Skeptic Project

Originally I was going to have an article about 1984:

http://conspiracyscience.com/articles/1984/</p>

You beat me to it, I guess we can put that there, though.

Two points I'd like to personally add:

1) I've had a special connection with the book since I was a kid when I first read it, because the character's first name is my last name, and I felt I had the same rebelious spirit. I also liked how in the end it shows that Winston is still human, because he's brainwashed; conspiracy theorists often consider themselves better than most people an impervious.
2) I've found most people who use 1984 as an example have never read it. You mentioned this later in your blog post, but I typed this part before I read it.

I'm glad you brought up the connection to Stalin, because that's something I have to bring up every time I'm discussing the book with a CT. We should also do one about Animal Farm, and about the images there-in, because as we've seen from Joe on Facebook, the "sheep are college students."

I was about 10 when I read 1984 for the first time, luckily my parents were there to explain what things meant, but overall I still didn't really "get it" until I was about 15 and had learned more about the USSR, Stalin, and so forth. My parents, however, still believe the book is a cautionary tale, not for Stalinism, but rather for Marxism over all (they're Anarchists of the syndicalist flavor).

I think the best modern example, because the USSR is gone and China is changing as well, is North Korea, but even North Korea (in my opinion the closest to 1984) still isn't completely like Oceania in 1984.

Most importantly, Winston was a Party member, and the perspective of the book is how Party members are treated, not regular people. Regular people didn't have telescreens or anything like that. Proles were dogs.

>> Conspiracy theorists never accept the possibility that if a heavy-handed law happens to be passed, that one day it might be repealed or overturned by a court decision

Jim Crow laws.

There are also plenty of examples of how the state could have used things like 9/11 to bring about totalalitarianism, in fact that's what Alex Jones claims 9/11 was supposed to be for, but it never happens.