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As crazy as it sounds, who is to say that it is not true? You would have been laughed at once-upon-a-time if you told people you believed the US government was

As crazy as it sounds, who is to say that it is not true? You would have been laughed at once-upon-a-time if you told people you believed the US government was listening in on phone calls, reading email, weakening encryption and spying on its own citizens and those abroad in a massive surveillance program... until Edward Snowden revealed that is what was happening at the NSA for a long time. If there is one thing I have learned it is to trust your gut instinct and not believe in everything you're told. While things have undoubtedly changed and are definitely different post-Snowden, I feel as though we have all been primed to think people are crazy for not trusting their government. The tide is changing, people are worried if their own government is fine spying on them, what else are they okay with? I don't understand in this situation what the advantage of a false flag on Texas would achieve, why Texas? I do not think there is anything here other than an entertaining story, but if it is enough to spook Texas citizens enough to ask for action, then maybe there is merit here. Who can say for certain this is nothing more than a massive training exercise? Observing the training exercise does no harm, so we'll see.

jdeisenberg 11y ago
I don't know if you'd consider it harm, but I can guarantee that when nothing untoward happens, the conspiracy proponents will proudly proclaim "That's only because we were watching!" Perhaps not harmful, but terribly irritating, and possibly opening the door for more of the same.
jkestner 11y ago
You're right that there are real, more insidious threats from our government, but these obviously implausible ones deaden or distract people. We shouldn't believe our government is this stupid. When the rest of the country laughs at Texas for being nutty, it makes it harder for them to acknowledge any threat that might be labeled tinfoil-hat.
krapp 11y ago
There must be a name for the fallacy that implies that if any one conspiracy happens to be true, then all conspiracies must be plausible. Literally nothing Edward Snowden has revealed has lended, or can lend, a shred of credibility to this particular story. If anything, Snowden's revelations suggest the government is not nearly so overt, so clumsily bloodthirsty. Yet, literally, people will say that they can't afford not to believe there might be a secret network of tunnels under closed Wal-Marts from which Obama is planning to launch a military takeover of the state, and haul people off in train-cars to FEMA death camps, because Snowden. These memes have been circulating among the right-wing fringe for a long time. I heard about FEMA death camps, the New World Order and an imminent invasion by joint Federal/European troops during the Clinton years. When the Trans-Texas Corridor was proposed, I heard it's true purpose was to allow easy access for a socialist invasion by multinational forces to replace the Dollar with the Euro. I know a guy who will tell you point blank that the parallels between Obama and Hitler are so obvious that you would have to be stupid not to see them, and we'll all rue the day when the Chi-Coms march into Washington (and I don't believe his views fall particularly outside the mainstream.) This is all part and parcel deep-seated xenophobia, anti-Democrat and anti-Federalist fear at work in Texas politics. There is a point beyond which paranoia makes you blind and gullible as well, and I submit that this story is sufficiently beyond that point that it can be dismissed safely.

jdeisenberg 11y ago

I don't know if you'd consider it harm, but I can guarantee that when nothing untoward happens, the conspiracy proponents will proudly proclaim "That's only because we were watching!" Perhaps not harmful, but terribly irritating, and possibly opening the door for more of the same.

jkestner 11y ago

You're right that there are real, more insidious threats from our government, but these obviously implausible ones deaden or distract people. We shouldn't believe our government is this stupid. When the rest of the country laughs at Texas for being nutty, it makes it harder for them to acknowledge any threat that might be labeled tinfoil-hat.

krapp 11y ago

There must be a name for the fallacy that implies that if any one conspiracy happens to be true, then all conspiracies must be plausible. Literally nothing Edward Snowden has revealed has lended, or can lend, a shred of credibility to this particular story. If anything, Snowden's revelations suggest the government is not nearly so overt, so clumsily bloodthirsty. Yet, literally, people will say that they can't afford not to believe there might be a secret network of tunnels under closed Wal-Marts from which Obama is planning to launch a military takeover of the state, and haul people off in train-cars to FEMA death camps, because Snowden. These memes have been circulating among the right-wing fringe for a long time. I heard about FEMA death camps, the New World Order and an imminent invasion by joint Federal/European troops during the Clinton years. When the Trans-Texas Corridor was proposed, I heard it's true purpose was to allow easy access for a socialist invasion by multinational forces to replace the Dollar with the Euro. I know a guy who will tell you point blank that the parallels between Obama and Hitler are so obvious that you would have to be stupid not to see them, and we'll all rue the day when the Chi-Coms march into Washington (and I don't believe his views fall particularly outside the mainstream.) This is all part and parcel deep-seated xenophobia, anti-Democrat and anti-Federalist fear at work in Texas politics. There is a point beyond which paranoia makes you blind and gullible as well, and I submit that this story is sufficiently beyond that point that it can be dismissed safely.