The horrific events of 9/11 were acts of insanity, but the perpetrators would be the last people on Earth to recognize it as that.

But we, of the civilized, sophisticated Western World, have a related insanity, camouflaged within our educated culture.

While most of us denounce the 9/11 attacks, there are those who insist those horrors never happened, at least, not the way "the government" says they did.

Conspiracy theorists have succumbed to a measure of madness, seeing the world from the perspective of a DC or Marvel comic.

Challenging conspiracy theorists can spur heated and sometimes hate-filled debate that can go on as long as life. But people calling
9/11 a hoax have lost it.

One group of theorists declares that fanatical Muslims didn't crash the 9/11 jets. Government agents in the employ of then-president George W. Bush, former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney or secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld remotely commandeered them.

Another group says there were no planes - they were holograms. The elaborate hoax was created to instill fear and submission in the American people so they could be controlled. Those who don't recognize this are "sheeple."

Another group (most of them overlap) claims that cellphone calls received from passengers on the doomed flights were really choreographed scripts broadcast from "command central."

And there's almost always a secret "command central" from which world events are planned and executed. From this mystical enclave, tomorrow's news is created, the end of which is to keep people enslaved and keep them working while the riches they create flow ever upward.

In comic book lore, an evil genius has an extravagant, subterranean command centre (usually under Manhattan) from which he seeks to control the world.

Hollywood movies carry on the fantasy and their plots come from highly imaginative science-fantasy writers. But conspiracy theorists have transitioned from reality to fantasy.

Any healthy group plans to grow and prosper, but once conspiracy theorists start speculating about powerful groups and nefarious plans to conquer the world without the world knowing about it, they've submitted to a measure of madness.

The theories, and debunking them, have parallel weaknesses; it takes volumes of books to explain the theories because they are so incredibly complex. And they're so incredibly complex because they're crazy.

Debunking them takes even more work because any logical explanation is met with: "That's what they want you to believe," or "Because the big pharmaceutical companies don't want you to be healthy," or "It's the (pick a substance) in the drinking water that's making you think that!"

Conspiracy theorists consistently explain and defend their theories with additional layers of conspiracy theories.

And so it never ends.

And it's insane.