Is he really dead?

I don't consider myself particularly gullible. As an attorney, I've taken zillions of depositions of folks who were highly motivated to fudge the truth. I've listened to testimony that I knew was false, because I had documents in my notebook that proved it. I've generally hoped for the best from people, but have never been particularly surprised when I got the worst.

But to some of you out there -- to many of you, I'm beginning to realize -- I'm pathetically trusting, and live in a fool's paradise. Why? Because:

• I really and truly think Obama was born in Hawaii. And got into Columbia and Harvard on his own merits.
  
• I do believe that our lunar lander actually did land on the moon.
  
• I think it's highly probable that JFK was assassinated by a single disturbed individual.
  
• I'm confident that the Vatican has not spent the past two thousand years keeping a lid on an explosive affair between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, a secret maintained until exposed by the clever novelist Dan Brown.
  
• I don't think that a Jewish cabal is actually running Wall Street and/or the U. S. government.
  
• I don't think that the important events of our time have been directed by the Masonic Order, or that the dollar bill is encoded with their ritual symbols as an revelation of their power.
  
• I don't believe that FDR conspired with Churchill to permit the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor, seeking a way to build public support for the war.
  
• I don't believe that the government has systematically concealed proof that we've been contacted by aliens. Or buried photos showing the existence of flying saucers.

Yeah, call me naive. And, furthermore -- I certainly don't believe that (1) bin Osama was not really killed; or (2) bin Osama was captured years ago and saved for death until this politically opportune moment; or (3) bin Osama never existed, at least as an actual leader of al Qaeda.

It's not that conspiracies never exist. It's rather that Occam's Razor mandates that we accept the simplest explanation for all phenomena unless we have good reason to adopt a more complicated explanation. The fact that a sinister explanation can be dreamed up for a political event doesn't mean that it's worth accepting, or even seriously contemplating.

That way lies madness.

People inclined to believe in and argue in favor of conspiracies -- and the same people seem inclined toward numerous conspiracies -- tell us more about their own psychological make up than they do about the make up of reality. As one psychologist has noted, they tend to find the world to be a scarier place than do the rest of us, and they have less tolerance for ambiguity; it's less painful for such people to believe in a conspiracy as a cause of a disaster than simply to accept that bad things often happen randomly. I'd add that these individuals also must be more convinced than experience would seem to justify of the ability of humans to bond together into extremely tight-knit groups, keeping amazing secrets secret, for prolonged periods of time.

So, don't bother to write and tell me I'm a fool and a simpleton. I've already formed my own suspicions about you.