"every cent of income tax gets funnelled into the military, what part of that are you missing."
I couldn't quickly find any resources substantiating this online aside from some pie charts devised on some website titled "the war resister's league," that frankly didn't impress me much. Since the government files extensive reports on what they do with taxes, I could probably find out easily enough, but I don't have time to start combing through elaborate federal reports just now. A few things though - first, it's not uncommon for taxes to fund one thing specifically. For instance, local property taxes generally all go to funding education, something unfortunately creates some of the imbalances in our educational system. Another thing to keep in mind - the huge amount we spend on defense and defense related inudstries is a large and integral part of the economy in and of itself. The US didn't become the most powerful nation in the world by not having a large and well financed military industrial complex. I'm not sure what income taxes go towards funding affects their validity or necessity. Also, how does this apply to state income tax and such?
Also, as I mentioned before, their legal foundation is a matter of interpretation. I would say that no serious student of Consitutional law would take the frequent libertarian claim against the Consitutional validity of income taxes as anything more than a fringe argument. Many much more learned and knowledgable people than you and I have looked into this from both sides, and it seems that the vast majority understands that the tax is both legal and serves a purpose. Does this automatically make me correct? No, but it does suggest that the fring minority that feel its illegal have never been able to really promote their point of view as it doesn't stand up to serious scrutiny. And, it's not like something such as an income tax is very popular, I'm sure plenty people would be all for its abolisHydromaxent if they could find a legitimate reason to do so. Unless I'm misinterpretating your argument, I see nothing Lucid about the argument that the government has no power to collect an income tax just because it does not explicitly say so in the Constitution.
"the points you make about cover ups are valid."
Which ones? My main points to consider at this point are that there is a conspiracy theory, or in many cases multiple conspiracy theories that are argued for passionately by their proponents who claim to have rock solid evidence in every example (this are nearly always easily disproved when an expert examines their "argument," or it is revealed that their theory is ignoring any information that contradicts the loose association of circumstances that are the bread and butter of conspiracy theories). This goes for Pearl Harbour, 9/11, Kennedy, Lincoln, Other terrorist attacks, pretty much anything that happens eventually has a conspiracy come around sooner or later. Thanks to the internet as well as the day's immense tragedy, 9/11 has many.
"how do thousands of children and adults still work in slavery-esque conditions to meet the output demand of the clothing conglomerates?
how the fuck have they gotten away with putting flurid in the water?
how do drug cartels manage to fucnction?
how can the Red Cross retain its known corruption levels?
(there are of course many more - this is an overveiw)
each is unique, but you can still apply your train of thought and mussings to the above."
I'm not sure that I understand what you're getting at with this. Those are mostly just unfortunate circumstances and instiutional failings (drugs, child labor, etc). So far as I know, flouride is harmless and is put in tap water for dental health. I recall a statistic showing an alarming decrease in the numbers of overall cavities reported at dental offices in the first cities where they did this.
"and do you have any idea how vast the employee pit is for the CIA, FBI combined. hundreds of thousands accross the globe, many wouldn't batter an eye lid to what they were . . . "
I'm also not entirely sure what this is supposed to mean. What exactly is the employee pit? If you refer to the number of potential employees for these organizations, you are in correct. It is actually very difficult to get hired into the FBI or the CIA, and they're extremely selective.
And, your belief that all the people in government organizations would simply do as they were told and comply with a plot to murder thousands of innocent fellow citizens just to launch us into a phony war because they are either brainwashed or worried about losing thier jobs is rather insulting, at least to those people. So there isn't one upstanding or patriotic citizen amongst them that would blow the whistle on this massive conspiracy? Once again, it seems that you conveniently explain away common sense as it seriously interferes with the cogence of your arguements.
"how do you explain away when the FED's admitted in 97' they tried to blow up the trade centre 1?"
I wasn't aware that (I assume you mean the federal government by FED's) this happened. Don't you think that if there was any single shred of credibility to this story, it would have been a major news event and widely known? Don't you think real journalists, reporters, watchdog groups, etc, would have looked into such a claim and the story would have literally been earth-shaking in its remifications of true? Once again, you have suspended your normal operating knowledge of how the world works to allow yourself to buy into the conspiracy. It was Al Qaeda operatives, imprisoned, confessed, and well documented, that attempted to blow up the Trade Center previously. There is a mountain of evidence verifying this. And frankly, if our own government had wanted to do it back then, wouldn't they have used something a little more advanced than a truck bomb that woefully failed at its task? Afterall, you claim that these are the same people who managed to take out both towers and another buliding, plus the pentagon, plus crash another plane (apparently for no reason) just a few years later and keep the whole thing completely secret from the entire world. Pretty good improvement this time around then?
"how do you explain away Donald Rumsfelds paper he wrote in 2000 where he wrote that America needs a massive terrorist incident to help push the agenda in the middle . . . "
Never heard of it, got a link? I couldn't find a thing googling. But I will say this. I was a political science major and the idea that crisis incidents are often needed to prompt government action in the wake of public indifference is neither a new idea, nor was it unique to Rumsfeld at the time. I fail to see how him advocating this policy view somehow means that 9/11 was an inside job. And, if it is a conspiracy, why would Rumsfeld telgraph the conspirasists intentions and implicate himself or the Bush administration by writing a paper that might be construed as favorable to the events of 9/11? They would obviously have had to have been in the advanced planning stages in 2000 (another error of the 9/11 conspiracy people is to believe that a group as incompitnet as the Bush administration and whoever else where able to organize all this in as short a time period that they would have had to - if you buy into the conspiracy, than you must believe Clinton got the ball rolling for Bush then handed off the Tower destruction project, what a nice guy!), so why would he do such a thing? Once again, the conspiracy logic contradicts itself and ignores all elements of the real world.
"you still haven't explained away wt7. no plane struck it, purportedly material from the falling towers caused fire, but it was contained through out its burning duration. and then the building comes down in the most blatent, text book demolition you will ever see - tell me that isn't controlled demolition, and explain away... "
Here is a link from the website I listed before - painstakingly explains the physics and data surrounding WT7.
http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm
Their explanation makes the conspiracy ideas seem pretty sili, and in the interests of fairness I have looked at some of the conspiracy sites. Virtually every explanation on the conspiracy sites that I found was easily debunked. At least have a look at it, although I feela bit like I'm pissing in the wind if I ask that you keep an open mind.
So far as the link you provided, here's an example of the kind of analysis offered there, with my own comments added to show what I think of it:
"Now get this: the fire burnt for about 7 hours. During this seven hours, the fire never managed to reach the northern side of the building. Apparently, it was trapped in the southern side of the building. Yet this fire raged so furiously that it warped the steel in the southern side of the building to the point where the whole building collapsed.
**{My comments: They present this fact is if it were impossible, with little or no explanation. I know for a fact, and you can confirm this with any local firefighter or perhaps a web search, that large and very hot fires do often self contain or only affect one side of a building, particularly a very large steel framed building that, like most modern structures, was probably built with fire danger and compartmentalization in mind. The author clearly knows nothing about fire science or serious structure fires, but this doesn't stop him from deciding that the facts he has read are impossible based on his completely amateur and uninformed judgement. A person who had never seen a plane fly before would think it impossibel to hear that a giant multi-ton tube of steel and plastic and hurtle half way around the globe because they don't a think about aviation or planes. Doesn't mean that planes don't fly.}**
"To explain this, we have been told that two floors (floors 5 and 6), on which there were no known fires, had a dividing wall that ran across the building. This is such a transparent lie, it is impossible that a reasonable person believe it. And, in any event, if the steel on only one side of the building warped, leading to collapse, then the building would have fallen like a tree and would not have collapsed in the manner of a controlled demolition."
**{Again, they speak from a position of expertise without offering any information or explanation. The debunking site never did this so far as I could tell - they explain all of their statements very carefully. Here, the ubsubstatiation begins immediately, such as "This is such a transparent lie, it is impossible that a reasonable person believe it." Really? How is it such a transparent lie? Where they involved in the construction of the building? From what I can tell, their evidence is based from the schematics in part of the FEMA report, which were not necessarily drawn from the final building plan or master copies, and often things such as 'dividing walls' come and go within the interior of buildings. Either way, their evidence that is supposedly so strong as to make it "impossible" to believe such a "transparent lie" (notice how coersive the language is. One thing I've noticed about the conspiracy sites is that they're littered with diction that constantly screams impossiblity, outrage, lies, etc. Its a bit of latent word programming to start conditioning you to believe the argument while you're reading it - good argumentative writers employ this sort of tactic to maximal effect to start persuading the reader subconsciously before they even realize it. If you do thi in an academic setting, however, you'll be laughed at and written off before anybody gets very far into your writing).
The final explanation of how the building fell, as I understand it, has to do with the significant weakening from debri falling and fire. As admitted by the FEMA report and conspiracists alike, the exact total of overall internal damage is only an estimate based on obersvable evidence - yet the author's final comment ignores these facts, alluded to elsewhere in his statements, in order to make the point he was writing stronger at the time. Very bizarre, but not atypical from what I have read on the conspiracy sites. Regardless, it seems the tactic by conspiracy writers is to sound as if you're very certain about a lot of things, without actually saying anything that really is certain about much at all.
"i've searched the net my man, and i don't see where you have located all these structural engineers saying that it is not possible these buildings came down by dint of an inside job. other than in debunking literature and sites with an overt affinity to this literature."
I've read numerous engineers of all stripes quoted on various websites addressing the conspiracy theories, and they say that the science used by conspiracists is just plain bad or even made-up. Some of the anti-conspiracy sites are even authored and maintained by engineers or physicists. They seem to feel an obligation to refute the conspiracy claims due to the fact that they do distort facts so often to suit their agendas. Also, I believe that if you do a Lexus Nexus search, or any other academic search database of peer reviewed articles, you'll find that many independent academics have explained why the "controlled demolition" theories, as well as all the others (fighter jets/rocket pods being the most hilarious) are completely impossible when held under the scrutiny of real expertise.
Let me put it this way - if these controlled demolition claims are so plain as day for even the layman to see - then why don't a few engineering and physicis experts take notice, or really all of them? If there is hard scientific data to back up the conspiracy, then why isn't it presented and argued for passionately by the many thousands of qualified people out there who recognize it? If the controlled demolition theory is really indidputable and mind-bogglingly obvious, why are its only proponents simply in the far corners of the internet?
Are all the qualified engineering and physics experts in on the scheme as well, along with tens of thousands of government and private employees, and many more regular folkds as well that would have had some form of contact with the conspiracy? What interest does this untold number of people have in keeping a lid on things. Obviously, there's nothing to keep a lid on.
"Larry Silverstien"
I'm not sure why the fact that he owned the buildings, had them insured, etc is significant in any way. Wouldn't his real estate be more profitable in the long run as a functioning entity rather than a one time payout, which surely he would have realized would have been tied up in courts and settlements for many, many years? I deal with commercial real estate and other large holdings a bit, and to simplify by saying that when you get onto the scale of billions of dollars, it isn't the same thing as torching your car for a little bit of insurance money. I think its hilarious that people equate it this manner.
Similar to the Rumsfeld "smoking gun" type of idea you mentioned before, Larry Silverstein really doesn't matter. To the conspiracy geared mind, coincidence automatically equals fact. It must be very confusing walking through life with that sort of mindset.
I believe I addressed all of you points, but you still fail to answer to mine. Silverstein, WT7, all that business aside, how are they keeping everybody that would have to be involved in this massive conspiracy quiet? We can't find one reciept, one scrap of paper, memo, fax, email? Do you realize all the money, resources and manpower that would have gone into this? A Planned murder of thousands of US citizens, and everybody just went a along with happily, whistling Dixie? You're ignoring these facts entirely.
In the end, people that want to believe in conspiracies, especially one as batshit insane as the many 9/11 conspiracy angles, don't believe because the evidence and theories are so compelling. They believe in them because they want to believe in them, hence their extremely low standards for burden of proof and general refusal to acknowledge anything contrary to the flimsy nature of the conspiracy. Maybe I'm the foolish one for even trying to argue the point with a dyed in the wool true believer . . .
