The problem with conspiracy theories is that you can pretty much twist any piece of data to support your claim, and anyone who disagrees with you clearly is part of the conspiracy as well.

Websurdity publishes an somewhat unhinged theory that the destruction of the first Death Star was actually planned by the Empire. Now, I’ve never trusted Emperor Palpatine or his neoconservative cronies. After all, these jokers had all been part of the upper echelons of the disgraced Trade Federation that had its hand in helping turn our Republic into a police state 30 years ago. (Anyone remember “I am not a crook”?)

But as Robert Heinlein has said, “Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.” Everyone knows that Palpatine was a C student back at Coruscant University, and that the only reason he actually passed was because of his family legacy. To believe that a government filled with such ineptitude as Palpatine’s administration has shown in the past six years—spiralling budget deficits, the greatest we’ve ever seen, despite the fact that Finis Valorum actually turned over a budget surplus to Palpatine, the enormous tax cuts for the rich, the disdain shown to education and health care, the torture scandal of the Imperial Prisons, the wiretapping scandals, the complete lack of Imperial aid to the survivors of the obliteration of Alderaan, and the worst being their complete failure to plan for continued occupation of Separatist systems—that this sorry bunch of idiots could actually orchestrate everything that was necessary for the terrorist Rebellion to succeed in the Death Star attack is giving them too much credit.

There are intriguing details that we know to be true, to be sure. (1) Lord Vader and Skywalker were both trained by the same guy, Obi Wan Kenobi, whom we have long known has had terrorist sympathies, and all these guys have had contact with Yoda, who, for some reason, despite knowing for a fact that he’s on Dagobah, has still not been apprehended. Not that I’m excusing fundamentalist religion, but these guys do have a legitimate axe to grind. We totally used the Jedi during the Clone Wars in our effort to “stave off Communism” in the Peripheral Systems before the Confederacy completely collapsed, and all they got out of it was getting purged (2) Lord Vader, who happens to own a large amount of stock in Sienar Fleet Systems, will stand to make a mint off of Sienar’s new contract to build yet another Death Star, this one even bigger than the last. The list of ways that the Imperial leadership is capitalizing both politically and financially on this tragic event could go on and on.

And, yes, Palpatine has no doubt used the destruction of the Death Star as an excuse for stripping the people of more and more of their Constitutional rights, and as an excuse to escalate the so-called War on Terror in the Peripheral Systems. And nothing would make me happier than throwing Palpatine and his cronies not only out of office, but in prison where they belong. But the fact of the matter is that you don’t need some Death Star conspiracy to indict these bastards. All you need to do is look at the fact that we’re throwing trillions upon trillions of credits away in this failed war against the Rebellion, doing nothing more than fattening the pockets of military contractors and Palpatine’s toadies, all at the expense of basic domestic needs like health care, social security, education, and at the expense of dismantling what has made our Galaxy great—the Constitution upon which it was founded.