When is it rational to conclude one is facing a conspiracy?

1) T' Ignore or Not Ignore?, 2) When is it rational to conclude one is facing a conspiracy?

For one thing, it is NOT rational if it is one's main idea, if everything else circles around it:

The madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable; this may be observed specially in the two or three commonest kinds of madness. If a man says (for instance) that men have a conspiracy against him, you cannot dispute it except by saying that all the men deny that they are conspirators; which is exactly what conspirators would do. His explanation covers the facts as much as yours. ... Nevertheless he is wrong. But if we attempt to trace his error in exact terms, we shall not find it quite so easy as we had supposed. Perhaps the nearest we can get to expressing it is to say this: that his mind moves in a perfect but narrow circle. A small circle is quite as infinite as a large circle; but, though it is quite as infinite, it is not so large.

G K Chesterton, Orthodoxy, chapter 2
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Orthodoxy/Chapter_2

In that light, my idea that I am object of a conspiracy is not obviously mad. I have other ideas, they interest me more. I have ideas about the Universe and about God, its Creator and Upholder and Lord and Lawgiver, which are more interesting. To me, that is. To someone trying to stamp me as a madman, obviously the idea of me being object of a conspiracy is MORE interesting, as lending itself more easily to some of his standard ideas about madmen.

And it is also NOT rational if:

• A) I have given no good subjective reason to anyone to conspire against me;
• and B) I have not been meeting any kind of phenomena which tend to be easier to explain with a conspiracy against me (or against a category I belong to or am deemed to belong to) than otherwise.

To A, there are two criteria:

• 1) I must be notable enough,
• 2) I must be, to some, offensive enough.

Now, as to the first, I pretend to be a writer (of my blogs) and to be read. I will add, my pretence is pretty realistic.

stats 30-III-2014 and 31-III-2014 and 1-IV-2014, not 2-IV-2014, but 3-IV-2014

These are first day by day stats for the blog:

En lengua romance en Antimodernism y de mis caminaciones ok, some English too!
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com

France	6		And His Word Went Marching On	29 Mar 2014	11
Sweden	5		Chronicle of Susan Pevensie	14 Dec 2011, 4 comments	4
Indonesia	3		Questiuncula de veritatibus in paganismo	21 Jun 2012, 1 comment	2
United States	3		A Visit from The Kilns	1 Jan 2014, 1 comment	1
Germany	2		Respuesta de un Carlista sobre Propriedad Privada ...	7 Apr 2012	1
Canada	1

Pageviews today 17 Pageviews yesterday 41 Pageviews last month 551 Pageviews all time history 22,351

Pageviews today 7 Pageviews yesterday 41 Pageviews last month 557 Pageviews all time history 22,382

United Kingdom	18		Chronicle of Susan Pevensie	14 Dec 2011, 4 comments	3
Germany	3		And His Word Went Marching On	29 Mar 2014	2
France	2		Teruel y Stalingrad	3 Jan 2013	1
Mexico	1		An Interview with the Shrink	20 Apr 2013, 1 comment	1
Philippines	1		Juan Antonio Vallejo Nájera y Anders Behring Breiv...	29 Nov 2011	1
Turkey	1		Decisio Medici	20 Apr 2013	1
United States	1		The Idol and the Spell	21 Apr 2013, 1 comment	1
			Cuando Matteotti fue matado, Mussolini a condenado...	24 Apr 2013	1

United States	8		And His Word Went Marching On	29 Mar 2014	?
Argentina	1

Pageviews today 10 Pageviews yesterday 7 Pageviews last month 558 Pageviews all time history 22,392

Pageviews today 6 Pageviews yesterday 35 Pageviews last month 594 Pageviews all time history 22,440

United Kingdom	21		An Interview with the Shrink	20 Apr 2013, 1 comment	2
Ukraine	10		Decisio Medici	20 Apr 2013	1
United States	5		Susana Maiolo and Sarah Silverman about the Pope	13 Jan 2011, 5 comments	1
			Ramandu and Galileo part 1	29 Dec 2011, 2 comments	1
			And Su Called George About It ...	28 Jun 2012, 2 comments	1
			Some Final Words to the Readers Here*	7 Apr 2013	1
			The Idol and the Spell	21 Apr 2013, 1 comment	1
			Comentario carlista sobre abortamiento (enlace)	24 Sep 2009	1
			Chronicle of Susan Pevensie	14 Dec 2011, 4 comments	1
			Cuando Matteotti fue matado, Mussolini a condenado...	24 Apr 2013	1

United States	5083		Comentario carlista sobre abortamiento (enlace)	24 Sep 2009	1084
France	3124		Chronicle of Susan Pevensie	14 Dec 2011, 4 comments	773
Russia	2364		Collectio errorum in Anglia et Parisius Condempnat...	11 Jan 2012, 2 comments	421
Ukraine	1704		Index in stephani tempier condempnationes	11 Jan 2012, 9 comments	286
Germany	1523		Citemus votum +Antonii de Castro-Mayer, Episcopi C...	21 Jul 2010	283
Netherlands	1456		Susana Maiolo and Sarah Silverman about the Pope	13 Jan 2011, 5 comments	209
China	557		Jack and Tollers discuss pipeweed	31 Dec 2011, 2 comments	181
United Kingdom	472		Mirabilis cosmos, mirabilior cosmou Creator	18 Nov 2010, 3 comments	140
Romania	221		Conversations in a Scottish Krak	1 Oct 2010	130
Poland	211		Signor Berlusconi ...	15 Dec 2009, 2 comments	105

... and after that three blogs with stats for last week (though it was last week when I took the stats for what was then last week):

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com

Pageviews today	52		Answering Steve Rudd	31 Mar 2014	24
Pageviews yesterday	143		A thread from Catholic.com (more may be added)	25 May 2012	20
Pageviews last month	3,401		Copyright issues on blogposts with shared copyrigh...	27 Jan 2014	9
Pageviews all time history	29,751		Other blogs, same writer	11 Mar 2014	9
			Have these dialogues taken place? Yes.	28 Sep 2013	7

United States	261		... on Abiogenesis and Evolutionist Ideology	26 Feb 2014	22
Ukraine	189		... on Rivers Clapping Hands, Anaximander, Greek P...	7 Feb 2014	19
France	61		... on Coastlines and Fractals being No Challenge ...	28 Mar 2014	16
United Kingdom	57		Lies or Bad Guesses about Inerrantism being Protes...	28 Aug 2013, 2 comments	15
China	41		... on Hell Fire (Yes, it Exists)	4 Mar 2014	11
Turkey	15		To some valid points by Alexander Arguelles on Pol...	23 Feb 2014	10
Sweden	13		... AronRa claims Human Morality is Evolution's Ma...	17 Feb 2014	10
Finland	12		... to Unbalanced Anti-YEC priest (?) and his defe...	18 Oct 2013	8
Germany	7		... to Hitchens on Revelation, Decalogue and Evide...	10 Oct 2013	7
Russia	7		... on "Science Works" quote (c/o Dawkins)	1 Jun 2013	6

[This blog here:]

Pageviews today	49
Pageviews yesterday	76
Pageviews last month	1,212
Pageviews all time history	3,291

United States	130		St Augustine was - Literally - a Young Earth Creat...	26 Mar 2014	38
United Kingdom	76		Statistica bloggorum vii vel viii ultimarum xxiv h...	13 Dec 2013	9
France	46		La Préservation de la Tradition	29 Mar 2014	7
Germany	19		Ma signature a été prise en compte	28 Jan 2014	5
Ukraine	14		Ukrainian Catholic Flee Crimea?	3 Apr 2014	5
China	11		Index I	13 Jan 2014	5
Canada	4		grafted, not graffed, Levi Price	7 Mar 2014, 2 comments	4
Sweden	4		Had n't noticed that Save the Children was back in...	7 Mar 2014	4
Netherlands	3		Mes Oui Restent Oui, Mes Non Restent Non	27 Mar 2014	4
Australia	2		L'école non boycottable?	29 Jan 2014	4

Correspondence of Hans-Georg Lundahl
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com

Pageviews today	5
Pageviews yesterday	16
Pageviews last month	328
Pageviews all time history	1,969

France	23		I had replied to John Horvath II about The One %	2 Apr 2014	10
United States	21		John Ritchie Sent Me Mail	2 Apr 2014	6
Ukraine	12		Quelques importants à PRÉSENT	13 Aug 2013	4
China	4		With Jonathan Sarfati PhD on Fall and Inquisition	5 Jan 2014	2
Germany	2		Notifying Craig A. James of a refutation of his re...	12 Oct 2013	2
Sweden	2		Marcel, Françoise, de Rabastau, à propos la France...	11 Jan 2014	1
Turkey	1		Courte correspondence avec Vincent Reynouard, sur ...	7 Sep 2013, 2 comments	1
			On : Benedict XV, To/From : mhfm1, Dates: 29-VII -...	6 Aug 2013	1
			À BT, à propos ses propos cyniques	11 Jan 2014	1
			Are Ichthyosauri Dolphins? I Asked Benjamin Moon	11 Dec 2013	1

As to the second, I have been heavily offensive to psychiatrists and to Evolution believers and to Heliocentrics. And to Catholics who would compromise with these.

Now, as to criterium B, I have lost teeth while not getting my music played, while not getting my essays printed. Not only that, but I have been pretty actively seeking for amateurs willing to take a chance, and I have guessed that those initially encouraging me but then backing out have been discouraged by older people in their surroundings.

But that taken by itself alone could be because I was a bungler - if it were not for stats like those above.

I have also found that when I have written things that could be offensive to some I have seen certain men, otherwise very marginal in my life, make frowns when meeting me which otherwise they do not.

I have also found that when I have written thing that could offend I have found alms I was asking for (and I am asking for alms while not getting a living off my writing) have become scarce.

I have also found periods during which more than one man would approach me the same 24 hours to be bothersome. Taking chances if seated opposite me in a library with computers to push my foot soles. Taking chances if seeing me sleeping at night to wake me up even if NOT concerned with the building I was squatting in for the night. Being extra cruel when waking me up IF concerned with the building I was squatting in for the other night. Exacting a full search through my bag about metal objects if security guard of a library where I access computers. If you had seen the bag how full it is, you would know it was deterring. And a few more, including pretty clear cases of abuse of admin privileges, as to what happens on my computer screen. Plus I have found more money in my pocket when waking up than I had counted when going to sleep on two occasions, which makes me wonder if I received it under hypnosis, despite knowing no hypnotist.

Plus all the times I have been with more or less indirect approach but sometimes pretty obviously confronted with what could have very well been meant as arguments against what either was and usually is my position or was or is probably taken for it. Yes, I think criterium B is pretty well fulfilled too.

Catholic and Enjoying It : The Mark of the Crackpot
January 28, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/01/the-mark-of-the-crackpot.html

This is where I found the quote to the wikisource edition of Orthodoxy. However, Chesterton's and Mark Shea's examples of what constitutes crackpot-single-ideas are pretty different.

I think of this as I behold the spectacle of the discernment-free herd of Independent Thinkers who, getting their marching orders from Church Militant TV and obeying to the letter, are now defending the ”The Principle” (the rock solid new film proving geocentrism beyond the shadow of a doubt and inaugurating a Revolution in our understanding of cosmology). To a man, they are dutifully reciting the rhetoric crackpots always recite when normal people point out that they are crackpots. It goes like this:

• Have you *read* Mein Kampf? Then how can you possibly say that it’s the work of a monster? How do you know it’s not Jews controlling the media responsible for the bad reviews it gets?
• Have you read the latest research proving that Lizard Creatures control the Vatican? Then how can you know that the people dismissing this theory are not, in fact, Lizard Creatures?
• Have you read the latest research showing that International Jewish bankers created Nazism as a prelude to conquest of the land of Palestine? Then how do you know that my gratuitous assertion of this fact in your combox just now is false?
• Have you read the science in support of the fact that the universe circles a non-rotational earth at hyper-light speeds every 24 hours?
• I have to say that I am absolutely shocked at the way Professional Catholics like you simply dismiss people who have been talking about nothing but these matters for years and years. Who made you the arbiter of what you decide is “crazy” and don’t spend your time on? You have to spend all your time researching every “crazy” thing so-called “lunatics” want to discuss or we will call you a coward–and a Lizard Creature who may well have Jewish blood. Can you prove you aren’t? Ha! That’s just what a Jewish Lizard Creature would try to do!

First of all, three of the items were concerned with stamping any and every kind of "Antisemitism" (perceived or real) as madness:

• Have you read Mein Kampf? Then how can you possibly say that it’s the work of a monster? How do you know it’s not Jews controlling the media responsible for the bad reviews it gets?
• Have you read the latest research showing that International Jewish bankers created Nazism as a prelude to conquest of the land of Palestine? Then how do you know that my gratuitous assertion of this fact in your combox just now is false?
• I have to say that I am absolutely shocked at the way Professional Catholics like you simply dismiss people who have been talking about nothing but these matters for years and years. Who made you the arbiter of what you decide is “crazy” and don’t spend your time on? You have to spend all your time researching every “crazy” thing so-called “lunatics” want to discuss or we will call you a coward–and a Lizard Creature who may well have Jewish blood. Can you prove you aren’t? Ha! That’s just what a Jewish Lizard Creature would try to do!

Two of them with Lizard Creatures, alias David Icke's little hobby horse:

• Have you read the latest research proving that Lizard Creatures control the Vatican? Then how can you know that the people dismissing this theory are not, in fact, Lizard Creatures?
• I have to say that I am absolutely shocked at the way Professional Catholics like you simply dismiss people who have been talking about nothing but these matters for years and years. Who made you the arbiter of what you decide is “crazy” and don’t spend your time on? You have to spend all your time researching every “crazy” thing so-called “lunatics” want to discuss or we will call you a coward–and a Lizard Creature who may well have Jewish blood. Can you prove you aren’t? Ha! That’s just what a Jewish Lizard Creature would try to do!

Note, I am not saying David Icke is a lunatic. I suppose he is wrong on this one, though and I am saying this hobby horse of his is convenient to stamp other researchers as lunatics. In this case both references to Icke were outside his own immediate domain and well into being used as a parody of Sedevacantism and of Antisemitism.

Maybe Mark Shea has some connexions with a Jewish madman who is all the time preoccupied with the kind of "madmen" who would conspire to persecute Jews again, and seeing such where really there is none such.

I might consider Mein Kampf as having good things to say on Economics. I take this on the word of a historian who - after reading it - claimed the Economic bit of it is pretty close to Rerum Novarum. That does not equal finding Hitler's solutions about Jews all that good or even wanting to read the work myself. But it does equal me not budging from economic ideals of Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno just because they happen to coincide with those of Mein Kampf. It also equals that Politicians trying to apply it, including Fascist such, excepting not the allies of Hitler simply because they were allies (come on, Hitler was Finland's ally against Stalin!), but excepting only such as embraced Totalitarian, Eugenic, Racialist solutions or persecution of ethnical groups. This rules out from the pretty broad "Fascist" spectrum only: Nazism, Ustashi, latter days of Mussolini (he had a better start in my opinion, especially before the Ethiopian War).

If any Jew due to this considers me a Nazi, a dupe of Mein Kampf, or anything like that, I considers him the kind of crackpot who will brood too much over who is conspiring against Jews. Even if he is not a Jewish suprematist.

The remaining one is a bit more interesting:

• Have you read the science in support of the fact that the universe circles a non-rotational earth at hyper-light speeds every 24 hours?

Actually I am not reading so much the science in support of this fact as reading and refuting the science supposedly refuting it.

What supports it is to my mind mainly eyes an inner ears. Which in their turn are supported by the Word of God, on this issue. And which support Romans 1:20 on God being provably upholder of the Universe.

IF anything can effect most of the universe turning around us every 24 h at speeds exceeding the measured one of light, THEN that thing must be God. And this is the simplest proof for God's existence there is. The alternative is that Universe was created or accidentally made itself in such ways as to impede us from getting it right, not just with one sense but with two at the same time. Now, that is to my mind a prime example of the kind of crackpot philosophies G K Chesterton was setting out to discuss in his book Orthodoxy.

Now, there is another slant to this:

• Have you read the science in support of the fact that the universe circles a non-rotational earth at hyper-light speeds every 24 hours?
• I have to say that I am absolutely shocked at the way Professional Catholics like you simply dismiss people who have been talking about nothing but these matters for years and years. Who made you the arbiter of what you decide is “crazy” and don’t spend your time on? You have to spend all your time researching every “crazy” thing so-called “lunatics” want to discuss or we will call you a coward ...

Not quite.

If Mark Shea has not shown one bit of contempt either for Geocentrism as such nor for Geocentrics as such, then he is of course free to ignore any claim they - we - have on his time.

I wish the kind of people I consider as conspiring against me had the same kind of consideration about me and my time as now I express for Mark Shea. However, this is not the case. Mark Shea, on his side, and as distinct from them, has been not just in this one, but also at other times (I will not say many, but some occasions over the years and consistently in the same sense) expressing a very direct contempt for:

• Geocentrics as being crackpots for ignoring conventional science;
• Geocentrics as being crackpots for researching fringe science;
• Geocentrics as being crackpots for not accepting Modernist compromises on authority of the Bible in passages like Joshua chapter 10;
• Geocentrics as being crackpots for being also Antisemites;
• Geocentrics as being crackpots for being the kind of crackpots who would be Antisemites;
• Geocentrics as being crackpots for bothering him as much as crackpots bother him;
• Geocentrics as being lovable benighted crackpots for believing erroneously we would consider God to be unable to have us morally in the centre of His attention unless we are also physically in the centre of the Universe.

I think that after that Geocentrics have a right to respond to him and that he has a duty to at least consider reading what has been written directly in response to his taunts. To go on taunting and to go on refusing to make a straight response is a bit cowardly. Which has NOTHING to do with any complacency even with an Icke scenario (with a David Icke scenario, that is) in which Mark Shea would have Lizard Blood in his veins (he is not very suited for that role).

I am not accusing Mark Shea of actively conspiring to keep me humiliated by ignoring me. Maybe I should, but I don't think I would. I am only saying it is a bit annoying to see him go "la la la" and shut his ears so as to fend off all "blasphemy" against a Vatican which has, unlike Leo XIII, unlike Benedict XV, accepted, really and truly and fully and religiously, after how it looks like, accepted Heliocentrism. It is especially offending when at same time I have my sleep and my social quiet disturbed by people who are less public and less amusing than Mark Shea. So, if he is not conspiring (but then again maybe he is), he is pretty much serving what seem to me to be a conspiracy, in a pretty good and effective way.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
Sts Herodion, Asyncritus and Phlegon
8-IV-2014

Btw, would Mark Shea agree on two things? A) Atheists do conspire to shut up evidence for God existing, not all of them all the time, but some and often? B) Conspirators do find out ways to manipulate friends or friends of friends or even friends of friends of friends without these being necessarily conspirators themselves? Because my assessment of Mark Shea is not worse than this: he is manipulated, indirectly, by Atheists and by Sadducees. Note, my assessment so far. If he goes on to taunt and at same time refuse to reply, I might conclude he is after all conspiring to marginalise Geocentrics.