hi clo,
there are plenty of conspiracy theorists in the world. i'd never met any before the internet. it's kinda fun working through the model with them.
but let us not forget that actually, governments do clandestine things. snowden has revealed the extent of the surveillance state. cheney was moving prisoners to torture chambers around the world etc.
so we must be sceptical.
we can only assure our freedoms by pushing back against the folks who would remove them in favour of their own agenda. That agenda may be as simple as seeking to defend the USA and yet they will use it to do ghastly things.
It kinda returns to one of my many key points. The thing that is most dangerous in this world isn't evil. It is ideals which people think are sacrosanct and which are used to justify any behaviour in response. This is as true of Bin Laden as it is of Dick Cheney.
There's a deficiency in the way we think about principles. We believe they can be made pure and bottled up. Islam is perfection and must be asserted. The USA is a shining city on a hill and must be protected at any cost.
Whereas in fact, we are living in an opposing forces universe. No principle is capable of being isolated from other ones. We seek to maximise our freedoms but they are never entirely free of restraint. In the West we believe religion is an individual choice. The US is a fine country but not much different to other democracies which do make mistakes and cannot be secured to avoid all risks.
But for me, the conspiracies are usually unconvincing.
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