Just Because You Are Paranoid Doesn't Mean No One Is Out to Get You

 I have three today, all at the American Thinker. They all deal, in one way or another with our basic freedoms and liberties, and the manipulations that seek to take those away.

The first is a post Tom Mayer entitled Sometimes there really is a conspiracy to theorize about. Mayer goes on to list a remarkable number of things that arguably are more easily explained by a conspiracy than by random events lining up just so.

Is it really more plausible that the media are acting separately but identically or that they are colluding among themselves and with the Democrats and the Deep State? That their simultaneous and identical takes on everything are just due to similar viewpoints and not highly coordinated messages of the day?

I have heard that the oft quoted "talking points memo" is in fact a real thing. One supposes that if the Democrats have one, that the Republicans do too? If not, why not? But Mayer has more, and some of them get quite pointed.

Is it really plausible that nations around the world keep ratcheting up the tyranny as they independently determine it to be the best course of action? Or does it seem much more likely that each is part of a larger plan, sequenced for maximum effect?

Or this

Is it really more plausible that the American people never get what they want from their leaders because they are bad at picking them or that there really is no choice because elections are compromised and much of the nation's leadership is either corrupt or being blackmailed and threatened?

Is it really probable that significant numbers of leaders take positions on issues they know are unpopular with their own constituents due to conviction and principles, however flawed? Or is it at least as likely that they are told to do so and know that that they will be taken care of if they lose their positions?

Why is it that on the important issues, especially immigration, the path of least resistance for the politicians is always to betray the people? Does anyone believe that five states independently and without consultation decided to stop counting votes at about the same time on election night?

Lindsay Graham is a classic example of someone who constantly disappoints, stabbing conservatives who elected them in the back. When he needed to, he became suddenly the conservative lion, expressing outrage at Democrats attempts to keep Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh off the court. But now that he is re-elected, he has been the only Republican voting for Leftist judges to Federal courts. What do you think?

Steve Apfel explains why we are so easily bullied into accepting our loss of freedom in Why we succumb to micro control over our lives. Everyone must calculate at every moment of every day the risks to our own lives and those under our care. This very weakness is what makes people vulnerable to what I call "scare porn." It has proved to be an extremely effective during the pandemic. I can not tell you how many people I have encountered who were truly scared stiff.

It took a pandemic to learn that human frailties are infinite. North and south, east and west, people of every hue and culture found liberty to be a burden and safety an abiding obsession. It opened the door for authorities to step in with regulations that make material for stand-up comedy.

In effect, we barter liberty in return for some safety. In this give-and-take, a plumber and a professor act with one instinct, as do a rap artist and a rabbi. People may barter the two at different rates, yet all consent to exchange liberty for safety.

...snip...

Enter politicians and their technocrats, salivating over power that dropped in their laps like too ripe fruit. By overselling a peril, they can manipulate the barter price of freedom for safety. To be saved from dreaded Covid, we, the fear-ridden, are prepared to surrender a lot of freedom for what in reality is not a big external danger. If manipulators can make the virus into a threat as big as war, all the better. War is to a tyrant as milk is to a suckling goat.

So, we half beg to be less free to make us feel “more safe.” Covid-19 came as a God-send to the power-hungry and the money-mad. Gollum in Lord of the Rings went into paroxysms of rage at the idea of letting go of a ring that could tame mankind.

Does this fit a pattern that looks like a random series of events, or does it strike you as a conspiracy?  When it happens once, even twice, I can believe that it is random. When it happens in multiple countries, I begin to feel it may be another conspiracy.

Interestingly, those who have been using fear porn to scare the public into submission believe they can openly flout our liberties and freedom. Frank Liberato has an article entitled Democrats Aren't Even Bothering To Hide Their Wrongdoing.

Thanks to the news out of Afghanistan, Jen Psaki’s recent admission that the executive branch has been colluding with the tech giants to suppress free speech, has apparently passed into the ether with far less scrutiny than it deserves. In fact, this is such a clear violation of the First Amendment that it defies any obvious logic or rationale. But Psaki’s announcement isn’t the first act in this play; it’s only the most recent act in the left’s years-long flouting of the rule of law.

A friend recently speculated that the disaster that is the Afghanistan withdrawal might just be a setup to distract us from what they are doing elsewhere.  This is, of course, a conspiracy theory.  But as the old saying goes, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean no one is out to get you.  More and more, it appears to be true.