How big of you.
Presuming it's how I got my kicks, my prerequisite for trolling conspiracy theory threads would be certainty of the impossibility of the theories' suppositions, yes.
It's not "trolling" to demand that you guys back up your ridiculous theories with more than just "it's possible!".
The burden of proof lies on the positive claim. It's not up to us to prove your theories wrong, it's up to you to prove them right.
The point of the thread isn't to prove the theory, it's to call attention to the Jade Helm exercise in the context of the theory. If a threat fails to materialize, the OP moves on. If relevant new developments become known, the OP adds them to corpus of evidence and systematically builds a case.
That's what the skeptical cohort in this thread doesn't get. Conspiracy theories are exercises in open-minded "blue sky" hypotheses. They aren't presented as rigorous atomic theories, nor are they intended to be.
The difference between legitimate criticism and trolling is the quality of the counterarguments. Legitimate criticism avoids ad hominems, attacks specific contentions, and acknowledges the limited scope and fungible nature of the theory. Trolling is a bunch of gradeschool boys assailing an implausible theory with cheap jokes because they recognize the implausibility but they don't comprehend the nature of the exercise.
In short, you're missing the point and wasting your time. You're not adding anything to the discussion. Some posters are outright bullying, hiding behind the same old tired excuses that the OP 'deserves it'.
If the theory doesn't interest you, get out of the thread. Find something that does. Spend your time on something constructive.
An obviously learned person with scrambled eggs for brains. Man....people are interesting.
Spoken by a man who elects to spend his valuable time trolling blue sky conspiracy threads. You'll forgive me if I don't take your criticism too seriously.
Why not engage these threads as a matter of academic curiosity? Keep an open mind, willingly suspend one's disbelief, and contemplate "Is it possible?", "How would it happen?", "What is my threshold for genuine concern?"
That's what I take away from these threads. They're collages of theories and 'what ifs' in a conspiratorial mindset. I could only wish the trolls were as eager to properly debunk the theories as they are to bully the OP.
As a matter of academic curiosity, this is a poorly formed conspiracy. The evidence supporting it is virtually non-existent. Its contradicted by history, where similar operations have been conducted for many years without mythic 'reverse coupes'. Its needlessly and pointlessly complicated. Where a training excercise both matches the evidence perfectly, has historic precident, and is far simpler. Occam's razor cuts this conspiracy to ribbons.
Then there's the aspects of secrecy. Where this vast operation to take over the United States is being kept in perfect secrecy with no one involved spilling the beans. The US government is ridiculously porous. The likelihood of this occuring, especially when so many military personnel are involved is roughly that number that comes just before zero.
Then there is implementation. There is 0.0% chance that the military is going to follow an order to take over the United States. Straight up refusal would start with the lowest E-1 and work its way up from there. Adding yet another layer of comic implausibility to a towering cake of the stuff.
Even the premise is bone stupid: the US invading *itself*? As an exercise of academic curiosity, it insults my intelligence.
You state "US invading itself", but that isn't what's being supposed.
As presented, the scenario is a future economic collapse, which occurs "naturally" and independent of the military, leading to a situation of grave political instability in the US. Consider modern-day Greece or Italy as examples.
Many people are under the impression that a collapse will be a simple, relatively painless affair, but such is a happy fiction. A US government default will wipe out pensions, endowments, money markets, municipal assets, social programs. Generally speaking, the US will be plunged into chaos, with businesses and government at all levels unable to function, leading to widespread discontent, rioting, and a period of economic "austerity" that will make the Great Depression look tame by comparison.
It doesn't take a genius to realize that civil unrest, domestic terrorism, and secessionist sentiment will be running high, and the US federal government, being a wounded animal fighting for survival, must necessarily suppress such threats. By "suppress", we mean that major US cities will look and feel like Baltimore on a bad day, and a brutal, mobile suppression force will be deployed where needed.
If you think that soldiers in the US army categorically
won't respond to orders to fire on rebelling civilians in such circumstances, you're frightfully ignorant of both history and human nature.
More to the point in this thread: soldiers in the US army don't need to know why they're being trained en masse for urban combat situations in the middle of America in order to undergo the training. This scenario where troops are asked to "invade" America is a fantasy that exists in your mind and (possibly, I don't know) in the minds of men such as Alex Jones, who has nothing to do with the OP and is irrelevant to this thread.
In the real world, soldiers are given orders and a plausible pretext for the training. The pretext may in fact be legitimate. Even so, regardless of its stated intent, the training desensitizes soldiers to carrying out domestic operations. Tactics are tested and validated. At no point are soldiers ever told that they may be carrying out real domestic operations in future.
Then the collapse happens. The US plunges into chaos, economic depression, and widespread civil unrest. The soldiers, now finding themselves in very different circumstances, become the arm of the US federal government responsible for ensuring its survival by whatever brutal tactics are necessary. Soldiers not comfortable with serving the republic can sit on the dole, "traitors" to their country, and hope not to starve to death.
This is the baseline potential scenario being discussed.