Dissing the truthers
Posted on 06/08/2007 5:00:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
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According to a poll by Rasmussen, 22% of all Americans and 35% of all Democrats believe that George Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance. Perhaps that's because it's not at all unusual to hear bizarre theories about 9/11. If you spend a lot of time on the internet, you'll hear everything from Bush knew about 9/11 and let it happen, to Bush was behind 9/11, the Mossad was behind 9/11, the Pentagon was hit by a truck bomb, the Pentagon was hit by a missile, the World Trade Center was taken down by explosives, WTC 7 was taken down by explosives, mini-nukes were used on the WTC, United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down by a missile, United Airlines Flight 93 was never shot down at all, etc., etc., etc.. In other words, any and every crackpot theory that you could come up with in your wildest nightmare has probably been floated by some lunatic or attention seeker on the Internet. So why have these conspiracy theories managed to spread? In large part because most serious commentators usually think it's beneath them to actually take the time to respond to the conspiracy theorists. The problem with that is that the nuts end up dominating the conversation by default because the sane, knowledgeable people tend to opt out of the conversation. The other big problem is that conspiracy theorists use a style of argumentation that tends to baffle a lot of people. What the "truthers" and other assorted nuts do is ignore the big picture and focus on small things. You see, there are always stories that are gotten wrong by the media in the aftermath of a big story (Think about how badly the Hurricane Katrina coverage was blown), small inconsistencies, and loose ends that aren't tied up. What the conspiracy theorists do is bring these minor issues up and demand that people explain them or else admit that there's a conspiracy. Most people don't know how to handle that because, quite naturally, they don't know what temperature steel melts at, who said what to whom two days after 9/11, or anything about some obscure study that the conspiracy theorists cite. But, here's the thing: the conspiracy theorists have it backwards. It's the conspiracy theorists who need to build a case that explains what happened better than the official version, not people who believe the coherent, accepted version of events who need to explain away minutiae that the kooks have come up with. For example, a lot of conspiracy theorists who believe the Pentagon was hit by a missile or truck bomb have pointed out that a 757 has a 124 foot wingspan and have asked how it could fit into a hole that was only 90 feet across. Long story short, per the Popular Mechanics Debunking 9/11 Myths book, part of the wings were likely sheared off when the plane hit the very thick walls of the Pentagon. A much better question, which the conspiracy theorists would need to answer would be, "If the Pentagon was hit by a truck bomb or missile, how can it be that so many people saw the plane fly into the building?" What do they say to the countless witnesses, who like James Robbins, have a simple response to these conspiracy theories about truck bombs and missiles hitting the Pentagon, "I was there. I saw it. That is my entire rebuttal." No matter how you spin it, what claims you make, or what your "evidence" that a missile or a truck bomb hit the Pentagon is supposed to be, it's all irrelevant compared to witness after witness after witness who say that they watched a plane fly into the Pentagon. This is the problem the truthers have on every issue: the evidence against their conspiracy theories is so overwhelming that almost no one who is well informed about the issue could possibly believe them. Now, we could get into some of the specific claims that the truthers make. For example, there's the claim that, "the fire in the WTC wasn't hot enough to melt steel." That was true initially (although it became hot enough after the buildings fell and the fires burned on under the rubble), but steel begins to lose its strength at 400 degrees Celsius and at 980 degrees Celsius, only a small fraction of its strength remains. The damage to the buildings' structural supports and the weakened steel caused by the fire brought down both the Twin Towers and World Trade Center Building 7. If you want to see that kind of point by point analysis, Popular Mechanics, which was mentioned above, has a whole book filled with it. But, there's no point to doing that because this issue has been investigated over and over again -- and by sane, rational people, not truthers who think that all of our elections are fixed, that the Illuminati run the world, and that the US, Mexico, and Canada are going to merge into one giant North American Union next year. The 9/11 attacks, or at least parts of those attacks, have been investigated by the 9/11 commission, the CIA, FBI, FAA, FEMA, The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Popular Mechanics, and countless mainstream newspapers -- among other sources. None of these sources have concluded that there is any sort of grand conspiracy going on, that Bush was behind 9/11, that the Pentagon was hit with a truck bomb, that WTC 7 was brought down by a controlled demolition, etc. So in other words, to believe in many of these kooky conspiracy theories, you have to believe that tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of Republicans, Democrats, Independents, politicians, bureaucrats, journalists, FBI agents, and CIA agents all know about an incredibly complex, monstrous plot against the United States, and are keeping their lips sealed while Charlie Sheen, Rosie O'Donnell, and the fruit loops who think Bush is a puppet of the Freemasons have figured it all out. For example, look at it like this: if you believe that a truck bomb hit the Pentagon and the government covered it up, you're in effect saying that you believe Bush, his cabinet, the FBI and/or CIA (who would have executed it), the eye witnesses, the rescue workers on the scene, people who work in the Pentagon, the newspapers that investigated it, Osama Bin Laden (who took credit for the attacks) and numerous other people all know that a truck bomb hit the Pentagon and are choosing to remain silent about it. When I talk about looking at the big picture as opposed to conspiracy theorists focusing on tiny details, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Once you get out of the weeds where the crazies spend all their time looking at nearly irrelevant loose ends and start looking at everything that would have to fall into place to make this sort of X-Files scenario work, you can clearly see that it's impossible. That's what people need to remember about 9/11: it has been investigated, in depth, by people from both parties, legitimate news organizations, and even Popular Mechanics, which is probably as close are you can possibly get to a non-political, non-partisan, unbiased organization in this instance and the conclusion is that there is no "there, there" to these conspiracies. That's why the only people who buy into them are the uninformed, the mentally unstable, and fools who don't understand that believing nothing that the government says is every bit as foolish as believing everything that the government says. |
When people are stuck on stupid, it is pointless to even bother. Some of these idiots think a missile hit the Pentagon but offer no explanation for what happened to the plane. You can’t argue with stupidity.
It’s a form of denial. If Bush did it then it’s all for political purposes and there’s not a real threat to us.
Nonsense, but understandable. People don’t like the idea that there’s someone out there trying to kill them.
They believe it because they have BDS.
LLS
It’s a combination of denial and ‘the true believer’ syndrome. No amount of evidence will convince them. In fact, the more you show, the more they’ll reject it as being faked.
The denial part is that it’s easier and safer to believe the government is out to get you than islamics with nukes. And you can be PC too, don’t have to offend the poor islamics.
The so-called “truthers” are trying to divert our attention from their own complicity in the attacks.
Decent article, that said, wouldn’t some BDS sufferer that’s a DEM blow the whistle so they can chimpeach and annoint queen Pelosi? After all, there has to be 10s of thousands involved, surely one of them would rat.
Just yesterday, I had a real conversation with someone who WANTS to believe the intentional demolition of the WTC. I stated to him that some have suggested the recent JFK plot may have been staged by the Bush Administration just to keep alive the public fear of terrorism. Very seriously he said, “That is a possiblity”.
These people are going to get tens of millions killed.
It is very ironic that those who are against war are going to allow a war of greater scope and horror than WW II to occur.
The only problem with that rebuttal is, sometimes a "small thing" is all you need to disprove a theory. The author seems to get that at a practical level, as he does refute a few of the "small things" from the truthers. But for example the entire CBS national guard story was unraveled from one "small thing", the "th" superscript. That gave people a reason to look and find MORE things, but the simply fact is that, if there was no evidence of a superscript typewriter ever used by the command, that's all you needed to debunk it.
Now, he is right that even if you have the small things on your side, that only debunks the official story, it doesn't give any credence to the conspiracy -- you have to be able to explain ALL the evidence for your conspiracy to be a BETTER explanation.
The "Beware the NAU people here aren't going to like THIS line:
But, there's no point to doing that because this issue has been investigated over and over again -- and by sane, rational people, not truthers who think that all of our elections are fixed, that the Illuminati run the world, and that the US, Mexico, and Canada are going to merge into one giant North American Union next year.
Got a few of those here at FR.
Hell, even I knew about September 11 in advance. It was right there on my calendar.
Exactly.
The steel springs on our overhead garage door lift system were so powerful that, when one broke, it knocked a great hole in the wall. (When I replaced it, I installed a steel safety cable through it to prevent a repeat of the "explosive flyaway".)
Yet, after a fire destroyed that garage, it had annealed (softened, weakened) those same massive springs such that I was able to straighten them out with my bare hands.
Hey, Rosie O'Fatdumb@$$: You don't have to liquefy (that's "melt" to Your Metallurglesshness) steel to weaken it to the point of structural uselessness....
Like finding out who was the 2nd shooter on the Grassy Knoll and who was the 3rd shooter on the R.R. Overpass (3 'clean' hobos were arrested then released).
As an aside, I was once into the conspiracy stuff, back when I was a Liberal, who believed in various UFO type stuff. I was set straight by an individual on the early Nets, who explained it to me so rationally (non-falsifiable hypothesis, and all that), that I converted to a sceptic overnight. It was also a person on the early Nets who converted my from Liberalism. Thank God for the Internet!
Like .... the BBC reporter telling the world that the WTC building 7 has collapsed ... while the building was still visible over her shoulder.
It was 1/2 an hour later that the building fell.
Or .... why were the bomb dogs that routinely patrolled the buildings removed the week before ... and what was done by all those workmen the weekend of 9-9 9-10 ?
There are some real interesting “coincidences” .
Now I don’t think this was a super plot by our government .... but .... a lot of people made a lot of money on this and New York got a prime deal on some economic development that could have never happened with out this.
It’s not unreasonable to look hard and long at every aspect of the event.
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NEVER FORGET
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The Man Who Predicted 9/11 =
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9/11 Lifesaver Hero RICK RESCORLA, ..R.I.P.
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(The Website)
http://www.RickRescorla.com
(The Pictures)
http://www.RickRescorla.com/The%20Statue.htm
(The Rest of the Story)
http://www.ArmchairGeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24361
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NEVER FORGET
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Are these people still around? I haven’t heard anyone other than Rosie bleat this lunacy.
What? Are you saying that UFOs aren’t real?
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