Anyone else notice a positive correlation between CT's and Ron Paul supporters?

Critical Thinker

Senior Member.
I was wondering if anyone has come across any studies that links conspiracy theorists to other factors? Just from my own observations of CTer's on Facebook, there seems to be a disproportionate number of Ron Paul supporters and also anti-Semites that are in the CT crowd. I wonder if there are other correlations between CTer's and things like rural/urban residents or from different parts of the country or other factors....
 
This is purely anecdotal.

All the people I know personally that are big into their conspiracy theories are heavy dope smokers, make no effort to engage with current affairs and never vote. I'm not saying any of these three things are bad, but the correlation is certainly there - at least out of the dozen or so people I have in mind. Some of these people know each other, others do not.
 
I was wondering if anyone has come across any studies that links conspiracy theorists to other factors? Just from my own observations of CTer's on Facebook, there seems to be a disproportionate number of Ron Paul supporters and also anti-Semites that are in the CT crowd. I wonder if there are other correlations between CTer's and things like rural/urban residents or from different parts of the country or other factors....

I would imagine there is, because a lot of CTers are anti American Foreign Policy... i.e. American Imperialism. As this is one of Ron Paul's main tenets, many CTers are likely to support him. I would, even though I do not support all his beliefs.
 
I can't say I support Ron Paul (given I don't live there), but I dig the guy. Every now and then he seems to speak out as a genuine human being about significant issues that no one else would touch with a ten foot pole. A lot of the things he's said I think are batty as hell, but I like his occasional moments of defiant candor. A fair portion of his politics don't much appeal to me, though. Still, if your choice is Pepsi or Coke, might not be so terrible to try something new. Given how rampant the conservative government has run here in Canuck-town now that it's achieved a majority, there's been hints at efforts to see the Liberal party, the NDP(New Democrats, labor-party more or less), and the Green Party settling their differences and forming a single party to run against the conservatives. Even the Bloc de quebecois might get in on the action, and that would be a big deal (french-Canadian politics are complicated subject). I hope to hell it doesn't happen, as a two-party system doesn't make sense to me. It's too vulnerable to exploitation. Ron Paul probably isn't the guy for the job, but I really think the USA would benefit from freeing up its electorate to other opinions/perspectives, if only to turn the banal back-and-forthing that apparently costs billions of dollars into something like a conversation. I'm not a fan of the Conservative government by any stretch, and Harper gives me the willies
Harper-in-the-Face-of-Discord.jpg
but I think I'd rather lose another election to the guy than see the national discourse become a rhythmic chant of 'Two men enter, one man leaves..!' One of the primary reasons Harper and the conservatives are doing as well as they are is a very coordinated media campaign emphasizing how much more stable and healthy the Canadian economy is compared to the USA. It's not a lie, but its certainly misleading, and aspects of it slip into downright falsehood, like the notion Canadian banks received absolutely no stimulus during the bank-bailouts abroad. Another reason Canada is so flush right now is the prized Alberta tar-sands, the project of the nation, with some really cute advertisements attached. Most of them feature scenic forest vistas with neat, tidy paths carved through them, an unassuming smoke-stack perhaps tidily tucked among the trees. Here's one appealing specifically to Americans

encouraging you to use your voice and your vote to support oil development in the North-American tar-sands. This is encouraging you, more specifically, to 'pressure' your legislation/administration into 'allowing' the Keystone XL pipeline to come running through your country, allowing the crude to be shipped out for further refining at the coast. It will lead to more jobs in the states, while the pipe is being built, for the people building it. That'll be that though, maintenance and monitoring of these things, though not nonexistent, is rather scant. In the meantime, it would give Canada's baby, the Tar Sands, free reign to grow and fuel that ever-essential and increasing power demand. The estimated area of the projects growth over the next decade or so could come to rival Texas in scope. It already covers a massive swath of what was once entirely livable land.
tar-sands-before-after.jpgtarsands3.jpgoilsandsphoto.jpg
If the pipeline doesn't go through, there's going to be an economic shitstorm, as the value of all this harsh crude will drop exponentially, and the Tar-Sands project could rapidly turn into a source of debt rather than revenue. If it does go through, this already massive swath of greasy hell is going to grow and grow. Keep in mind there are similar operations 'starting up' in Dakota, and the scale of the work there already appears to be quite massive. This all effects America about as much as it does Canada in many respects, but it barely got a mention in the arduous months of pre-election debates and discussions in the States. There's a party participating in the general election who adamantly opposes the Tar-sands, even knowing what it could mean economically.

Also, the American electoral college is messed up.

says it all.
 
I can't say I support Ron Paul (given I don't live there), but I dig the guy. Every now and then he seems to speak out as a genuine human being about significant issues that no one else would touch with a ten foot pole. A lot of the things he's said I think are batty as hell, but I like his occasional moments of defiant candor. A fair portion of his politics don't much appeal to me, though. Still, if your choice is Pepsi or Coke, might not be so terrible to try something new. Given how rampant the conservative government has run here in Canuck-town now that it's achieved a majority, there's been hints at efforts to see the Liberal party, the NDP(New Democrats, labor-party more or less), and the Green Party settling their differences and forming a single party to run against the conservatives. Even the Bloc de quebecois might get in on the action, and that would be a big deal (french-Canadian politics are complicated subject). I hope to hell it doesn't happen, as a two-party system doesn't make sense to me. It's too vulnerable to exploitation. Ron Paul probably isn't the guy for the job, but I really think the USA would benefit from freeing up its electorate to other opinions/perspectives, if only to turn the banal back-and-forthing that apparently costs billions of dollars into something like a conversation. I'm not a fan of the Conservative government by any stretch, and Harper gives me the willies
Harper-in-the-Face-of-Discord.jpg
but I think I'd rather lose another election to the guy than see the national discourse become a rhythmic chant of 'Two men enter, one man leaves..!' One of the primary reasons Harper and the conservatives are doing as well as they are is a very coordinated media campaign emphasizing how much more stable and healthy the Canadian economy is compared to the USA. It's not a lie, but its certainly misleading, and aspects of it slip into downright falsehood, like the notion Canadian banks received absolutely no stimulus during the bank-bailouts abroad. Another reason Canada is so flush right now is the prized Alberta tar-sands, the project of the nation, with some really cute advertisements attached. Most of them feature scenic forest vistas with neat, tidy paths carved through them, an unassuming smoke-stack perhaps tidily tucked among the trees. Here's one appealing specifically to Americans

encouraging you to use your voice and your vote to support oil development in the North-American tar-sands. This is encouraging you, more specifically, to 'pressure' your legislation/administration into 'allowing' the Keystone XL pipeline to come running through your country, allowing the crude to be shipped out for further refining at the coast. It will lead to more jobs in the states, while the pipe is being built, for the people building it. That'll be that though, maintenance and monitoring of these things, though not nonexistent, is rather scant. In the meantime, it would give Canada's baby, the Tar Sands, free reign to grow and fuel that ever-essential and increasing power demand. The estimated area of the projects growth over the next decade or so could come to rival Texas in scope. It already covers a massive swath of what was once entirely livable land.
tar-sands-before-after.jpgtarsands3.jpgoilsandsphoto.jpg
If the pipeline doesn't go through, there's going to be an economic shitstorm, as the value of all this harsh crude will drop exponentially, and the Tar-Sands project could rapidly turn into a source of debt rather than revenue. If it does go through, this already massive swath of greasy hell is going to grow and grow. Keep in mind there are similar operations 'starting up' in Dakota, and the scale of the work there already appears to be quite massive. This all effects America about as much as it does Canada in many respects, but it barely got a mention in the arduous months of pre-election debates and discussions in the States. There's a party participating in the general election who adamantly opposes the Tar-sands, even knowing what it could mean economically.

Also, the American electoral college is messed up.

says it all.


However, if it does go through, then it will show that Obama's statements on Climate Change are bull sh*t, however I remember reading a statement on one of the people who work at the tar sands and he said that with Obama's inaugural 2nd term speech, he would highly doubt if Obama does accept the pipeline...

The president has an important decision to make.
 
I was wondering if anyone has come across any studies that links conspiracy theorists to other factors? Just from my own observations of CTer's on Facebook, there seems to be a disproportionate number of Ron Paul supporters and also anti-Semites that are in the CT crowd. I wonder if there are other correlations between CTer's and things like rural/urban residents or from different parts of the country or other factors....

I haven't come across any studies but sadly I've come across a lot of CT'ers in my real life social circle who think Ron Paul is the bees knees (and I'm in the UK) and who are anti-semites. Sad really. I'm doing a bit of research about CT'ers and will post here if I find something interesting.
 
This is purely anecdotal.

All the people I know personally that are big into their conspiracy theories are heavy dope smokers, make no effort to engage with current affairs and never vote. I'm not saying any of these three things are bad, but the correlation is certainly there - at least out of the dozen or so people I have in mind. Some of these people know each other, others do not.

I don't think it would be particularly surprising to find a link. Paul represents a drastic change to a system that appears to be broken.

I think the anti-semetism link's a bit harsh... but probably accurate. I don't think it's coming from a racist place per se, possibly more of a reflection of the injustice CTers feel is being doled out to Palestine, and the double standards that Israel seems to enjoy. Then there's the ever widening gap between rich and poor, the banks and the financial elite would appear to be openly villainous, and a lot of the banks/families just happen to be jewish.
I'm thinking in fairly simplistic terms, it's easy to make the connection if you want to simplify your frustrations.
Of course it's racist, but at the same time I think it's more of a reaction towards the elite money men, than an entire race.
I'm sure you'll find plenty of outright anti-semite CTers if you go looking for them, but I'd be careful not to lump all CTers into the same bag as some heehaw in an infowars comments section.

Weed is probably the biggest link between CTers that I can think of, without a doubt. I was a heavy smoker when I first took a real interest in CTs and of all of the CTers I've encountered, mostly stoners, for sure.

I think it's because weed lets you think laterally, although it becomes harder to maintain a linear thought process. It's great for creative thoughts, less so for the execution of ideas.

Weed allows you to spot fakery a lot more acutely than sobriety, e.g. bad acting in a film becomes impossibly distracting when stoned. Bullsh*t becomes a lot more apparent. I think weed primes you for suspicion, and CTs are highly rewarding to a suspicious mind.

Ron Paul represents integrity, whether you agree with his views or not. That's rare in politics, making it no surprise that people who distrust the system would flock to him.
 
Ron Paul is a crazy old kook is one of the single most corrupt politicians out there. If the people who claim they actually researched what he does or doesn't do actually did research what he does, the people he hangs around with etc... you would see that I am right. Especially if you did it with the same scrutiny as Ron Paul people did with Romney and anyone else in the Republican Party.... The ONLY reason he gets any support is that he says the right things to his base. which ar probably already high. He says things that sound good even though they are factually inaccurate across the board or just bat shit crazy! That is different in politics these days, when crazy things are becoming the norm. It's the wrong kind of different IMHO.

In reality he is just selling his ideas to sheep and its so blatantly obvious. It's funny because I think Ron Paul selling stuff to his sheep is much more obvious than any other politician selling stuff to their base. Ron Paul hasn't gone away and uses different more in your face avenues than your typical politician. Take his television channel for instance, you have to pay $10 a month to listen to Ron Paul babble for 24/7! He also has a Ron Paul home-school to brainwash children of his supporters. He also now has his own CT think tank. If that isn't extreme bias IDK what is. My point is that most politicians don't actually create their own Internet channel to brainwash voters, they simply go on the talk shows and present their views. And this was just in recent memory. After he lost his third election he has become a much more extreme activist. Around 2008, It was proven that Ron Paul hired a bunch of internet geeks to literally troll comments sections of the internet to "Spread the word about Ron Paul." When Ron Paul went to the UN to sue a company for a website that used his name (which ironically supported him) that was literally the nail in the coffin (besides for the crazy stuff he says all the time). He is a pure hypocrite

Those are Ron Paul's actions. The libertarians themselves are pretty bad too. Anybody who claims that there is some grand conspiracy about the two party system simply is too enamored with some facet of libertarianism to understand modern day US politics or how the gov't works. Whether it would be free market anarchism, anti-american isolationist foreign policy, skewed constitutionalism, or the desire of free pot. Ron Paul's beliefs are bottled up liberal CTs or far right policies that will never ever see the light of day in this divided anti-libertarian congress. He's even admitted this. Whatever hypocrite in Congress you can name, I can name ten things Ron Paul has done that are worse. And this is for each different issue!
Ironically though, if Ron Paul was ever elected (not in this reality) he would rule with the iron fist of a dictator. If his presidency was actually the libertarian utopia that the paul supporters believe it would be. If he would actually "keep his promises"... Using government regulations to try to make the government smaller. Which is a key no-no in the libertarian religion. If he didn't choose the right people, he could also be just as worthless as Obama. Maybe more so.

Libertarianism represents 10% of the beliefs of the US population to date, but i believe it is growing and not in a good way. Libertarians are infiltrating key demographics of conservatives and republicans. People like Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Ted Cruz are all jumping on board the libertarian bandwagon. And they are heroes to the Tea Party. Libertarians are becoming the accepted third option. The Tea Party is transforming into the confederacy (if it wasn't before). It is a very selfish and cold view of the world. I believe it is a very dangerous world view and can be compared to domestic terrorism. Yes, this was written by a Republican!
 
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Ron Paul is a crazy old kook is one of the single most corrupt politicians out there. If the people who claim they actually researched what he does or doesn't do actually did research what he does, the people he hangs around with etc... you would see that I am right. Especially if you did it with the same scrutiny as Ron Paul people did with Romney and anyone else in the Republican Party.... The ONLY reason he gets any support is that he says the right things to his base. which ar probably already high. He says things that sound good even though they are factually inaccurate across the board or just bat shit crazy! That is different in politics these days, when crazy things are becoming the norm. It's the wrong kind of different IMHO.

In reality he is just selling his ideas to sheep and its so blatantly obvious. It's funny because I think Ron Paul selling stuff to his sheep is much more obvious than any other politician selling stuff to their base. Ron Paul hasn't gone away and uses different more in your face avenues than your typical politician. Take his television channel for instance, you have to pay $10 a month to listen to Ron Paul babble for 24/7! He also has a Ron Paul home-school to brainwash children of his supporters. He also now has his own CT think tank. If that isn't extreme bias IDK what is. My point is that most politicians don't actually create their own Internet channel to brainwash voters, they simply go on the talk shows and present their views. And this was just in recent memory. After he lost his third election he has become a much more extreme activist. Around 2008, It was proven that Ron Paul hired a bunch of internet geeks to literally troll comments sections of the internet to "Spread the word about Ron Paul." When Ron Paul went to the UN to sue a company for a website that used his name (which ironically supported him) that was literally the nail in the coffin (besides for the crazy stuff he says all the time). He is a pure hypocrite

Those are Ron Paul's actions. The libertarians themselves are pretty bad too. Anybody who claims that there is some grand conspiracy about the two party system simply is too enamored with some facet of libertarianism to understand modern day US politics or how the gov't works. Whether it would be free market anarchism, anti-american isolationist foreign policy, skewed constitutionalism, or the desire of free pot. Ron Paul's beliefs are bottled up liberal CTs or far right policies that will never ever see the light of day in this divided anti-libertarian congress. He's even admitted this. Whatever hypocrite in Congress you can name, I can name ten things Ron Paul has done that are worse. And this is for each different issue!
Ironically though, if Ron Paul was ever elected (not in this reality) he would rule with the iron fist of a dictator. If his presidency was actually the libertarian utopia that the paul supporters believe it would be. If he would actually "keep his promises"... Using government regulations to try to make the government smaller. Which is a key no-no in the libertarian religion. If he didn't choose the right people, he could also be just as worthless as Obama. Maybe more so.

Libertarianism represents 10% of the beliefs of the US population to date, but i believe it is growing and not in a good way. Libertarians are infiltrating key demographics of conservatives and republicans. People like Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Ted Cruz are all jumping on board the libertarian bandwagon. And they are heroes to the Tea Party. Libertarians are becoming the accepted third option. The Tea Party is transforming into the confederacy (if it wasn't before). It is a very selfish and cold view of the world. I believe it is a very dangerous world view and can be compared to domestic terrorism. Yes, this was written by a Republican!

Outside of taking advantage of the internet to promote himself and his ideas (which isn't exactly a crime, especially when mainstream media had made it clear in 2008 that they had no intention of giving him a fair shake), what corruption has Ron Paul been involved in?

The only distasteful incident I know of was the newsletter issue, which has been explained.
 
Outside of taking advantage of the internet to promote himself and his ideas (which isn't exactly a crime, especially when mainstream media had made it clear in 2008 that they had no intention of giving him a fair shake), what corruption has Ron Paul been involved in?

The only distasteful incident I know of was the newsletter issue, which has been explained.

Did you miss my second paragraph? I named at least two corrupt things there.
Did you miss my third paragraph? I explained why your MSM conspiracy is wrong.
 
Outside of taking advantage of the internet to promote himself and his ideas

It's funny how hiring trolls to troll comments section is using the internet to promote himself in your book. When those same trolls are quick to paint everyone else who doesn't agree with them as such!
 
Did you miss my second paragraph? I named at least two corrupt things there.
Did you miss my third paragraph? I explained why your MSM conspiracy is wrong.

Caught them both. From the sound of it, the corruption you mention boils down to him hiring some lackeys to post pro-Paul comments, having an internet channel and CT think tank. That doesn't sound alarmingly scandalous in my book, but then I don't know what the nature of the comments were.

As for an MSM conspiracy, I don't see anything in your third para that relates to it. Not that it's a conspiracy, fairly blatant I thought.

It's funny how hiring trolls to troll comments section is using the internet to promote himself in your book. When those same trolls are quick to paint everyone else who doesn't agree with them as such!

I'm making assumptions based on a bias towards Paul, if you have a story or article about the incident maybe it'll change my mind?
 
Caught them both. From the sound of it, the corruption you mention boils down to him hiring some lackeys to post pro-Paul comments, having an internet channel and CT think tank. That doesn't sound alarmingly scandalous in my book, but then I don't know what the nature of the comments were.

As for an MSM conspiracy, I don't see anything in your third para that relates to it. Not that it's a conspiracy, fairly blatant I thought.

I'm making assuptions based on a bias towards Paul, if you have a story or article about the incident maybe it'll change my mind?

1. You said they didn't give him a fair shake. When is it the media's responsibility to care about a last place candidate? Whoever said the media was fair? Only supporters in my mind would care...
2. So you didn't read my second paragraph got it!
 
1. You said they didn't give him a fair shake. When is it the media's responsibility to care about a last place candidate? Whoever said the media was fair? Only supporters in my mind would care...
2. So you didn't read my second paragraph got it!

That's just it, Paul wasn't in last place in many of the GOP candidate news items, he was second in a few of them, yet he was either excluded or not spoken about. I don't really see this as an issue, it's fairly obvious that he was intentionally ignored by MSM.

Yes I read your second paragraph, wasn't particularly damning though. Have you got a link to the story about him paying people to post comments?
 
This is not a politics discussion forum. And this thread has drifted off topic.

Appreciate that, but if the topic is the correlation between CTers and Ron Paul supporters, then surely the man's character comes into question?
If he's painted to be a quack, then surely the implication paints CTers with the same brush?
 
I


Weed is probably the biggest link between CTers that I can think of, without a doubt. I was a heavy smoker when I first took a real interest in CTs and of all of the CTers I've encountered, mostly stoners, for sure.

I think it's because weed lets you think laterally, although it becomes harder to maintain a linear thought process. It's great for creative thoughts, less so for the execution of ideas.

Weed allows you to spot fakery a lot more acutely than sobriety, e.g. bad acting in a film becomes impossibly distracting when stoned. Bullsh*t becomes a lot more apparent. I think weed primes you for suspicion, and CTs are highly rewarding to a suspicious mind.

I have noticed the marijuana link also. I have wondered if the culture around pot smokers help to fuel it. They start to distrust authority figures, because they are a 'threat'. Things like sting operations add to that. The pro hemp sites and all their 'they aren't telling the truth' also helps.
 
It would come from the seeing the discrepancy between being a marijuana smoker, a largely harmless pastime that gives genuine intellectual stimulation and sensual pleasure with less impact than alcohol, and being a criminal because of that - it naturally leads to a questioning and suspicion of any other conventional wisdom that comes from the mainstream.
Unfortunately being stoned whilst thinking about that stuff will interfere with your ability to come to rational conclusions about it, though they will 'feel' right emotionally.
 
That's just it, Paul wasn't in last place in many of the GOP candidate news items, he was second in a few of them, yet he was either excluded or not spoken about. I don't really see this as an issue, it's fairly obvious that he was intentionally ignored by MSM.

Yes I read your second paragraph, wasn't particularly damning though. Have you got a link to the story about him paying people to post comments?

1. Yes, maybe in the way early beginning when not everybody joined the race yet, he quickly slid into last place and stayed there! No. He was on TV, He was in the debates. He went onto all the talk shows. They just didn't talk about what HE wanted to talk about or asked him about his racial newsletters or just brushed him off when he danced around modern day social issues like evolution and abortion.

2. Here is an article about the troll itself. Not sure if he was paid, maybe that my fault, but paul supports have the same type of mentality. As if they are getting paid. In comparison to this guy, I think I wrote Huntsman 2012 on two posts on the internet...

Stop your pity conspiracy. I was a huge Huntsman supporter but you don't see me creating a crazy conspiracy about how the media blocked him out. In fact I would say some of the people in the Paul camp had something to do with his demise and a hard-core racist video about his efforts in China, but I'll let you research that one.

It's been proven that Ron Paul and the people who were in charge of his many super pacs basically stole money from their base by paying themselves and family members huge fat checks. Check out the campaign expenses of the Ron Paul revolution...It doesn't add up. They also paid huge amounts of money for "Email" and "Administration expenses." Another story recently broke that the Ron Paul campaign actually paid high profile people to support him! It wasn't just any high profile politician either. it was someone from someone else's campaign! You can research this yourself too.

All I'm saying is Ron Paul is a hypocrite and a pretty corrupt one at that, but he sure does put on a show that the CTs love!
 
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This is not a politics discussion forum. And this thread has drifted off topic.

I think it's still relevant. Ron Paul has a huge CT base even though there are little CTs all surrounding Ron Paul and his people... It's quite a scene, don't be so quick to judge. And not everything is about politics. This is mostly about the CT that the MSM "Ignored Ron Paul"

I don't know if it's possible to talk about politicians without talking about politics. A lot of the best CTS whether real corruption or alternative reality stuff happens on the Campaign trail. Following politics is how I became a debunker.
 
Caught them both. From the sound of it, the corruption you mention boils down to him hiring some lackeys to post pro-Paul comments, having an internet channel and CT think tank. That doesn't sound alarmingly scandalous in my book, but then I don't know what the nature of the comments were.

I see you skipped over his UN battle...How typical. That was kinda pathetic really.
 
I don't really see this as an issue, it's fairly obvious that he was intentionally ignored by MSM.

Then why didn't you answer my question? When is it the media's job to care about a last place candidate? It's clear that Ron Paul only started to climb when others dropped out after their huge popularity swings. But he was never going to catch Santorum or Romney least of all Obama...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep.../republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html
 
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