Maybe, but the difference is the side you're regurgitating often regurgitates false information. NIST has responded to many of the common misconceptions of the conspiracy theorists. Here's a link to their quick responses...the page also contains a link to the full report. Question 7a & 7b specifically refer to the UL refutation you refer to. Question 14 regards the WTC 7 building that you brought up in your first post. http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm In addition to the NIST report, here are some additional sites that summaries and links to expert testimony and peer reviewed papers that address every contention that conspiracy theorists have: http://www.debunking911.com/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html http://www.jod911.com/ http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/refute.htm That's not what I'm saying at all. I support further investigation. What I'm saying is that, as of right now, based on all the evidence and articles that I've read and researched, a government conspiracy is not the most likely explanation for 9/11. I don't think discounting conspiracy theories is anti-intellectual. I consider the conspiracy theories I've heard the same as religious arguments. They all seem to boil down to either a misinterpretation of scientific data presented, or the assumption that since there is no clear answer for (x), it must be a conspiracy. I do not find these arguments either rational or objective. Also, your big lie argument suggests that the government *is* capable of covering up a massive conspiracy...so regardless of how much information is gathered, do you ever think the record will be 100% correct? No worries Guerilla, I don't take it personally, and I don't engage in flame wars. However, it is a mistake to think my opinion on this matter is one of pre-disposition. Even though I'm a layman, I've done a lot of research into this, and my opinion is most certainly one of post-disposition - yet I'm still open to *new* evidence.
Yeah, same here. I just keep rolling along the educational path, trying to pick up more and more knowledge. Btw, you're not into conspiracy theories, you are into conspiracy facts. If someone calls you a conspiracy theorist, then they are probably a coincidence theorist. Those damn coincidences! Good to see you around Nate.
False information? The Popular Mechanics article was exposed when the author gave an interview on the Charles Goyette radio show, and was caught out blatantly lying by the host. You're just making an argument to authority. Again, you can't make a case, when you cite experts who have been challenged or debunked by non-partisan, non-governmental experts. They can't even make their case honestly, accurately and succinctly! If you haven't read the qualified and expert pro-conspiracy side, then I don't know why your opinion that it wasn't, carries any weight. You can't weigh one side and then claim to be unbiased. More research may be in order. That wasn't what I said. You're judging all conspiracy theories equally? None stand out as having any more merit than others? Sounds like you have a lot of preconceptions before investigating anything. Do I think it is possible it will be 100% correct? Absolutely. I think that is possible. Do I think it will? If I could predict the future, I would be in Vegas right now. I don't make predictions, certainly not political ones. The government is capable and has been capable of covering up large events or operations. I don't think that should be in question by anyone. It seems to be self-evident. The question is whether or not they did. Personally, and I mean this honestly, I could care less. It's not going to bring back the dead, and as we've seen in this rogue government, even massive public opinion against a war, will not end it. What the speculation does do, is undermine faith and confidence in a corrupt institution. Which is fine by me. That said, putting utilitarianism aside for a minute, the truth is the truth. It's important for us to have truthful science, truthful relationships and truthful government. Living a lie serves the best interests of no one. Good. As long as you have an open mind. I certainly did not mean any insult by using layman, I assume you like me, are not a scientist or engineer. All we can do is try to analyze the evidence we can understand, and the interpretations of the experts. That said, I always get a chuckle out of laymen who trot out PopSci or NIST because as laymen, if one hasn't read the critiques of those, they are just making an appeal to authority, which is the opposite of being rigorous as an investigator. As you've said, you don't see conspiracies as more than religion, which obviously means you won't take conspiracies on first blush to be substantive or valid. Which is fine, as long as it doesn't lead you to look for reasons not to believe it, before you even understand the contention of the theory first.
I have a serious question for you. Is there a theory of the 9-11 attacks that you find most credible based on what you know at this point? The reason I ask is that I do not think you have ever adopted a position. Rather, you seem to suggest that there are many holes in the "accepted" theory and use that to justify the notion of a conspiracy. What I have not seen you do is put forth any theory of any part of the attack that you believe that someone else can challenge. It appears to me like you enjoy throwing a monkey wrench at some theories while never putting forth your own opinion as to what you think took place. Do you think the US was involved in the attacks? Do you think Israel was involved in the attacks? Do you think a plane did not hit the Pentagon? Do you think the World Trade Center towers fell because of explosives planted in the buildings prior to the attack? Do you think Al Qaeda was behind/conceived of the attack or just a scape goat. I seriously don't know what you think about the attacks other than you seem to question everyone else's notion of what happened, but never put your own cards on the table.
This is not out of disrespect, but you're probably not going to get an answer you like. I hope you'll understand why. I'm sure someone, somewhere has a similar position, but of the say, top 10 theories, no, there isn't. In the accepted theories. I do believe there is a conspiracy of silence, to keep inconvenient or contradictory facts out of public discourse. The Commission chairs themselves say they were obstructed by the government, and I believe the Commission itself did a very shallow review. Of the Commission's recommendations, few if any of have been implemented. All of the Patriot Act, John Warner, MCA stuff isn't not a response to 9/11 at all. It is legislation that was waiting for an event to create the atmosphere to get it passed. The Commission's findings have gone unheeded. Add to that, that no one got fired. No one in the FBI got fired. No one in the executive got fired. No one anywhere got fired, on a day when the most heavily defended airspace in the world (DC, over the pentagon) was breached. No one was fired when the record clearly showed that there was prior knowledge of not only the hijackers prepping for an attack, but the possibility specifically of hijackings from Bin Laden. Quite honestly and sincerely, I have no idea what took place. I know the official story reads like bad television, but I don't know for sure I believe Bin Laden is real, or that Al Queda is real, or that the hijackers didn't receive training from the US government, or a number of other things. That's why I would like a real investigation. To get to some basic and fundamental truths that underpin not only the "official story" but the conspiracy theories as well. To quote myself, I am looking for conspiracy facts, not theories. We have too many theories, and not enough facts. I don't know. I don't know. I'm really suspicious of the plane-pentagon deal. If you listened to the PopMech interview with Goyette (who is NOT a truther), you would be too. It was highly suspect. I think that is possible. I do not know how the towers fell. I do think there is a LOT of evidence to indicate that the burning building-jet fuel scenario is not accurate, but that doesn't mean there isn't some other way the buildings collapsed from the plane impact. I don't know about this one. If you do a lot of deep research on it, it's very very confusing. I'm tempted to take Michael Scheuer at face value when he assures everyone that Bin Laden is real, and that he is a very real threat. Instinctively, I question how long a man who needs a dialysis machine can live on the run, in the mountains of Afghanistan for 7 years and still record videos every couple months. Well, I guess I am a Truther. It gets used as a pejorative, but Truthers are people seeking the truth. We don't care if it exonerates the government, or indicts them. We don't care of it implicates Israel, or proves they had no involvement. We don't care if Bin Laden is real or not. We simply want to know what the truth is. And thus far, the impression out there, is that the government has lied substantially and covered things up. From disposing of the WTC debris quickly before proper forensics could be done, to refusing to call an investigation until there was massive public outcry. Did you know, that no one has been charged with those attacks yet? No one. No one has been charged, not even Bin Laden. No one has been held accountable for negligence or anything. The biggest terror attack in western history, and not one charge has been laid, let alone prosecuted or stuck. Not one job was lost. Something isn't right there.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I do understand why you hold your position and I can respect it. I will just say that it seems that you are far more dismissive of people who agree with a theory that it was simply a terrorist attack than you are toward some of the people here who push the more extreme conspiracy theories of what happened. It has the appearance of tacit support of some of the extreme theories when one juxtaposes your comments to the people on DP speaking to the various 9-11 theories. (Nobody is under some obligation to refute everything they disagree with here on DP. I know I pick and chose the issues that I think benefit from my comments.) Anyway, I did not want to drag you into some long and pathetic debate which could resolve nothing. Thanks for the answer to my questions, I appreciate it. I tried to fire Bush with my vote in 2004.
Thanks. Because they are questioning authority. I don't agree with what they think necessarily, but I do like that they are free thinking and having at least as much of an open mind, to question dogma and doctrine. Appreciated here as well. Your elected officials do not serve you. They only serve themselves and the people who keep them in power. If the government was responsive to the will of the people, Bin Laden (if he exists) would have been caught, the troops would be home safe with their families, and Bush would be impeached. This is part of why I needed to chill out and take a break from P&R. What's coming is coming regardless of whether I post about it. Financially, the empire is approaching it's last days. All we can do is try to insulate ourselves from any fallout and negative consequences.
I'd give anything to have a great debate like this on MY forums. I can't BUY people to think and post about issues. I invite ALL of you to my show!! This isn't so much an advertisement or anything like that for my show. I just would LOVE to have people that care either way about important issues there. Awesome responses here. Just awesome.
See, it's stuff like this, and why none of this was covered during the commission reports, that leave people wondering, "WTF IS REALLY GOING ON?" http://www.911blogger.com/node/17140 Did Giuliani have them? I don't know. Was Dan Rather confused, I don't know. But we need investigations, before we spend $3 trillion dollars, invade 2 countries, lose more than 4,000 of our young men and women, and trigger conflict that kills hundreds of thousands of civilians. If we don't have that level of honesty and accountability, then we are truly lost as a people. We are operating in a moral vacuum, and behaving like animals, not rational, thinking, feeling beings.
To me that is much ado about nothing. Dan Rather is only repeating what someone says in his ear piece. Why would Rudy be holding a black box anyway. That sounds totally odd to me. He would not have been the one to find it and why would anybody give it to him? Anyway, to me this just shows that people will make something out of nothing. There is no there there. Where is the substance? Surely there was more than one news station reporting if Rudy was making a speech holding the black box. Do you really think that they all destroyed that footage and are all keeping quiet or does it make more sense that Dan Rather simply spoke of something that was not accurate? I do not get the least bit of WTF after watching that. I do wonder how you think that footage means anything. One would have to make so many bizarre assumptions for there to be anything nefarious about that clip.
Why is someone saying that in his earpiece, telling him they are cuing footage? Who told him that? Where did they get the impression that Giuliani had the black box and had footage? You say there is no "there, there", and fair enough, but if you're being intellectually honest, Dan Rather didn't say things like that by accident, so unless we're talking about coincidence theory, it's worth asking some serious questions, especially considering that at the time of the attacks, there were conflicting reports about the WTC black boxes. Just something else that was not investigated, not just not to 100% certainty, but not investigated at all. Can you say 100% that you are confident that the footage does not exist? That Giuliani did not have the black boxes? Of course not. And that is what most of the official story is built on. Assumptions. The amount of incontrovertible fact is pretty scarce. Let's know for sure before we trigger WW3. Seems like a prudent idea to me. But I'm just a heretic.
Heretic, hardly . . . lazy maybe. Maybe Dan just misheard what the said in his ear piece? Hmm, I know I am going out on a limb, but does that seem at all possible to you. Why doesn't someone call and ask what that was about? Why not call and ask the other news stations if they have footage of the event you think took place? Has nobody asked Dan Rather? Has anybody tried to answer your questions or are you all just waiting for a government report on it (which will no doubt be painted as biased anyway). Why not have someone get off their ass and ask the questions rather than just pointing to a question mark and making it sound like you found something. Please don't tell me that the only one who can ask questions is the government? I would be mildly curious to know why he thought they had that on tape. But without more, to me, it is much ado about nothing.
Oh you better believe I am a heretic. I get more heretical every day! Sure. Sounds like coincidence theory to me. Of course the only person who can ask questions is the government. They are the sole arbiter of law, and the final determinate of what is and is not legal. Only they have the power of sub poena, and even then, apparently they cannot sub poena the executive. Now you see the problem when the government is responsible for investigating or checking itself. You will never get satisfactory justice. The government will never resign in disgrace, or admit that it cannot do the job it is mandated to. It will never admit to voiding the Constitution, and thus invalidating itself. It's a big joke. Thanks for responding btw. I saw the Youtube on Infowars and had to post it.
George Bush called Rather and told him not to show the footage, right as they were going to show it. He is so brilliant that he called right on time too.
I have tried to visit sites you link to, but it hurts my brain to read the junk. I really don't want to lower my IQ, but having fun with the subject can relieve stress. I am wanting to see them get their 1000 engineers that will back up their story. They will have an easier time getting cartoonist, since most of the theories are based on cartoon physics. Maybe we should stop sending kids to collage (spelling provided by a genius) and just have them listen to alex jones and the like. A lot cheaper and they will inevitably get the same education. When listening to or watching alex jones - is it beneficial to be on LSD, ecstasy or ??? Usually psychotics help in the brainwashing process.
For the most part it is the oldest who stresses me out sometimes. He seems to be making some good choices right now, but drugs are so destructive it has hurt him some. Watching someone throw away their life for a plant is sad and their are a lot of kids doing it these days. Seems to be the trendy thing to do, along with tattoos, piercing, emoness, etc...