Discouraged liberals tend to think that way too. It's basically the desire to take a shortcut to get your own way, when reason seems powerless. It's a reminder we can't get complacent--authoritarianism lurks in all our primate brains, waiting to be invited out to play by adversity.

Who hasn't conceded that half the citizenry have two-digit IQs, and concluded that the sheeple need to be lied-to for their own good? What better way to take control as a tyrant than to portray reason and consideration as "hand-wringing indecision and weakness"?

You're right at a superficial level, ER, but I know you know better, that trafficking in villains and conspiracies, no matter how noble your rationalization, never turns out well in the end.

Science and reason matter. Still.