Ventura: ‘You’re not allowed to ask’ about 9/11

[Fury]

Was it this one?

10 characteristics of conspiracy theorists
A useful guide by Donna Ferentes

1. Arrogance. They are always fact-seekers, questioners, people who are trying to discover the truth: sceptics are always "sheep", patsies for Messrs Bush and Blair etc.

2. Relentlessness. They will always go on and on about a conspiracy no matter how little evidence they have to go on or how much of what they have is simply discredited. (Moreover, as per 1. above, even if you listen to them ninety-eight times, the ninety-ninth time, when you say "no thanks", you'll be called a "sheep" again.) Additionally, they have no capacity for precis whatsoever. They go on and on at enormous length.

3. Inability to answer questions. For people who loudly advertise their determination to the principle of questioning everything, they're pretty poor at answering direct questions from sceptics about the claims that they make.

4. Fondness for certain stock phrases. These include Cicero's "cui bono?" (of which it can be said that Cicero understood the importance of having evidence to back it up) and Conan Doyle's "once we have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth". What these phrases have in common is that they are attempts to absolve themselves from any responsibility to produce positive, hard evidence themselves: you simply "eliminate the impossible" (i.e. say the official account can't stand scrutiny) which means that the wild allegation of your choice, based on "cui bono?" (which is always the government) is therefore the truth.

5. Inability to employ or understand Occam's Razor. Aided by the principle in 4. above, conspiracy theorists never notice that the small inconsistencies in the accounts which they reject are dwarfed by the enormous, gaping holes in logic, likelihood and evidence in any alternative account.

6. Inability to tell good evidence from bad. Conspiracy theorists have no place for peer-review, for scientific knowledge, for the respectability of sources. The fact that a claim has been made by anybody, anywhere, is enough for them to reproduce it and demand that the questions it raises be answered, as if intellectual enquiry were a matter of responding to every rumour. While they do this, of course, they will claim to have "open minds" and abuse the sceptics for apparently lacking same.

7. Inability to withdraw. It's a rare day indeed when a conspiracy theorist admits that a claim they have made has turned out to be without foundation, whether it be the overall claim itself or any of the evidence produced to support it. Moreover they have a liking (see 3. above) for the technique of avoiding discussion of their claims by "swamping" - piling on a whole lot more material rather than respond to the objections sceptics make to the previous lot.

8. Leaping to conclusions. Conspiracy theorists are very keen indeed to declare the "official" account totally discredited without having remotely enough cause so to do. Of course this enables them to wheel on the Conan Doyle quote as in 4. above. Small inconsistencies in the account of an event, small unanswered questions, small problems in timing of differences in procedure from previous events of the same kind are all more than adequate to declare the "official" account clearly and definitively discredited. It goes without saying that it is not necessary to prove that these inconsistencies are either relevant, or that they even definitely exist.

9. Using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims. This argument invokes scandals like the Birmingham Six, the Bologna station bombings, the Zinoviev letter and so on in order to try and demonstrate that their conspiracy theory should be accorded some weight (because it's “happened before”.) They do not pause to reflect that the conspiracies they are touting are almost always far more unlikely and complicated than the real-life conspiracies with which they make comparison, or that the fact that something might potentially happen does not, in and of itself, make it anything other than extremely unlikely.

10. It's always a conspiracy. And it is, isn't it? No sooner has the body been discovered, the bomb gone off, than the same people are producing the same old stuff, demanding that there are questions which need to be answered, at the same unbearable length. Because the most important thing about these people is that they are people entirely lacking in discrimination. They cannot tell a good theory from a bad one, they cannot tell good evidence from bad evidence and they cannot tell a good source from a bad one. And for that reason, they always come up with the same answer when they ask the same question.

A person who always says the same thing, and says it over and over again is, of course, commonly considered to be, if not a monomaniac, then at very least, a bore.

Jesus. This list fits a number of Getbiggers PERFECTLY. Scary, really.

[Dos Equis]

I have to give Samson Major props on #2.  I have never seen anyone as relentless as him, EVER.

No. 7 is a big problem too.  One of the true signs of a smart person is the ability to admit mistakes. 

Remember the hologram debates?   

[Soul Crusher]

we have a bunch of flat-earth idiots jerking each other off here.


"oooh baby.  that's the spot, brotha!  round earth?  haha oh yeah right... the media lies and covers up Obama's lies and a secret NWO agenda, but they told us the truth on 9/11.... oh yeah, that's the spot bro..."

No one is saying that the official story is perfect, but what we are saying is that most of the claims of the "truthers" like yourself are insanely pathetic.   

[Fury]

Haha, the hologram theory was absolute gold. The sticking point for me with most of these retards is that when one theory becomes so absurd as to not be remotely plausible (a la holograms of airplanes) they just move right on to the next one, which only proves that they have nothing whatsoever supporting their argument and are only clinging to straws.

Everyone claims this government is as incompetent as they come and then they turn around and argue that they're capable of orchestrating (and covering up) an event of this magnitude. So which is it?  

[OzmO]

No. 7 is a big problem too.  One of the true signs of a smart person is the ability to admit mistakes. 

Remember the hologram debates?   

lol yeah i remember.   To someone's credit I did have the hologram debate with, they did eventually withdraw.     

[Soul Crusher]

lol yeah i remember.   To someone's credit I did have the hologram debate with, they did eventually withdraw.     

Like when you or someone asks the question where are the passnegers and are their family members in on the CT too?

[240 is Back]

'truly pathetic'?

You CANNOT list 1000 physicists who have signed a piece of paper saying the 911 physicists are crazy.   1000 to 3000 saying it's bullshit, and how many signing a petition saying the official story is correct?  hint: none.

Now, what's pathetic is your continuing claims that some "NWO" secretly runs the govt, the media, our money supply, etc.  You cannot name ONE of them, their address, etc - but you just "know" they exist.  

You're a loony CTer about these NWO silly theories, man.  You claim all the media news stations are in bed with obama, hiding this massive govt theft of the trasury - but you have zero proof.

Zero proof.  And you don't even have 3000 signatures from anybody about your NWO nonsense.  You just have a few nutjobs on messaeg boards whining about it.  yourself included.

So please, continue to shit on the engineers who say the official 911 story is impossible, all the while spouting your nonsense about some impossible secret group that runs the world.

[Fury]

I think the NWO theories are even more ridiculous than the 9/11 CTs.

[240 is Back]

again, we have 5 people who can't tell you the basic beliefs of these 911 physicists, calling them crazy.  

it's insane to think guys with their law degrees here, are that blind and stupid.

But hey, I respect your right to be ignorant on any topic

I'm sure I'm wrong on a lot of topics too - Beach Bum knows his shit on law and religion, as evidenced by his posts.  33 knows his shit on finance/economy/obama.  Ozmo knows a lot about a lot of topics and to his credit, has actually read a book on 911, unlike the other guys.

[Fury]

Getting mad, 240? You and the other CTers here tick every box on that list describing CTers.

[240 is Back]

Actually, something interesting that made me change my perspective on things.  I still think a lot of ppl knew about 911 and didn't do shit to stop it, and I still think WTC7 stinks... but this is a pretty honest way to look at things.  Yes, some CTs are very real, and yes, the TV tells us lies every day.  Anyone who denies that is just a fool.  But this is good:


There will be no global pandemic. Millions will not die.

I have been around on planet Earth long enough to know this. I remember the millenium bug, the Nostradamus predictions of 1999, SARS, Bird flu. I remember newspaper headlines shouting about a third world war during the first Gulf war. Non of it ever happened. There will be no apocalypse in 2012, there will be no global killer flu pandemic.

You see folks, the fact is there is no global conspiracy. All we have are a bunch of highly evolved monkeys on a rock floating in space and nobody has a clue what the hell is going on. Even the world leaders don’t have a clue. They are just like us, they are monkeys too. They masturbate, eat, shit, get depressed and are scared of dying just like the rest of us.

The truth is that the reason we listen to people like Alex Jones is because our lives in the west are highly structured and organised. This makes us bored. Are lives are mundane. We get up, go to work, buy birthday presents, go to parties, pay our bills. There is no excitement, no epic struggles to be had like we see in the movies and like we play in videogames.

You see in a perverse way many of us secretly want something big to happen. We want to be part of an epic struggle. A struggle where people come together as brothers, where we can play at being the hero, where we can bravely protect our loved ones. We want to live out the movies we see and the videogames we play. That is why we listen to this crap. We secretly want there to be a global conspiracy, we want a matrix to escape from, we want a pandemic to survive and fight through, to beat the evil secret societies and come out the other side into a global era of peace and love.

These are just the imaginative dreams of the children in all of us. We cannot cope with the idea that we are born, get a social security number, work, have children, retire and die. We want more. We want the excitement, we want the rush, but instead we have traffic jams, bills to pay and TV.

Well my advice is simple. If you want the excitement go out and find it! Look for a new job, go and work in a poor country as an aid worker, join the police and work your up to being an undercover agent busting drug cartels or solving murder cases. Go and travel the world, getting odd jobs as you go along the way to survive. Go out and find the excitement that is missing from your life. But please don’t sit on your backside daydreaming about some great global conspiracy that will never happen to fill that void. Go out and do it, because seriously, non of this conspiracy stuff will ever happen. If you want to live on your wits, experience challenges and struggles and if you want to escape your little matrix life, you have to go out and do it yourself.

[Fury]

I've said the very things that guy has before, albeit not as articulately as it's Getbig afterall. People need CTs to be true to justify their meaningless and mundane existence on this planet.

[Soul Crusher]

again, we have 5 people who can't tell you the basic beliefs of these 911 physicists, calling them crazy.  

it's insane to think guys with their law degrees here, are that blind and stupid.

But hey, I respect your right to be ignorant on any topic

I'm sure I'm wrong on a lot of topics too - Beach Bum knows his shit on law and religion, as evidenced by his posts.  33 knows his shit on finance/economy/obama.  Ozmo knows a lot about a lot of topics and to his credit, has actually read a book on 911, unlike the other guys.

240 - I ask you basic questions and you start melting down.  I think you fit perfectly into one of the above topics.  BTW - I provide evidence for my beliefs and try to back them up. 

I ask you simple questions and you start crying like a baby. 

[240 is Back]

nah, your knowlege, I'm sorry, is just too low to discuss 911.

If I can't prove the pentagon questions, then it's impossible WTC7 was brought down?  Your logic is weak on that one dude.

neither of us knows what happened that day.  Stick with "NWO" conspiracy theories, you have done your research on those.

[Soul Crusher]

nah, your knowlege, I'm sorry, is just too low to discuss 911.

If I can't prove the pentagon questions, then it's impossible WTC7 was brought down?  Your logic is weak on that one dude.

neither of us knows what happened that day.  Stick with "NWO" conspiracy theories, you have done your research on those.

No its not 240 - the entire 911 CT is built on a house of cards and all one has to do is take one away and the whole house falls down. 

[Dos Equis]

240 - I ask you basic questions and you start melting down.  I think you fit perfectly into one of the above topics.  BTW - I provide evidence for my beliefs and try to back them up. 

I ask you simple questions and you start crying like a baby. 

Typical pattern.  That's part of the reason I quit debating this issue a long time ago. 

[Soul Crusher]

Typical pattern.  That's part of the reason I quit debating this issue a long time ago. 

What 240 and the others dont realize is that the 911 CT is built on a house of cards and all I have to do is prove one aspect wrong to discredit the entire "govt inside job" theory.

If you want to convince me of gross negligence, etc, fine I am very apt to believe that things fell through the cracks, but to believe the 911CT's we have seen thus far is worse than asking adults to believe in Santa Claus.   

[240 is Back]

You cannot even define a single 911 CT, 333386.

LIHOP vs MIHOP - two different CTs, two different explanations and burdens of proof.
When you say 'these 911 Cts', you are grouping in those who say aliens did it, with those who think bush purposefully ignored the august memo because his team wanted the war they wrote about in 2000.  Two entirely different beliefs, two extremes.  And you can't tell them apart.

I like you man, and you know your shit on other topics.  You just don't konw shit about 911, that's all

[240 is Back]

33, you say you believe alien life is out there, somewhere.  There are people who think aliens walk among us, visit weekly, and anally probe toothless people in backwoods towns.  both are alien CTs, but are a tad different.

By your 911 logic, you and those alien wackjobs are both CTers.

That's why you can't just lump in the "wow, looks like some people know those 19 pricks were gonna do this and didn't sotp it" with "Bush had a plunger and planned it all and the aliens helped him with holograms and secret weapons!!!".

If you can't even separate the various shades of 911 CT, you shouldn't try to speak authoratively on the topic.

[Dos Equis]

What 240 and the others dont realize is that the 911 CT is built on a house of cards and all I have to do is prove one aspect wrong to discredit the entire "govt inside job" theory.

If you want to convince me of gross negligence, etc, fine I am very apt to believe that things fell through the cracks, but to believe the 911CT's we have seen thus far is worse than asking adults to believe in Santa Claus.   

Definitely a house of cards.

[Dos Equis]

33, you say you believe alien life is out there, somewhere.  There are people who think aliens walk among us, visit weekly, and anally probe toothless people in backwoods towns.  both are alien CTs, but are a tad different.

By your 911 logic, you and those alien wackjobs are both CTers.

That's why you can't just lump in the "wow, looks like some people know those 19 pricks were gonna do this and didn't sotp it" with "Bush had a plunger and planned it all and the aliens helped him with holograms and secret weapons!!!".

If you can't even separate the various shades of 911 CT, you shouldn't try to speak authoratively on the topic.

9. Using previous conspiracies as evidence to support their claims. This argument invokes scandals like the Birmingham Six, the Bologna station bombings, the Zinoviev letter and so on in order to try and demonstrate that their conspiracy theory should be accorded some weight (because it's “happened before”.) They do not pause to reflect that the conspiracies they are touting are almost always far more unlikely and complicated than the real-life conspiracies with which they make comparison, or that the fact that something might potentially happen does not, in and of itself, make it anything other than extremely unlikely.

Great list Ozmo.   

[Soul Crusher]

33, you say you believe alien life is out there, somewhere.  There are people who think aliens walk among us, visit weekly, and anally probe toothless people in backwoods towns.  both are alien CTs, but are a tad different.

By your 911 logic, you and those alien wackjobs are both CTers.

That's why you can't just lump in the "wow, looks like some people know those 19 pricks were gonna do this and didn't sotp it" with "Bush had a plunger and planned it all and the aliens helped him with holograms and secret weapons!!!".

If you can't even separate the various shades of 911 CT, you shouldn't try to speak authoratively on the topic.

Some and mirrors like everything else at best.  As soon as you CT'ers latch on to one theory and its gets blasted out of the water, you move to another, then another, then another, because everything you guys push is half baked nonsense that ignores massive gapes in logic and reality. 

So again - for the 2,000,000,000th time, what is the most plausible 911 CT other than the official story that you believe?   

[Straw Man]

Given all the flaws in the original investigation (as admitted by the some of the people involved) I see no reason why Congress shouldn't do it's own investigation.   That is one of their roles after all and they certainly have no problem spending our money on truly frivolous topics like steroid in baseball and professionl wrestling so why not the worst terrorist attack on our country

[Eyeball Chambers]

Given all the flaws in the original investigation (as admitted by the some of the people involved) I see no reason why Congress shouldn't do it's own investigation.   That is one of their roles after all and they certainly have no problem spending our money on truly frivolous topics like steroid in baseball and professionl wrestling so why not the worst terrorist attack on our country

That sums it up well, good job!

Case closed

[OzmO]

Given all the flaws in the original investigation (as admitted by the some of the people involved) I see no reason why Congress shouldn't do it's own investigation.   That is one of their roles after all and they certainly have no problem spending our money on truly frivolous topics like steroid in baseball and professionl wrestling so why not the worst terrorist attack on our country

With ya there!