It only took 2 days for Fox News to go deather.

And Fox’s Judge Napolitano - the guy who’s likely to replace Glenn Beck - is leading the pack:

So FIRST these guys say there’s a conspiracy about where the President was born - then the President releases his birth certificate and then there was a conspiracy about the timing of it’s release .

Now - after years of yelling about a conspiracy between the President and his relationship with radical Islam - the President kills Osama Bin Laden and there’s a new conspiracy that he didn’t ACTUALLY do it and that Bin Laden is still alive…or was frozen for ten years.

Have they lost their minds?

It’s a good thing to be skeptical of the government. Our government has lied to us - just look at the Gulf of Tonkin incident that got us into the Vietnam War. Or Bush's lies that got us into Iraq. There’s no denying that we need to keep a close eye on the business in Washington, DC .

But this healthy skepticism has turned malignant.

And today - the top-rated cable news network - and I use the term “news” VERY loosely - as well as the right-wing Internet blogosphere - and of course the lion’s share of talk radio - is advancing this toxic strain of thinking that causes us to believe that EVERYTHING the government is doing - particularly when a Democrat is in the White House - is part of some conspiracy to harm us.

And this is causing us to lose sight of the fact that WE ARE the government. After all - this is a democracy - and if we don’t trust the government - then we don’t trust ourselves. If we submit to this thinking - then we aren’t involving ourselves in government the way we should be - the way our founding fathers intended us to.

I think this modern-day mistrust started back in 1981 - with who else but Ronald Reagan. While tearing down the wall separating church and state - Reagan started laying the bricks to build a new wall - one that separated the government from the people. He referred to the government as the beast - and famously said that the "Nine most frightening words in the English language are, 'I’m from the government - and I’m here to help.'

And very few people along the way stood up to say, "Wait a second - we ARE the government - and we're not beasts".

But Reagan did this so that he could turn the government against the working people. He cut taxes for the rich - busted up labor unions - and one-by-one shot down regulations that kept banksters from gambling with our money to the point that the S&L's collapsed and we had the worst recession since the Great Depression. And as a result or this conservative world-view, putting incompetent people in charge of government agencies and then saying, "See - I told you so," when those government agencies screwed up, government changed from an institution that was looking out for the benefit of us all - into something that was more and more looking out for just rich people

It seemed to be moving farther and farther away from most Americans - it was a machine way off in Washington, DC that couldn't work worth a lick and had no idea what was in the best interest of America. And as long as the majority of us started questioning the motives of the government - then Republicans could campaign on a platform of how bad the government is and be successful. This is Reagan's legacy - creating a vast disconnect between the people and their democracy.

And if the people aren't participating in a democracy - then who is??

After 30 years of ruining the reputation of government - it's no wonder that people think it is capable of some of the wildest conspiracies you've ever heard - from Bin Laden being frozen to missiles taking down the World Trade Center.

As I said - a healthy skepticism is a good thing in a democracy - but when that skepticism turns into outright paranoia and delusion - then our democracy no longer works.

Our democracy depends on trust - and if that trust isn't there - it doesn't work.

And when government doesn't work, then there's a huge opportunity for corporations - from for-profit armies to for-profit schools to for-profit health insurance companies - to make a LOT of money. Which is why, of course, billionaire Rupert Murdoch's Fox News is feeding this delusion - they don't want us to remember that we live in a democracy of, for, and by the people.

They want us to the think that instead of the government - we should rely on the wealthy bankster or oil baron or health insurance executive to do what's right for us because they AREN'T the government - that, somehow, they are like us.

But they aren't like us - in fact they are the exact people that Thomas Jefferson warned us of when he insisted that protection against monopolies be inserted into the constitution.

Since the birth of this nation - the thing that separated America from the rest of the world was its egalitarian democracy. It was the crowning achievement of mankind for 200 years...until 1980 - when it suddenly became a vile beast because Ronald Reagan told us it was.

It's time to end this toxic strain of thinking and reassert ourselves into our own government again - and kick out the transnational corporations and millionaires and billionaires who have ruined democracy's good name for the last 30 years.

Let's once again trust ourselves with self-government - and tell the loonies at Fox News to find a new country where there isn't democracy to push their crazy theories - like the libertarian paradise of Somalia - and do their whole "be afraid" thing there.

Frankly, here, we have more important things to do.

That's The Big Picture.