Conspiracies and paranoia

James Lileks considers the world of the conspiracy theorist:

Some suggest that the great disenchantment began with the assassination of JFK, and I see the point. But it's strange that it led to a loss of faith in us, given who shot the President. (Yes, I'm one of those lone-gunman wackos. I'm a freethinker! I refuse to accept concensus!) If Oswald had been a card-carrying Kluxer or a dead-ender Bircher or some sort of far-right-wing nutcase, I wonder if we would have accepted the Warren Commission and moved along. But no, he was a Communist. Well obviously there has to be more to it, then. Same with Sirhan Sirhan: his motivation will forever be a mystery, won’t it?

Once you start to believe in the dark shadowy forces, you're done with the world. You're done engaging it, you're done enjoying it. There's no point. It's a sham, a shell, a shiny façade erected by the Jews / Bilderburgers / Trilateral Commission/ Council on Foreign Relations / Project for a New American Century / Masons / Knights Templar / Illuminati / Federal Reserve / Rockefeller-Royal Family Nexus / Bush Crime Syndicate / League of Grim Intent, and all you can do is post on the internet and call talk radio to argue with the hosts who think we're free people.

It's nice to see hope abroad in the land again, but I wonder who will be to blame when human nature asserts itself and the manna shipments fall behind. Someone has to be blamed, after all. It's not the task that's a fool's errand. It's the fools who refuse to believe in the task.