwing christian conspiracy theorist who claimed my mother was a witch that was satanically ritual abusing me and my brother and "sacrificing" us to Satan. He also believed she was a serial killer running a daycare scheme that allowed her to mass slaughter children in the name of Satan. I was basically coerced into confessing this shit by the church when I was in kindergarten because I was caught by the playground attendant looking up girls skirts. My mother always wore jeans so I didn't understand the concept of a dress so I was picking up their skirts because I didn't understand the purpose of the garment. But the play ground attendant assumed it was sign that I was being sexually abused. My dad came to pick me up took me to the church shrink who basically coached me to say a bunch of really fucked up shit about my mother. She ended up loosing any custody of me and was not allowed to even be in the same room as me without police supervision until I was 18. She had to register as a sex offender.
Don't believe me? Read this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria
I am an adult survivor of this abuse. So when you tell me that you support conspiracy theorists it makes me sick. Fuck them, they ruined me and my mother's life. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to undo the indoctrination and brain washing I basically went through? And its not like these are your run of the mill conspiracy theorists that believe in aliens and JFK grassy knole shit. This ruins lives. When I see people like QAnon who front ideas like Pizza Gate and Alex Jones claiming Sandy Hook was a false flag and ruining the lives of people that lost their kids with death threats. Fuck them. And if you support them, fuck you too.
If you want further reading I recommend reading Satan's Silence
- iamnothere 7y agoYou're making the same class of mistake made by people who support (for instance) the death penalty against criminals in group X because their loved one was a victim of one of those criminals. I empathize with you and understand that your experience must have been very difficult. That said, there are fundamental freedoms that must be defended even when the group in question is distasteful. Freedom to speak your mind -- and possibly propagate dumb conspiracies -- is one of them.
- panicthrowaway 7y agoYou are not free to ruin someone's life with lies, that is not how freedom of speech works. These are not dumb conspiracies they are psychological abuse. Look at QAnon, they basically convinced a guy to go shoot up a pizza parlor because of that kind of rhetoric.
- throw11223344 7y agoQAnon is clearly fabricated and created as a follow-up to FBIAnon. Pizzagate has nothing to do with that, pizzagate is also a partial fabrication, covering up the crimes of Podesta and Alefantis etc by pushing it to be so absurd it is unbelievable.
- ffdjjjffjj 7y agoUh, partial? Which parts of pizzagate do you think are real?
- throw11223344 7y agogoogle "tony podesta art"
- geofft 7y agoFreedom to speak your mind, when it directly leads to the infringement of others' rights, is not a fundamental right. I have no right to say "Hey, so-and-so is a cheat, don't do business with them," however strongly I believe it, when they're not. I have no right to say "You should rob a bank, and I'll teach you how." I have no right to say "This herb will cure your disease" merely because I believe it, if nobody has convinced the government to also believe it. Heck, I don't even have the right to repeat your comment, except in specific ways and circumstances. It is true that fundamental rights must be preserved even when used distastefully. But the fundamental right of freedom of speech is not a right to say whatever whenever, and it is not at all clear to me that propagating dumb conspiracies in a way that leads to violence is within the line. (Nor propagating smart conspiracies—since it's not the conspiracy itself that makes it questionable here.)