There is no Popish plot.

• Author: Hood, John
• Position: FREE&CLEAR - Forecasts and trends of voters

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of Shaftesbury, was the political patron of English philosopher John Locke, the namesake of the North Carolina think tank I head. Though Shaftesbury, who served as Lord Chancellor of England during the 1670s, did many good deeds, history does record a black mark in his ledger. For a time, he believed and acted on spurious accusations that Catholics were plotting to assassinate King Charles II. The so-called Popish Plot controversy eventually petered out, but only after dozens of convictions based on false testimony.

In this age of Truthers ("President Bush was in on 9 /l1") and Birthers ("President Obarna's birth certificate is a faker), I suppose it is somewhat comforting to remember that conspiracy theories have a long pedigree in politics. There is a natural human tendency to assume some person or faction is controlling events, an assumption that supplies either a scapegoat to blame for misfortunes or a villain to rally against.

Unfortunately, this impulse leads to the propagation of conspiracy theories. In 2006, an Ohio University poll found that nearly 40% of U.S. voters, and a majority of 'Democratic respondents, said they believed it was "very" or "somewhat likely" that Bush and other federal officials either perpetrated the 9 /11 attacks or allowed them to happen to justify war in the Middle East. In 2009, another poll found that more than 40% of Republicans thought Barack Obama was ineligible to serve as president because he was born outside the U.S.

It is quite likely, by the way, that both of those poll results were inflated. People talking to anonymous interviewers on the phone are free to speculate or make a joke. Still, a surprising number of people put stock in conspiracy theories without any evidence--and without recognizing just how hard it would be to keep such deep, dark secrets.

As it happens, recent political events in North Carolina have thrust me into a new conspiracy theory: that because Raleigh businessman and former GOP state Rep. Art Pope was one of the John Locke Foundation's founders in 1989, and his family's charitable foundation has remained its largest donor, everything I do and say must be coordinated with Pope, the Republican candidates he has supported for state office and now the administration of Gov. Pat McCrory, who hired Pope ashis chief budget official. A BUSINESS NORTH CAROLINA reader, for example, recently complained to my editor that I was "dedicated to...