What Exactly is a "Truther?" Is Truth Bad Now?

[Oafman]

I criticize the government much more for corruption than i do for incompetence. Was there a cover up in Benghazi? Most likely. Will we ever know the truth? Not likely within the next 10-20 years.

You do realize that it's now documented fact that the incident which sparked the US involvement in Vietnam (Gulf of Tonkin) didn't happen as was reported by the US government and we didn't find the truth about that until 30 some odd years later.Pushing a false narrative (aka covering up the truth) is a tool the government has been successfully wielding for quite some time.

[FONT=&quot]I would never claim we always get the whole truth. Sometimes with good reason, sometimes less so. But that doesn't make every conspiracy theory right. And partially falsifying details about an event in the South China Sea is on nothing like the scale of falsifying 911, on home soil and in the electronic age. And actually, the one part of the truther story which I have in the past been somewhat open to, is that United 93 was shot down. Because, given the circumstances, I don't think it would have been an unreasonable thing to do. But it would still be a very difficult thing to admit to. However, the available evidence I've seen does not appear to back this up, so I'm sticking with the official line. [/FONT]

Have you noticed that the majority of "terrorist attacks" that have been thwarted since 9/11 involved some dups that were being led by CIA?

No I haven't. I've noticed that most of the 'plots' in the US uncovered by the FBI did not result in convictions, or even in court cases often. But I always put that down to slightly over-zealous law enforcement, in an anxious environment.

In most of the terrorists plots they've thwarted (at least those that have been publicized) the "terrorist" lacked the means or even the drive to do the act, but were "aided" by the CIA.

Well, home grown terrorists often are quite incompetent. They're crazy radicals, but have no experience of such things, so they mess it up. If you're interested, there's a very funny British movie about incompetent terrorists called Four Lions, which is worth a watch, and which was inspired by the almost comical incompetence of the 21/7 'bombers'.

Bin Laden was a CIA asset in the 90s. Doesn't it strike you as odd, that we the government was claiming they had no foreknowledge of the attack, yet within 24 hours had a list of perpetrators, and within 48 hours flew 24 family members of the primary suspect out of the country?

[FONT=&quot]The CIA's relationship with the Mujahideen is no secret. The list of perpetrators maybe came from the passenger manifests and quickly tying together available loose ends? Once that was done, perhaps the link to OBL was established immediately, and the family were hustled out for their own safety. [/FONT]

These types of things are the tips of the iceberg and if you look at the events of the day, and the official version of what happened there are plenty of other suspicious coincidences and things which don't make sense.

[FONT=&quot]OK, but just bear in mind, coincidences do exist. And if you look hard enough for them, you'll find more and more. That's true of anything, if you approach it with any sort of cognitive bias, you'll get the result you're looking for, to some degree or other. We're wired to see patterns, and we're regularly guilty of false positives and cherry picking. You need to spend time thinking about the things that are not suspicious coincidences, as well as those that are[/FONT]

 

[Btodd]

Of course, as all non-9/11 truthers know, the government is always honest with the public, and questioning what they tell you is beyond the pale, right?

This is probably the favorite go-to phrasing of every Truther I've ever encountered. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with why I, and many other people, reject the absurd conspiracy theories that are pushed by the Truth Movement.

Of course you shouldn't just blindly accept what the government says. Of course it's good to question things. I wouldn't be an atheist if I didn't believe that, now would I? But that does not mean you should become so reactionary as to immediately latch on to much crazier, more convoluted and unnecessarily complex explanations SIMPLY BECAUSE they disagree with something that supports the government narrative.

And neither am I, nor many others who accept the 'official version' (whatever that's supposed to mean) stuck with information that only comes from the government. There are a variety of events that occurred that day, and a variety of sources in which information about them comes from. It depends on which part of the story you're talking about.

But no matter which part of the story you bring up, I will be able, in almost any case, to provide an explanation for what happened that requires far fewer assumptions, and has more explanatory power.

In other words, one that does not make a mockery of Occam's Razor and the scientific method.


Btodd

 

[Senator Cheese]

George Orwell foresaw a society in which language was manipulated in order to have reverse meaning - War is Peace, Poverty is Prosperity, Ignorance is Strength. Sure enough in 1980 Reagan supporters started chanting "peace through strength" at rallies.

Just because you wear a Buddha-bracelet does not make you enlightened.

Now people, including here on this forum, regularly use the word "truther" as a pejorative. Is this a subliminal way to encourage people to actually despise the notion of truth, what really happened that no amount of smoke, mirrors, and ad hominem attacks can change? Agents for the status quo and the official version of US history give themselves away by attacking the sayer first, not what is being said. It is the first rule of propaganda. Demonize the target. "Truther!" As if truth were a bad thing.

It's not demonization, it's ridicule.
Someone who calls himself a truther should not categorically deny heaps of evidence that discredits his position but should actively seek credible sources and own investigations.
Unfortunately, most truthers just rely on poorly-written blog posts that produce implausible and unsubstantiated claims.

So what exactly is a truther? Is truth a bad thing now?

Truth = Good.
Truther, in sensu stricto = Good.
"Truthers" that consider implausible and unsubstantiated claims to be more valid due to a general mistrust in experts = Bad.

 

[ManFromUncle]

I've read plenty of truther opinions, some towards the more reasonable end of the spectrum, some more wacky. I don't have an answer to every question they pose, but I'm no expert on the subject, and wouldn't expect to.

But one thing that strikes me as interesting, is that often, the same people who believe in these conspiracies, when you get them onto other topics, tend to be quite critical of government. They'll criticise government incompetence as much as the rest of us.

We are then expected to believe that these otherwise incompetent governments were able to pull off the largest an most ebaorate lie in history. This does not add up.

Once again it wasn't the entire government, but an outlaw faction within the government which mounted a coup and put a new program in place. Just like the people who did Iran-Contra.

Everyone else gets intimidated because they play for keeps and there's a trail of dead witnesses to prove it. Look at the anthrax letters that got sent to Senators Leahy and Daschle, who were holding up the Patriot Act. People died.

http://911research.wtc7.net/post911/terror/anthrax.html

Government is competent when it wants to be and incompetent at things they don't care about in the first place. They are plenty competent at coming after you if you don't pay your taxes, aren't they? With millions upon millions of people they keep track of every one and know what you owe down to the penny. How can you say the government is not "competent," when it wants to be? It was pretty competent at putting 130,000 boots on the ground in Iraq in record time and bombing the heck out of it. Repairing roads and bridges in America? Incompetent, but only it doesn't care about that in the first place.

 

[Proud Parrot]

George Orwell foresaw a society in which language was manipulated in order to have reverse meaning - War is Peace, Poverty is Prosperity, Ignorance is Strength. Sure enough in 1980 Reagan supporters started chanting "peace through strength" at rallies.

We have that. In 1984 it was called the Ministry of Truth.
In America it is called Political Correctness.

So what exactly is a truther?

A chronic optimist destined to die disappointed.

 

[Aryeh Jay]

Just like the people who did Iran-Contra.

Oh, so like the whole Executive branch doing secret squirrel stuff without letting Congress or the Supreme Court know.

 

[ManFromUncle]

Oh, so like the whole Executive branch doing secret squirrel stuff without letting Congress or the Supreme Court know.

Wow they wouldn't do that, would they?!!

 

[francisfrancisco]

I think you're on to something, in that people who vocally pronounce the truth (or whatever their truth is) are typically viewed as fringe or a little crazy. There is always social pressure to act moderate and content, regardless of views or beliefs.

 

[whatbogsends]

This is probably the favorite go-to phrasing of every Truther I've ever encountered. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with why I, and many other people, reject the absurd conspiracy theories that are pushed by the Truth Movement.

Of course you shouldn't just blindly accept what the government says. Of course it's good to question things. I wouldn't be an atheist if I didn't believe that, now would I? But that does not mean you should become so reactionary as to immediately latch on to much crazier, more convoluted and unnecessarily complex explanations SIMPLY BECAUSE they disagree with something that supports the government narrative.

And neither am I, nor many others who accept the 'official version' (whatever that's supposed to mean) stuck with information that only comes from the government. There are a variety of events that occurred that day, and a variety of sources in which information about them comes from. It depends on which part of the story you're talking about.

But no matter which part of the story you bring up, I will be able, in almost any case, to provide an explanation for what happened that requires far fewer assumptions, and has more explanatory power.

In other words, one that does not make a mockery of Occam's Razor and the scientific method.


Btodd

How does Occam's Razor relate to why Bush and Cheney were allowed to testify together and not under oath?

How does Occam's Razor relate to why Condoleeza Rice would make a statement like "we never thought they would use planes as missiles", when she had been briefed on exactly that scenario, and the military was conducting training exercises for that scenario?

How does NORAD conducting exercises in the 2 years prior to 9/11 simulating planes being used as weapons by slamming into targets mesh with the administrations statements regarding what they knew before the attacks?

USATODAY.com - NORAD had drills of jets as weapons

In fact, there were even exercises simulating planes accidentally crashing into buildings ON 9/11

Boston.com / Sept. 11

It's obviously an "absurd conspiracy theory" to suggest that the government was less than honest regarding their foreknowledge of the attack.

It's obviously a non-suspicious coincidence that the plane which slammed into the Pentagon, happened to hit the ONLY side which had just been reinforced to withstand a blast.

From Popular Mechanic's book "Debunking 9/11 Myths", p 71:

"The windows were installed just weeks earlier as part of a massive Pentagon modernization plan. The original windows were essentially standard commercial units from the early 1940s. The need for blast protection in the E and A rings -- the outermost and innermost rings, respectively -- became clear after the bombings of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

In a rare stroke of good luck on September 11, Flight 77 struck Wedge 1, the first section of the building designated for renovation. The first phase was five days from completion when the plane hit, and 383 new-and-improved windows were already in place. Weighing approximately 1,600 pounds apiece, the new windows feature laminated glass, in which a thin polymer interlayer is sandwiched between two or more panes of glass. The effect is that the windows will crack but not shatter, much like a car windshield. Because the Pentagon was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992, the new windows were required to match the exterior look of the originals, so it is impossible to tell the old from the new from the outside."

And, just for laughs, it's it just another peculiar coincidence, that most of the administration officials, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, among others, were signatories to PNAC, which had released a document calling for the US to wage multiple wars in the Middle East, while saying that getting the public to acquiesce to waging war might require "another Pearl Harbor".

Of course there are going to be some coincidences. The number and significance of the coincidences surrounding 9/11 led me to not dismiss them, and the falsehoods put forth by administration officials at the time made it clear to me that, at the very least, there was a cover up going on.

Be my guest, BTodd, explain it all away. Tell me more about how i'm latching on to crazy ideas by highlighting undisputed facts that show that there was a pattern of lies, or at the very least, misinformation, regarding the events of that day, and what was known.

 

[Rick Otto]

It's amazing to me how far we will go to deny the facts.

 

[Btodd]

How does Occam's Razor relate to why Bush and Cheney were allowed to testify together and not under oath?

How does Occam's Razor relate to why Condoleeza Rice would make a statement like "we never thought they would use planes as missiles", when she had been briefed on exactly that scenario, and the military was conducting training exercises for that scenario?

How does NORAD conducting exercises in the 2 years prior to 9/11 simulating planes being used as weapons by slamming into targets mesh with the administrations statements regarding what they knew before the attacks?

USATODAY.com - NORAD had drills of jets as weapons

The statements made by government officials are easily summed up by the acronym, 'CYA'. They were incompetent in being prepared for a scenario like this, and tried to pretend that it hadn't been imagined in the first place.

That's part of it...the other part, involving NORAD conducting exercises about such a scenario, contains one major difference that is cited in the very article you linked me to:

"The exercises differed from the Sept. 11 attacks in one important respect: The planes in the simulation were coming from a foreign country. Until Sept. 11, NORAD was expected to defend the United States and Canada from aircraft based elsewhere. After the attacks, that responsibility broadened to include flights that originated in the two countries."

Now, since the article you quoted affirms that NORAD had no protocol for intercepting threats that originated from flights inside the country, let's hear your explanation of government statements and how they related to what happened that day. Mine involves them not being prepared in the slightest for such a scenario, and wanting to cover their incompetence. Your article even supports it. Now, let's hear your 'alternate' explanation in light of that.

In fact, there were even exercises simulating planes accidentally crashing into buildings ON 9/11

Boston.com / Sept. 11

This article describes an exercise simulating emergency responses when a plane would crash into a building because of mechanical malfunction. The fact that it was to occur that day is a coincidence, but it had nothing to do with terrorists intentionally flying planes into buildings, nor preventing a plane from hitting a building.

And what is your explanation for this in relation to the events on 9/11?

It's obviously an "absurd conspiracy theory" to suggest that the government was less than honest regarding their foreknowledge of the attack.

Yes, it is...because you have not provided anything that shows 'foreknowledge of the attack'. You failed to mention that NORAD was not responsible for attacks that originated inside the U.S., and hence were not prepared for. Then you cited a drill about a plane crashing into a building from mechanical failure, so one agency could test for emergency response AFTER the plane would hit.

And then you make the leap to call it 'foreknowledge' of THE attack. You haven't shown any such thing, but you don't mind being very loose with the language. Explain yourself, please.

It's obviously a non-suspicious coincidence that the plane which slammed into the Pentagon, happened to hit the ONLY side which had just been reinforced to withstand a blast.

No matter what side of a 5-sided building the plane hit, the odds were the same: 20%. But if you know about the final minutes of that flight, you already have an explanation for why it hit there. The hijackers overshot (either intentionally or accidentally) the Pentagon, and did an arced descent. A maneuver like that makes them come in close to the ground, and is much easier to hit the Pentagon than trying to dive-bomb into it. From the direction they were coming, that turn and descent allowed them to keep manual focus on the target, and dictated they would hit on that side of the building.

Your attempt to make this a smoking gun is puzzling...are you suggesting that in the process of killing everyone on board, and 125 people inside the Pentagon...that they were simultaneously hitting the recently reinforced part of the building because they paradoxically wanted to MINIMIZE casualties? Did someone set the cap at 125?

Which brings up another mine vs. yours question and explanation. Mine says that the hijackers flew the plane into the Pentagon. If you think the plane was flown into the reinforced part ON PURPOSE, then who was flying the plane? First you can explain why they're simultaneously killing everyone on board and 125 people in the building, while somehow trying to minimize deaths by hitting the reinforced portion, and then explain WHO was doing this and why.

My explanation was that it was the hijackers, bound by the direction they were coming from and bound by needing to hit it in a manner that is less difficult to execute (instead of a dive-bomb).

Let's hear yours! The one that you think has fewer assumptions and greater explanatory power.

And, just for laughs, it's it just another peculiar coincidence, that most of the administration officials, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, among others, were signatories to PNAC, which had released a document calling for the US to wage multiple wars in the Middle East, while saying that getting the public to acquiesce to waging war might require "another Pearl Harbor".

Oh, you mean that when 9/11 happened, and the administration made a bizarre connection between Iraq and 9/11...which wasn't true, and then claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to be true...that this shows that they were involved in the planning or foreknowledge of 9/11?

If that were the case, why, as I've asked many times, didn't the administration simply blame the attacks on IRAQIS IN THE FIRST PLACE, instead of blaming it on terrorists from Saudi Arabia, our ally, and then also not bothering to plant WMDs in Iraq so we wouldn't look like total idiots in the end?

We would both agree that the administration used 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, and I'm sure we would both agree that it was an unjust war that increased the threat of terrorism...but this hardly shows planning or foreknowledge of the attacks on their part, or else they could have taken some very elementary steps to avoid looking like total idiots, and avoided the non-sequitur blame game, and at the very least...planted WMDs as well.

Of course there are going to be some coincidences. The number and significance of the coincidences surrounding 9/11 led me to not dismiss them, and the falsehoods put forth by administration officials at the time made it clear to me that, at the very least, there was a cover up going on.

Be my guest, BTodd, explain it all away. Tell me more about how i'm latching on to crazy ideas by highlighting undisputed facts that show that there was a pattern of lies, or at the very least, misinformation, regarding the events of that day, and what was known.

I completely think there was some cover-up going on...about incompetence. Now, let's hear your explanations for these things, and compare them with mine.

In particular, the most important one will be your explanation of the issues you raised involving the Pentagon. Put it up against mine, and let's see what happens.


Btodd

 

[Rick Otto]

What kind of hat does an incompetence theorist wear?
Having Saudi attackers gave our partners in oil crime political cover with local extremists. What a wonderful coincidence we found a passport of one of them, that SOMEhow survived both a fiery plane crash and skyscraper implosion.

The "plane" that hit the Pentagon somehow disappeared right after the crash.
Examine the evidence. It screams cover-up.

No one has addressed the thermite evidence mentioned.

Please let's all remember the compartmentalization of information in conspiracy:
The actors are only told what they need to know (lies) to perform their part in a conspiracy.

The preponderance of circumstantial evidence is adequate.

 

[Senator Cheese]

What kind of hat does an incompetence theorist wear?
Having Saudi attackers gave our partners in oil crime political cover with local extremists. What a wonderful coincidence we found a passport of one of them, that SOMEhow survived both a fiery plane crash and skyscraper implosion.

What do you mean by that? I was unaware of any passport being found in a plane crash? Could you elaborate?

The "plane" that hit the Pentagon somehow disappeared right after the crash.
Examine the evidence. It screams cover-up.

I was at Arlington cemetary on September 19th, 2001. The site looked like what I would imagine a plane crash to look like, although truly I am no expert on the subject. Nothing out of the ordinary, though.

According to this site that addresses 9/11 conspiracy myths, various wreckage has been documented. What prompts you to think that these photos are altered?

No one has addressed the thermite evidence mentioned.

What's that?

Please let's all remember the compartmentalization of information in conspiracy:
The actors are only told what they need to know (lies) to perform their part in a conspiracy.

So, I know there are some who think that the WTC was destroyed by a control demolition. According to your theories, the construction workers apparently putting the explosives in place would have not known what they were doing. I find that highly implausible and - even more - I would wonder how your theory of compartmentalization would grasp the fact that even in retrospect, noone working on this monumental project would have second-guessed their own actions.

I mean, if I were to have placed explosives in the WTC and a few weeks later it's blown to bits, I would have thought "hmm, strange, I should tell someone about this". The same goes for the countless other actors necessary to stage such a huge event!

Not to mention that it would require a whole array of people who deliberately lie (eyewitnesses, faked security camera footage, etc)

The preponderance of circumstantial evidence is adequate.

Would you say the Islamic State is operated by the CIA? Turkish AKP delegates have stated that it's an "odd coincidence" that turkish hostages are released after Turkey had said that this was the reason it was too risky for them to engage in war.
That's circumstantial evidence, would you now consider that theory to hold truth?

 

[Rick Otto]

What do you mean by that? I was unaware of any passport being found in a plane crash? Could you elaborate?



I was at Arlington cemetary on September 19th, 2001. The site looked like what I would imagine a plane crash to look like, although truly I am no expert on the subject. Nothing out of the ordinary, though.

According to this site that addresses 9/11 conspiracy myths, various wreckage has been documented. What prompts you to think that these photos are altered?


What's that?




So, I know there are some who think that the WTC was destroyed by a control demolition. According to your theories, the construction workers apparently putting the explosives in place would have not known what they were doing. I find that highly implausible and - even more - I would wonder how your theory of compartmentalization would grasp the fact that even in retrospect, noone working on this monumental project would have second-guessed their own actions.

I mean, if I were to have placed explosives in the WTC and a few weeks later it's blown to bits, I would have thought "hmm, strange, I should tell someone about this". The same goes for the countless other actors necessary to stage such a huge event!

Not to mention that it would require a whole array of people who deliberately lie (eyewitnesses, faked security camera footage, etc)


Would you say the Islamic State is operated by the CIA? Turkish AKP delegates have stated that it's an "odd coincidence" that turkish hostages are released after Turkey had said that this was the reason it was too risky for them to engage in war.
That's circumstantial evidence, would you now consider that theory to hold truth?

Passport pro:
Passport Recovered
Passport con:
Another 911 'Passport Miracle' !

Pentagon evidence:
9-11 Research: Missing Pentagon Evidence

More circumstantial evidence:
9-11 The Pentagon The Evidence & Conspiracy - Barbara Honegger Pdx 911 Truth - YouTube
9/11 - Hard Facts, Hard Truth | The Pentagon
Thermite:
Who Put Thermite In The World Trade Center?

"... According to your theories, the construction workers apparently putting the explosives in place would have not known what they were doing. I find that highly implausible and - even more - I would wonder how your theory of compartmentalization would grasp the fact that even in retrospect, noone working on this monumental project would have second-guessed their own actions."

The problem with that statement is the underlying assumption that the "construction workers" we're simply and honestly "construction workers" instead of Mossad agents.
9-11 Attacks: The Five Dancing Israelis Arrested on 9-11

 

[Proud Parrot]

Oh, so like the whole Executive branch doing secret squirrel stuff without letting Congress or the Supreme Court know.

 

[Btodd]

The "plane" that hit the Pentagon somehow disappeared right after the crash.
Examine the evidence. It screams cover-up.

Really? The old 'no plane at the Pentagon' thing?

Ahem.

http://www.christianforums.com/t7836184-4/#post66134002


Btodd

 

[RDKirk]

You do realize that it's now documented fact that the incident which sparked the US involvement in Vietnam (Gulf of Tonkin) didn't happen as was reported by the US government and we didn't find the truth about that until 30 some odd years later.

No, we knew about that when I was in college in the early 70s. The troops involved didn't keep the actual matters a secret.

Have you noticed that the majority of "terrorist attacks" that have been thwarted since 9/11 involved some dups that were being led by CIA? In most of the terrorists plots they've thwarted (at least those that have been publicized) the "terrorist" lacked the means or even the drive to do the act, but were "aided" by the CIA. Bin Laden was a CIA asset in the 90s. Doesn't it strike you as odd, that we the government was claiming they had no foreknowledge of the attack, yet within 24 hours had a list of perpetrators, and within 48 hours flew 24 family members of the primary suspect out of the country?

No, what that means is that the event suddenly proved what had been a minority opinion in the CIA. The Intelligence Community has its majority and minority opinions like academia. Sometimes an event or discovery provides the sudden proof of what one group has said all along, and they are able to present their entire theory as a whole pie...in sad triumph. I've been there, done that...it's not pleasant to say "I told you so" under those circumstances.

I saw the same thing happen with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. That had been laid out three years earlier by an analyst in DIA. When the invasion occurred, he was the only one who could immediately brief all the background, and within the next two years he rose from an obscure junior analyst with an offbeat theory to "Special Assistant to the Executive Director."

Someone in the CIA had already drawn the picture of Saudi terrorist involvement, had already linked all the names, and that analysis was sitting in the database waiting for vindication.

It's hugely amazing and intensely frustrating how politics obscures intelligence (and I mean "intelligence" in both its contexts).

In the month prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, there was an intense debate between CIA and DIA over the meaning of Iraqi military movements. To DIA, it was classic preparation for a full invasion. it was literally textbook. It was what we saw when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia. It was what we had prepared to see the Warsaw Pact do to NATO. It was what we expected to see North Korea do to South Korea. We weren't sure if Saddam was planning to invade Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, but we were sure he was planning a real invasion, not just holding military exercises.

CIA disputed that. "Saddam is our guy; we have an understanding with him." They were influenced by the political viewpoint--and political ramification-- and denied what was happening on the ground until the very last minute.

That was revealed again the mid 90s when the reports hit the media that the Chinese had sold ballistic missiles to Pakistan that were "forbidden" by US law. As accurately reported in the media, every Intelligence agency had proven the event by its own means and were in (rare) complete agreement: Those Chinese missiles had been transferred to the Pakistani military.

The ramification was that by law the US would have to cut trade relations with China. But in the mid-90s there were a lot of American corporations salivating over the possibility of developing a Chinese market, so cutting trade relations over a missile sale was out of the political question.

This is what the State Department told us in the Intelligence Community, and I quote: "You don't have confirmation they have those missiles until they actually fire one."

Darned good thing that wasn't the sentiment in 1963.

So it's utterly possible--probable, in fact--for the military to understand one thing and for the White House to believe otherwise to such an extent that they can't even digest the information.

 

[poolerboy0077]

There's nothing wrong with truth. "Truther" has nothing to so with actual truth, just like Scientology has nothing to do with science.

 

[Lost Angel]

Why should the word "truth" be a pejorative? It not the pursuit of truth a good thing? Or are we being conditioned to be sheep, to subconsciously despise the truth? Would this not be the tactic of fascism?

Truthers claim to know the truth of 9/11/2001. What they claim as truth lacks any credible evidence.

True seekers of truth accept credible evidence, whether it agrees with one's goal or not.

Basically, Truthers feed misinformation and faulty science to their followers. It is basically an oxymoron

 

[Vylo]

Hitler was referring to governments in his quote about the Big Lie, not dissidents. Why are you turning reality on its head? Do you think everyone is that stupid?

Motives for government doing and lying about 9/11:

- Start mega-profitable wars
- control remaining Middle East oil
- bomb Israel's rivals for regional dominance, destroy their infrastructure and societies
- shred the Constitution and the rights of Americans, making them easier to control

Motives for truthers to lie:

- invite the mockery and social opprobrium of their peers, at least at first until people start to realize they were right
- possibly lose their jobs, like Prof. Stephen Jones of BYU
- if you are a witness who has another story to tell risk assassination or mysterious death, like Danny Jownko and Barry Jennings. Mysterious Witness Deaths related to 9/11 | Public Conspiracy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbbZE7c3a8Q

So who has the greatest motive to be telling the big lie?

Some issues here:

- Peace is more profitable than war overall. Don't forget the trillions we spend on our military. The return is high unlikely to exceed the cost. Weapons manufacturers would have motive, but not the government itself so much.

- We don't need middle east oil anymore. We are a net exporter of oil and the third largest producer.

- There is good reason for Israel to want war and to have done 9/11, not as much our own government.

- You last point on shredding rights is spot on though. That would be a good motivation.

As for reasons for truthers to lie, it's quite simple. People want to feel in the know, to be elite. They want to feel like they above others in some way. Being "in the know" on a conspiracy promotes this feeling while needing a minimum of actual evidence to perpetuate. Since in any real conspiracy the perpetrators try to erase evidence, a lack of it is easily explained away and used to make the villains seem even more insidious.