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On The Psychology Of The Conspiracy Denier

Why is it that otherwise perfectly intelligent, thoughtful and rationally minded people baulk at the suggestion that sociopaths are conspiring to manipulate and deceive them? And why will they defend this ill-founded position with such vehemence?

History catalogues the machinations of liars, thieves, bullies and narcissists and their devastating effects. In modern times too, evidence of corruption and extraordinary deceptions abound. We know, without question, that politicians lie and hide their connections and that corporations routinely display utter contempt for moral norms – that corruption surrounds us. We know that revolving doors between the corporate and political spheres, the lobbying system, corrupt regulators, the media and judiciary mean that wrongdoing is practically never brought to any semblance of genuine justice. We know that the press makes noise about these matters occasionally but never pursues them with true vigour. We know that in the intelligence services and law enforcement wrongdoing on a breathtaking scale is commonplace and that, again, justice is never forthcoming. We know that governments repeatedly ignore or trample on the rights of the people, and actively abuse and mistreat the people. None of this is controversial.

So exactly what is it that conspiracy deniers refuse to acknowledge with such fervour, righteousness and condescension? Why, against all the evidence, do they sneeringly and contemptuously defend the crumbling illusion that ‘the great and good’ are up there somewhere, have everything in hand, have only our best interests at heart, and are scrupulous, wise and sincere? That the press serves the people and truth rather than the crooks? That injustice after injustice result from mistakes and oversights, and never from that dread word: conspiracy? What reasonable person would continue to inhabit such a fantasy world? The point of disagreement here is only on the matter of scale. Someone who is genuinely curious about the plans of powerful sociopaths won’t limit the scope of their curiosity to, for example, one corporation, or one nation. Why would they? Such a person assumes that the same patterns on display locally are likely to be found all the way up the power food chain. But the conspiracy denier insists this is preposterous. Why?

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Federal 2018 Data: Falling Killed 126 Times More People than Rifles of Any Kind

Federal data on causes of death in America show that, as recently as 2018, falling accounted for at least 126 times as many fatalities as rifles of any kind — an inconvenient fact for Democrat lawmakers who are currently demanding a new round of nationwide gun controls.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) 2018 National Vital Statistics show 37,455 people died from unintentional falls throughout the year.

The same CDC data shows unintentional firearm deaths for 2018 came in at 458, which means accidental death by falling was about 82 times more likely than accidental death via any kind of firearm.

The numbers become especially pertinent to today’s political climate when FBI Unified Crime Report figures are brought into the equation. The FBI figures look at the intentional, criminal use of firearms, and show a total of 297 deaths from rifles of any kind in 2018. This means accidental death by falling occurred 126 times more often than intentional death by a rifle of any kind in 2018.

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Biden admin to call for worldwide tax hike so that US businesses don’t leave country following its corporate tax increase

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will reportedly call for a global minimum corporate tax rate to prevent U.S. companies from relocating offshore in response to the Biden administration’s forthcoming tax hikes, Axios reported on Monday.

The news outlet made clear that “by trying to convince other countries to impose a global minimum tax, Yellen is acknowledging the risks to the American economy if it acts alone in raising corporate rates.”

The administration has proposed initiating the largest tax hike in almost 30 years to pay for President Biden’s more than $2 trillion American Jobs Act — a bill slated to fund America’s “infrastructure” but that also finances major policy progressive policy initiatives such as climate research, green energy, and free education in addition to highways, bridges, and roads.

The tax changes include raising the country’s corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, a move that conservatives and moderate congressional Democrats have argued could be devastating for the American middle class.

In a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on Monday, Yellen is expected to push for all other industrialized nations to raise their corporate tax rates to a minimum standard, as well, to ensure economic “competitiveness” worldwide. However, she will reportedly argue that the tax rate minimum is for the main purpose of ensuring those foreign countries have enough revenue to maintain their own governments.

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NY Senate just passed a concentration camp bill to forcibly throw people in camps, just like the Nazis did in World War II

The Democrat-dominated New York state Senate has passed a bill “allowing” government officials to throw people in concentration camps indefinitely if they are deemed to be a public health threat.

The next phase of the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) plandemic, the legislation reflects what the Nazis did in World War II when they decided that human rights no longer apply during a “crisis.”

Should the bill get signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, even healthy people who are deemed to be “contagious” could be scooped up and thrown in prison camps for the “safety” of the general public.

Assembly Bill A416 “relates to the removal of cases, contacts and carriers of communicable diseases who are potentially dangerous to the public health,” the bill reads.

Anyone deemed a “case” or even just a contact of “case” who might be “infected” or possibly a “carrier” of any illness, not just the Chinese virus, would become a target of government officials in New York who would have leeway and discretion to respond as they see fit.

The legislation specifically states that as long as the “opinion of the governor” dictates that a person is a threat, he or she could be removed from the home and placed in government “care” for as long as the governor sees fit.

“Such person or group of persons shall be detained in a medical facility or other appropriate facility or premises designated by the governor or his or her delegee and complying with subdivision five of this section,” the bill further reads.

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Sharyl Attkisson on Combatting Censorship: ‘Don’t Be Kowtowed Into Not Speaking Out’

Investigate journalist Sharyl Attkisson says combatting censorship in today’s media and big tech landscape requires Americans to “speak up” and stand firm against people and groups that seek to silence them.

“I think the most important single thing people can do is to speak up and not be bullied by the people that want to keep the voices silent so that it appears, in this artificial world that we live in online, that everybody’s on the same page and everybody thinks the same thing and this is okay,” Attkisson told The Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders program.

“Don’t be kowtowed into not speaking out. Don’t act like that’s okay.”

Attkisson, author of “The Smear,” has been researching how information has been controlled in the United States, particularly by political and corporate interest groups. She said these groups began ramping up their efforts to control information once Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. But these groups, she argued, began realizing Americans were not “getting on board” with their messaging and, as a result, started to act out of desperation.

“The reason they’re being so heavy-handed about information and access is because people are not getting on board with what they’re supposed to think and do. They’re not acting the way they’re supposed to act after their information is controlled. And I think it was very frightening for them to see,” she said.

“As I said, they almost entirely controlled the media landscape in 2016 but Trump still won the election. How did that happen? Well, they blamed the internet.”

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TSA Has Never Stopped a Terrorist But They’ve Been ‘Legally’ Robbing Travelers for Years

The TSA – whose job is supposedly “fighting terrorism” – is, without doubt, one of America’s most corrupt and incompetent agencies. However, last year, they apparently became so unsatisfied with the mere ability to strip search babies, remove colostomy bags, beat up blind cancer patients, and fondle your genitalia, that they announced a more invasive physical pat-downs. The pat-downs, which TSA warned would probably prompt assault complaints with the police department because of their invasive nature, have been implemented.

On top of aggressive pat downs and indiscriminate molestation of the young, old, and even triple amputees, the TSA can and will steal your money if they find it in your bag. A new class action lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice, exposes an egregious practice of agents taking money — specifically, lots of cash — from innocent people, and keeping it. And they are doing it “legally.”

The class action lawsuit seeks to put an end to this legal theft and it will now move forward against both the TSA and DEA.

“TSA and DEA routinely violate Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights at airports across the country by detaining them for doing something completely legal: flying with cash,” said IJ Senior Attorney Dan Alban. “Seizing and forfeiting someone’s savings should not be done lightly, yet we’ve documented how easy it is for law enforcement to take money at airports without any evidence of a crime. Now, thanks to our class action lawsuit, we are going to uncover the truth behind how and why the government is targeting innocent flyers, and ultimately put an end to this predatory practice.”

Several of the victims named in the lawsuit had tens of thousands of dollars stolen from them and were never even accused of a crime, much less convicted of one. Terry Rolin and his daughter Rebecca Brown were flying from Pittsburgh to Boston with Terry’s life savings in order to open a bank account to help care for her father. When TSA found the cash in their luggage, it was stolen.

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Why The Push Is On To Make Pandemic Life “Permanent”

One year after Americans were ordered to close down society for “two weeks to flatten the curve,” Bloomberg columnist Andreas Kluth warned, “We Must Start Planning for a Permanent Pandemic.”

Because new variants of SARS-COV-2 are impervious to existing vaccines, says Kluth, and pharmaceutical companies will never be able to develop new vaccines fast enough to keep up, we will never be able to get “back to normal.”

“Get back to normal” means recovering the relative liberty we had in our already overregulated, pre-Covid lives. This is just the latest in a long series of crises that always seem to lead our wise rulers to the same conclusion: we just cannot afford freedom anymore.

Covid-19 certainly wasn’t the beginning. Americans were told “the world changed” after 9/11. Basic pillars of the American system, like the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, were too antiquated to deal with the “new threat of terrorism.” Warrantless surveillance of our phone, e-mail, and financial records and physical searches of our persons without probable cause of a crime became the norm. A few principled civil libertarians dissented, but the public largely complied without protest.

“Keep us safe,” they told the government, no matter the cost in dollars or liberty.

Perhaps seeing how willingly the public rolled over for the political right during the “War on Terror,” authoritarians on the left turbocharged their own war on “climate change.” Previously interested in merely significantly raising taxes and heavily regulating industry, they now wish to ban all sorts of things, including air travel, gasoline-powered cars, and even eating meat.

Since Covid-19, however, even the freedom to assemble and see each other’s faces may be permanently banned to help the government “keep us safe.”

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Biden Stalls on Ending Capital Punishment

Seventy-five days since taking office, President Joe Biden has yet to issue a promised executive order on the death penalty. And criminal justice reform advocates working closely with the administration are growing tired of the delay, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Two of these sources said they had each received assurances from transition officials that Biden would sign an executive order on capital punishment very quickly or “imminently” after he entered office. But in recent weeks, White House officials and close allies of the president have been quietly signaling to frustrated activists that a more forceful push on this type of reform will likely have to wait until some unspecified point after the new president’s first 100 days in office.

“It is complete bullshit that they’re dragging their feet on this,” one of the sources said. “We have been pushing them on this and barely getting anywhere.”

This source noted that Biden came into office promising the American people that he would dramatically reverse course, especially after Trump’s “killing spree.”

“And we’re still being told to wait and be patient,” the source said.

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Biden To Reopen A Detention Facility Kamala Harris Protested Against.

Biden is facing major backlash from immigration activists as he weighs reopening a controversial migrant detention center in Florida.

Federal agencies are scrambling to expand capacity at detention facilities for unaccompanied minors who illegally cross the southern border, and one of those facilities may include the defunct Homestead Detention Center in Miami-Dade County, now called Biscayne Influx Care Facility.

In 2019, activist group WeCount published a report indicating that the Homestead detention center sits in close proximity to sites of hazardous chemical waste which are listed in the federal government’s toxic-waste cleanup program, Superfund. Amnesty USA called use of the facility “cruel and unlawful.”

That summer, more than a dozen Democratic presidential hopefuls visited Homestead to register their denunciation of the facility and pose for photos, including Eric Swalwell, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Bill de Blasio, Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rourke (who shouted in Spanish “We see you! We love you! We are here with you!”), Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, John Hickenlooper, Marianne Williamson, Tulsi Gabbard, and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I will tell you, when elected, the first thing I’m going to do—one of the first things—is to shut down these private detention facilities. Just shut ’em down,” Harris said.

Biden skipped the photo op.

The privately-run Homestead center was shut down in August 2019 following reports that it had no hurricane preparedness plan. It was later revealed as well that staff were not vetted for prior child abuse records.

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