illuminati do you believe in them?

[CChaos]

The very idea of the Illuminati is basically laughable, when you get to thinking about it. Illuminati, Freemasons, the Bilderburg Group, The Trilateral Commission, Skull and Bones...the list goes on and on...

Are they secretive? Sure. Do they involve powerful people? Absolutely.

Naturally, this leads people to believe that they are involved in some sort of anti-social, attempted world changing activities that will, eventually, lead to them ruling the world, a new world order or some such thing. However, the problem is that reality isn't that interesting.

Let's take Freemasonry. That's a big one and has been hugely assumed to be a cult that controls everything. But, as with all secret clubs, there's always someone who's willing to come out and tell all for their fifteen minutes of fame. From the lowest to the highest members, people have come out and spoken on terms of anonymity to basically say that this thing is a ritualized society that has all of the intrigue of a box of corn flakes.

What it amounts to is this:
1) If these guys are controlling the world, they're doing a piss poor job.
2) If one group was controlling the world, do all of these other groups want to control the world as well? Last I checked, there are like 25 of these organizations that people claim are controlling or manipulating everything. Which one is right?
3) Apple can't even keep their security up for a friggin' iPhone, which seems to keep ending up left in bars. What chance, exactly, is there of keeping a worldwide, multi-generational conspiracy that absolutely no one has mentioned anything about except conspiracy theorists? The more people you add to the conspiracy, the less chance it has of actually staying secret.

I think Benjamin Franklin actually said it best:
"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."