"Conspiracy theories"

I was listening to the Mike Reagan show on the radio tonight, and a series of callers raised the question about That One's birth certificate. While I don't particularly care whether or not his place of birth is Hawaii or somewhere else, what did bother me was listening to Mike Reagan laugh at the callers and dismiss their concerns. It reminded me too much of the '90s, when the Patriot groups were dismissed by the Government representatives and the Media as kooks and "anti-gubmint militia nuts" because of a few "out there" claims, while ignoring the other legitimate points the Patriots tried raising. A few of the points of contention: Council on Foreign Relations/Bildeberger/Masonic members influencing/controlling our govt; the Federal Reserve not being a legitimate branch of the govt; fluoridation of the water; black helicopters; US govt prisons being built as "re-education camps" for conservative citizens (funny thing, the lefties started crying about the "camps" being planned for them, after 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act); the Assault Weapons Ban being another step toward total US disarmament, as per UN plans for the New World Order. I realize most of these "conspiracy theories" have been floating around for a long while (see John Birch Society, and the Anti-Masons), but that doesn't make some of the concerns behind these "theories" any less real. I suppose at the root of them all is fear/anger that our own country isn't being run with our own best interests, or that we're being influenced by too many outsiders. It does seem like... no, hell, it's obvious that our govt isn't what the Founding Fathers wrote down as the limited Federal govt, with the majority of the power staying with The People and the several States. Instead the States are subsidiaries of the omnipotent FedGov, and have been that way for some time. Incrementalism, the long process of changing by small increments until a larger change is achieved, is what's happened here (as Chuck Harder described it, its like stealing the bologna from the deli one slice at a time by asking for "just a taste" instead of taking it all at once), and the FedGov is going to resist harder to being put back than the People did when it happened in the first place. It's enough that I'd say Texas should cut our losses and strike out as independent once again; we can't do any worse than the US is already doing, and if it did get worse, we could just apply for foreign aid from the US!