Sick of the Grand Conspiracy?

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

If you bother to check, you will find Tammany Hall is exactly the textbook definition of conspiracy, complete with secrecy and illegality.

Um, no. Just no. (Except in a nit-picky technical sense.)

Tammy Hall did some things in secret, but it was a conspiracy only in the sense that any illegal organized action can be called a conspiracy. It was just a political machine, nothing remotely like the grand conspiracies of popular mythology. The sort of conspiracy that people think of with regard to the Illuminati or the like is quite a different beast than Tammany Hall or the Mafia or that sort of activity.

Maybe we could express it by saying that Tammany was a conspiracy, but not a Conspiracy.