When America and Soviet Russia were battling during the Cold War with arms races and space exploration, the conflict centered around raw power ("realpolitik"). The nation with the biggest nukes, best astronauts and most influential political power was going to win out. America won the battle and stepped up as a Western super power, eventually establishing what some refer to as Pax Americana today (they're only partly right; America isn't outright controlling other nations like the Roman Empire did).

Now the cards have slightly changed. The most dominant powers on the planet today increasingly don't just strive to build up military, economic and political mojo. They dominate through the will to use that mojo and force itself anally on any weaker enemy coming its way. Think of North Korea. A tiny, impoverished remnant of Communism, not even able to feed its own people. Yet it defies the international community by firing off a series of missiles, allegedly for "testing purposes." If one of those missiles hit America, we don't know. All we know is that Kim Jong's got the balls to suggest he might.

The foreign threats to the Western civilization today are pretty lame in terms of raw power. Neither Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Russia nor other unstable nations who are constantly in conflict, either with themselves or perceived enemies, stand little to no chance against a military West. Yet a handful of people can orchestrate an attack against WTC in America and set off bombs in Europe. How come? Because on the inside, we are weak. Take a look at this chart based on recent 9/11 polls:

In America the number of people buying into 9/11 conspiracy theories comprise a mainstream movement:

In world No. 2, al-Qaeda is not responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center. The U.S. government is. The Pentagon was not hit by a commercial jet; it was hit by a cruise missile. United Flight 93 did not crash after its occupants rushed the cockpit; it was deliberately taken down by a U.S. Air Force fighter. The entire catastrophe was planned and executed by federal officials in order to provide the U.S. with a pretext for going to war in the Middle East and, by extension, as a means of consolidating and extending the power of the Bush Administration.

The population of world No. 2 is larger than you might think. A Scripps-Howard poll of 1,010 adults last month found that 36% of Americans consider it "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that government officials either allowed the attacks to be carried out or carried out the attacks themselves. Thirty-six percent adds up to a lot of people. This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality.

This is what matters in political and military struggle today. Critics of the Iraq War are right: it doesn't matter how many troops we send to destroy terrorism. We won't succeed. And the reason why is because we are not willing to wage the power in our possession. Instead we turn against ourselves, which is exactly what foreign powers want us to. If you believe this is just anarchistic backfire against the Bush Admin., you're wrong. Europe is the first to go: Islamic fundamentalism (diversity), unsustainable economies (Social Democracy), civil impotence (individualism) and anti-Americanism (ego neurosis).

The West is in decline because it attacks the principles and institutions that build sustainable civilizations: heterosexual family structures, civil responsibility, self-confident cultural traditions, thriving free economies, flexible military power and reverence for the environment. What we've got left is an empty shell, kept alive through increasingly larger but impotent governments, fit for nothing more than to send troops and then apologize for doing it. Our enemies can smell that hypocritical weakness and therefore cease their chance to infiltrate, mock and overthrow our public culture. This is what's left of it:

I wouldn't put it above the Bush admin. to, if anything, allow 9/11 to happen. Though who knows. The USS liberty was a false flag operation, MKULTRA really happened, and operation northwoods was on the table until JFK wouldn't go along with it. So who knows? Or cares if some of Paul's fans subscribe to such theories?

Kill off millions of people? Wouldn't shock me if that was talked about by "global elites." Hell, you talk about it, and you're a nobody in the scheme of things. Not as difficult to see the people with real power feel that way. Not that I believe it is true, but it is possible, especially since humanity enjoys playing the "pat yourself on the back" game.

Instead of believing in ourselves, our society and our culture, we choose dogmatic theories created to undermine our very existence. It's up to scientists (not nerdy teens living in mom's basement, producing 9/11 documentaries after school) to determine how 9/11 really happened. What is happening right now is the following: the public mistrusts both itself and society. In the mean time, we're being outbred, outbombed and outsourced by people who'd like to see us serve under their rule. The public's right--there's a conspiracy set out to destroy the West. And it's orchestrated by the crowd.

Like Frank and many others who are Right-oriented and just want to get on with our lives without bureaucrats making life more troublesome, I supported Ron Paul's cause for the American presidency. I still do, kind of. Ron Paul's campaign was simply amazing, but then it quickly regressed into pure conspiratorial extremism. Today only his dogmatic fans listen to what he's got to say. What happened?

Ron Paul's world view is a Conservative libertarian critique of all forms of organized authority. This led him to become a strong critic of globalism. Many of us signed up for it--who wants commerce to become a religion? The problem was that Ron Paul's grass roots gradually transformed into anti-globalists with a totally different agenda. Alex Jones became a frequent interviewer, the 9/11 Truth movement took interest in him, and Israel critics followed his campaign. If you're an alienated candidate like Ron Paul, you try to consolidate whatever agreements you have with other alienated groups. Bad idea, Ron.

Bad, because looking back in the mirror, what became of it? Conspiracy theories melted with extreme anarchism, and occasionally, anti-Semitism. His fans spammed YouTube with insane ideas about the Bush Administration planning 9/11 (since long debunked by scientists), evil capitalists plotting to take over the world and kill off millions of people (I wish), and perhaps most controversially, how all of this tied in with Israel and Jews. Maybe Half-Sigma did have a point about Ron Paul being an anti-Semite, after all.

After Ron Paul's campaign became more and more centered around these topics, it was clear that the conspiratorial element had become dominant. It alienated common people who just believed in the Constitution or wanted a thin government installed, and it drew lots of crazy young people whose only political message was that America and Israel are evil and "true" capitalism will solve all problems. Ron Paul became a symbol for marginalized extremism made mainstream. For this he probably served an important purpose, but it also was a major factor in the end of his career. Ron Paul is still one of the sanest political leaders in America right now, but due to his involvement with these groups, it's questionable whether he really would have been a better President than, say, McCain.