A question for debunkers, inspired by Chomsky:

[Bell]

As certain as the evidence allows you to be? Is there always evidence of a known crime?

What percentage of crimes end in a conviction?

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/html/cjusew96/cpp.htm

So, no evidence of 9/11 being an inside job.
Or are you suggesting no evidence = 9/11 inside job?

 

[Homeland Insurgency]

So, no evidence of 9/11 being an inside job.
Or are you suggesting no evidence = 9/11 inside job?

Not at all.

What I'm saying is 9/11 happened. We don't know for instance if someone actually saw a UFO or Bigfoot when they claim so.

We all know a crime happened on 9/11. What's disputed is how it happened and who was behind it.

 

[twinstead]

Not at all.

What I'm saying is 9/11 happened. We don't know for instance if someone actually saw a UFO or Bigfoot when they claim so.

We all know a crime happened on 9/11. What's disputed is how it happened and who was behind it.

But you see, you can't just declare it disputed and have it be so. You simply belong to a very very small minority unsatisfied by the results of the largest investigations in US history. That is your right. But don't stand there and say what you folks are doing makes the results 'disputed'.

It's an insult to real investigators.

 

[Homeland Insurgency]

But you see, you can't just declare it disputed and have it be so. You simply belong to a very very small minority unsatisfied by the results of the largest investigations in US history. That is your right. But don't stand there and say what you folks are doing makes the results 'disputed'.

It's an insult to real investigators.

I'm not going to get into a debate about the so-called very very small minority with you.

 

[metamars]

Is it too much to ask....

Is it too much to ask if people at least made a stab at stating one proposed mechanism by which institutions protect themselves from investigations and dissidents, before they make multiple posts on peripheral matters? Heiwa and Jihad Jane have actually attempted this. I believe Pardalis made a post implying that any such mechanisms applicable to the US government will be constrained due to succession of competing parties - a point worth making, but not what I had asked.* (Also, it's a point that begs for elaboration, since applying it simplistically fails to account for much of recent US history. If you don't believe this, study Rep. Conyers' flip flop on impeachment proceedings.)

Here's another hint (besides carrot, stick, Operation Gladio): Deception.

(To this end, it should help to go back and Max Photon's famous MILDEC thread.)


* If I misunderstood him, perhaps he can explain his point more clearly.

 

[twinstead]

I'm not going to get into a debate about the so-called very very small minority with you.

7 years and all you've still got is people whining on internet forums. No new investigations, no major scientific organization championing your cause, no whistle blowers, no investigative bodies from anywhere on Earth giving more than a passing glance, nothing.

There's no need to debate.

 

[Homeland Insurgency]

7 years and all you've still got is people whining on internet forums. No new investigations, no major scientific organization championing your cause, no whistle blowers, no investigative bodies from anywhere on Earth giving more than a passing glance, nothing.

There's no need to debate.

There's no need to debate. okay

Do you really just come here to make fun of people?

I mean there is no need to debate right?

 

[metamars]

7 years and all you've still got is people whining on internet forums. No new investigations, no major scientific organization championing your cause, no whistle blowers, no investigative bodies from anywhere on Earth giving more than a passing glance, nothing.

There's no need to debate.

This is exactly the sort of stuff that I don't want on this thread. The issue about whether or not another investigation of 911 is justified/desirable/rational belongs on another thread. You don't even have to start a new one, you can use the all-purpose thread.

Even a somewhat more related issue, like the credibility of Chomsky on 911 or what great lessons we can infer from what he's said about 911, should have been discussed on another thread. Chopin's Minute Waltz was inspired by a dog chasing it's tail, but analyzing the Waltz' chord progression doesn't require reference to dog dynamics, much less what species of dog Chopin may have had in mind.

 

[beachnut]

There's no need to debate. okay

Do you really just come here to make fun of people?

I mean there is no need to debate right?

It means you have nothing to debate; you are evidence free. No big deal, you could ignore it instead of amplifying the fact you have on usable evidence to support your ideas on 9/11.

What does the lack of evidence in 9/11 truth, and your lack of evidence mean in regards to the OP to you? Does you lack of evidence reflect the lack of research, or the fact you found nothing?

 

[Homeland Insurgency]

It means you have nothing to debate; you are evidence free. No big deal, you could ignore it instead of amplifying the fact you have on usable evidence to support your ideas on 9/11.

What does the lack of evidence in 9/11 truth, and your lack of evidence mean in regards to the OP to you? Does you lack of evidence reflect the lack of research, or the fact you found nothing?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 

[beachnut]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

But in the case of your ideas and 9/11 truth ideas on 9/11; you are evidence free. Neat saying, but it does not help your fantasy ideas on 9/11.
So absent of evidence by you and 9/11 truth means your ideas on 9/11 are based only on hearsay, lies and fantasy. Absence of evidence leaves you with lies, hearsay, and fantasy. But surprise me; produce the “ample evidence” 9/11 turth is hiding. Make my day.

Not a thing you can do about it. So supporting some pie in the sky philosophy will not save the 9/11-truth movement and make lies turn to facts and evidence.
I can find no reasons Chomsky work can save 9/11 truth delusions from the bit bucket. Do you?

Did you know your sig is a red flag for bias and anti-Semitism?

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. Best used with your faith based delusions invovling 9/11.

I like this to explain your dilemma with 9/11 truth.

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein

 

[Dave Rogers]

Is it too much to ask if people at least made a stab at stating one proposed mechanism by which institutions protect themselves from investigations and dissidents, before they make multiple posts on peripheral matters?

Since what you're asking is that everybody posting in this thread should agree with you before being allowed to say anything else: yes, it is too much to ask.

Dave

 

[gumboot]

Chomsky might be a brilliant linguist, but that does not mean his opinions on politics and economics are worth a damn.

Even that's debatable.

 

[gumboot]

That snippet seems to indicate that there is a greater than 50:50 chance that people will choose to be an evil ****, given the opportunity. So, in effect, 1 in 2 of our government officials would tend to choose a harmful action if they are even slightly absolved of their moral responsibility. Hmm...what an uplifting statistic.

You've completely missed the entire point of the Milgram Experiment. Congratulations.

 

[gumboot]

I know I'm off topic, but I just want to point out that anyone who thinks the 9/11 Commission's findings were a hand-waving avoidance of laying blame, they have completely missed the significance of the Commission's findings. It alarms me that so many people miss the bull in the china shop on this issue. The Commission's findings were not a hand wave. They were very, very seriously damning. What is scary is no one seems to really have registered, so nothing is being done about it.

 

[gumboot]

For those of you who agree that "powerful institutions don't want to be investigated, obviously", then how do you think that whatever parts of the US government that the public may have depended upon to investigate other parts of the US government (or even their own part) which either goofed bigtime ("mega-OOPS"), let 911 happen on purpose ("LIHOP"), or made 911 happen on purpose ("MIHOP"), would have failed the public trust?

Putting aside your horrid destruction of the English language above (somewhat ironic given you're referencing a lauded linguist), trying to apply Chomsky's comments to the US Government appears to tumble into a rather gaping maw of error.

That being, a democratic government obtains its power from the people, and thus wide dissemination of how that process works actually helps to reinforce the government's power, not threaten it.

Case in point, the US system is somewhat hazy in how it works, with their multitude of weird voting processes in different states. This generates suspicion about the authenticity of the election result, thus, in the eyes of the populace, undermining the government's right to governance, and taking away some of its power - in every single US election I have been aware in my short life, there have been serious disputes about the validity of the end result.

In contrast, a country like New Zealand, for example, has a much simpler process in place, and a great deal of effort was made to educate the public on the elective system which was newly implemented some years ago.

New Zealanders lack the same suspicion of government or the elective process. Many people were very, very unhappy with the last election result, yet I have not come across a single person who has even suggested that there was anything suspect about the actual result. And no one has made even the most remote attempt to question the new government's right to enact their power. I myself was bitterly disappointed by the result of the 2002 and 2005 elections, and yet never even entertained such notions about the elected government.

So as you can see, in a democratic system, transparency of the power process actually enhances the degree of power an institution has, while attempts to conceal the power process are harmful to the degree of power an institution has.

 

[Ragnarok]

You've completely missed the entire point of the Milgram Experiment. Congratulations.

Whatever the point was, here's the outcome.

The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Whether that ratio is 50:50, or some other figure seems neither here, nor there. Some percentage of the govts we are all meant to trust are prone to moral evasion. Or are you another one who thinks the higher educated are guaranteed to have better morals?

Or, perhaps you'd like to explain what I'm missing?

 

[metamars]

Since what you're asking is that everybody posting in this thread should agree with you before being allowed to say anything else: yes, it is too much to ask.

Dave

Agree with me on what, beforehand? Actually, I see I've confused things a bit, so your comment is not off the wall:

If you don't agree with the premise, you weren't supposed to post in this thread (well, either that or respond to somebody else who does). I'll expand the scope of this thread, though, so that if you don't believe that "powerful institutions don't want to be investigated", then please explain why you believe thusly.

I should have written "If you can't grant the premise as stated, then you weren't supposed to post in this thread (well, either that or respond to somebody else who does grant the premise as stated)." My apologies for muddling things.

If you ask me the question "How could Al Quaeda (or any terrorist group, for that matter) have financed 911, assuming that the US did not MIHOP or LIHOP*?", then I'm perfectly capable of listing a number of methods, even if I don't personally agree with the premise of the question.

See also post #64. "Mega-OOPS" is a little vague, but I intend the term to mean, in the case of the 911/mega-OOPS question, the government's story.

Originally Posted by Mr.D View Post
So in other words, this whole thread is the old "What if there really was a conspiracy, how would they have covered it up?" thought exercise only with you namedropping Chomsky?

Not quite. Again, there's 6 parts, and two of those part (the "mega-OOPS" ones) don't involve conspiracy, except in the limited sense of possibly conspiring to cover the government's (actually, some subset of the government) ass. Also, when you say "they covered it up" you seem to be suggesting that all aspects of a cover up had to be directed, as opposed to allowing much of it to simply manifest, thanks to an acculturated conformity that, Chomsky reminds us, in part goes back to kindergarten.

The bit about "namedropping Chomsky" is a cheap shot. He's provided very convincing examples of the sorts of mechanisms that he also talks about more abstractly, and I quoted him extensively on just this subject, on another thread. Unfortunately, most of what I quoted had to be deleted. The book I quoted from is also very interesting (some of his work is much drier), so don't feel bashful about getting the book, reading it, and quoting from it, yourself. I promise not to say that you're "namedropping" Chomsky

* or MIHOP/LIHOP, which is more likely, IMO, than either "pure" LIHOP or MIHOP

 

[twinstead]

With all due respect Metamars, I really do think you're letting your ideology get in the way of your rational thinking, no less so than any right-wing jingoist who felt compelled to vote for for McCain in 2008 because he thought Obama was the Antichrist.

 

[metamars]

Putting aside your horrid destruction of the English language above (somewhat ironic given you're referencing a lauded linguist), trying to apply Chomsky's comments to the US Government appears to tumble into a rather gaping maw of error.

That being, a democratic government obtains its power from the people, and thus wide dissemination of how that process works actually helps to reinforce the government's power, not threaten it.

.
.
.

So as you can see, in a democratic system, transparency of the power process actually enhances the degree of power an institution has, while attempts to conceal the power process are harmful to the degree of power an institution has.

Said Chomsky

But it's not what you study in a junior high Civics course - what you study there is propaganda about the way systems are supposed to work but don't.

If democracy is functioning in a transparent manner in New Zealand, such that junior high school students there would agree that their high school civics course textbooks allow them to completely understand what is happening, that's great. I find it very hard to believe, though, that even in New Zealand, it functions so perfectly that no part of the government there ever makes a mistake - "mega-OOPS" - which it then has tried to cover up from the public.

In the case of the US, you don't seriously believe, do you, that the government is so wonderful that it is free even from the relatively less serious transgressions characterized as mega-OOPS? And furthermore, that it would then have not acted to prevent investigation of those very transgressions?

Also, I think you're conflating legitimacy with power. Yes, legitimacy is a kind of power, and a good kind, at that. However, in a non-textbook-perfect democracy - the sort that exists in the real world - the fact that illegitimate and/or highly doubtful things can go on, with the public kept in the dark or fed a large dose of lies, is disempowering to the public, and simultaneously gives illegitimate power to the government which it should not have. The ability to cover up mistakes - or worse - also represents a form of power. Maybe not the happy kind of legitimacy/power described in civics text books, but power nevertheless.