How Lack of Transparency Births Conspiracy Theories
I like myself a good conspiracy theory. I have many of my own. However, the government always seems to get mad whenever they are brought up. It is silly that they do, because I would argue that government is responsible for the birthing of these theories in the first place.
How can this be? How can the government, which consistently will go out of its way to disavow conspiracies, be the one that births them? The answer is lack of transparency. The entire reason as to why conspiracy theories exist in the first place is because of events which should be easy to explain all of a sudden find themselves not being explained.
There are many instances of this. The most recent of which are the drones that have been flying over American airspace across the country. The Federal government, with all of their monitoring power, has deemed it fit not to disclose the identity of the operators.
Nobody buys the “we don’t know who it is” oil that they have been selling. If that were the case, then the government would be admitting an incompetence that would be too dangerous to allow further operation. These drones could, at any time, target nuclear power plants or other critical infrastructure.
Thus, the people have no choice but to speculate, and speculate they do. Is it aliens? Is it China? Russia? Random people with too much time on their hands? These are questions that will continue being asked until they are properly answered.
Then you have the curious case of Joe Biden, a man who is nearing death and whose government has been one of the most secretive I have ever seen. Remember when you were scolded if you had the audacity to ask about Biden’s capabilities as President until they couldn’t deny it anymore? I do.
There were so many cases where Biden would be out of the picture for multiple days, leading to speculation as to whether he was still alive, and the White House wouldn’t honor the people’s request to see their leader fully operational. “Is Joe Biden still alive?” has probably been one of the most asked questions at multiple points over the past four years.
Yet again, this is something that is easy to answer, yet the government refuses. Their refusal and deflection only drives more suspicion which creates more conspiracy theories. I think you get my point by now.
I believe that should government become more transparent, the amount of conspiracy theories will lessen. Yes, they will never go away, and no, I am not saying that conspiracy theories are bad. I am saying that they are a symptom of an increasingly secretive government.
In America, as time went on, the Federal Government has become less of an instrument of the people’s will and more of a closed off country club that few are allowed access to. This is why we have seen career politicians and those who die in office becoming more frequent.
Due to this country club nature, nonmembers are not privy to the luxuries of the members, in this case the luxury being knowledge and information. I would have more respect for them should they just come out and say that the information on the drones are being withheld as a matter of state security.
I have less respect for people who play footsie with the public and deflect. John Kirby, I am looking at you. The guy looks like a complete fool every time he speaks. I doubt he is one, but his pressers are a humiliation ritual.
Say what you will about the authoritarian systems, at least they are honest when they tell you when you won’t know something. They don’t send their people on stage doing the “um um um we don’t know” dance when they actually know.
Doing the dance of fake ignorance only makes people angrier. It makes people think that they are being played, or that they are being taken for fools. As a supposed democratic republic, the government is supposed to answer to the people.
Instead, our new country club democracy has deemed it fit that only those in the know should know. The masses will not know until their lives are actually being affected negatively or they die from something that they don’t know about.
Thus, conspiracies will persist, and the government country club cannot complain about them.