"Personally, I see it as just another way that white liberals keep black people down."

I think that's an unintended consequence.

Anyhow, look how many black people (and Michael Moore) think OJ was innocent.

This isn't going to hold them back unless they're stupid enough to air their unusual beliefs at work.

Personally, I think we should end the War on Drugs, but I'm not going to mention this in a job interview.

I used to work with a very capable engineer who didn't have a TV at home because "the government is watching you throught it"

Needless to say he was a commited "9/11 inside job" and "the moon landing was filmed in Hollywood" man. The Illuminati got Bush and the Zionists to do a controlled demolition on the towers.

I don't think he will ever get fired because he's kept around for everyone's cynical amusement.

Wow, are you saying blacks can't make up their own minds? What would Bob Marley think? And this from the altruistic follower of Ronald Raygun, who did so much to help minorities during his doze, er days, in office? Shocking. I know a rising tide will lift all ships, isn't that the palliative mantra you say to yourself while listening to Leonard Cohen or 50 Cent or whoever your fellow globalist cohorts are misunderstanding these days? But of course you're above the rednecks and reactionary goobers that vote Republican in lockstep. You'll take their homophobic, racist votes but then try to disassociate yourself from them while you frequent the latest yuppie fooderies! Priceless!

Who is ever going to give a job to someone prone to believing things that make no sense?

And yet, the senior associate for whom my girlfriend works is up for partner at a major law firm and believes in such nonsense. (And, of all things, they work together on 9/11 litigation.) The key is that one doesn't have to share one's beliefs with one's employers in this country.

I've been wrestling with this for months. A lot of really smart people I know are buying into this sort of crap. I have this theory it doesn't really have anything to do with what actually happened. It has to do with identity.

Otherwise-intelligent people can suspend their critical thinking skills in an effort to belong. This way they can be "in the know", where the rest of us are just "sheeple". Plus, it fits nicely in the fantasy world where Republicans are responsibile for everything bad.

Of course, some of them are just morons.

I don't know that it's necessarily a racial thing. Maybe secondarily, based on economics or culture or whatever, but not primarily.

I think smart, unscrupulous people use tropes like that to keep dumb people down.

Let's not beat around the bush here. Some people are just plain dumb. Under-educated, disadvantaged, inadequately privileged, whatever you want to call it. They're just dumb. Some people really can't make up their own minds; they never learned how. Some people are just plain dumb.

And when you feed them nonsense like "9/11 was an inside job" over and over again for five years, they'll believe you.

There is an old saying that if you tell a lie enough times and long enough you will believe it's true yourself. That seems to be effecting the democrats in droves. Look at their last presidential candidiate, he lied to everyone for so long he now believes his own lies to be true. Even when proven that his lies were impossible he keeps telling the same lies. He can't even accept the 'fact' that Nixon was not president in the Dec he claims Nixon sent him to Cambodia. He can't have a faulty memory since he only spent 4 months in Nam before he 'cut and run' (seems to have developed into a habit) and there was only one Christmas that year. The one Christmas thing i'm sure of.

I have to agree wholeheartedly with Eric. This conspiracy crap is largely psychological. Personally, I think it's two-fold:

One... They really just can't (or don't want to) believe that the world is chaotic. It helps them to think that there is one secret, omni-present power that controls everything.

Second... It makes them feel special to know that they've figured it all out. That they know who's controlling things. That they know more than their friends and neighbors.