immigration

Rounding up a few links

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That conspiracy theory about Labour re-engineering Britain’s population through immigration? (Just read that sentence and try to get your head around the absurdity of what some people want to believe.) It’s utter rubbish, of course, and Five Chinese Crackers does a good job of dismantling it. Just don’t tell the conspiracy theorist who’s trying to Fisk me, he’d invent a conspiracy theory about a conspiracy to quash the original conspiracy theory.

Sometimes, there comes a point in a discussion where you just have to look awkwardly at your feet and shuffle away, like when when the troofer tells you the CIA were responsible for 9/11, or the cab driver tells you he blames the blacks, or when the shouty man on the bus tells you he invented paint. Any rational response would fall on deaf ears. If vague mentions of social benefits of immigration being cut from speeches can be proof of deliberately importing voters, nothing you can say will make a difference.

The Oath Keepers, the scary sort of organisation which appears when people take conspiracy theories too seriously. It sounds like an unwritten part of Sounds of Soldiers.

A battery technology which uses a carbon polymer could be the future of electric cars. One idea is that the car’s body will serve a double purpose by being made out of the battery material.

The Daily Mail and Sunday Times’ climate journalism is made up to suit their climate change denial agenda. Which is a shock and surprise to me. Really.

Lulu will give me a free copy of any book I upload to them by the 16th of next month, to use as a galley copy for proof reading. I do have an urge to collect the short fiction which has appeared on Spinneyhead over the years (and one or two of the comment pieces as well maybe).

South Cheshire Militaire. Which I shall be visiting on Sunday. Because I’m a geek.

That’s cleared away some of the open tabs.

Conspiracy theories are the new religion 3

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I did promise the author of this blog post, which claims that conspiracy theories are suddenly more true than reality, that I would provide a detailed response. But it’s going to be too long to waste on someone else’s comment section, so I’m publishing it here.

Conspiracy theories tend to say more about the theorists than the alleged conspirators. I’m going to approach the examples cited by asking two questions- If the theorists are correct, what do the conspiracists get out of it? and Why might the theorists want to believe in this particular conspiracy? So-

“1) The theory: mass immigration is being used to re-engineer society.”

What do the conspiracists get? Errrrm. What do they get? According to the theory the mostly white, mostly christian engineers of this massed social change get a country where they lose a lot of their privileges because their constituents are less like, and less likely to vote for, them. And we know how willing MPs are to give up their privileges.

Why might the theorists believe in this conspiracy? Because they’re racists? Because they don’t like immigration? Possibly, as a great many of them claim to be christians, they’re scared by falling church attendance and don’t want to have to fight for believers with a younger, louder religion.

“2) The theory: climate change is not primarily manmade, but is a ruse to impose a world government which will tax and control us.”

What might the conspiracists get? They’d get to pay more tax. Which I’m sure they really want to do. The scientists will get to keep the funding which pays for their research. Even though they could be better off working in the private sector. I have a problem with the repeated line about paying more tax. The people who’ll pay more tax are the ones who are too dumb to find ways to make their lives more efficient. Those who cut their carbon emmissions will find they’re paying less money to corporations, and the government, so they will have more money for themselves and be financially more secure.

Why might the theorists believe in this conspiracy? See the last bit above about people too dumb to make their lives better.

“3) The theory: the BBC is a propaganda machine for liberals and socialists.”

What might the conspiracists get? The licence fee cut by the next Conservative government. Though that will probably happen anyway.

Why might the theorists believe in this conspiracy? Because Fox News is Fair and Balanced.

“4) The theory: the 9/11 attacks were an inside job.”

What might the conspiracists get? The satisfaction of having turned real life into the opening sequence of the first X Files Movie.

Why might the theorists believe in this conspiracy? Racism? Brown people couldn’t possibly have organised something this big, it has to be the work of the Illuminati and/or the Jews. (An early 9/11 conspiracy theory had all Jewish workers in the World Trade Centre being called up and told not to go in to work that day.) An inability to grasp reality. Given all the genuinely horrible, stupid, illegal and dangerous stuff the Bush regime did, why on Earth do some people need to make stuff like this up?

“5) The theory: the Theory of Evolution is a 19th Century misunderstanding, which is now clear from modern scientific discoveries.”

What might the conspiracists get? Confused, given that modern discoveries strengthen and refine the Theory of Evolution.

Why might the theorists believe in this conspiracy? Fear that science, and increased understanding of it, will undermine their religion. Inability to visualise a simple and elegant theory. The writer of the post is a Creationist, so this is a favourite subject of his. He claims masses of evidence for his belief, but can never present any that stands up to scrutiny.

This is a bit of a rambling post, because I started it as a comment then brought it over here. Feel free to add your own comments and help me refine and better explain my reasoning that way.

Damn those foreigners for being more English than the English!

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The former Tory MP was responding to an article in the Mail revealing that a foreigner is granted a UK passport every five minutes.

He said: “These people have actively sought British citizenship because they want to make a contribution to the UK.

“I am not sure how many people born in this country have the same commitment. The tests for citizenship are greater than they have ever been.

“We are now turning immigrants into better citizens than people born with a British passport.”

The Daily Mail and its frothing “I’m not a racist, but…” readership are up in arms about this, and goes out of its way to cite Abu Hamza et al as examples of the sort of immigrant we’re getting, insinuating that they’re all muggers, rapists and killers. Take any million British citizens and I think you’d find a number of vile scum in the mix. I mean, a few of them would be Daily Mail readers for a start.