Comment: I agree with you

Do influential people "behind the scenes" agree together to try to influence the government? Of course they do. But that's not the cause of most of our government afflictions. The true cause is that once they've cooked up their plans and got them up to bat as government policy, the vast majority of Americans support them. Examples: The institution of the income tax was overwhelmingly supported by the American public in 1913. The public similarly gave overwhelming support to creation of the Federal Reserve. They elected the president who signed Social Security into law three more times after he did it. And the public always supports a war when it first starts, regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican occupies the White House.

My problem with most conspiracy theories is that they remove all responsibility and accountability from "we the people" and rest on the premise that if they could just expose the conspirators, these problems would immediately vanish.

Wrong. Talk to 20 people at random around you and you'll find that it's the people that are the real problem, not the so-called conspirators. That's why James Madison called democracy "the most vile form of government."