Who was in on the inside job ?
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Dave Rogers
Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through
Another bug in the human psyche, of course, is not properly weighting direct vs. indirect causation of death. And it's all comparative, but there are thresholds, and I suspect very few of even the least moral politicians would sign up to the deliberate killing of thousands of their own countrymen. It's an example of the direct application of the trolley problem in moral philosophy.
Dave
Ape of Good Hope
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It was a morel argument.
That's when there isn't mushroom for misinterpretation.
(serious answer: WilliamSeger's argument was more about statistical unlikeliness than morality)
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WilliamSeger
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I don't think I could state it any more clearly than I already did, but it's fascinating that the mere fact that you don't understand it is actually a perfect demonstration of the pathological worldview I'm talking about.
Maybe it will help if you look at it this way: Suppose that you were one of those hundreds or thousands of people who just happened to be in a position that required your complicity for the plot to succeed, so you were approached to either assist with murdering thousands of innocent people in New York and Arlington or to help with covering it up. Would you go along with it? Assuming your answer is no, and assuming that you would instead find some way to blow the whistle on the plot, can you please tell me what sets you apart from those hundreds or thousands who, according to your theory, apparently had no problem with it?
The point was just that the outrageous implausibility of the mainline 9/11 conspiracy theories begins way before getting to fake hijackings and magical silent explosives and ninja arsonists, and it isn't just the number of people whom you presume must have been involved. How miserably fearful it must be to have to go through life with that low an opinion of the morality of the ordinary people that you necessarily must live with. I don't know how you get the nerve to leave your house (assuming that you do).
Oystein
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Or how he gets the nerve to stay inside the house (assuming that he does), knowing that practically everybody out there can be talked into collapsing it to the ground.
Truthers immediately jump to the canard of "compartmentalisation" when you list all the "perpetrators", little realising that they are narcissistically stating that they are the "only" ones who were "smart" enough to figure out the "inside job" when hundreds of thousands of involved professionals couldn't. 
Jango
Graduate Poster
1. Absolutely not.
2. Lots of differences between people like us and those who rule or have official authority, even small scale like local police officers. But think of it in larger terms, like POTUS for instance. POTUS handpicks his administration/cabinet. Does he choose likeminded people or contrarian (from his views or goals) people to comprise the important posts?
Let's use President Reagan as the example of POTUS. Death squads in El Salvador were supported and the Nicaraguan contras were too. Reagan had this to say about the contras: "They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance." http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=38274 -- The same contras that raped women and young girls and killed children by swinging them by their ankles/legs so their heads would smash on hard objects, like rocks and trees. Do you think Reagan was insulated from these realities?
Fast-forward to the 1990's and look at Madeleine Albright's comment (as the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. no less) of "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it" in response to Lesley Stahl's question: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0WDCYcUJ4o
Fast-forward to President Obama and his drone policies. I mean, we've droned funerals and weddings, man, firing hellfire missiles into large crowds of people, combatants and non-combatants alike.
Why is there such a clung onto belief that Americans are immune from their government doing awful **** to them? Do you need examples to broaden your frontier on this subject matter?
To answer your question directly: What specifically separates me from them is that I wouldn't go along with their plans, hence, why I'd never become involved in the political process because people with moral codes like us (I presume) don't come around all too often in the political game, and typically when they do, they don't hold much authority, nothing like a POTUS/D.N.I./Secretary of Defense. Ruthless pragmatism is the default position because emotions like empathy and sympathy have little room in geopolitical considerations, except of course, in the propaganda realm. And I'd be the odd man out in that conference room throughout the years, be it supporting death squads, serial rapists and child murderers, terrorists, drug (minus marijuana) cartels, and other dirty people to achieve "foreign policy goals." Assuming that you feel the same way, our views of morality would cause us to be marginalized and ostracized right outta any important political function because we won't go along with heartless nonsense (assuming again).
3. Would it take hundreds-or-thousands to do LIHOP?
4. See above.
5. Why would I presume that strangers are morally sound people until I know that they are? Do you automatically trust everyone you encounter? Ever heard of "stranger danger"?
People do terrible things to other people and other living beings literally all of the time. A woman is being raped somewhere in the world right now. People are being murdered right now too somewhere. Children are being molested right now. People are being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery, like the human smuggling ring located a few hours south of where I live. You name it, people are doing it to other people right now.
Fear has nothing to do with it. It is called recognizing that we're not all good little monkeys. Lots of bad people mixed in with the good. Risk awareness comes into play too.
6. 'Cause I'm not afraid to die or get severely injured -- if I was, I would have never played football, wrestled or joined the Marines.
Why is there such a clung onto belief that Americans are immune from their government doing awful **** to them? Do you need examples to broaden your frontier on this subject matter?
Americans and the USG, the cops, FBI, CIA and so on have done many disgusting things. It's well documented. People are often on power trips and have no respect for human life, animal life, the environment and so on. The rather ruthless types make it to the top of the power pyramid.... a sort of survival of the fittest meme. And people who are willing to compromise ethics and morals to get to the top obviously will engage in immoral and unethical behavior and policies believing that since they are at the top of the pyramid they are entitled. Power corrupts and absolutely power corrupts absolutely.
The abuse of power is all around us and the cause of much suffering. And of course people will not always take the abuse sitting down. So they strike back and the powers that be see this as justification for more repression and the cycle continues... guarantied. And they come up with all manner of idiotic justifications for their actions.
9/11 was simply a case of the inevitable happening... there was no need to stage it... And once it happened the powers that be reacted predictably and leveraged 9/11 to advance their agenda... but certainly not consider the root cause of the 9/11 attack.
Power freaks have no morals or ethics...
Oystein
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You must be assuming the inverse of this: That strangers are morally rotten to the bone people until I know that they are not? Do you automatically trust that everyone you encounter would agree to conspire to murder thousands of compatriots? Every single one? Not just at the top pf the administration and the services, but also the mid and lower ranks and the operatives?
Americans are not sent to gulags or concentration camps for refusing to follow political directives. In tyrannies, you always find dissidents who go to prison for lang years for blowing whistles or refusing to participate in the suppression of their own people. If this happens in truly oppressive states, why are there no Americans speaking up and truly blowing the whistle? I know, the Truth movement does sport a handful of "whistle blowers", but in almost every case, a closer inspection will reveal that they do not qualify as w.b. because they had no personal involvement. In the few remaining cases, I am quite confident these w.b. do not really support the "on purpose" claim of "LIHOP".
The Saudi connection is the sole possible exception I see at this point where there may an element of "covered it up on purpose after the fact for reaons of foreign relationships".
Exactly. There would be absolutely no tolerance for a person being invited into the conspiracy but declining (possibly vigorously). Every such person would represent a terrible threat to the prolonged coverup. What's more, every person who cheerfully entered the scheme but had a change of heart, religious conversion, nervous breakdown or whatever would similarly become a terrible threat.
Oystein
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In the case at hand - some LIHOP conspiracy conspiring to let AQ succeed with attacking the WTC and the Pentagon, would you care to try your best and invent specific lines of reasoning along the two points you enumerated, to convince American employees
1. "We" had no choice other than having AQ attack WTC and Pentagon and murder thousands of Americans
2. "It" would have been much "worse" if the attack had not taken place and thousands had not been murdered.
Who is "we"?
What is "it"?
In what way would "it" have been much "worse" than all the terrible outcomes of 9/11?
Shed light on this from the perspective of 3 points in time:
a) before 9/11
b) immediately after 9/11
c) 13 years after 9/11, with the Iraq war a desaster, Afghanistan unresolved, the ISIS threat a result of the failed Iraq war, Americans having lost freedoms, USA having lost influence, trust and power in the world
Would all the patsies that were convinced pre-9/11 still believe that any perceivable course of action NOT involving the terror attacks would be even worse?
Sorry, Georgio, I simply am not equipped to do this sort of convoluted thinking all by myself.
jaydeehess
Penultimate Amazing
Again, that would be much easier to accomplish IF the "something" were the killing of definitive "Others", such as foreign Islamics. It is much harder to accomplish is the task is to kill thousands of fellow Americans. Even more difficult to accomplish is to convince hundreds of Americans that killing thousands of Americans is required because there is no choice and if it isn't done then it will be worse than having done it.
Here's the thing; with thousands of American lives in danger and hundreds of people in the know either before the fact or having deduced they played an unwitting part in it after the fact someone is going to :
a) warn friends, family, neighbours to stay away from the target at the time it will happen,
b ) suffer from the bad conscience of having helped kill thousands, and bow the whistle.
There is no evidence of either having happened. There was ONE report that C.Rice warned a friend to stay away on Sept 11. BUT, the story goes that, this friend was to travel to NYC from the west coast, leaving at about the same time that the planes were hitting the towers. Funny thing about that is that this friend would have been in no danger whatsoever since that flight would be no closer to NYC than a couple thousand miles. At best he would have suffered an inconvenience due to the plane being grounded perhaps as far away as, Los Vegas.
Not really. It was a general point I was making rather than one specific to the case in hand.
In general though:
'We' is the persuador and the person being persuaded together.
'It' is the moral landscape after a certain amount of time has passed.
'Worse' is a value judgment that would have to be common to the persuador and the person being persuaded at the time of the persuasion about 'It'.
The person doing the persuading can lie about a potential threat and probable outcome of the action under consideration (covers points 'a' and 'b' in your above post) and cannot predict the future so your point 'c' is meaningless.
The process can begin again - as to keep information about a cover up secret may be set up as a morally questionable but ultimately necessary action in order to prevent a 'worse' 'it'.
I'll get back to you as to whether any of this is plausable in the case in hand once I am informed enough about it. As I say, it was a general argument against this 'good guys' and 'bad guys' thinking that some people are fond of.
You have been defending MIHOP by considering CD as a possibility. That needs hundreds or thousands.
It's also the "first time" a CD was allegedly conducted in a building still on fire (in 2/3 cases after being hit by an airplane), much less buildings over forty stories, much less three in one day.
No truther has ever responded after I pointed that out.
Oystein
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What is? The 'good guys' and 'bad guys' thinking or my making a general point rather than one specific to the case in hand? If the former then I agree completely, if the latter then, 'Oh well.'
Almost all of it. I haven't yet looked into the political aspect of 9/11. I haven't even read the 9/11 Commission Report yet.
DGM
Skeptic not Atheist
It's a really tough read. Unless you're into dry specifics, I suggest "Perfect Soldiers" by Terry McDermott or "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright.
Have you read either?
No I haven't. I'll look them up but when it's a factual book I'm reading I do prefer it to be just the dry information rather than a narrative style, so when I get round to researching the political aspect I probably will start with the Commission Report. Thanks for the recommendations.