Alan Greenspan died in June at 100. They got him.
Have you noticed that nobody ever really “dies” any more?
Move the deadline often enough, and eventually everyone dies right on schedule.
Certainly nobody famous. Nobody politically important. Nobody who once knew somebody important, embarrassed somebody important, or appeared in a photograph with the Clintons.
Those people don’t die. They get silenced. They knew too much. They were about to expose something. They crossed the wrong people.
They get“got.”
The lovely actress Hayden Panettiere died last Sunday at 36, about a week short of her 37th birthday. She was found in cardiac arrest at an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina. Paramedics could not revive her.
At the moment, the cause and manner of death remain undetermined. An autopsy found no trauma contributing to her death, and police found no evidence of foul play. The Drug Enforcement Administration is assisting Greenville police. All signs point to a drug overdose, though.
Naturally, the internet has already solved the case: Hollywood killed her.
The former “Heroes” and “Nashville” star published a memoir in May called “This Is Me: A Reckoning.” She described some genuinely ugly experiences as a young actress. At 18, she said, a woman she trusted put her into bed aboard a yacht with a famous British singer-songwriter. At 19, an Oscar-winning actor exposed himself to her at a party. She identified neither man.
You can see where this goes.
She knew things. She wrote a book. Three months later, she’s dead.
Case closed.
Except another corner of the internet identified a different culprit. Libertarian writer Jeffrey A. Tucker responded to Panettiere’s death by asking, “Is it time to stop this absurd gaslighting? Everyone knows the murder weapon.”
He meant the COVID-19 vaccine.
Tucker is a smart fellow. He’s been a hero in the fight against COVID tyranny. But I think he got ahead of himself here.
Or maybe when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I love conspiracy theories. I love sound arguments more.
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Conspiracies exist. Watergate was a conspiracy. COINTELPRO was real. MKUltra was real. Corporations conceal evidence. Governments lie all the time. Sometimes a suspicious death really is suspicious.
Nevertheless, conspiracies require evidence.
That seems to be the part many of us have let go.
Antonin Scalia died in his sleep at a Texas hunting ranch in 2016. He was 79, had serious health problems, and no autopsy was performed. Early confusion about the circumstances — including an unfortunately described pillow — turned his death almost instantly into a murder mystery.
Ah, but Barack Obama needed a Supreme Court vacancy, didn’t he? Even Donald Trump entertained the speculation publicly.
Sure. On the other hand, old men die.
Four years later, Scalia’s “best buddy” Ruth Bader Ginsburg died at 87 after years of recurring cancer.
And, mostly, she died like any other elderly woman.
There was fury over her replacement and a bitter confirmation fight over Amy Coney Barrett. But nobody built much of a murder theory around an 87-year-old woman with metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Evidently, some important people are still permitted to die in peace.
Conspiracy theories about famous deaths are hardly new. John F. Kennedy alone has supported an industry for more than 60 years. What social media has done is speed up production.
Now, within minutes of a public figure’s death, thousands of people can search old interviews, posts, photographs, and acquaintances for the clue that explains everything. Then comes the question: What are the odds?
Usually, nobody knows.
Earlier this year, I experienced what doctors called “stroke-like symptoms.” High blood pressure appears to have been the culprit. I also got two Moderna shots in 2021.
I regret getting the jabs. But according to some of the loudest alarmists at the time, they should have killed me by 2022.
Somehow, I lived.
Five years later, I had something approximating a stroke, and now somebody can point backward and say: See? The vaccine!
Sorry, no. You don’t get to predict that millions of vaccinated people will drop dead within a year, watch the prediction fail, then spend the next few years claiming every heart attack, stroke, cancer diagnosis, and celebrity death as vindication.
Move the deadline often enough, and eventually everyone dies right on schedule.
That doesn’t mean suspicion is foolish. Sometimes the official story really is wrong. Sometimes — often! — institutions deserve skepticism.
But skepticism asks questions. A conspiracy theory that begins with the answer is something else.
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That’s what makes Panettiere’s death such an awkwardly perfect example. We have an unexplained death, a troubling memoir, a history of addiction, the DEA assisting police, and no final cause — yet.
That is plenty of fodder for speculation.
It isn’t enough for certainty, which we so desperately desire.
So nobody merely has a heart attack. Nobody merely overdoses. Nobody simply grows old. Nobody has a stroke. Strokes are boring; trust me.
No, somebody did it. Somebody got got.
Alan Greenspan lived to 100. He palled around with Ayn Rand. He chaired the Federal Reserve for nearly two decades. He advised presidents. He moved markets by clearing his throat.
Then he croaked.
No assassins. No cover-up. No final secret — as far as anyone knows.
Death got him.
Eventually, it gets us all.
