The Inbred Idiocy of Conspiracy by Fiat

It's in the genes, stupid...

Not anymore…

It took me the better part of six decades to become a conspiracy theorist, but only because I’m slow in ways I was once loath to reveal. I’ve come to realize in the two decades since, however, that we are all conspiracy theorists who decry as tin-foil lunacy only those conspiracy theories that don’t comport with our own. That we can slip so readily in and out of conspiracy theory mode to suit our current mood or circumstance might suggest to a diehard conspiracy theorist that there’s more to conspiracy theory than mere conspiracy theory.

Thankfully, my former reticence to reveal my own ignorance is in the rearview mirror. More on conspiracy theory a little later…

Meanwhile, the crime, corruption, and general decline in major American cities is the clear result of ideological inbreeding, what happens when they evolve generationally as one-party towns with no inherent checks or balances, and no new ideas to expand the gene pool, or otherwise challenge and strengthen what little remains of their ideological auto-immune systems. Like all late-stage addicts, their self-defense mechanisms are simply too compromised to protect them from themselves.

In essence, crime, corruption, and general decline are simply the opportunistic pathologies that target generationally inbred urban organisms the way cancer, diabetes, heart disease, COPD, and other opportunistic lifestyle-related pathologies attack immunocompromised individuals after decades of spiritual, social, emotional, and physical neglect.

The same is now true of institutional America in the 21st century. All of our major institutions — public and private alike — have been generationally inbred to be ideologically identical, at least functionally, populated at the top of the institutional food chain by graduates of the same Ivy League institutions: generations of young minds taught chapter and verse precisely how to tolerate everything and anything that doesn’t wind up in their own backyards.

Institutionally, ideology in the 21st century is now — for all intents and purposes — genetically predisposed, the result of what I call conspiracy by fiat. Conspiracy by fiat is what happens when the top jobs in government, private corporations, NGOs, major foundations, and academia become interchangeable and incestuous components of single ambitious careers.

Conspiracy by fiat is inevitable when generations of brilliant students from the same Ivy League business and law schools are all taught to think the same way about the same things by tenured professors who likewise all think the same way about the same things. It’s what happens when those same students graduate with virtually identical ambitions of power and success.

Consider what happens when a young attorney representing a K Street lobbying firm sits across a table from her counterpart, a young congressional aide, to negotiate a minor piece of legislation. A few years later the same two individuals have switched sides: the former attorney is now a congressional aide, and the former congressional aide is now a K Street lobbyist. They sit down again across the same table to negotiate a different piece of legislation. Over the years, the same process repeats itself over and over like some Darwinian force of nature, immutable and unthinking.

In the end, assuming our two protagonists have met often enough, assuming they have sold and traded enough influence in the process, and assuming they have survived the deceit and calumny encountered on the path to power and wealth, they are awarded with seats on multiple corporate boards, and honorary degrees in academia. Perhaps deservedly so: In the upward spiral of conspiracy by fiat, power and wealth are the tangible rewards for the spiritually and emotionally wounded few who actually survive the process. Mission accomplished.

But that’s why the scoundrels on Wall Street, the scoundrels on K Street, the scoundrels in government, the scoundrels in technomedia, and the scoundrels in academia are all the same scoundrels at different stages of their careers. That’s why all the inept and bungling professional liars in the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the DOD, and the DHS fail so spectacularly over long careers only to wind up with lucrative book deals and cable news contracts.

Conspiracy by fiat is thus the evolutionary mechanism of entitlement culture. And, of course, true entitlement always begins at the top. True entitlement is a top-down phenomenon. What the ruling elites call entitlements — recent programs like Covid relief, or long-established programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP — are, in fact, the table scraps left over by the rapacious gluttony of the truly entitled.

Where’s bad karma when you need it? How is it possible that the elite in entertainment, academia, Congress, technomedia, and other global institutions are never held to account for anything? Not too long ago responsibility and accountability were once considered rewards for good performance. Perform well and you were rewarded with more responsibility and more accountability. But not in the 21st century. Nowadays, responsibility and accountability are treated as personal threats.

Yes, entitlement always begins at the top, especially in Congress, where sitting incumbents enjoy a 95% re-election rate — by design. Apparently, the most powerful among us are also the least accountable. Apparently, power and accountability enjoy an inverse relationship: the more power you have, the less accountable you are — also by design. No one puts in the kinds of hours, survives the requisite treachery and betrayal, and incurs the kinds of stress required to amass real power and wealth only to be held more accountable — especially not by a committee of bought-and-paid-for stooges in Congress…

Old-fashioned conspiracy by design in smoke-filled back rooms is hardly necessary when conspiracy by fiat not only satisfies the same ends, but offers plausible deniability to everyone and accountability to no one. Harry Truman was famous for the buck stops here sign on his desk. Of course, the buck that stopped on Harry’s desk back in 1950 is worth only about $.08 cents today. Hardly worth the effort...