Consptheorycy

I'm just amazed at how clever I am. Look at that title. You have no idea what it means, until you see that I have intricately spliced 'conspiracy' and 'theory' into one word- a chimera of sorts. Much like 'Brangelina' or 'A-rod'. Do I claim to be the same level savant as the creators of iconic pop culture vernacular? Well, I'm much to humble to accept such praise- but yes. Yes I do.

I was thinking about the extreme level of mistrust that has been propagated against our government. Now I'm not a die hard 'Government is teh bomb!' type of guy. I know that the government is not perfect. Some have called democracy 'tyranny of the majority'.

But if you think about it, our government is in a lose-lose situation. There are so many conspiracy theorists out there, from the JFK assassination to Roswell to Obama wanting to create a police state by taking away our guns...but the government cannot defend itself from these kind of attacks. If they do? Well, obviously they're just withholding information from the masses. 'Like they would tell us the truth'.

This whole thought came to me when I was looking for information on a paper I'm writing for school. I was looking for something that stated how many children are prescribed Ritalin, or diagnosed with ADHD, in our country. Tangent- how hard is it to have that information in an extremely handy place? I mean, I shouldn't have to go to page 7 of the Google search- that kind of information should be on page 1- page 2 at the latest!

I stumbled across a website that basically made the claim that the government is trying to brainwash people, and that ADHD was created by the government to be able to prescribe drugs like Ritalin to kids in order to pacify them and turn them into mindless zombies.

First of all, I was like 'I just want to know how many kids are prescribed Ritalin'. But I read on- because my curiosity was piqued.

They did have a number in there, and it was a really large number- 5 million. 5 million children? ON RITALIN???? Gosh, maybe they're right- maybe the government is trying to brainwash us- it's a good thing that I was misdiagnosed so I can fight the system. A sort of one man resistance- like Jack Bauer, only smarter.

Unfortunately, they didn't cite their sources :( So I have no idea if they were telling the truth. The other thing is that their use of the number (5 million) is much more impactful than if they were to use a proportion, or a percentage (which I would guess to be around 3-4% tops, and with that guess I just entered into the realm of creating internet facts)...if you see that 4% of kids are on Ritalin, that's slightly alarming, perhaps, but if you see that 5 MILLION children- well, that's a number that is quite shocking. Then you imagine about 5 million ADHD children storming your house like on I Am Legend, and then you realize that maybe Ritalin is a good thing.

After looking at the criteria for diagnosis of ADHD, I have to admit that it does seem to be like a weird thing to be diagnosed with. I mean, aren't those just things that kids do?

But at the same time, if it's just 'kid stuff', you would think that more kids would be diagnosed with Ritalin. There are definitely some systemic things going on- obviously there are parents that have kids with these symptoms that just endure it, because they believe that is the way that kids are. Who is right? Who is wrong? I have no idea- and I certainly don't want to try delving into that right now, because I have a paper/presentation that I should be working on.

I think that a certain level of mistrust of government is actually healthy- but it seems to be completely out of hand at times. I mean, the government just passed a bill that gives health care access to all Americans- and people are turning this administration into the second coming of Hitler.

Government has become the eye of this perfect storm of our need for drama combined with our rugged individualism. As Americans, we believe that we can just pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and git r done. We believe that hard work is rewarded, and we tend to believe that we are hard workers. Because that way, when things go wrong, we can look to external sources and blame them. Like the government.

There is also a certain need for drama in our lives. I don't know if it's a chemical thing, a social thing, or some other third thing. But for some reasons, our lives don't feel as full if we aren't talking about someone else's problems, or having some sort of conflict play out in our minds.

Having a 'consptheorycy' about the government makes us withdraw in our own fortresses of solitude. If the government wants to bring it? I'll f*** them up. It's why movies like 'Taken', the 'Bourne' trilogy, and 'The Longest Yard' resonate so much with us- because we imagine that we are able and capable of taking on the entire corrupt system by ourselves. We are John Conner. We are Jason Bourne. Maybe we suck at martial arts. Maybe we're fat and out of shape. But if they come for me? I'll be ready.

Of course, this type of thinking does not really help the country to function like it should. It creates an atmosphere where politicians do not campaign on the merit of their ideas, or the actual strength of their platforms- rather, they are elected based on how much they tell you of what you want to hear.

The simple fact is that there are hundreds of millions of people in our country. The government will not always be able to do what you would like them to do. They might not even be perfect. But it's the system that we have. Besides, if you tried to take on the government, the government would obviously erase you from existence.