According to a recent Public Policy Polling survey of American opinions on various conspiracy theories, more than one in four Americans (28 percent) believe a “secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order.”

The recognition of the role of conspiracies in the destruction of every formerly free republic of history is nothing new to readers of The New American.

For decades, The New American and its predecessor magazines One Man's Opinion, American Opinion, and The Review of the News have exposed the various multinational organizations whose agenda is the eradication of liberty and the establishment of a global government.

French philosopher Charles Pinot Duclos wrote of the role of conspiracies in history:

We see on the theater of the world a certain number of scenes which succeed each other in endless repetition: where we see the same faults followed regularly by the same misfortunes, we may reasonably think that if we could have known the first we might have avoided the others. The past should enlighten us on the future: knowledge of history is no more than an anticipated experience.

Duclos rightly asserts that one’s familiarity of history should train one to recognize patterns, one of the most persistent patterns — apparently visible to 28 percent of respondents in the PPP survey — is that the great republics and empires of history have nearly all been brought to ruin by the hidden machinations of conspiring men, powerful men clothed in the unassailable robes of populists.

Here’s a quick summary of several of the more interesting results of the poll:

• 37 percent of voters believe global warming is a hoax; 51 percent do not.

Again, The New American has played a prominent role in exposing the inconsistencies of the global-warming myth.

• 21 percent of voters say that a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 and that the U.S. government covered it up.

• 28 percent of voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks.

• 20 percent of voters believe there is a link between childhood vaccines and autism; 51 percent do not.

This topic is much in the news as a recent New York Times story reported that “the likelihood of a school-aged American child receiving a diagnosis of autism, Asperger syndrome or a related developmental disorder increased 72 percent in 2011-12 from 2007,” according to a poll conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

• Nine percent of voters think the government adds fluoride to our water supply "for sinister reasons."

Here again, The New American (and The John Birch Society) can be found high on the list of media outlets revealing concerns with the forced fluoridation of the nation’s water supply. Last summer, for example, The New American’s Alex Newman reported:

A review of some two dozen studies by Harvard University researchers published this month in a peer-reviewed federal journal suggests that fluoride added into water supplies “significantly” decreases the IQ of children, leading to renewed calls by activists to end the controversial practice of fluoridation. Most public water supplies in the United States still have the chemical added in by authorities under the guise of preventing tooth decay.

The complete results of the poll reveal a few very interesting beliefs held by Americans.

For instance, 44 million people believe Bigfoot roams the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Almost 66 million Americans believe that a UFO crash-landed in Roswell, New Mexico.

In light of some of the strange questions (and the stranger results), maybe the findings reported in the conspiracy poll should be taken with a grain of salt. For instance, last year Public Policy Polling asked such unorthodox questions in a poll as, "If God exists, do you approve of its handling of natural disasters?"

The percentage of acceptance of many of the conspiracies covered in the PPP survey varied according to the respondent’s political affiliation.

For example, “voters are split 44%-45% on whether Bush intentionally misled about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. 72% of Democrats think Bush lied about WMDs, Independents agree 48-45, just 13% of Republicans think so,” the poll summary reports.

And, “28% of voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. 36% of Romney voters believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, 41% do not.”

Dean Debnam, president of PPP, recognizes the significant role played by party politics in the formation of opinions, particularly in this area.

“Even crazy conspiracy theories are subject to partisan polarization, especially when there are political overtones involved,” Debnam said. “But most Americans reject the whackier ideas out there about fake moon landings and shape-shifting lizards.”

In fairness to the adherents of those “whackier ideas,” a poll conducted in 2009 by the United Kingdom's Engineering & Technology magazine found that 25 percent of those surveyed did not believe that men landed on the Moon.

Perhaps one man’s idea of a “whacky” idea is another man’s evidence of a massive government cover-up.

PPP reports to have surveyed 1,247 registered American voters from March 27-30. The reported margin of error is +/- 2.8 percent.

Joe A. Wolverton, II, J.D. is a correspondent for The New American and travels frequently nationwide speaking on topics of nullification, the NDAA, and the surveillance state. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .