Back in my college days, long enough ago that if you were on the Internet then you were either at a university or technology company, I used to occasionally read the Usenet newsgroup alt.conspiracy for entertainment.

Back then (and maybe still today), alt.conspiracy was a wonderful hodgepodge of fringe beliefs, clinically paranoid rants, sincere debunkers, and the occasional troll.

The trolls were often the most entertaining: they would invent absurd conspiracies out of whole cloth, in a deliberate effort to see who might take their absurdities seriously. The game was to see how crazy you could make your conspiracy theory and still have someone think you were serious or (even better) believe you.

I was reminded of this by an article today about how Ron Paul's presidential campaign seems to have a knack for attracting the lunatic fringe.

By the way, when I say "lunatic fringe," I don't mean folks who hold somewhat mainstream but silly beliefs like supply-side economics. I mean folks who, in a literal sense, need to check the dosage of their medications. Black helicopters, the United Nations is coming to take your guns, Bill Clinton molested young boys in a secret ritual with the Pope, etc.

So far it does not seem that Paul himself is quite so far gone, but he hasn't done much to discourage his crazier supporters either.

So what I'm wondering is: Does Ron Paul believe the same theories as his supporters, or is he just doing a very effective job of drawing them out.

In other words, is he nuts, or just the ultimate alt.conspiracy troll?