Wow! You seem pretty well wound up today...Full moon, I guess?

First, I'd like to know who it is that is apparently bugging you so bad and trying to make you believe all these "Conspiracy Theories." Sounds like it might be someone normally close to you. Also sounds like you've decided to lump all the generally unbelievable things together for convenience and deny them all. Some would call that prudently conservative while others might call it lazy. For the moment, I can't tell which. You seem to be suggesting that if one or two of these cases are obviously baseless, then, by extension they are ALL just fantasy. How about if you learned that the people behind some of these "conspiracies" wanted you to deny their existence? Looks like they'd be happy with your performance, doesn't it?

You would require Proof before you'd even consider listening, right? Now, are there forces in America, or elsewhere based on the alleged "conspiracy's" location, who would expect that you'd want Proof. What would these people do? Wouldn't they go to any length to keep you disbelieving? How about if they controlled the Press? How about if they controlled the P.R. coming out of our Government? How would you know who was telling the Truth if there were people you knew about and believed that they were telling the Truth? How about if you were believing in the validity of a "Perception" rather than a "Fact?"

See? I don't think you're thinking deeply enough. You simply sit back and wait for 'others' to Prove some unbelievable things to you. If you really wanted to know, you should take the time to find out for yourself, or, find out there is not enough information out there form a conclusive answer.

In any event, all these issues are likely deeper than you'd like to admit, and that's what is troubling you.

IMHO, or course.

Since I wrote the piece in the daytime, it would be quite difficult to be affected by a full moon, which has also been proven to be a myth about affecting people's behavior.

Conspiracy theorists are all out there. On TV, talk radio, the Internet, in case you haven't noticed. If you have a Pacifica radio station near you, or for that matter, just about any kind of public radio station, it's next to impossible to avoid them.

Wouldn't anybody require proof before they'd believe something out of the ordinary? How many of the conservative persuasion required proof from Woodward & Bernstein before they started believing the Watergate stories? The difference there, is that proof was provided, and President Nixon lost all support from his own party.

It's not about being lazy. But then, that's a convenient label for you when you need to feel better than someone else, isn't it? What it's really about is wanting to know solid truths, not seeing public forums being given to nut cases. The conspiracy theorists have been crawling out of the woodwork since God knows when.

My rant was a plea for solid evidence or silence. Not unreasonable.

I'm thinking deeper than you'd like to admit. The only thing troubling me is your "Better than thou" tone to your response. In my humble opinion.
If I had been female, you would have blamed my post on PMS. I don't think your opinion is very humble at all.

Why should we have to prove the theories of others? This isn't the 1st century. Theories are pointless until you have evidence to back it. So why should we even listen to 'theories' without evidence at all?

With everything now being a conspiracy - and some even being voiced by supposed sane people, the natural inclination is to dismiss all conspiracy theories out of hand due to the "Cry Wolf" syndrome.

Like all things, that has its good side.  In that the ones that now want to tell us that 9-11 was a set up by (insert boogey man of your choice) are generally laughed at and made to look stupid and paranoid.

Of course the bad side is that should there really be one, no one is going to believe it (except the kooks) any longer.