The fact that someone believes something which you do not believe does not mean that they have a mental health problem. If that were the case, we (atheists) could say that there were a billion or more insane Christians out there. But everyone knows someone who has religious beliefs.
Everyone, no matter how mainstream their opinions, has a worldview which is comprised of a set of beliefs. Everyone. Now, it is just the nature of beliefs that rational arguments and evidence do not readily alter them. No matter how widespread, or how fringe the belief is, or whether you judge it to be 'crazy', or whether the belief has a scientific basis. Those are the default nodes in your cognitive framework. You just don't change them very easily. Any more easily than I change my beliefs.
One thing that you may not realize, or perhaps may not accept as fact due to your own worldview, is that the 'conpiracy theorist' label has been historically, and still is, a tool used to suppress dissent by ridiculing opponents who accuse an establishment of wrongdoing. Here is a Wikipedia article about it.
> As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances.
>...In the 1970s, Martha Beall Mitchell, wife of U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, was diagnosed with a paranoid mental disorder for claiming that the administration of President Richard M. Nixon was engaged in illegal activities. Many of her claims were later proved correct, and the term "Martha Mitchell effect" was coined to describe mental health misdiagnoses when accurate claims are dismissed as delusional.
I anticipate that most people with mainstream beliefs in the US would assume, based on their worldview, that political abuse of psychiatry only applies to other countries, or to other times. I think this is wrong, and part of the general myth perpetuated by the establishment that it rarely (or at least, not in contemporary times) does anything that can't be morally justified.
While many people like to make fun of and dismiss conspiracy theorists, they don't realize that some conspiracy theorists have been following particular events closely for many years and are making connections between events that are decades apart. Whereas the opinion of someone who is less informed on certain things would be that a current event was a standalone anomaly.
When you mention making connections between events rather than thinking of them as standalone, the first thing that comes to mind is the way that government and media sources always portray the wars in the middle east as being isolated instances rather than as being part of a larger strategy and ongoing campaign. Its not just less information. Its misinformation oftentimes too. Such as war propaganda. Every one of these wars has a supposed explanation, which is never given as being strategic or connected to a larger campaign, always some bullshit about 'weapons of mass destruction', 'humanitarian crisis', 'freedom fighters' etc. which is always later revealed to be lies.
I mean, to me its pretty obvious that the US has a long term campaign going on. Just look at a map. We invade and occupy a country on one side of Iran, then the other. Then the Egyptian president, who just happens to have been blocking US plans to invade Libya (one of the strongest remaining Iranian allies in the area) since the 80s, is removed by way of an amazing 'spontaneous' democratic online uprising (which to me looks like propaganda, information/cyberwarfare). Then Libya is taken over by US-backed 'rebels'. And now Syria, the other Iranian ally, is being taken apart from within by more 'rebels'. All countries in the same geographic area, with the same types of prized resources, one after another, all opponents of the US.
The problem is that the mainstream media lies about the motivations for military action are always accepted by the majority. In the context of the previous lies getting us into war, they are obvious deceptions. Yet they blast the propaganda from all angles with the same bullshit over and over and it becomes the closest thing to reality that many people have.
The fact that someone believes something which you do not believe does not mean that they have a mental health problem. If that were the case, we (atheists) could say that there were a billion or more insane Christians out there. But everyone knows someone who has religious beliefs.
Everyone, no matter how mainstream their opinions, has a worldview which is comprised of a set of beliefs. Everyone. Now, it is just the nature of beliefs that rational arguments and evidence do not readily alter them. No matter how widespread, or how fringe the belief is, or whether you judge it to be 'crazy', or whether the belief has a scientific basis. Those are the default nodes in your cognitive framework. You just don't change them very easily. Any more easily than I change my beliefs.
One thing that you may not realize, or perhaps may not accept as fact due to your own worldview, is that the 'conpiracy theorist' label has been historically, and still is, a tool used to suppress dissent by ridiculing opponents who accuse an establishment of wrongdoing. Here is a Wikipedia article about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry
> As scholars have long argued, governmental and medical institutions code menaces to authority as mental diseases during political disturbances.
>...In the 1970s, Martha Beall Mitchell, wife of U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, was diagnosed with a paranoid mental disorder for claiming that the administration of President Richard M. Nixon was engaged in illegal activities. Many of her claims were later proved correct, and the term "Martha Mitchell effect" was coined to describe mental health misdiagnoses when accurate claims are dismissed as delusional.
I anticipate that most people with mainstream beliefs in the US would assume, based on their worldview, that political abuse of psychiatry only applies to other countries, or to other times. I think this is wrong, and part of the general myth perpetuated by the establishment that it rarely (or at least, not in contemporary times) does anything that can't be morally justified.
http://conspiraciesthatweretrue.blogspot.com/2007/01/list-of...