Lionel Nation reframes criticism as proof of hitting a target, noting UFO discussions lack suppression despite progress claims. He critiques the term "conspiracy theorist," arguing it dismisses ideas based on perceived craziness rather than the legal definition requiring multiple guilty actors. By distinguishing sole agents from true conspiracies, he exposes how society labels meaningful discourse as mythical to avoid scrutiny, suggesting that being called crazy often signals one has successfully challenged established narratives without facing significant blowback. [Automatically generated summary]
If you're in a bombing run and you're trying to bomb the enemy and you're trying to say, I wonder where the enemy is, are we in the right place?
As soon as you start seeing flack, you know, anti-aircraft artillery, you're over the target.
They'll let you know.
Okay?
And they only tell you you're crazy when you deal with a subject that has meaning.
If you went on and you said, Elvis is alive, Elvis is here, Elvis, they'd say, oh.
It bothers me that we haven't received enough information regarding, or enough blowback from people who have suggested that there's something to be said for UFOs and the like.
So I thought for sure people would say, whoa, these people are really making progress.
We have to shut them down.
They haven't done that yet.
So that means either they don't think it's that interesting or it's premature.
But that will happen too.
For those ufologists out there, pretty soon you'll be thrown into that mess.
But now you're considered quirky and not a threat.
The moment you start hitting pay dirt, the moment you start getting near, that's when things happen.
That's what happens.
Anyway.
So chapter one, conspiracy theories.
I feel it's important to say this, and I feel it's necessary, and I'm going to do it.
And if you've heard this before, please listen anyway, because you might hear something you never heard before.
I love words.
I'm a logophile, a logodaedalist.
I like new words, but I like also going back and reading definitions of a word that I thought I knew, especially gradations of words.
Like if I told you the difference between dislike, hate, abhor, detest, revile.
You know, it's like, wow.
Little fine-tunings.
Basically the same idea, but one different than the other.
Some more serious, some more inconsequential.
That's what this is.
So never feel like you should always go back and relearn something that you thought you knew, because you'll always find out something new.
So let's talk about the word conspiracy theorist.
First, you must understand, and you must also ask, well, what's the basis from an epistemological point of view?
What do I know about this?
How do you know what we know?
One of my favorite things.
How do you know?
You say you know things.
You know, they say if you go swimming too soon after you eat, you'll get cramps and sink to the water and die.
You can't go swimming too soon after you've eaten.
How do you know that?
I don't know.
Conspiracy Theories Defined00:04:07
Who said that?
I don't know.
Well, why do you say that?
I don't know.
That's what knowledge is a lot of times.
We just say things.
We don't really know why we say it.
And it goes on all the time.
And people in the media, who are the worst, the sock puppets, they know nothing.
So, conspiracy theory.
What does that mean?
You'll hear it all the time.
You'll hear somebody say, you know, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist.
You know, I know this sounds like a conspiracy.
I know this is a conspiracy.
And they call it a conspiracy or conspiracy theorist.
Wrong, It's the wrong term.
What they mean to say is, I know this sounds crazy.
I know I have a theory about some alternative version of something.
I know I'm providing to you a kind of a theory about something that may or may not be based in fact.
I know something that you might think is either superstition or crazy.
That's what people are saying.
That's what people are saying.
People are saying, you're saying something that's crazy, that's baseless, that doesn't have any foundation.
That's a wives tale.
That's mythical.
That's mythology.
You got it?
Good.
That's what they mean.
First, a conspiracy.
The word is interesting.
It means to do something with somebody else.
The word conspiracy from the Latin or versions of it is conspirare.
To breathe with.
No, respiration.
By the way, suspiration is, these people who do that out there, these sires, they drive me crazy.
That's suspiration.
Respiration, you know.
But a conspiracy means to breathe with, meaning an organization, an agreement, a confederation, a kind of a plan between two or more guilty people,
meaning people who are planning to do something, not some cop thrown in there pretending to be a conspirator, but because the old days, some jurisdictions say you can't be charged with conspiracy if you're conspiring with a cop because they're not going to do it.
You need two guilty people.
Anyway, two or more guilty people conspiring.
That's all it means.
Working together, planning something.
If Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, if Tyler Robinson acted alone, that's one thing.
He's the sole agent.
If he worked with, if he planned, if somebody aided, abetted, counseled, procured, hired, encouraged.
Now we get into this kind of this accomplice thing.
And then sometimes when the accomplice gets a little bit more involved, you have a conspiracy where I'm planning.
I call you up here.
Listen, I can get a load of whatever this drug is, or listen, we can do something.
Listen, let's do this.
And the moment I hang up or finish the offer, the conspiracy has been committed.
Because in federal court, in particular, you're charged with a crime and the conspiracy, which is going to be done.
you charge with you with killing somebody and planning to kill somebody with somebody else.
It's the planning.
That's a separate and distinct thing.
That's the conspiracy.
Conspiracy to commit, conspiracy.
So when you say, is this a conspiracy theory?
That to me means, is this a theory or a hypothesis or some kind of argument that says that more than one person was involved in this?
That's not what people mean.
You don't care about how many people were involved in something.
Conspiracy means more than one people.
So now that I've belabored that point to the point of exhaustion, the word is wrong.
So when somebody, so remember this, when somebody says, are you a conspiracy theorist?
No, I haven't mentioned anything about the number of people involved in this.
And people will look at you like, what the hell is he talking about?