re: When did the right stop being about limited government and start peddling conspiracies?

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Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr. (born September 8, 1922) is an American political activist and founder of the LaRouche movement.[1][2] He has written on economic, scientific, and political topics, as well as on history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. LaRouche was a presidential candidate in each election from 1976 to 2004, running once for his own U.S. Labor Party and seven times for the Democratic Party nomination

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History as a struggle between Platonism and Aristotelianism
University of Notre Dame political philosophers Catherine Zuckert and Michael Zuckert write about LaRouche that "[I]t must be nearly unique in American politics that a presidential candidate... makes the interpretation of Plato a major issue in his campaign."[192]

According to George Johnson, LaRouche sees history as a battle between Platonists, who believe in absolute truth, and Aristotelians, who rely on empirical data. Johnson characterizes LaRouche's views as follows: the Platonists include figures such as Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, and Leibniz. He believes that many of the world's ills result from the dominance of Aristotelianism as embraced by the empirical philosophers (such as Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume), leading to a culture that favors the empirical over the metaphysical, embraces moral relativism, and seeks to keep the general population uninformed. Industry, technology, and classical music should be used to enlighten the world, LaRouche argues, whereas the Aristotelians use psychotherapy, drugs, rock music, jazz, environmentalism, and quantum theory to bring about a new dark age in which the world will be ruled by the oligarchs. Left and right are false distinctions for LaRouche; what matters is the Platonic versus Aristotelian outlook, a position that has led him to form relationships with groups as disparate as farmers, nuclear engineers, Black Muslims, Teamsters and pro-life advocates.

The conspirators are not necessarily in touch with one another: "From their standpoint, [the conspirators] are proceeding by instinct," LaRouche has said. "If you're asking how their policy is developed—if there is an inside group sitting down and making plans—no, it doesn't work that way ... History doesn't function quite that consciously."[193][194][195][196][197] In Architects of Fear (1983), Johnson compares the view to the Illuminati conspiracy theory; Johnson writes that after he wrote about LaRouche in The New York Times, LaRouche's followers denounced him as part of a conspiracy of elitists that began in ancient Egypt.[194][198][199][200][201]

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Democratic leaders, stunned by the Illinois results, say they believe voters cast their ballots unaware of the candidates' connections to Mr. Larouche and such LaRouche beliefs as that the Queen of England is a drug dealer and that Henry A. Kissinger is a Soviet ''agent of influence.''

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Asked if he believed that Queen Elizabeth II was knowingly involved in drug trafficking, for example, Mr. LaRouche said, ''Of course she is.''

He also argues that a variety of forces are plotting to kill him. In the interview he said the K.G.B., the Soviet security agency, was ''on my tail.'' He said Mr. Kissinger, the former Secretary of State, had ''run operations against me, and these have been operations that involved assassination threats and assassination potentialities.''

British intelligence has also worked against him, Mr. LaRouche said, and numerous others have plotted to kill him. Asked about these accusations, he said, ''You can't put them all in the same - they are not all part of one coherent plot.'' But, he added, ''in each case where we name someone, there is a basis for it.'' Now, he said, ''I have got Colombian drug pushers and some others - there's a hit out against me.''

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LaRouche organization publications have charged that NBC backs the "drug lobby" and that the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, another LaRouche critic, played a role in the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

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But the name that comes up perhaps more than any other in LaRouche's pantheon of enemies is former secretary of state Henry Kissinger. The preoccupation with Kissinger increased after June 10, 1982, when Kissinger's wife Nancy was escorting him onto a plane at Newark Airport for a trip to Boston, where he was to undergo triple-bypass surgery.

When a LaRouche supporter, Ellen Kaplan, started yelling abusive comments at him, such as, "Is it true that you sleep with young boys at the Carlyle Hotel?" Nancy Kissinger allegedly grabbed the woman by the throat. She was acquitted in a Newark court of assaulting Kaplan.

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