I don't understand how you could take the latter course.
The state is everywhere.
I don't ask for any benefits and would rather do without their help.
But it's here anyway. The state, I mean.
Oh, pretty easily. I live in a town of 10,000 that was bypassed by Interstate 40 in the 1980's and is pretty much like living in 1960. I locked all three credit reporting agencies years ago, have zero debt and make no use of credit. I have no presence whatsoever on social media. I turn on my cellphone for a few minutes every couple of days; even the robo-callers don't know I exist. I own no guns. My investments, to use the word loosely, are almost comically conservative. I'm as politically inactive as I could possibly be; when I vote, half the time I have no real idea who or what I'm voting for ("That sounds like a good name for a Senator"). I haven't been in a church in years. Although I'm not really an urban hermit, I'm pretty close. When the State (whoever or whatever that is) comes looking for its enemies, I'm probably not going to be on the list.
Oh. And I'm not a conspiracy type person.
But I ve come to realize that the state is going much beyond what it was originally created for.
I think masonry might have something to do with all this. Maybe it's the OWO. We're getting poorer every day and it seems to be purposeful.
Then we're scared to the point that some are too afraid go even stop wearing their masks.
So,
Impoverishment
Fear
Control easily follows.
Who or what is "the state" anyway? Any particular government? All governments? Just some monolithic Orwellian concept? Surely the Trump "state" and the Biden "state" weren't the same thing, or were they?
Masonry? Really? I just watched a documentary on Masonry, and they seemed mostly like sincere and genial goofballs ("Oh, sure, that's what they WANT you to think!" responds the conspiracy peanut gallery.)
I don't doubt there are those who would like to transform America and the world in a Marxist direction. The Marxist concept of a long, slow march through the institutions is a brilliant one and seems to have been wildly successful in the U.S. over the past 50 years. I likewise don't doubt there are those who would like to impose a one-world government and believe it would solve many problems (as, I'll have to admit, it probably would if we could just avoid that darn "Antichrist thing"
). But good Lord, listen to a steady diet of Christian talk radio, as I do, and you'll find (or at least I do) that it all sounds just as conspiratorial and frightening.
It seems to me that we now have, as never before (probably due largely to electronic media), organized ideologies that are clashing on an unprecedented scale. I don't know how much of it is really "secret" or "conspiratorial" - it all seems pretty open and in-your-face to me. I don't have any optimism or any answers, which is why I'm just laying low and hunkering down.
We've come to accept that we humans are the worst enemy of nature.
Can't think of anything else right now, but I know there's more.
My point is that I don't believe this falls under the title of conspiracy theory.
Well, I
do think we humans are the worst enemies of nature, but then I'm a pretty devout cat person.
Seeing actual problems and trying to understand and address the causes of them is perfectly rational. I just finished a really excellent, scholarly-but-readable book called
Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11 by Kathryn S. Olmsted,
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00319B312/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1. She discusses (in depth) a series of historical incidents that gave rise to goofy conspiracy theories. Her point is that, in every case, there was
real incompetence, malfeasance, covering up and whatnot on the part of those in government who handled the incidents. To a large extent, they were responsible for the bizarre conspiracy theories that later arose.
A rational inquiry would expose the incompetence, malfeasance and covering up and address it. Conspiracy-oriented thinking takes the same incident, filters it through a conspiracy lens, and builds a grand theory that focuses on all the wrong people (scapegoats) and often makes no sense even if it is emotionally satisfying to the conspiracy theorists.