CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Modern Conspiracy Theorists Part One: The Batman Massacre Conspiracy

Monday, July 23, 2012

this entry brought to you by green day, "longview"


Sometimes what makes you lose faith in humanity isn't the horrible, tragic event that happens, but the stupid, insipid, idiotic shit that people say to you afterwards.

Twelve people were murdered and another 58 injured by James Holmes this past Friday.

The following Sunday I came to work, and a coworker of mine said to me that the government had given this guy the guns and sent him to shoot up those people at the mall, in order to outrage the nation so they can take away the second amendment.

I can't explain how angry I was. I honestly can't. Worse, when I got home, a friend of mine said that she agreed, that it looked like it might have been staged. A friend. This wasn't just some idiot coworker, this wasn't just some jackass I don't have any choice but to interact with, this was a person whose conversation I look forward to every day.

I was looking up something else and I came across the website that seems to be the center of this conspiracy-- unsurprisingly, it's also the website that seems to be the center of the "vaccines give your child autism" conspiracy.

Some of us who don't wish to be pulled into the sinkhole of conspiracy theories would just say "These people are crackpots, Chris." But it ties into a bigger conspiracy that has actually been circulated on Fox News and the Republican Party at large. It's called "Operation: Fast and Furious", and you can look it up. This was a real operation run by the ATF (a department of the government famous for its spectacular screw-ups) to attempt to sell marked guns to known criminals in an attempt to get them into Mexico, to see how the cartels are moving. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the rest of the right wing have then turned this real thing into Obama trying to increase the violence in Mexico so that it will spill over into America, scaring Americans, allowing them to take the opportunity to remove the 2nd Amendment. And this particular conspiracy is so mainstream Fox News pondered about it out loud on fucking television.

This bullshit conspiracy about the Batman massacre is not as mainstream as Fox News. In fact, perusing the comments, the website seems to be read entirely by conspiracy assholes who eat this stuff up. But there's something much, much more disgusting about this particular conspiracy than the Fast and Furious one. It's even more disgusting than 9/11 was an inside job, and that was very disgusting. And it's hit enough penetration that just under 48 hours later, I was hearing it from some asshole at work.

I need to address this. Because I am slowly feeling like the sane man in an insane world.

Obama is not trying to take your guns.

In the four years that Obama has taken office, in my state alone, gun laws have been changed to allow guns into: State Parks. Churches. College campuses (even if the college does not want them). Bars. Elementary schools. And that is just in my state, not to mention the proliferation of the Stand Your Ground Law and dozens of laws just like it across the south. All of this has happened since Obama got in office.

This idiot conspiracy theory (which I will not link to, because fuck that website) has pointed out "holes in the mainstream version of the story that do not add up" that are positively the flimsiest holes I've ever heard-- even flimsier than the 9/11 was an inside job "holes" Here are the three main ones I read on the site, summarized.

1) But his behavior doesn't add up! He was a pre-PhD neroscience grad student! And after killing all those people, he calmly surrendered! Wouldn't someone who just wanted to kill everyone put up a fight?

 Thank you, Mr. Criminal Pathologist, for being an expert on psychotic behavior. I'm glad we have you on board.

Anyway, Ted Kaczynski is smarter than everyone you know, was one of the country's most notorious serial killers of all time, and did not put up a fight upon arrest. In fact, TruTV.com has a list of serial killers who not only did not put up a fight, but actively surrendered. Go fuck yourself.

2) But his house was booby-trapped with a sophisticated bombs! Clearly he was trained by an expert on bomb making! The FBI must've trained him!

There is a book at the local library and some book stores called "The Anarchist's Cookbook" that I have known about since I was a teenager. I have never read it, I've never seen it, and I didn't have to Google it to remember the name. It's a notorious book, and you can just go out and buy it, and it teaches you how to make bombs. Or I have a little window in the upper right hand of my screen that I could click on and type "how to make bombs" and get really detailed instructions.

Here is a link from a news website in Canada from a 75 year old man who obviously did that very thing. He googled "how to make bombs" and booby trapped his house. That news story was posted three days before the Batman shootings, by the way.

And go fuck yourself.

2) But how would an unemployed Graduate student afford 20,000 dollars worth of weapons? Clearly someone with expertise, such as the FBI, gave them to him!

Credit cards. $20,000-- and that arbitrary number, by the way, is the actual number the website estimates. Why not $50,000? Why not 100,000? But anyway, most graduate students have credit card debt well over $20,000 dollars, and if you're not planning on paying it off because you're planning on being dead or in jail, who the hell gives a shit about 20,000 more?

Listen, I live in Arizona. There are actually "militia men" who are jobless and living off the grid in the middle of nowhere with enough guns and ammo for a small army. The real question is how those guys got their weapons.

But seriously. This is America. Asking where an American got guns-- any amount of them-- is like asking where Mexican Cartels get all those Mexicans to fight their cartel wars. The difference is Americans do their killing on plastic; I'm pretty sure the cartels use cash.

Oh, by the way, go fuck yourself.
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 (cont'd tomorrow)



with love from CRS @ 12:36 PM 

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