The Conspiracy Thread II

In my previous post of months ago The Conspiracy Thread I, I spoke about the US and the "birthers". This time I will speak about groups that control the world. A few examples include the Bilderberg group, the Freemasons and the Elders of Zion.

Little Info
Apparently we are all puppets. There are groups in this world who aim to control you. It seems they're actually successful at doing so too. I had a discussion recently with someone I know, who told me that the entire Arab Spring was orchestrated by groups, which run the US. He said these are probably the Bilderberg group and the Freemasons. The Knights Templar might also be involved.
These groups are responsible for war and peace around the world. They orchestrate everything, including the financial crisis, which made them even richer. Of course, all of this is based on nothing more but anecdotal evidence, but it doesn't stop people for believing in them. The reason for why these groups exist, why people believe they're evil villains will be explained in parts below.

The Villains
Let's first see what the conspiracy theorists get right. I will only speak about the Freemasons in detail, but they usually use very similar arguments for the other groups.
So, the Freemasons are a group of people, who originated many centuries ago. The way they work is that they have initiation rites and rituals. Most of these have been kept secret for this entire time. Few rituals are known exactly. This secretive nature is what gives rise to many theories about them, since all meetings happen behind closed doors. Membership is by invitation only and some very influential people were or are part of the society. This includes kings, celebrities, bankers, and so on. This adds to the entire message that the Freemasons actually conspire against the common people in their own interests.
It is of note that the Freemasons also have certain rules to join and the most prominent one is to express your belief in a single deity. This usually means that and polytheist or even atheist could not join the group.

The Freemasons are believed to influence the world by deciding on policies in these secret meetings. They are involved in everything including finance, wars, drugs, terrorism, coup d'etats and more.

Networking 
There are many problems with these thoughts. The first problem is that it does not make sense for a group to be able to manipulate so many people at the same time. First of all, the question is how ? For example, if I were Syrian, what would push me to protest in the streets and risk getting shot at ? According to the conspiracy theorists, the Freemasons or other groups would be manipulating me to go out there. How are they doing that ? On top of this, how would they get me, my sons, my father, my uncles and others to go out there and get shot as well ? None of this makes sense. It makes a lot more sense to go out there and protest because the Syrian government has more than a dozen police agencies which are tasked to make sure no one speaks out against the government.
The second problem I see is that there are many reasons to keep meetings secret or private. It's because they just do not want people to know what they're talking about. When I speak to a family member about personal issues, I don't want other people to know what I'm talking about. The Freemasons is basically a giant network of rich or influential people, they probably discuss business matters all the time, which are to be private.

Too Much Power
The biggest problem of them all is that if it were all true and these groups can basically mind-control the entire world, then it means they are too powerful for me. I'd much rather live my life in ignorance and be happy, enjoying life with my family, going to work and providing food for my children and so on. It just would not make any sense to fight such powerful people who can overhear anything and manipulate 500 thousand people to go out on Tahrir square all at the same time to protest a leader that might have possibly send the military to kill them all.
While Good vs. Evil fights always end up with Good overcoming Evil in fairytales; If Evil truly were that powerful, then it would be better to live our lives in peace and enjoy ourselves.

The End

The Conspiracy Thread I

I spy, I spy, with my little eye something beginning with C.


Conspiracies Around The World
It's not something unique or extraordinary. People believe in conspiracies all around the world. Some of the more famous ones include:
- Pyramids are made by aliens, and the evidence therefore has been buried by the world governments.
- Aliens landed in Roswell, the US buried that story too.
- The Elders of Zion are a group of Jew who control world politics and economics, who amongst other things made up the Holocaust to benefit all Jews
- The Bilderberg group are an elitist group of rich or powerful or highly intelligent people who control the world and economics and choose who fights which wars.
- The moon landing in 1969 was faked by the US to give the US people a boost in morale and make the Russian Sovyet Union take morale hit.
- Obama is a Muslim terrorist who was not born in the US and who is leading the US to ruin (or the Anti-Christ)


And there are many more, but I would just go with one of the more prominent ones in the past two years for this thread. This would be about Obama being a lawful POTUS (President of the United States).


Let's Start At The Beginning
There are those who claim Obama is not from the US. This is because amongst several other reasons he was raised in Indonesia for several years, because his middle name is of Arabic-sounding origin and because his father is Muslim. Except for the fact that none of the above makes it illegal for him to be President, many people believe this to be enough and if they do not they have tried digging deeper and making unfounded stories about him.
One of them is about Obama being Muslim himself and as such is getting associated with Muslim extremists and terrorists. This claim is not only unfounded but completely 'racist'. Lumping all Muslims into one big melting pot of terrorist is moronic to say the least. The second part of this assessment is the part of Obama himself being Muslim. This is also wrong, especially since he himself has been a regular churchgoer for the past two decades and a half.


Birthers
Birthers is the new label on people who claim Obama was not born in the US. This issue was raised during his presidential campaign a few years ago and was put to rest in the mainstream media until recently when Trump decided to race headlong against Obama as a birther. He claimed, like others that since Obama had failed to produce his birth certificate he was not eligible to be POTUS and should not be allowed to run for a second a time. This was due to Obama not releasing his birth certificate. I do not know why Obama did not wish to release his birth certificate, but he finally did.
News Article About It...


This should put at ease most rational people who had started believing the nonsense about him not being born in the US.


Apart From That
The US Constitution does not even require a person to be born in the US to be eligible as a candidate for the US Presidency. According to the US Constitution you just need to be a "Natural-born US Citizen".
The word 'born' in there might be somewhat misleading as the only conditions for being a "Natural-born US Citizen" are the following : (Source : Constitutional Topic)

• Anyone born inside the United States *
• Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe
• Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national
• Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year
• Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21
• Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)
• A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.

_{* There is an exception in the law — the person must be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. This would exempt the child of a diplomat, for example, from this provision.}




So basically, even if Obama was not born in the US, but his mother was and had lived in the US for at least five years, then Barack would have been a "Natural-born US Citizen" and as such would have been allowed to become POTUS.


And yes, being a citizen/national or a natural-born citizen is not the same according to the US constitution and law.


In The End
I just hope this isn't what makes Obama lose his presidency. These conspiracy theories can be quite hurtful sometimes and stupid at other times.If Obama loses his presidency, it should be because he's not competent enough to lead the US people, not because of phony accusations about his birth or because of Islamophobia.


You might also notice that I am not one to believe in most conspiracies and one reason for that is that I do not understand why I should just believe one of them and not all of them. All of them give have some kind of complete fallacy to justify their 'truths' that it just does not make any sense.


Addendum
According the the New York Times, many people are also doubtful about Trump's origins with more than the majority of people who were polled saying there was a probability that Trump is not a US citizen. I wonder if he would get more or less slack than Obama. Of course his, middle name isn't Hussein, so probably, no one would care about him.
Article About Trump

Link to The Conspiracy Thread II