liberty student:In order to maintain that particular opinion, don't you think it might be incumbent upon you to look at the scholarly work that says otherwise?
To determine that at least 13 lbs of thermate are required for every 100 lbs of steel heated to 700 degrees? No, I don't need to check with "scholarly work" that says otherwise, any more than I need to check with "scholarly work" that affirms the sun rises in the west.
liberty student:I've asked you to look at 6 pages in a PDF file.
Six pages that don't say thermate was found, let alone traced to a particular manufacturer. Six pages, incidentally, at the other end of a link that doesn't work. The site is down for maintenance and has been for going on 24 hours now.
--Len
A-R:Do you have any particular theory yourselves as to how and by whom the 9/11 acts were perpetrated? I'm curious to know if you're only dismissing particular alternative theories such as the Thermate theory or any theory which conflict with assertions presented to the public by mainstream media sources?
I'm only dismissing theories that are impossible on their face. It's a given that the generally accepted story will be full of inaccuracies, and I have no opinion how large they are. It wouldn't surprise me especially if Cheney placed explosives personally in building 7. It would only surprise me that it's managed to stay secret this long.
A-R:I'm still trying to make up my mind as to who specifically may have been responsible.
Currently, "19 al Qaeda hijackers" are better supported than the alternative theories, most of which have been painfully debunked. The scientific method involves tentatively accepting the best-supported hypothesis, until falsified experimentally or a better hypothesis comes along. Meanwhile, your opinion about 9/11 affects nothing of any importance. If you realize that the government is a criminal gang, then one crime more or less won't change your opinion. If you don't realize it, then that's a more important problem than your opinion about 9/11--or the Gulf of Tonkin, or Pearl Harbor, or the Maine, or the Alamo for that matter.
Len Budney:If you realize that the government is a criminal gang, then one crime more or less won't change your opinion.
Yep, I agree totally. But the question still remains one that I would like to find answers to.
Len Budney:Currently, "19 al Qaeda hijackers" are better supported than the alternative theories, most of which have been painfully debunked.
Would anyone care to point out what exactly is the evidence is that better supports the 19 al Qaeda hijackers theory? I understand that this is accepted by a great majority as fact, but I have been at a loss at actually finding what (credible?) evidence points to the Al Qaeda theory.
It's interesting to look through news archives from the day of Sept 11'th. Mainstream news was mentioning Al Qaeda / Bin Laden almost immediately, and never really did I see any other alternative perps suggested. I'm sort of at a loss to figure out what evidence would have led them to that conclusion so quickly.
Len Budney:It would only surprise me that it's managed to stay secret this long.
Well I don't really know if there were explosives in building 7. But if we are discussing it then obviously it hasn't stayed a secret. How can we ever say that theory X is wrong because "people would have found out; the information would have been leaked"? If theory X is true, then obviously the information has been leaked and people have found out. Whether or not the perpetrators themselves (or their propaganda outlets) have admitted their own guilt is another question entirely.
If we are to believe that 19 al Qaeda operators (with extremely limited means) were successful in orchestrating the 9/11 conspiracy then it seems to be at least as plausible that 19 or fewer other people (with much better means) could have just as effectively done the same.
A-R:Well I don't really know if there were explosives in building 7. But if we are discussing it then obviously it hasn't stayed a secret. How can we ever say that theory X is wrong because "people would have found out; the information would have been leaked"? If theory X is true, then obviously the information has been leaked and people have found out. Whether or not the perpetrators themselves (or their propaganda outlets) have admitted their own guilt is another question entirely. If we are to believe that 19 al Qaeda operators (with extremely limited means) were successful in orchestrating the 9/11 conspiracy then it seems to be at least as plausible that 19 or fewer other people (with much better means) could have just as effectively done the same.
I find it odd that we only have confirmation of Gulf of Tonkin theories when documents become declassified. So who is to say that future declassifications won't reveal all sorts of insights about 9/11?
The argument that the "info would be leaked" is based on negative proof. Which is a logical fallacy.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
A-R:If we are to believe that 19 al Qaeda operators (with extremely limited means) were successful in orchestrating the 9/11 conspiracy...
They didn't. Enough was known beforehand to have prevented it. They succeeded not by their cleverness, but by the criminal negligence of the US government.
Keep in mind that, to the people who are raped and killed in our prisons every day for drug offenses or wrongful convictions, the government does something even worse, openly and with the approval of much of the population.
I don't know what the government did or didn't do. What I do know is that some very suspicious things happened on that day, and that we have received all information just as if a well-planned cover-up for the modern day had occurred.
First off, any Nazi can tell you that the bigger a lie is, the less apt people will be to suspect it. Coincidentally, such people: neo- and other Jew-haters, tin-foil hatters, alien abductees, were the first to raise questions as to the events of that day, and the ones who seemed to first get access to evidence. This, of course, is a stroke of genius for a person trying to cover something up in the modern day. The fact is, with the internet and digital cameras everywhere, it is completely impossible to actually keep big things a secret anymore. You just can't do it. Someone will find out. So, if you can't actually hide it, what do you do? You reveal it preemptively to someone with no credibility. This taints the evidence, associating anyone who sees merit in it with those who first revealed it, calling their credibility into question as well. The natural mental gullibility of the populace at large will do the rest.
JCFolsom:First off, any Nazi can tell you that the bigger a lie is, the less apt people will be to suspect it.
Sure. I always find the argument that the government is too stupid and incompetent to undertake a successful 9/11 to be quite impressive. I used to wonder why who ever brought down those buildings in such an obviously demolition style manner didn't put more effort into making them look like they fell as a result of uneven heating and weakening of the buildings. Then i realized that the more incompetently they made it look as if it were not a controlled demolition, the more obvious it would be to the mesmerized people that it was not a controlled demolition. LMAO! I mean obviously, a so obviously looking controlled demolition could not be the result of an incompetent government operation. This is why Bush is so perfect as a president. He is the imbecile’s imbecile. And he is the face of the state. The string pullers want it this way. And the sleepy public naturally sees it this way – just as intended. What a circus!
pauled: JCFolsom:First off, any Nazi can tell you that the bigger a lie is, the less apt people will be to suspect it. Sure. I always find the argument that the government is too stupid and incompetent to undertake a successful 9/11 to be quite impressive. I used to wonder why who ever brought down those buildings in such an obviously demolition style manner didn't put more effort into making them look like they fell as a result of uneven heating and weakening of the buildings. Then i realized that the more incompetently they made it look as if it were not a controlled demolition, the more obvious it would be to the mesmerized people that it was not a controlled demolition. LMAO! I mean obviously, a so obviously looking controlled demolition could not be the result of an incompetent government operation. This is why Bush is so perfect as a president. He is the imbecile’s imbecile. And he is the face of the state. The string pullers want it this way. And the sleepy public naturally sees it this way – just as intended. What a circus!
How did you escape the brainwashing?
Don't allow leftists to play games with definitions! Some of the libertarian-leaning leftists at this forum will try to redefine "left-wing" back to its original defition (Third Estate, limited government, free-markets, laissez-faire reforms, etc.). Fine! We non-leftists can't stop them from using their own personal definitions; they can use whatever labels they want to describe any concept they want.However, they have the audacity to then use their personal definition of "left-wing" (remember, the original definition, which is no longer valid) to prove that modern leftists are more libertarian than modern rightists! They will say that libertarianism is "inherently leftist" (again, using the original, no longer valid definition), and use that to insist that we should prefer and side with modern leftists over modern rightists.
Question their motives.
Ego:How did you escape the brainwashing?
Most libertarians and austrians must have interesting stories to tell on how they avoided at least some of the brainwashing. My story is this: when i was young i realized two things: the popular press often gets their front page stories quite wrong, and if they print retractions at all, it would be not in the front pages where the untruth was told. Second i realized, as i later heard Jefferson quoted as saying, that the person who never reads a paper is better educated than the one who does. Why? Because the details from the paper are more often wrong than not, and the paper reader believes he knows truths when in fact he believes falsehoods. The non-reader will hear about the general facts second-hand, which, by the time they reach him in that manner are general enough to be more likely true, if not necessarily true.
At an early age i leaned that what the masses believe to be true, unless i could verify it for myself, was more likely to be a falsehood than a truth. Why this observation came to me i cannot tell you. My father found many occasions to remind me to "believe half of what i see, and nothing of what i hear". Although i took him to be kidding, it always seemed to hold a strong element of truth to me.
But it is only later in life when i saw first-hand how the MSM twists, distorts, omits and misleads with the intention of manipulating a docile and weak-minded audience that I understood clearly what I only vaguely suspected as a youth. Not only do they lie and omit out of laziness and lack of interest in the pursuit of truth, but they lie and omit truths with intentional purposes to mislead and misdirect. This is not hidden from serious students of lewrockwell.com and mises.org.
To make a long story short, i think i was lucky. I often noticed a disparity between the truth and what the press and popular opinion had to say. And so i was always skeptical and on the lookout for the knowledgeable contrarian perspective – not just in revisionist history, but in current events as the facts seemed to suggest.
It's out of the question that it was an inside job. Because there is always a participant who will tell after the fact, especially about such a heinous crime as this. 7 years later we still hear of no such confession.
pauled: Ego:How did you escape the brainwashing? Most libertarians and austrians must have interesting stories to tell on how they avoided at least some of the brainwashing.
Most libertarians and austrians must have interesting stories to tell on how they avoided at least some of the brainwashing.
I didn't. I had to be a school trained communist before being refuted into submission and finally finding the LvMI.
Caley:I didn't. I had to be a school trained communist before being refuted into submission and finally finding the LvMI.
My hat is off to you. It seems to me that most people tie their egos and their very souls to the beliefs that were instilled in them from childhood. I respect anyone who is willing and able to allow reason to supersede that aspect of human nature. Well done, sir.
Caley:It's out of the question that it was an inside job. Because there is always a participant who will tell after the fact, especially about such a heinous crime as this. 7 years later we still hear of no such confession.
How long did it take the Gulf of Tonkin to come out? How long did it take for Pearl Harbor to be seriously questioned (some could argue that hasn't really happened yet)?
I wish people would drop the negative proof attack/defense/whatever. The absence of proof, is not proof. Otherwise that would refute the existence of God. Which would really tick off a lot of religious libertarians.
Pauled, to be honest, I don't think anyone is brainwashed; that whole idea is pretty condescending to me.
I think will believe what the want to believe; Republicans believe all the conspiracies about Clinton, Democrats believe all the conspiracies about Bush, and libertarians believe all the conspiracies about everyone!
Ego:Pauled, to be honest, I don't think anyone is brainwashed; that whole idea is pretty condescending to me.
That was someone else's term that i didn't think was off the mark enough to bother to refine. But i agree it's not brainwashing in the sense you may be thinking. But then again, i suspect it wasn't intended to be, either.
Ego:I think will believe what the want to believe; Republicans believe all the conspiracies about Clinton, Democrats believe all the conspiracies about Bush, and libertarians believe all the conspiracies about everyone!
And there are people who believe all that they hear on the six o'clock news. They believe that the things that never make the mainstream news are either unimportant, or didn't happen. That is the majority, in fact. Me, on the other hand - I'm just skeptical.
What i am quite certain of is that if the MSM reported to us tomorrow that Iran was a huge threat to us, had attacked our war ships, and needed to be bombed and invaded, more than half the nation would rally behind Washington’s attacks, invasions, and occupations of Iran - their ostensible defense of this nation - in a heart-beat. And you would be right that people will believe what they want to believe, and yet i would still think i'm right about how and why they come to believe what they want to believe.
To be honest, while I find the arguments of the structural engineers and such, that the towers were brought down by controlled demolition and that jet fuel just couldn't burn hot or long enough, especially when the initial fireballs had consumed so much of it, to be somewhat convincing, sorting through experts is just not something I am qualified to do. No, what tipped me towards believing that there was a conspiracy was this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6937803281885493976&q=9-11+witness&ei=r7wvSMKxAZW05AKSsIDgCQ
I think the guy in the video is Len Budney.
...sorting through experts is just not something I am qualified to do
After reading these replies, there is a reason why Austrians are economists. You are not qualified to examine the evidence.
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