Do you agree with this statement, "Conspiracy theories are the hob-goblins of stupid people?"?

Sounds to me like you are in on it!

No, I don't believe in most conspiracies. Then again, if you look through history you would see that there have been a few. I can't discount them all but I dismiss most as active imagination.

Depends what you mean. Conspiracy has become a dirty word - but on the other hand conspiracies have occured throughout history, that's why there is a word for it.

False flag operations are rather common in the history of warfare, that's why you investigate and try to find out what actually happened rather than go with the most immediately obvious answer. People are sometimes framed by others for a crime, that's why you investigate crimes rather than simply deciding who looks guilty. Politics is essentially the history of small scale conspiracies. Organized crime similarly... often the two aren't entirely seperate either.

In Japan there was a period of time when elements of the yakuza had enough power and influence to essentially pick the prime minister.

Hitler seized unrestrained power and the ability to persecute his political enemies in Germany through a conspiracy, would anyone argue this did not occur?

On the other hand if by conspiracy you mean are there a secret government of shadowy figures (composed of buisness elite, aliens, masons, Jews, knights templar... take your pick from an ever increasing list) who hide aliens from us, control the entire world, invent and market global warming and control peoples minds to make them believe in evolution then no, that's pure fiction (and by fiction I mean bullsh*t).

What tends to mark the difference in the two sorts of conspiracy is that one relies one simple, realistic mechanisms and is small scale, the other would require almost total control of large segments of society and relies on complex and bizarre elements and plans.

Hence when people say did the GOP launch a missile into the Pentagon and claim it was a plane, the answer is no - that's stupid, they'd have to control to an absolute degree large sections of society to do that and it's bizarre - why wouldn't they just get an allied terrorist to hijack a plane and crash that into it if indeed they were behind it? Therefore the claim makes no sense and is so highly improbable as to be essentially dismissable.

Conspiracy may refer to

An act of working in secret to obtain some goal, usually understood with negative connotations

Government, CIA, and most politicians and almost every human at some point are involved in some sort of conspiracy. Corporations work secretly everyday to boost profits without the knowledge of competitors. So in point of fact often the conspiracy is not theory but fact...so maybe the stupid people are those who deny or don't understand the meaning of the word. Enorn. Wold com, tyco etc. ring a bell anybody?

Yes I do...not too many years ago the people shouting about conspiracy theories were considered crazy by the average person and dismissed..I think there are a few still in mental hospitals...have the libs protested for the release of their fellow theorists??

all depends on the Conspiracy ;)

For example, Fox news says that Ron Paul is a conspiracy theorist....but when he won their text message poll's after the second GOP debate, they all said it was a liberal conspiracy.

Some conspiracy's are based on rational truth, some are based on the irrational fear of the uninformed

Yes I do, considering the very stupid ones in the last 6 years that statement is correct.

More or less. I'm amazed that people actually beleive that there are these huge secret conspiracies out there. Try organizing a surprise party some time, and see how well people follow orders and keep secrets.

Too many right wing nut jobs!

The anti-thesis is that those people unwilling to look at more than one option are close-minded, one-dimensional, and narrow in their thinking.

Since you didn't mention any specific conspiracies (9-11, Roswell, JFK, Loch Ness?), it is hard to be more specific.

LOL. Some of them are absolutely hilarious. Remember, Cheney and Bush themselves placed the explosives in the WTC. And bigfoot flew an ultralite into the Pentagon.

The country was founded on a conspiracy it's the American way!