Conspiracies — it’s all in how you look at them
Bookworm on Nov 16 2006 at 7:46 am | Filed under: Democrats, Elections
Last night, Mr. Bookworm pointed out to me that gasoline prices have started to rise again. “They fall right before an election and go back up again after. If that isn’t a Republican conspiracy, I don’t know what is.”
I told him that this is a regular annual cycle, with prices falling after Labor Day and rising again as winter approaches. No dice. It’s still a conspiracy. I told him that no less an oracle than NPR had done a story debunking the conspiracy myth and pointing to larger economic forces. A slight hestitation but then, no, it’s definitely Republican market manipulation.
I readied my last shot: Maybe gas prices went up because the Democrats won, I said. Maybe they went up because Big Oil is trying to insulate itself against hearings and Global Warming initiatives. That did it. No more murmurings about conspiracies. Even the best conspiracy theory will yield to overwhelming factual data — at least if your opponent in argument is as intelligent as Mr. Bookworm.
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3 Responses to “Conspiracies — it’s all in how you look at them”
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Interestingly enough, as I was buying an AR-15 rifle the other day (after the election,) the gun shop proprietor told me that his gun sales have gone up significantly since the election–specifically the most-likely to be banned categories (like the AR-15.) It’s amazing how an election of a Democrat majority motivates gun buyers; now I’m off to buy a dozen high-capacity clips!
You might want to point out to him that while the national average did dip right before the election, in many areas the prices began rising *before* the election:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html
You can also show him that the same behavior occurred in 2005, with a much smaller hump in 2004.
Keep those stories coming of your interchanges with Mr. Book…they offer great insights and the occasional laugh. You remind me of my own parents - my (American) father is a flaming Socialist, my (European) mother is a die-hard Reaganite. She got her perfect revenge, though - both her children followed in her philosophical footsteps, to their father’s great, great dismay. Now, we simply don’t talk politics at family gatherings, anymore (the father is old and in ill health).