Paranoia in an Internet Age

Captain Ed has an interesting post on a survey question, "Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?" Via Memeorandum comes this Rasmussen poll which says 35% of Democrats say "yes."

Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know, and 26% are not sure.

Republicans reject that view and, by a 7-to-1 margin, say the President did not know in advance about the attacks. Among those not affiliated with either major party, 18% believe the President knew and 57% take the opposite view.

Overall, 22% of all voters believe the President knew about the attacks in advance. A slightly larger number, 29%, believe the CIA knew about the attacks in advance. White Americans are less likely than others to believe that either the President or the CIA knew about the attacks in advance. Americans are more likely than their elders to believe the President or the CIA knew about the attacks in advance.

It doesn't really surprise me that much. Any comment thread at CSPT will contain a rant from blubonnet that the government was behind 9/11 and we are killing millions of innocents in Iraq. I rarely use one person to personify a whole group (ok, I do use Amanda Marcotte as shorthand for nutjob feminist whackos, but that's a different story), so I'll give another couple of examples of people who really do think the government is behind 9/11: here and here.

What's amazing to me is how so many people can believe complicated conspiracy theories and disbelieve what is quite simple.

The government took out the Twin Towers on 9/11--complicated theory involving scores of people all lying and having the same story.

In utero babies are babies--uncomplicated theory that what is 5 minutes from birth is the same as what is born

I really don't think many pro-choicers think a nine-month fetus isn't a baby, but they are certainly recalcitrant to say so. That's because admitting that a baby before birth is a baby would undermine the "the woman's right to choose is paramount" argument. If pro-choicers admit that the fetus is a baby at some point before birth, it is more difficult for them to define at what point that "glob of cells" isn't a baby.

But it seems to me that it is much simpler to believe that a a nine-week old fetus is a baby than to jump through all the hoops necessary to deny his/her humanity.

Such common sense does get thrown out the window.

I've tried explaining to blu (and others) why I do not believe the government was behind 9/11. The amount of coordination and secrecy would be enormous and that's highly unlikely.

I don't expect 9/11 truthers to believe this, though. Just as people desperately want to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone, so think the truthers. What is seen is too simple. There must always be something more exciting behind the scenes.

UPDATE: Here's a list of famous conspiracies.