My first real truther

Once a month I go to dinner with a group of atheists/freethinkers I met through meetup.com. Apparently this wacko thought “freethinker” means “someone that thinks like me”. He showed up to dinner last month, and I wasn’t there, but I got to hear all about him. Well he showed up this month. I pretty much ridiculed him the whole time and destroyed any arguments he had, but he really believed his theories. He had a backpack full of DVDs and pamphlets on 9/11 to hand out.

Essentially his theory is that there is a “ruling elite” made up of Jews and the British. Everyone is controlled by a sophisticated propaganda machine. The ultimate goal of the ruling elite is to control the world’s money, form one world government, and kill off 90% of the population. Christianity and Satan fit somewhere in all that, and atheists are evil and without morals (this point got me a little hot, but I recovered and continued with the ridicule). 9/11 was a conspiracy perpetuated by the ruling elite.

I basically asked him–among other questions–how he knows he’s not part of the conspiracy, why if Jews were in control six million were killed in the Holocaust (the Holocaust is evidently also a conspiracy), and if I play his DVDs backwards at 78 speed will I see God. I did try engaging him seriously for a few minutes, but he was obviously far far down the rabbit hole and being rude besides. He was in serious need of a shawmutt smackdown. At one point he announced he was going to his car, and I started looking for things to throw at him when he came back with a gun (unfortunately I was in Maryland and they don’t recognize my CC permit). He just came back with a laptop and announced he was giving us a “five minute presentation”, at which point I wished everyone a good night and headed out.

Where did all these wackos come from, and why are they still around nearly ten years after the tragedy? I blame the internet.