I have long been intrigued by the power of the term “conspiracy theory,” but not because it contains any useful information. It does not. It is a blunt weapon used to beat people into quiet submission even as they hold views of the world around them at variance with their peers and colleagues. It is a powerful thought control device. Its true content is this:
“STFU.”
I think most who come to this website know or are vaguely remember that the origin of the term is in a 1967 CIA memo circulated to all of its bureaus called “Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report.” That’s rich, as in that document we will find unspoken knowledge within the Deep State that the JFK assassination was a public hoax, making the memo itself a “ riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
In the wake of the memo, newspaper outlets began using the term, and its use has spread. I find it ghastly, as those who mimic the words imagine themselves smarter than those they hurl them at. They do not know how to think. I once devised a response for use against people hurling the epithet, roughly as follows:
Piece of Mindful 