You know, a lot of people like conspiracy theories -- hey, I've flirted with a couple myself in recent days.

But a small group of right-wingers have taken conspiratorial thinking to an almost thrilling new level. If you want to see what I'm talking about, go to this Free Republic thread -- it offers a conspiracy theory to explain a phenomenon that most rational people would say is not even taking place.

The thread is titled:

9/11 - Blocked by media but never to be forgotten.

That's right -- according to these people, an entire historic event has been blocked by the media! You're not allowed to think about 9/11! You're not allowed to remember it! The media won't let you! It's blocked!

The thread starts with three 9/11 pictures, then this:

OTHER WARS HAVE MEMORIAL DAYS, 9/11 IS BEING CLOAKED AS A STAIN ON AMERICAN HISTORY. PLEASE DO NOT FORGET WHAT THE MEDIA REFUSES TO SHOW.

On a subsequent page of the discussion, another Freeper confirms the conspiracy:

I knew then, in 2001, that there would come a day that these picts would try to be phased out and unavailable... therefore i took it upon myself at that time to gather as much of these images that i could possibly find... I have thousands, along with video and many CD's that i would love to distribute to anyone wanting them. I even got the photos that showed the celebration in the streets of the Middle East that were pulled from websites on Sept 12th....

Hey -- what if it's true? It could be true. Maybe that dastardly MSM has thrown out all the pictures of 9/11, deleted all the images from the hard drives, frisbeed all the photo CDs out the window. Maybe there is a huge Orwellian conspiracy to make you forget 9/11 ever happened!!!

...Er, of course, the photos at the beginning of the thread come from the BBC. And early in the thread one person mentions having just seen a documentary that included footage made inside the Twin Towers on 9/11. The documentary is available from Netflix. As another person points out, it was originally shown on CBS.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a vast conspiracy to make us forget!

And you know what? There'd better be a conspiracy of silence to make us forget, because there are some pissed-off folks in this thread and they need an excuse to say things like this:

Don't worry...I won't ever forget.

It's been almost four years, and I am just as angry, if not more so, as when I woke up that quiet Tuesday morning. Quiet, because I lived in El Segundo, next to LAX, an airport where no airplanes were flying.

Shock. Sadness. Rage. Trying to console people at the post office, that I didn't even know. Crying even now, as I post this, and remember.

And then some PIECE OF S**T COMMUNIST SYMPATHIZING RAT-FACED PUKE IS GOING TO STAND ON THE FLOOR OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE AND EQUATE US TO NAZIS, POL POT, AND STALIN? WHY NOT INCLUDE SADAAM HUSSEIN AND OSAMA BIN LADEN, YOU TERRORIST APPEASING FUTHAMUCHER? BECAUSE YOU'RE ON THEIR SIDE!!!!!!

Hell no, I'm not going to forget. Never. Ever. Message to President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Secretary Rice, and whoever else needs to hear it, along with those who are fighting and serving the greatest country that exists on this planet--here is my message.

GET SOME.

By the way, the person who wrote that calls himself "Christian4Bush."

Hey, forget the fact that many of the people in the media were actually in Manhattan as 9/11 happened, smelling the stench from the Towers! Forget the fact that Senator Durbin was actually in D.C. as the Pentagon burned! Christians4Bush was living near an airport, dammit! He knows what 9/11 means! And no puke futhamucher in the Democrat Party or the MSM is going to erase an entire nation's memory of 9/11! Not while he draws breath!