Qs for the CTs

[gfunkusarelius]

ha, nice questions delphi. i am always frightened when i find out someone i "know" believes in this crap. there are people at my work who buy into it and its crazy, they basically answer all your questions with "well i dont know, but what is obvious is the government is telling us all lies."
one friend a few weeks ago made a comment about the "CIA crack" conspiracy and i laughed and said i had heard about that, and i realized he wasnt laughing. i wouldnt even touch that and moved on.

 

[lostnick3]

how about senator Joseph Mccarthy's hunt for commies in the 50's

 

[shuize]

ha, nice questions delphi. i am always frightened when i find out someone i "know" believes in this crap. there are people at my work who buy into it and its crazy, they basically answer all your questions with "well i dont know, but what is obvious is the government is telling us all lies."
one friend a few weeks ago made a comment about the "CIA crack" conspiracy and i laughed and said i had heard about that, and i realized he wasnt laughing. i wouldnt even touch that and moved on.

I've met someone who believes most of this crap, too. I began to discover the depths of his paranoia when we were out to dinner with several other friends. I began tossing out fairly basic questions such as have already been posted from which anyone with an ounce of critical thinking ability ought to realize how loony such claims sound.

For example:

True Believer: "No plane ever crashed into the Pentagon."

Me: "Flight recorder data, cell phone calls, and eyewitness testimony all corroborate a plane crashing into the Pentagon."

True Believer: "That's what the Government wants you to believe. All those things were faked."

Me: "Well, if what you say is true, considering the vast number of people necessary to fake something of that scale, don't you think someone might eventually come forward and reveal the story to the media?"

True Believer: "No. They're in on it, too!"

What really began to worry me, however, was that the crazier his answers became, the more it seemed some of the people (thankfully not all) around the table started to agree with him.

On reflection, I think it was the fact that he had "answers" and was at least able to respond to my questions, that may have impressed someone who didn't want to spend much effort evaluating the respective claims. To some, form is more important than substance and not freezing up in the face of the question confers legitimacy on the answer. No matter how wacky the answer may be.

 

[chipmunk stew]

On reflection, I think it was the fact that he had "answers" and was at least able to respond to my questions, that may have impressed someone who didn't want to spend much effort evaluating the respective claims. To some, form is more important than substance and not freezing up in the face of the question confers legitimacy on the answer. No matter how wacky the answer may be.

This is why CTers are so hard to compete with. They're always going to have obsessed over more details than the skeptic, so no matter how effectively the skeptic rebuts specific points, the CTer is inevitably going to bring something up that gives the skeptic pause, and then the CTer "wins", because in his mind, if any detail is possible, then the whole tapestry is probable. The CTer takes advantage of the human tendency to spot patterns. He is the master of innuendo.

 

[shuize]

This is why CTers are so hard to compete with. They're always going to have obsessed over more details than the skeptic, so no matter how effectively the skeptic rebuts specific points, the CTer is inevitably going to bring something up that gives the skeptic pause, and then the CTer "wins", because in his mind, if any detail is possible, then the whole tapestry is probable. The CTer takes advantage of the human tendency to spot patterns. He is the master of innuendo.

Exactly. While I was asking the bigger "who" and "why" questions that really need to be answered if you want to run with "inside job" theory, he'd follow up with minutiae: "Do you know the melting point of steel?" If I didn't, he take it as a "win" regardless of how many times I'd respond that steel wouldn't need to "melt" to bring the towers down.

However, the real irony is when you do use technical information to point out how their theory falls apart, (ex. as noted how knocking out the transfer beam would bring down the front of the Federal Building thus making it look like the building blew up from the inside) they'll accuse you of "not seeing the big picture" -- or return to the old stand-by, "That's what they want you to believe" nonsense.

 

[I less than three logic]

Seems I’ve sparked a discussion about CT’s, and while this isn’t exactly what I wanted, it is interesting nonetheless. Perhaps it was a bit naïve to expect them to actually answer the questions.

 

[CptColumbo]

Did they remove Delphi's question from their site or is the link not working?

 

[Gravy]

My questions to them over on the Loose Change forum (never answered of course: )
http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_F...dpost&p=2495208

Bravo! Consider them plagiarized!

I'm holding my breath until they answer...














...

 

[delphi_ote]

Did they remove Delphi's question from their site or is the link not working?

It's not working. Here. Try this.

 

[RandFan]

how about senator Joseph Mccarthy's hunt for commies in the 50's

What about it? McCarthy was a prick who abused his power. There were communist spies by the way.

 

[CptColumbo]

It's not working. Here. Try this.

Yeah, that got it.

The last post seemed to be April 4th, did anything happen after that in another thread, or did they just keep name calling and challenging you to a shouting match.

 

[delphi_ote]

Yeah, that got it.

The last post seemed to be April 4th, did anything happen after that in another thread, or did they just keep name calling and challenging you to a shouting match.

I decided to lay low for a while and return when things died down a little bit. Maybe I'll have a chance to get a little more evidence to fence sitters before I get the inevitable banination and DELETED!!!

 

[CptColumbo]

I decided to lay low for a while and return when things died down a little bit. Maybe I'll have a chance to get a little more evidence to fence sitters before I get the inevitable banination and DELETED!!!

I think you got at least one person to rethink the situation. It was funny how quickly they turned on their own, and threatened to ban him at one point.

Maybe it's because I had to take Journalism in College, but I find it curious that when they present a secondary source, they give one that names the original source as their source. When I wrote an article on the Dominique Dunne murder trial, I didn't just use the article written by her father Dominick Dunne(I didn't think he would lie, but he is biased in the matter). I used court transcipts, other newspaper accounts, articles that interviewed the defence team and other court officials to get their side, and a book about Battered Women that mentions the trial (it went towards motive and psychology). I would have liked to interview the persons involved personally, but didn't have the time to write them and most of the relevant players are unlisted. In the end, when you research a topic look for the discenting opinion and see if there is anything to it, don't just dismiss it out of hand because it screws up your theory. Use secondary sources that are independent from each other. Go in with no preconceived notions, let the evidence lead to a conclusion, don't have a conclusion and site only the evidence that supports it.

 

[lostnick3]

What about it? McCarthy was a prick who abused his power. There were communist spies by the way.

then if there were commies would it not prove his theories?

what was your the source for "there were communist spies by the way?"

 

[brodski]

then if there were commies would it not prove his theories?

Just because there where some communist spies, doesn't mean that anyone he accused of such, or otherwise did his best to wreck the lives of was guilty of espionage or treason. The IRA is real, it doesn't mean that the Guilford 4, Birmingham 6 or McGuire 7 where guilty.

 

[lostnick3]

Just because there where some communist spies, doesn't mean that anyone he accused of such, or otherwise did his best to wreck the lives of was guilty of espionage or treason. The IRA is real, it doesn't mean that the Guilford 4, Birmingham 6 or McGuire 7 where guilty.

Senator McCarthy's theory was that there were commies in the government, the fact that were commie's was later confirmed. doesn't that confirm the theory? just because he was nuts and started grabbing innocent people, destroyed thousands of lives and just about turned the country into a police state, shouldn't be relevant. I can remember those days, first time that sort of thing was televised, the country was tense.

 

[UrsulaV]

then if there were commies would it not prove his theories?

Had his theory merely been "there were commies" then it would have proved it, sure. However, McCarthy got awfully specific about who the commies were, and was generally dead wrong in those regards.

It's sort of like the people claiming that UFOs are abducting and anal probing people to harvest their eggs. The theory isn't just "There are aliens," but instead they're very specific about what the aliens are and what they're doing. A hundred years from now, if we discover single-celled bacteria living under the ice on a moon of Jupiter, then technically, there would be aliens, but it still wouldn't prove the theories of the UFO anal-probe dog and pony show crowd, because their theories are much, much more specific than a mere "there are aliens."

Had McCarthy said "There are commies," and stopped there, then yes, the existence of commies would have vindicated his theory. But he didn't stop, and everything past that was dead wrong.

 

[Euromutt]

what was your the source for "there were communist spies by the way?"

I think the names of Klaus Fuchs, Julius Rosenberg and David Greenglass are sufficiently common knowledge that we can dispense with citations.

Just as a matter of interest, did McCarthy, or the HCUA for that matter, ever uncover and prevent or put a stop to the activities of any actual Soviet agents? Did they do one iota for national security, or was persecuting leftists in the entertainment industry all they were good for?

As to the OP, I might add a couple of pet conspiracy theories held by the father of a former friend of mine:

The first is that The Communist Manifesto was fabricated by British intelligence during the First World War, and that Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was a British agent charged with overthrowing the Tsar in order to install a new regime which would be more effective in fighting the Central Powers. My former friend's father based this belief on a seemingly anomalous Anglicism in the colofon of the "purported" first edition. Of course, that the Manifesto was indeed first published in London, including the German-language edition, is common knowledge to anyone with a smidgen of knowledge on the subject, and contemporary (i.e. mid-19th century) sources discussing the Manifesto are legion, meaning that there's no way it could have been fabricated from scratch in 1916, but why let historical fact get in the way of a perfectly decent CT?

The second is that the plan for the Allied landings at Salerno in 1943 was leaked to the Germans, which was why the landings were opposed. The simpler explanation is, of course, that Salerno was one of the few beaches suitable for a large-scale amphibious landing within range of fighter cover from Sicily should, and that the Germans were perfectly capable of working this out for themselves (and besides, why weren't the landings at Taranto opposed?) should, again, not be allowed to get in the way.

(I should add that one of the reasons my former friend stopped being my friend was because he didn't appreciate my pointing out the Mack truck-sized holes in his dad's conspiracy theories.)

 

[lostnick3]

Had his theory merely been "there were commies" then it would have proved it, sure. However, McCarthy got awfully specific about who the commies were, and was generally dead wrong in those regards.

It's sort of like the people claiming that UFOs are abducting and anal probing people to harvest their eggs. The theory isn't just "There are aliens," but instead they're very specific about what the aliens are and what they're doing. A hundred years from now, if we discover single-celled bacteria living under the ice on a moon of Jupiter, then technically, there would be aliens, but it still wouldn't prove the theories of the UFO anal-probe dog and pony show crowd, because their theories are much, much more specific than a mere "there are aliens."

Had McCarthy said "There are commies," and stopped there, then yes, the existence of commies would have vindicated his theory. But he didn't stop, and everything past that was dead wrong.

McCarthy's position that there were commies in the government were later confirmed by reliable independent sources, your anal probing aliens will not be.

 

[RandFan]

then if there were commies would it not prove his theories?

Some of those theories but even if it proved all of them it wouldn't justify his actions.

what was your the source for "there were communist spies by the way?"

Soviet documents released by the Russians following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

History of Soviet espionage in the United States