Wisdom Gleaned From a Links Page: The Internet Must Close

I have reached a momentous decision and I thought I ought to share it with you right away. I have decided that the Internet must be closed. I know this seems like a drastic step. I expect there will be a lot of resistance. But I’m afraid the Internet is just going to have to go.

I reached this decision because I stumbled across a Web site that is so evil I can’t even tell you its name.

The site in question is a links page, which is a Web site that contains a list of other Web sites. This sounds innocent until you remember that linkage is the method of the human mind. We do not think thoughts. We link thoughts and that is how we think. And this site is a links page for conspiracy theorists.

Now, it has always been possible to divide the world population into two groups: those who believe that things are screwed up because nobody is in charge, and those who believe that things are screwed up because there is a secret cabal running everything. I liked to think I had a foot planted in both worlds. I read “Rush to Judgment” in the first edition. I watch “The X-Files.” And at first glance I saw nothing truly scary about one more links page.

I had heard of most of the conspiracies listed: crop circles, Bigfoot, perpetual motion, faked moon landings, Roswell and the hollow Earth theory. There was one site for the Pearl Harbor conspiracy (FDR did it), a couple of JFK sites (the CIA did it), some Vince Foster and Ron Brown sites (Bill and Hillary did it) and a Princess Diana site (the Queen did it). It was when I started to scroll back up the list that a cold chill ran down my spine.

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This site was designed to attract conspiracy theorists. And once there, all a conspiracy theorist has to do to link with other conspiracy theorists is to point a mouse and click. Call me old-fashioned but I don’t think it’s a good idea for people who believe in Bigfoot to be talking to people who believe in alien abductions. I don’t feel safe when those who are convinced oil companies are hoarding pills that turn water into gasoline start comparing their medication prescriptions with those who are convinced of the existence of the giant Peruvian Amazon boa constrictor.

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You might think of these people as merely eccentric. But have you heard of the Trojan horse conspiracy? That’s the one where U.N. troops in black helicopters are sneaking across the Canadian border and hiding out in our national parks, preparing to take over the United States. This idea is so popular that some believers have been elected to Congress. How the half a million yearly tourists in Yellowstone National Park are missing all those foreign legionnaires is not addressed by the theory. Still, by themselves, the Trojan people can do little harm, even in Congress.

But now they are linking with the people who run “The Suppressed Truth About The Southern War For Independence” Web site. Just what the suppressed truth is I don’t know, and frankly I don’t want to know. But how long is it going to be before they all become convinced that U.N. troops are about to release giant Peruvian Amazon boas in Yellowstone to crush the suppressed truth about the Southern War for Independence?

And once they reach that point, they are now just a point and click away from the next step: the Pioneer Mountain ammo site, listed on the same page. Their sales pitch is, “We pay the shipping on any order of 1,000 rounds or more!” This could be the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a mouse click.

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Any society needs its odd fellows. Without them how do we know who’s normal? But if the weirdos all across America become one big support group, normal could become an endangered species. And as a self-described normal person, I object. For this reason I believe it is necessary that the Internet be closed up, disconnected, outlawed, unplugged, unhooked and turned off. ASAP. Humans are not advanced enough to handle linkage.

I know this because Cmdr. Morg from the planet Zadar explained it thus to me.