Conspiracy Theories Are Illogical

[Gali]

Conspiracy theorists are mostly bored narcissistic people. Without it they feel bad. It is their drug. That is why they are science deniers because science is hard and boring but these guys want to excape the boring reality so science is the last thing they want. That is also natural as we are basically a dumb race. Try to learn a language in 1 hour. It is not possibile because we are dummies but our ego that is our consciousness wants us to be superman so at least we stay alife in a world full of suffering.

[Winston]

Conspiracy theorists are mostly bored narcissistic people. Without it they feel bad. It is their drug. That is why they are science deniers because science is hard and boring but these guys want to excape the boring reality so science is the last thing they want. That is also natural as we are basically a dumb race. Try to learn a language in 1 hour. It is not possibile because we are dummies but our ego that is our consciousness wants us to be superman so at least we stay alife in a world full of suffering.

Conspiracy people may have warped views about the world. But no one is a science denier. That's atheistic propaganda and a total STRAW MAN. I already explained why here: viewtopic.php?p=359463#p359463

[Winston]

A few more points:

The reason I say all this is because the more I think about it the more all this doom and gloom stuff feels like paranoid fiction. Like something thats in our minds and also propagated by religion and movies and fairy tales too. Something feels off about it. Also because doom and gloom naysayers like Taco are always consistently wrong in their predictions. Just like those who talk about End Times prophecies. So it seems all in their head and greatly exaggerated. Also when you think about it no one sees themselves as evil or the bad guy or villain. There are bad people addicted to violence and criminal activity and greed of course. But not the cartoon villain type that wants to enslave the world like in the movies.

I don't doubt that there are powerful people who do bad things and keep it secret and lie about it and cover it up. It's just that real conspiracies don't work the way movies and conspiracy media/literature portray them right? Like a group of villains like the "The Legend of Doom" in Superfriends cartoons. You ever seen that cartoon series? I used to love it.

Now I'm not saying that elite cabals or cartels don't exist. I mean if powerful cabals exist and collude and make plans for their mutual interest, that doesn't mean that they are cartoon villains like in Superfriends right? Not like the "dark forces are plotting to take away all your freedoms" paranoid fantasies that truthers have right? I'm sure powerful people do get together to talk and plan stuff. It's just that they arent cartoon villains like the Legion of Doom in Superfriends cartoons, who are evil just for the sake of being evil. Because no one sees themselves that way. Not even Hitler did. Right? Thats what I mean. What do you all think?

So what do you all think? Do you think true evil exists? Or is it just a label and perception we slap onto others we hate and fear and see as dangerous?

[Gali]

Well at least you are on your way to find out that it is bullshit. Better late than never. Gratulation.

Though there was a lot of wasted time and mental confusion with believing that stuff.

[Winston]

Well at least you are on your way to find out that it is bullshit. Better late than never. Gratulation.

Though there was a lot of wasted time and mental confusion with believing that stuff.

Ok but if the conspiracy paradigm is wrong or mostly wrong, then these key questions still remain:

However, the real question I think is this: Is there a secret cabal that runs the world or America? I mean like a secret cult that runs everything from the shadows behind the scenes? Like they show in The X-Files and other movies, such as Wander (2020). If so, to what extent do they control everything exactly? That's the real issue. If there is no such cabal, then could it be partially true or metaphorically true then? Is it 100 percent false? Or just overly exaggerated? If so, to what extent?

I mean you can't say that something is 100 percent false right? Truth is never in extremes, it tends to be in the middle right? So what's the answer to those key 64k questions?

I'm sure powerful cabals do exist like the mafia or Washington DC clubs of power. But that doesn't mean they are cartoon villains plotting to take away all your freedoms and turn you into a slave or zombie right? They are just groups of men and some women, with mutual shared interests, where like attracts like and come together, right? Like the Bilderberg Group.

[Gali]

Well at least you are on your way to find out that it is bullshit. Better late than never. Gratulation.

Though there was a lot of wasted time and mental confusion with believing that stuff.

Ok but if the conspiracy paradigm is wrong or mostly wrong, then these key questions still remain:

However, the real question I think is this: Is there a secret cabal that runs the world or America? I mean like a secret cult that runs everything from the shadows behind the scenes? Like they show in The X-Files and other movies, such as Wander (2020). If so, to what extent do they control everything exactly? That's the real issue. If there is no such cabal, then could it be partially true or metaphorically true then? Is it 100 percent false? Or just overly exaggerated? If so, to what extent?

I mean you can't say that something is 100 percent false right? Truth is never in extremes, it tends to be in the middle right? So what's the answer to those key 64k questions?

I'm sure powerful cabals do exist like the mafia or Washington DC clubs of power. But that doesn't mean they are cartoon villains plotting to take away all your freedoms and turn you into a slave or zombie right? They are just groups of men and some women, with mutual shared interests, where like attracts like and come together, right? Like the Bilderberg Group.

You should first celebrate that you reached a saner level on the topic and that might create a positive loop so that you can be more reasonable with other stuff.

Regarding the cabal. It is probably not productive to ask the question in that form. I would start from historical evidence and examples. Basically start with a scientific approach not with a fictional approach. That means using evolutional psychology as one tool among many. Otherwise you go right back to the unrealistic biblical conspiracy game.

[Winston]

Sure I'll celebrate now. Wanna open a bottle of champagne with me? lol

But Gali, that dodges the 64k questions. Are you saying you don't have answers to them? Or no one does? Even smart experts will not agree on everything. Also anyone can cherry pick evidence that suits their beliefs. Even Christians, Atheists and New Agers do that. Everyone does that. But the problem is, everyone also filters out data that does not fit their beliefs. Even you do that too Gali. So you are just as fallible as any man right? Why do you think you have all the answers? Why not be modest? Even science admits that it does not have all the answers. Most scientists are agnostic by the way, not atheist. And none of the great scientists in history who came up with new ideas and didn't just copy other people's ideas, were atheists.

Btw Gali, history does say that conspiracies have existed throughout history. For example, Julius Caesar was assassinated by a conspiracy. Historians agree on that. So what can we make of that then? How does it relate to now? What about Iran Contra, JFK Assassination, etc.? Are you saying conspiracies don't exist at all, or do? If so, to what degree and to what extent?

[Gali]

I am happy that you came to the sane island. Yes you should celebrate it and I guess you will make much more quality friends. lol.

I am not saying that I am super clever I am just more sane in that topic. Most of the time people love ci because of emotions they produce even if they do not make sense from a scientific approach.

Of course I believe in conspiracy theories but I try to be more sane about it. That means I try to use the scientific method as much as possible. That means being humble. That means even if it sounds entertaining not to act like it is true. That means respecting hard workin scientists and historians. Not to see history as fiction like watching a movie like star trek.

That means before dwelving into these topics to stay humble and get a base level of education. So you know the historical context so you do not make so much mistakes. There are many ways to fight your own bias. That we call basically the scientific method.

Start with small conspiracies that are documented and how they came to light etc. So you get a feeling what is probable and what not. The more you get excited about a theory the more you have to be careful as emotions are mostly the wrong way as science is counterintuitive.

[Winston]

Btw Gali, just because conspiracy theories are exaggerated and based on grandiose faulty premises, doesn't mean that the government doesn't lie and is always honest and doesn't hide stuff and cover up crimes right? It doesn't mean Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing JFK and the government told the truth and has nothing to hide, even though it classified the documents related to it under national security even though it has nothing to hide, right? You agree with that?

[Winston]

I am happy that you came to the sane island. Yes you should celebrate it and I guess you will make much more quality friends. lol.

I am not saying that I am super clever I am just more sane in that topic. Most of the time people love ci because of emotions they produce even if they do not make sense from a scientific approach.

Of course I believe in conspiracy theories but I try to be more sane about it. That means I try to use the scientific method as much as possible. That means being humble. That means even if it sounds entertaining not to act like it is true. That means respecting hard workin scientists and historians. Not to see history as fiction like watching a movie like star trek.

That means before dwelving into these topics to stay humble and get a base level of education. So you know the historical context so you do not make so much mistakes. There are many ways to fight your own bias. That we call basically the scientific method.

Start with small conspiracies that are documented and how they came to light etc. So you get a feeling what is probable and what not. The more you get excited about a theory the more you have to be careful as emotions are mostly the wrong way as science is counterintuitive.

I see. But how do you use the scientific method if the evidence has been destroyed or suppressed or denied? Sometimes you gotta follow your gut instinct or intuition or street smarts, like Sherlock Holmes does right? You can't use pure logic or reason to solve everything. My ex girlfriends have found my love letters I hid to other women in ways that defy logic, as if they had a sixth sense and knew exactly where to look. Some things defy logic. You admit that right?

And of course paranormal books and documentaries contain hundreds of unexplained cases and events that defy logic too.

Some evidene is circumstantial too, and cannot be judged by science. Some stuff you know by common sense too. You can't depend on science for everything.

Also, since people lie, how do you know who to trust and which authorities or witnesses to believe? What if their testimonies all contradict? Then what? These are not easy questions that science can decide. There are many mysteries and unsolved cases.

Also you do know that if something is a secret, then you wouldn't know about it unless you were in on it right? So you can't assume that just because you aren't aware of something that is secret, does not mean it doesn't exist right? Have you considered that? I'm not saying you should imagine dark secrets that don't exist, just that technically speaking, if something is secret, you wouldn't know about it because it was secret right?

I'm sure people have skeletons in their closet. And there are secrets on the dark web too. But just because you don't know about it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist right? You do know that right?

[Gali]

Btw Gali, just because conspiracy theories are exaggerated and based on grandiose faulty premises, doesn't mean that the government doesn't lie and is always honest and doesn't hide stuff and cover up crimes right? It doesn't mean Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing JFK and the government told the truth and has nothing to hide, even though it classified the documents related to it under national security even though it has nothing to hide, right? You agree with that?

I told you, did you not read? I believe in conspiracy theories as long as they make sense. The examples you give are all good. I have no problem with that but dwelving too much on the "big" conspiracies is mental masturbation and keeps us from learning real stuff like science, chemistry, physics. The boring stuff. Our job should be to make that stuff more appealing. People and myself too spend so much time with nonsense. A tiny bit of it could have produced us with high level teaching stuff. I think about animation for example. Teaching is still so backwards. So no wonder people escape into entertainment and fiction. We should be able to make science great again.

[Winston]

Is this more accurate Gali about the real world? Bill Moyers below talks to someone about the deep state and how it is a convergence of big corporate interests that collude to preserve their shared mutual interest, rather than a nefarious conspiracy or cabal.

"Mike Lofgren, a congressional staff member for 28 years, joins Bill Moyers to talk about what he calls Washington's "Deep State," in which elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests. "It is how we had deregulation, financialization of the economy, the Wall Street bust, the erosion or our civil liberties and perpetual war," Lofgren tells Moyers."

[Gali]

Is this more accurate Gali about the real world? Bill Moyers below talks to someone about the deep state and how it is a convergence of big corporate interests that collude to preserve their shared mutual interest, rather than a nefarious conspiracy or cabal.

"Mike Lofgren, a congressional staff member for 28 years, joins Bill Moyers to talk about what he calls Washington's "Deep State," in which elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests. "It is how we had deregulation, financialization of the economy, the Wall Street bust, the erosion or our civil liberties and perpetual war," Lofgren tells Moyers."

Yes sounds right and reasonable.

Btw. if you want to study the origins of the deep state as a concept you might study a bit turkish history as the term comes from there. From there you can make a comparison to other countries.

Curiously, there aren’t many political concepts Americans have borrowed from Turkish history, but the deep state seems to be one of them.

The Turkish phrase derin devlet literally means “deep state.” According to historian Ryan Gingeras, the term “generally refers to a kind of shadow or parallel system of government in which unofficial or publicly unacknowledged individuals play important roles in defining and implementing state policy.”

This concept of a deep state, Gingeras continues, is used to “explain why and how agents employed by the state execute policies that directly contravene the letter and spirit of the law.” Breaking the law, of course, often means employing criminals. Gingeras, a specialist in organized crime in Turkey, looks at the underbelly of the Turkish deep state to examine how alliances between generals, statesmen and “narcotic traffickers, paramilitaries, terrorists, and other criminals” are formed. (Elsewhere, Gingeras traces the heroin connection, noting that the Turkish deep state itself is riven by factional rivalries.)

https://daily.jstor.org/the-unacknowled ... eep-state/

The concept of the deep state has been a subject of interest for me for some time now. As a historian of the Republic of Turkey, I was first exposed to the term almost 20 years ago as a graduate student. When I began to first visit Turkey in the early 2000s, anyone who spoke of the deep state did not do so facetiously or critically. Serious people not only accepted the existence of a Turkish deep state, but they tended to believe it comprised an important element that defined Turkey’s past. For more than a decade much of my research has been dedicated to understanding many of the individuals, institutions and events associated with the Turkish deep state. Among the works that inspired me to look more closely at Turkey’s deep state phenomenon were books and articles written by a Canadian diplomat-turned-professor named Peter Dale Scott. His 1993 book published by University of California Press, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, caught my attention as one of the few academic studies to frame American history in a light similar to Turkish discussions of the deep state. In 2007, I had a chance to interview Scott on a (thankfully) short-lived podcast I had published while a professor at Long Island University. Our discussion occurred within weeks of the publication his newest work, The Road to 9/11, in which he used the term the “deep state” for the first time. It was as a result of this book, and the exposure he received thereafter from Alex Jones and others, that many Americans first entertained the notion that a deep state lorded over the United States.

https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/how-t ... a-history/

A deep state (calque of Turkish: derin devlet)[1] is a type of governance made up of potentially secret and unauthorised networks of power operating independently of a state's political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals. In popular usage, the term carries overwhelmingly negative connotations.[2] The range of possible uses of the term is similar to that for shadow government. The expression state within a state is an older and similar concept. Historically, it designated a well-defined organization which seeks to function independently,[3] whereas the deep state refers more to a hidden organization seeking to manipulate the public state.

Potential sources for deep state organization include rogue elements among organs of state, such as the armed forces or public authorities such as (intelligence agencies, police, secret police, administrative agencies, and government bureaucracy). "Deep state" rhetoric has in recent years been used in the United States to describe what in many cases may be the work of entrenched career bureaucrats or civil servants acting in accordance with the mandate of their agency and congressional statutes, when seen as in conflict with the current presidential administration.[4]

The intent of a deep state can include continuity of the state itself, job security, enhanced power and authority, and the pursuit of ideological or programmatic objectives. It can operate in opposition to the agenda of elected officials, by obstructing, resisting, and subverting their policies, conditions and directives. Conspiracy theories of a secret government typically go far beyond these verifiable agencies and posit actions by more obscure bodies.

[Gali]

Is this more accurate Gali about the real world? Bill Moyers below talks to someone about the deep state and how it is a convergence of big corporate interests that collude to preserve their shared mutual interest, rather than a nefarious conspiracy or cabal.

"Mike Lofgren, a congressional staff member for 28 years, joins Bill Moyers to talk about what he calls Washington's "Deep State," in which elected and unelected figures collude to protect and serve powerful vested interests. "It is how we had deregulation, financialization of the economy, the Wall Street bust, the erosion or our civil liberties and perpetual war," Lofgren tells Moyers."

Yes sounds right and reasonable.

Btw. if you want to study the origins of the deep state as a concept you might study a bit turkish history as the term comes from there. From there you can make a comparison to other countries.

Curiously, there aren’t many political concepts Americans have borrowed from Turkish history, but the deep state seems to be one of them.

The Turkish phrase derin devlet literally means “deep state.” According to historian Ryan Gingeras, the term “generally refers to a kind of shadow or parallel system of government in which unofficial or publicly unacknowledged individuals play important roles in defining and implementing state policy.”

This concept of a deep state, Gingeras continues, is used to “explain why and how agents employed by the state execute policies that directly contravene the letter and spirit of the law.” Breaking the law, of course, often means employing criminals. Gingeras, a specialist in organized crime in Turkey, looks at the underbelly of the Turkish deep state to examine how alliances between generals, statesmen and “narcotic traffickers, paramilitaries, terrorists, and other criminals” are formed. (Elsewhere, Gingeras traces the heroin connection, noting that the Turkish deep state itself is riven by factional rivalries.)

https://daily.jstor.org/the-unacknowled ... eep-state/

The concept of the deep state has been a subject of interest for me for some time now. As a historian of the Republic of Turkey, I was first exposed to the term almost 20 years ago as a graduate student. When I began to first visit Turkey in the early 2000s, anyone who spoke of the deep state did not do so facetiously or critically. Serious people not only accepted the existence of a Turkish deep state, but they tended to believe it comprised an important element that defined Turkey’s past. For more than a decade much of my research has been dedicated to understanding many of the individuals, institutions and events associated with the Turkish deep state. Among the works that inspired me to look more closely at Turkey’s deep state phenomenon were books and articles written by a Canadian diplomat-turned-professor named Peter Dale Scott. His 1993 book published by University of California Press, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, caught my attention as one of the few academic studies to frame American history in a light similar to Turkish discussions of the deep state. In 2007, I had a chance to interview Scott on a (thankfully) short-lived podcast I had published while a professor at Long Island University. Our discussion occurred within weeks of the publication his newest work, The Road to 9/11, in which he used the term the “deep state” for the first time. It was as a result of this book, and the exposure he received thereafter from Alex Jones and others, that many Americans first entertained the notion that a deep state lorded over the United States.

https://warontherocks.com/2019/02/how-t ... a-history/

A deep state (calque of Turkish: derin devlet)[1] is a type of governance made up of potentially secret and unauthorised networks of power operating independently of a state's political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals. In popular usage, the term carries overwhelmingly negative connotations.[2] The range of possible uses of the term is similar to that for shadow government. The expression state within a state is an older and similar concept. Historically, it designated a well-defined organization which seeks to function independently,[3] whereas the deep state refers more to a hidden organization seeking to manipulate the public state.

Potential sources for deep state organization include rogue elements among organs of state, such as the armed forces or public authorities such as (intelligence agencies, police, secret police, administrative agencies, and government bureaucracy). "Deep state" rhetoric has in recent years been used in the United States to describe what in many cases may be the work of entrenched career bureaucrats or civil servants acting in accordance with the mandate of their agency and congressional statutes, when seen as in conflict with the current presidential administration.[4]

The intent of a deep state can include continuity of the state itself, job security, enhanced power and authority, and the pursuit of ideological or programmatic objectives. It can operate in opposition to the agenda of elected officials, by obstructing, resisting, and subverting their policies, conditions and directives. Conspiracy theories of a secret government typically go far beyond these verifiable agencies and posit actions by more obscure bodies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state

Over the last week, the idea of a “deep state” in the United States has become a hot concept in American politics. The idea is not new, but a combination of leaks about President Trump and speculation that bureaucrats might try to slow-walk or undermine his agenda have given it fresh currency. A story in Friday’s New York Times, for example, reports, “As Leaks Multiply, Fears of a ‘Deep State’ in America.”

It’s an idea that I touched on in discussing the leaks. While there are various examples of activity that has been labeled as originating from a “deep state,” from Latin America to Egypt, the most prominent example is Turkey, where state institutions contain a core of diehard adherents to the secular nationalism of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which is increasingly being eroded by the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey has seen a series of coups, stretching back to 1960, as well as other activity attributed to a deep state.

YASMEEN SERHAN
It’s tempting to view the leaks about General Michael Flynn and other matters as a push to undermine the Trump presidency, though well short of coup, and therefore to compare it to the Turkish deep state. Some progressives have expressed a hope that bureaucracy might serve as a check on Trump, though they have generally avoided calling this a deep state. But Trump’s defenders, both in Congress and on the fringe right, have employed the term, as have centrist observers and leftist critics of the national-security state. Trump has not yet used the phrase, but it seems like only a matter of time before it pops up in some late-night or early-morning tweet.

But experts on Turkey are not so quick to follow suit. They see a couple of problems with the analogy. First, it’s not a precise application of the term; it portrays any sort of resistance to the regime as a “deep state,” failing to isolate what truly makes the shadowy structures in places like Turkey different. Second, a review of Turkish politics over the last decade shows the dangers in allowing a deep state to become a real menace in the mind of the public.


“Be careful playing with the deep-state idea, because it can so easily get out of control that it becomes a monster that helps whoever’s in charge curb freedom and intimidate dissidents, because it’s such a nebulous concept,” said Soner Cagaptay, who directs the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “You don't have to prove that it exists. Once [the notion is] out there, and the public starts to believe it, anybody can be attached to it.”

It’s all well and good to argue that there are similarities between the Turkish deep state and American resistance to Trump. There are even some shared elements, like the presence of a corps of career government employees who see themselves as the last line of defense for longstanding national values against an insurgent president seeking to tear them down. It’s also interesting that members of the military have seemed wary of Trump, warning of the importance of NATO and pushing back on reported plans to bring back torture—just as the military is the bastion of secularism in Turkey. As Cagaptay puts it, Turkey has historically had three checks on government power, two democratic (the courts and the media) and a third undemocratic: the military.

These superficial similarities threaten to overshadow some of the deeper differences, though. Zeynep Tufekci, a Turkish sociologist and writer at the University of North Carolina, tweeted a string of criticisms about the analogy Friday morning. “Permanent bureaucracy and/or non-electoral institutions diverging with the electoral branch [is] not that uncommon even in liberal democracies,” she wrote. “In the Turkey case, that's not what it means. There was a shadowy, cross-institution occasionally *armed* network conducting killings, etc. So, if people are going to call non electoral institutions stepping up leaking stuff, fine. But it is not ‘deep state’ like in Turkey.”

“The deep state was a kind of criminal organization. What we’re witnessing in the U.S., it’s basically institutional channels.”
Omer Taspinar, who teaches at the National Defense University, took a similar position. “The Deep State was a kind of criminal organization,” he said. “It was not the judiciary, the civil society, the media, or the bureaucrats trying to engage in checks and balances against a legitimately elected government. What we’re witnessing in the U.S., it’s basically the institutional channels.”


The Turkish deep state, historically, was willing to use violence to achieve its ends, and held close ties to organized crime. The resistance against Trump has involved leaking of government information—something that is sometimes criminal, and occasionally prosecuted, but is meaningfully different from killing or beating opponents.

The fact that the deep state in Turkey was known for lawlessness and criminality meant that it was disliked by a wide range of factions there, from liberals to the religious, more conservative factions that the military repeatedly slapped down as they gained power. That began to change with the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan had previously been banned from government for violating rules against Islamist politics, but he returned in a more moderate guise, becoming prime minister in 2003. (He became president in 2014.) Erdogan learned to use the idea of deep state as a cudgel against it.

“It became such common currency that it allowed Erdogan's AKP government to cripple Turkey's democratic checks and balances, including media and courts, many of whose members Erdogan connected to this alleged deep state and then locked up during a set of trials collectively known as Ergenekon,” said Cagaptay, who writes about Erdogan’s power grab in a forthcoming book The New Sultan.


Those trials began in 2008. Erdogan started small: He first arrested “people who looked like they were bad apples: Former military officials, connected to loan sharks, and everybody applauded that,” Cagaptay said. Then the investigation expanded. The murder of a prominent journalist was pinned on the deep state; then a large portion of Turkey’s active-duty generals and admirals were accused.

The trials effectively crippled the military, even though they were based largely on flimsy evidence. “The indictment basically said, ‘It is such a good plot, and it is hidden, because nothing that the deep state does is ever transparent,’” Cagaptay said. Once the military was neutralized, Erdogan was in a strong position. The army had removed prime ministers who got too ambitious in the past, but they were no longer in a position to do so. (The failed coup in July 2016 further affirmed just how weakened the military was.)

“The Ergenekon case was the pivotal moment in Erdogan's undermining of Turkish democracy, because he used it then to go after courts and media, intellectuals, business people, pretty much anybody who did not support his political agenda,” Cagaptay said. By the time a Turkish court overturned all 275 Ergenekon convictions in 2016, it didn’t matter: The damage to institutions was done, and Erdogan had consolidated his grip on power.


That’s the danger of the deep-state analogy, and the danger of trying to operate a deep state: It is liable to facilitate its own destruction. It can place some real restraints on a government, up to a point. But if a leader can convince the public that it exists and is a real threat, he can manipulate that threat into empowering himself, undercutting the values that the deep state had pretended to safeguard. And it is a perfect foil for a demagogue.

“I think Erdogan's agenda was not eliminating it, it was taking it over,” Cagaptay said. “Turkey has not become more liberal, more free after 15 years of Erdogan. Ironically, Turkey has become not more free after the elimination of the deep state. It has become less free.”

Cagaptay, like Tufekci and Taspinar, argued the American analogy was a bad one. But even if that is true, allegations of a deep state could be an effective foil for Trump, just as they have been for Erdogan.

“It's such a catchy concept, because it helps explain so much,” Cagaptay said. “If you want to explain inefficiency, it's not inefficiency but it's a deep state. Why did the U.S. government fail in a certain policy? Oh, it's because the deep state wanted it to fail, not because it was bad execution, or bad policy, or combination of both.”


These are all good reasons to hesitate before labeling resistance to Trump, whether in the form of bureaucratic obstruction or leaks to the press, as the work of an American deep state. There is the important caveat that if the national-security state truly were plotting to topple a duly elected president, in the manner of past Turkish coups, that would be as serious a danger to the republic as anything that Trump could do. Unfortunately, it is the practice of the national-security state, like the deep state, to work in darkness and obscurity, but there is also no evidence yet to support such a vast conspiracy—and recalling how Erdogan used lack of evidence as proof of nefarious behavior, it’s important to move cautiously in assigning motives.

The tale of Erdogan and the deep state may have a great deal to teach Americans about the deep state, but it might also teach some lessons about Trump. Consider the trio of checks and balances on the Turkish government: the media, the courts, and the deep state. Trump spent large portions of his bizarre, rambling press conference on Thursday railing against both the media and the courts, working to undermine their credibility and influence as a check on his policies, an echo of the way Erdogan has railed against them in Turkey. The U.S. may not have a real deep state, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. president can’t borrow his tactics from countries that do.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... te/517221/

[Winston]

Btw Gali. You dont deny things like:

1. There being a lot of dirty secrets in Washington DC right?
2. Or that the CIA does bad things and covers them up right?
3. Or that there are hidden layers in government like a shadow government right? Bill Moyers talked about it once on PBS even after the Iran Contra scandal.

However that doesn't mean that theres an evil cabal running the world that wants to take away all your freedoms and microchip u so that u are enslaved and zombified and monitored 24/7 right? That seems like an apocalyptic Christian fantasy. Why would any government want to do that except maybe China?

But then how do u explain whistleblowers like Aaron Russo who told Alex Jones that Nick Rockefeller told him that the elite have plans to microchip everyone? Did he make that up? If so why?

Also isn't socialism or communism a conspiracy too? If so in what sense? Are they evil or just twisted and misguided liberals?