Political gotcha games are one of the favorite tactics the hysteric left uses to try to paint conservatives as crazy. One of the best gifts a conservative politician can give an opponent is to appear to embrace fringe conspiracy theories. Recently, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith stepped in it when she appeared to lend credence to the long-discredited “chem trails” theory when she answered a question at a town hall meeting.Smith never said the chem trail theory had any validity or that people should be concerned. She answered the question as if it was a legitimate query worthy of discourse. It was an act of being polite to a person who doubtless was genuinely concerned but it didn’t do the premier or Albertans any favours. The news scroll was taken up for days with legacy media members being aghast and implications that Smith was an adherent to kooky chem trail theories. The premier then had to waste time and energy clarifying and explaining where she stood as her comments were taken out of context and spread like wildfire.So, what is the lesson here? Don’t give time to bloody conspiracy theorists!Just look at the chem trail thing and think about how unreasonable it is.The chem trail conspiracy theory assumes that all those jet contrails you see in the sky are actually chemicals being sprayed to control the weather and to poison citizens. For this conspiracy to work, one must assume that every commercial pilot, airline mechanic, baggage handler, flight attendant and government is in on it. It’s completely absurd.It’s rather easy to debunk the theory. There are plenty of sources online which explain in lay terms how water vapor from aircraft exhaust condenses at high elevations in certain conditions. Many photos from World War II show contrails as aircraft fought during the Battle of Britain, which debunks the claims that contrails are a new phenomenon. I am confident that our air force veterans of World War II weren’t part of a grand conspiracy to modify the weather..The ready facts countering chem trail theories are lost on the adherents of the conspiracy theory. To try and debate with them is just to invite a barrage of anecdotes and links to websites that share their odd world view. They also like moving the goalposts into a discussion of cloud seeding practices which is something else altogether.Chem trails are only one of may conspiracy theories floating around of course. A troublesome and pervasive trend that has emerged lately among the conspiracy crowd has been the allegations of organized pedophile rings. They believe that most aspects of the world are run by networks of pedophiles who traffic our children and presumably molest them even apparently in pizza parlors. It’s bizarre and repugnant. In Alberta, there is one social media activist with a surprisingly large online following who claims that Alberta Health Services is actually a secret pedophile ring and that news outlets that refuse to report on his nutty allegations are part of the conspiracy. It’s more than a little offensive and I suspect he is going to be facing a nasty civil action soon.Pedophiles do exist as do some vile networks that trade in children. They must be exposed, charged, and incarcerated at all costs. That doesn’t mean that there are thousands of organized pedophile rings though. As awful as child molesters are, they thankfully aren’t as common as some conspiracy theorists believe them to be and they tend to be loners. I think part of bringing pedophiles into the conspiracy mix is an effort to make their villains as odious as possible to at least quell any questioning of their views.They like to shut down debate by saying things like “Oh so you are OK with pedophile rings?” Instead of letting them drag you into their perverse discourse with statements like that, what people whether in politics or not should do is disengage from and ignore them. There is nothing to be gained in trying to reason with them.A popular saying today is: “Yesterday’s conspiracies are today’s realities!”In a couple of cases, it’s true. In most cases though, yesterday’s conspiracies remain as goofy and unproven today as they ever were. They just have better websites.Just because some historic conspiracy theories have proven to have some merit, it doesn’t mean other conspiracy theories are valid. Since there are hundreds of theories out there, some will manage to have something to them. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.We have some real issues to deal with and our politicians can only focus on so many of them. Indulging the conspiracy types doesn’t pacify them and only distracts from serious business. Just ask Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad how much he enjoyed having to deal with the faux issue of 5G telephone networks spreading COVID-19 when he should be campaigning.Woke activists and legacy media won’t relent on trying to trap conservative politicians.Why make it easy for them though by dipping into the realm of conspiracy theories?I know I have now invited a barrage of emails which will link to favoured conspiracy theory sites. I won’t respond to any of them. I will forward them to my masters among the lizard people who control the media.
