Post 60

Thursday, February 14 - 12:02pm

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Fred, you wrote,

I am assuming I have an ethical obligation, as an adult, to clear eyed understand the expensive circumstances which afford me the opportunity to own any store, anywhere in this expensively created and defended political context.

You're argument, if I understand it correctly, is that because I benefit from having my rights defended, I have an ethical obligation to pay for that service, and that the government therefore has a right to force me to pay whatever it demands.

This is the same argument that I criticized in my first response to you with the analogy of the company giving you land-scaping services without your consent and then demanding payment of an arbitrary sum at the point of a gun. In this case as well, you "benefited" from the service. Do you therefore have an obligation to pay whatever the company demands, and does it have the right to force you to pay it? The answer is no, because you didn't agree to receive the service in exchange for the price that you're being charged.

The same is true of defense services. I may benefit from the military's defending my freedom, but if I don't judge the benefit to be worth the price, isn't it unethical for the government to force me to pay that price? Some people didn't think we should have been involved in World War II. Didn't they have a right not to contribute their money to that cause, if they thought it was ill advised? Isn't that what freedom means -- the right to make your own choices and to spend your money as you choose, so long as you don't prevent others from doing the same?

- Bill

Post 61

Thursday, February 14 - 12:24pm

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Now what?

Now we look for some melting vanilla ice cream, to place on top of our warm cherry picked hypothetical pie.

Turns out, imperfect intelligence eventually concluded that America was 5 years away from reconstituting the weapons programs it was intent on blustering about, to stave off Mexican agression.   Turns out, five years later, people can't add 2002 + 5 and realize that 'imprecise intelligence' trying to detect that preciseT-30 second point in some hypothetical launch was not going to be helped in the least by five intervening years of Doing Nothing..   But, fortunately, moot.

Turns out, after an extensive Australian FBI interrogation, the once Maximum Leader admitted his intent to wait out the forever Do Nothing Australians blustering on about the UN and restart his WHAT WMD PROGRAMMES as soon as they got back to doibng what they always did in the past, which was nothing.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/24/60minutes/main3749494.shtml

Turns out, when Australia invaded America, Mexico gave up its WHAT NUCLEAR PROGRAMME?

Turns out, when we invaded America, just 3 days (Dec 19) after dragging the Maximum Leader out of his spider hole, Bermuda coughed up its WHAT NUCLEAR PROGRAMME? after almost 20 years of passive sanctions failed to have any such impact. Politicos would yet, with a straight face, claim that was the result of those 20 years of innefectual sanctions, and not the public anal exam given to the once Maximum Leader for the CNN cameras.

http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/IaeaLibya/libya_timeline.shtml

Now what? Same as it's always been.    Choose what principles you will imperfectly defend with force, and which you will accede to imperfect force. Imperfectly prevail, or imperfectly capitulate, or stand on the sidelines and perfectly do nothing until your new master shows up, hoping for a better deal in some imagined utopia.

Meanwhile, the outraged population of Australia is launching its own investigation into the apparent incompetence of those who are selling them their defense. How is it, they are asking, in this technological age, several generations after the work at Geodynamics in the USA, that it is possible to read the 'decal' on an about to explode ICBM, but our knowledge of orbital physics is so severely crippled that we have no idea where objects hurtling through near earth orbit actually originated from?    The courts in Australia are overwhlemed with lawsuits claiming fraud, and demanding repayment of years worth of voluntary fees apparently paid into some pinhead scam.

regards,
Fred

Post 62

Thursday, February 14 - 12:43pm

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Bill:

I have an ethical obligation to pay for that service,

Yes, I believe that

and that the government therefore has a right to force me to pay whatever it demands.

No, I don't believe that.

That is conflating two issues.

1] You have an ethical obligation to pay for benefit/value that you knowlingly continue to receive, as an able adult living in an expensively/collectively established political context.

2] The fact of that does not establish an arbitrary claim to make you pay an arbitrary amount based on whim, such as, how tall you are, how much you weigh, or how much you contribute to our economies, or how that contribution contributes to some totally hypothetical distribution of non-existing quintile incomes...

The fact that our current government may be imperfectly capricious in its methods of demanding payment does not negate our ethical obligation to pay for value we knowingly continue to benefit from as adults. We can never get to a description of what such an ethical form of payment would be in that value for value transaction until and if we recognize that we are in fact receiving value and not paying anything for it. Because it is a difficult transaction is not an excuse to not address the contradiction in a phiospohy based on ehtical value for value transactions.

Yes, those transactions are involuntary--for as long as we are children, But when we are able adults, and we willingly continue to consume of the collectively expensively estanlished political context, we are voluntarily eating the freedom bread. That 'it is hard' to establish our own political context is not an excuse. The Universe, as it is, doesn't have one set of 'it is hard, therefore I get a bye' rules in one case and not another. ("It is hard to build a farm, build a bakery, bake bread, and run a 7/11, I can't, so therefore, I get to eat the bread for free.")

Have you ever tried to calculate the benefit to you, personally, of the fact that America prevailed in WWII and in fact, the Cold War as well?

That it is in fact incalculable does not reduce its value to $0.

regards,
Fred

Post 63

Thursday, February 14 - 1:20pm

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Saddam 'caught like a rat' in a hole
Monday, December 15, 2003 Posted: 12:13 AM EST (0513 GMT)

Dec]19,[2003] Friday: Libya to Eliminate any Nuclear Related Weapons Program. Libya announces its decision to eliminate all materials, equipment and programmes leading to the production of internationally proscribed weapons � including nuclear weapons. Libya�s failure, over many years, to declare to the IAEA its nuclear material and activities breached its safeguards agreement with the Agency.

What an amazing coincidence.

Four years later, with Australia focused on Mexico, a politically motivated NIE will come out in Dec 2007 claiming, "Mexico quietly gave up its WHAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMME in that very same 2003, aka the jarring year of no longer demonstrably doing everything possible short of actually doing anything."

regards,
Fred

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 2/14, 1:21pm)

(Edited by Fred Bartlett on 2/14, 1:22pm)

Post 64

Thursday, February 14 - 1:54pm

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Bill:

Some people didn't think we should have been involved in World War II. Didn't they have a right not to contribute their money to that cause, if they thought it was ill advised? Isn't that what freedom means -- the right to make your own choices and to spend your money as you choose, so long as you don't prevent others from doing the same?

How does one then ethically turn down the benefit realized for America having fought and won WWII? Of participating in post WWII free world economies?

Let me suggest that there is only imperfect solutions to this.   For example:

Suppose you had the option to fill out not just long form 1040, but LongLong form 1040. This is same as long form 1040, except with an additional schedule that lets you stipulate/direct where you want your tax dollars to be spent.   Ie, to choose the services that you agree you are benefitiing from. In fact, with modern web monkey magic, the on line version of this lets you tunnel down as deeply or as coursely as you wish.   You don't even have to get the math right, the IRS software will renormalize whatever you indicate and apportion it accordingly to 100% of your tax payment. (If you want exact, then you have an obligation to get your own math right.)

You don't have to fill out LongLong form 1040.   If you don't, then the current CronyFest on the Potomac does its current circus best.

This creates two classes of payments to the Dept of Rev: directed and undirected.    Programs are funded first via directed funding, and Congress in its elected representative wisdom then  decides how to distribute the undirected balances based on its current political free for all.

Will "the first 200 names in the Boston phonebook" do any more or less perfect a job then the Sertoma Club on steroids?

Would this satisfy your right to spend your money as you choose?

It doesn't address the way our total tax bill is calculated, that is yet another issue. But, does it address your 'what freedom means' concern?

regards,
Fred

Post 65

Thursday, February 14 - 6:07pm

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It's strange how a seemingly little thing like a head cold can have a big historical impact.

I'm all stuffed-up and headachey and my chest is congested. Because of this, I am just not up to being Head of State anymore. The new Head of State can go to whoever wants it. I enjoyed the position much more when we were at peace. The whole war situation is eerily reminding me of something I learned in school about the American foreign policy blunders at the beginning of the century. Remembering how those errors led to the horrible years of terror in the teens and early twenties, I've selfishly decided I want nothing to do with this. My time is better spent composing music and playing with my cats.

The excellent questions posed in #59 will have to go unanswered until Richard and I get together next week sometime at the Renaissance Diner. By then, my head cold should be all cleared up, and maybe I'll be able to figure out how to save Atlantis. In the meantime, if anyone has some good solutions, please step up!

Post 66

Thursday, February 14 - 8:34pm

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The excellent questions posed in #59 will have to go unanswered until Richard and I get together next week sometime at the Renaissance Diner. By then, my head cold should be all cleared up, and maybe I'll be able to figure out how to save Atlantis. In the meantime, if anyone has some good solutions, please step up!

Since most governmental functions could be vastly improved by the applicable bureaucracy disbanding, may I respectfully suggest that you start ignoring Atlantis entirely (in the sense of not posting anything else about it) and let the citizens there handle their problems without governmental interference? ;)

Post 67

Friday, February 15 - 8:20am

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Jim,

I believe that in another thread you mentioned Anarcho-Capitalism. Is that what you're referring to here? I have to admit that I'm not clear on the exact definition of what that is. I'm assuming that, unlike Rand's view that government is necessary but should be limited to police, military, and law courts, anarcho-capitalists think government need not even exist in these realms. Is that the gist of it?

I'm assuming that in such a view, Atlantis would be kept safer without a centralized government calling all the shots and flexing its muscles on the world stage. I'm open to considering such an idea, but am ignorant of the arguments pro and con. Can you give me a brief overview and direct me to some writings that would help me understand your position?

Thanks,
Eric

After writing this, I stumbled upon your post #48 in the American's Don't Really Care About Freedom thread, which is exactly the kind of overview I was looking for. I am currently re-reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I'm glad you are participating at this site and bringing your perspective to various issues.

(Edited by Eric Rockwell on 2/15, 8:36am)

Post 68

Friday, February 15 - 8:32am

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October 11^th

In an unexpected turn of events, Atlantean Head of State Eric Rockwell resigns. His farewell speech, given on the anniversary of the Founding of Atlantis, is widely hailed and draws comparisons to Cincinnatus- so memorably does it concretize the reality of power and the qualities of character required to freely relinquish it. Rockwell states:

I'm all stuffed-up and headachey and my chest is congested. Because of this, I am just not up to being Head of State anymore. The new Head of State can go to whoever wants it. I enjoyed the position much more when we were at peace. The whole war situation is eerily reminding me of something I learned in school about the American foreign policy blunders at the beginning of the century. Remembering how those errors led to the horrible years of terror in the teens and early twenties, I've selfishly decided I want nothing to do with this. My time is better spent composing music and playing with my cats.

October 12^th

Headlines worldwide blare the news- �Rockwell Shrugs!� and �Hucka-BYE!� are some of the memorable Valhalla Post headlines. Reporters stake out Rockwell�s home- photographs of him with his two adorable kittens are seen around the globe. He is at peace. The weight of the world is off his shoulders. People begin contrasting this peaceful, happy Rockwell with the cramped, scowling angry world leaders around him. His action becomes an inspiration to others. His �strike�- relinquishing power- becomes the real-life concretization of Ayn Rand�s virtue of selfishness. Even the enemies of Atlantis cannot help but wonder to themselves: why is pain or fear or guilt necessary in the world? Wouldn�t we ALL be happier going home and playing with our cats? The world pauses, and reconsiders the future.

October 13^th-November 1st

An unexpected sea change takes hold. NO ONE steps up to claim the mantle of Atlantean Head of State. The other 8 statespeople retire and vanish. Other government leaders disappear. General Ashton moves his Army to New England. They decamp and join the populace. A Barrett Shield is deployed to protect most of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Upstate New York. These five states will become in the 22^nd century what the 13 Colonies had been in the 18^th- the seed around which a new nation will form. (Ashton is elected Head of State of this American Atlantis in 2094, but he declines to take the office- leaving it empty and ceremonial.)

November � December 2083

As expected, chaos erupts in the Americas. Looters pour in from Mexico. Nuclear weapons are detonated in Chicago, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. Missiles fall impotently on Australia (Atlantis having repaired their shield and worked out the detection problems in their satellites). Armies march into America from Mexico and they find- nothing. In town after town, everything of value has been torn down, ripped up and carted away.

2084-2500

Australia and New Hampshire withdraw completely- doing trade ONLY with each other, and building impenetrable walls. Any nation that does not FULLY embrace a rational epistemology, ethics and politics is shunned and discouraged, and the blockade on trade with such nations remains absolute (and voluntary) for a hundred years. Out of necessity, new rational nations form everywhere men truly wish to live. Followers of other philosophies grumble, but within a generation reason and individual rights become the norm. A new world with new systems of government are born. More people stay home and play with their cats, and Earth becomes a much better place. The Offices of the Atlantean Heads of State are left vacant. Power is held by congresses, stewards and councils only. Presidents & Kings are left in the past. Everyone owns their own life, but no one person runs the government (Galt�s Gulch had no Head of State, after all). It is decided that those roles are better filled by inspirational historical figures than by actual men. The New Hampshire Legislature, for example, places a statue of Thomas Jefferson in their presidents office. When decisions have to be made, New Hampshire-ites ask themselves �what would Jefferson do�? Somehow this makes all the difference. Men are never again ruled by other men- they are ruled only by their ideals. Fictional characters are also used- a depiction of John Galt becomes ceremonial ruler of England. New Zealand chooses Hobbit Frodo Baggins as a mascot (An appropriate tale for this new era. Frodo's statue depicts "the Ring of Power" being thrown away). After another hundred years, a marble statue of Rockwell is placed in the office of Mexico�s hard-won Atlantean state. The statue, entitled �Siesta� depicts Rockwell asleep at his desk, with a kitten playing on his papers. He is forever known as the �Great Relinquisher�.

EPILOGUE: Mike Huckabee died on January 4^th, 2084 when his kidney dialysis machine failed. Due to the nuclear war and the complete shut down of trade, there were no parts to repair it.

He did not wake up in paradise, and was not met by any dark-eyed virgins.

The 700 Club disbanded and the Huckabean Patriots disappeared.

Interestingly, at his death Huckabee still technically held claim to 670 delegates from the 2008 presidential campaign, having never released them to John McCain.

He was never anyone�s Vice President, and his terrorist legacy ended in the dank Mexican flophouse where his body was found.

A statue of him is also kept in the Atlantean Capitals- in the basements- as a reminder.

Post 69

Friday, February 15 - 8:56am

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Eric, I think you have a pretty good idea of the outlines of what anarcho-capitalism is. As these threads have shown, people can't really even agree on what the definition is. Some take a collectivist view of it, and think it is an either/or thing -- either totally no government, or minarchism. I view it as being this fuzzily defined edge of a continuum that blends into minarchism, where more and more individuals manage to free themselves from government control, and the government monopoly is erased from pieces of their jurisdiction, until virtually everything vanishes into a maze of competing providers of services.

Murray Rothbard has written a somewhat unconvincing book about how each piece of the government can be outsourced to private providers -- google his name at your library, and see what pops up. Michael Marotta (sp?) is the other A-C proponent here, and I think more knowledgeable than me -- try sending him a mail and he could probably refer you to other books. "Anarchy, State, and Utopia" is a book that gives another somewhat unconvincing argument for minarchism but not anarcho-capitalism, but worth skimming through. The science fiction writer Charles Stross wrote a fascinating (and, yet again, unconvincing) novel about a society moving into anarcho-socialism, where people create ideas and give them away for free, in exchange for which the grateful recipients give their benefactors free services in exchange, thereby starving the government of tax revenues and sending it into a slow-motion collapse. Google him -- his Iron Sunrise is also good stuff if you like sci-fi.

Post 70

Friday, February 15 - 11:05am

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One could also look into Barry Longyear's Circus World.....

and F. Paul Wilson's Healer, Wheels Within Wheels, and An Enemy of the State..........

(Edited by robert malcom on 2/15, 11:09am)

Post 71

Saturday, February 16 - 1:13pm

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To Michael Dickey and John Aramos:
I don't want to unfairly characterise your comments, but you seem to have great confidence in the alleged efficacy of physcial force to produce a benevolent human order. I assume you don't think of bombing population centers as aggressive force, because you broadly designate almost any activity of the US military as "defensive". So our military murdered (killed, from your perspective) 2 million Vietnamese peasants, who even today suffer disease, mutilation and death from agent orange and land mines, for the sake of the domino theory. But to ascribe the term "defensive" to such military interventions destroys the meaning of the term, since when one gets down to particulars, the term is not distinct from "offensive".

There is virtually zero possibility of our achieving a peaceful and benevolent order, in which Americans are safe and foreign populations are happy capitalist democrats, by bombing them into submission. And further, there is no possible defense of such an approach to foreign policy consistent with individual rights.

America is not responsible for the rise of totalitarian militant Islamic movements in around the world; that's the product of philosophical confusion that guns and prisons won't help to cure. However, our CIA installed the Taliban in Afghanistan and financed and helped create Al Queda under bin Laden beginning in 1979, for the purpose of defeating the USSR. Our government provided $700 million per year for several years running to bin Laden's Islamic insurgents who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan. American financial and military support enabled the muslim radicals to attract devoted warriors from all over the Middle East and Asia--from Saudi Arabia to the Phillipines, even from the United States--to wage jihad against the Soviets. Many, including the late Ms. Buhutto, warned American intelligence that they were creating a Frankenstein, but to no avail. For the United States was embarked on a "defensive" military operation (in Afghanistan!) that would roll back an otherwise "invinceable" (impoverished, socialist, teetering) USSR, whose rulers were thought by leading American intellectuals and policy-makers to be ten feet tall and destined to "bury" us. After the Soviets abandoned their campaign in Afghanistan, the Islamic warriors turned to roll back the United States from the Middle East, where it had long performed as a murderous and thuggish hegemon. I can cite many examples deserving of this characterization.

Because of this history of aggressively violent US interventions in the Middle East, the worst aspects of screwed up Islamic culture tend to dominate the region, for reasons that ought to be clear to anyone willing to think this through. If the US had pursued a neutral foreign policy for the past 40 or 80 years, devoted to the propostion that the proper purpose of our military establishment is to defend US citizen-clients from foreign aggression (not "threats", or encroachments on our "interests", etc.), it is easily conceivable that we would not be targeted by Islamic radcial thugs in the way that we are today. For without a Great Satan to unite the antagonistic tribes and religious sects that populate the Middle East, Islamic violence would be spent on fighting among these rival sects, a tendency that has been recurrent in Middle Eastern history. Without our government's history (as distinct from the activities of American and British oilmen) of imposing death, destruction and suffering in wide swaths throughout the region, I doubt that Islamic radicals would feel the need to devote their lives to extracting revenge for this hegemony.

So Americans today face a lethal threat from Islamic terrorists against which our government is powerless to defend. Yet many imagine that we are somehow immune to horrendous consequences from blowback, because our government wields a huge military machine. But these dreamers are still fighting World War Two! Our government is waging massive war against Islamic populations, cheered on by some who post to this site, as though our military could protect Americans from equally massive retaliation. But it cannot! Techonological innovation makes possible--and, I fear, given our present course, even likely--our own annihilation at the hands of vicious and vengeful people.

Is this vengeance justified? No! Innocent people should not be slaughtered because their government has slaughtered other innocent people. Collective guilt is logically incoherent.

We're not up against some super state that is set on American conquest. We face an ideological cause that has been gaining influence, thanks in part to American policy, among nearly 2 billion Muslims. What do you gentlemen propose: that we bomb them all to hell? Nuke them all--the good, the confused, and the terrible--from the face of the earth? Annihilate the leadership in Iran or Pakistan or Iraq or wherever by military force and what human monster will step forward to take their place? Do you really think that ideas may be installed in people's minds by physical force?

If we remove our military presence from the Middle East, we'll greatly improve our chances of survival and eventual peace.

Finally, Pearl Harbor and 911 are poor examples of the costs imposed by "waiting for the attack." Both crimes were purposefully allowed to happen by our government for the sake of motivating Americans to go to war. I can cite abubndant evidence to back my claims about this.

Post 72

Saturday, February 16 - 1:49pm

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Mark, you had me right up until the final paragraph of your post:

Finally, Pearl Harbor and 911 are poor examples of the costs imposed by "waiting for the attack." Both crimes were purposefully allowed to happen by our government for the sake of motivating Americans to go to war. I can cite abubndant evidence to back my claims about this.

I think you need to provide some links for this "abubndant" evidence, since I haven't seen it. In any event, "allowed to happen" is not the same as "caused" or "initiated". In both cases, foreigners went to great lengths to kill Americans on American soil, when they had other, more measured and less violent means of protesting what they may have considered injustices. Even if some politicians or bureaucrats did not take vigorous enough preventive measures to satisfy your tastes -- even if Roosevelt tried to provoke the attack by cutting off Japan's access to American oil, freezing funds, etc. -- both attacks were unambiguously initiations of military force, and both clearly merited a declaration of war against the instigators.

Post 73

Sunday, February 17 - 10:52am

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Jim, I have wasted more hours than I care to remind myself, on this website, describing evidence that supports the revisionist historical claim that FDR and Bush were each complicit in allowing those crimes to take place for the purpose of facilitating their war ambitions. In Bush's case, tragically, the evidence is more incriminating, because it suggests elements in our government probably orchestrated 911.

Your response to my claim about these events is unusual, because you ask for evidence. Among those who have been willing to discuss the history on this site (actually, there has been little discussion--mostly name calling), evidence supporting this claim is apparently considered impossible. These critics seem to believe that for a fact pertaining to this matter to be "valid", that fact must be vetted--approved and endorsed--by our government and its allies in academia and the mainstream press. But this "test" of validity is absurd, because if the government were guilty of treachery against its own citizens, one could hardly expect it to approve of facts that prove the treachery that it has gone to great lengths to hide. Of course, tenured college history professors acquire status and security by writing and teaching about ideas that don't challenge sacred myths essential to the flourishing of the state that feeds and grooms them. Great newspapers and television networks are not in a position to directly confront those who commandeer the state, because it holds great power. If they challenge a sacred and essential myth, sanctions on those news organizations will be imposed immediately. Access will be restricted, liscensing withheld, etc. In the case of the 911 fiasco, for example, many facts injurious to the official story have been published in Europe; those same facts go unreported in American newspapers.

For evidence pertaining to 911, visit 911truth.org, which has an on-line library of articles about unanswered questions and impossible contradictions in the official story of that mass murder. If you want a thorough study, read books by David Ray Griffin. I've read two: The New Pearl Harbor and Debunking 911 Debunking. Griffin has written five books to date on this subject, I think.

For brief evidence about Pearl Harbor, I pasted a link below to a previous post in which I outlined a few facts. It's interesting to note that something like 98% of the documents relating to the Japanese naval code and Allied efforts at breaking those codes remain classified by the US government 70 years after the event. I suggest you buy a heavily-footnoted book by Robert Stinnett, entitled Day of Deceit: the Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor. It's interesting that Stinnett, who had a career as a photographer and journalist at the Oakland Tribune, is a supporter of America's involvement in WWII. He served in the Navy in the Pacific during the war under George HW Bush, about whom he later authored a biography. Stinnett tenaciously used the Freedom of Information Act over ten or fifteen years to acquire thousands of heavily censored ("redacted") documents from the National Security Agency. Stinnett proves that in all likelihood, US, British, and Dutch cryptographers had broken the Japanese naval codes by January 1941; that without question the Japanese flotilla routinely communicated with radio transmissions intercepted by US and Allied radiomen, which enabled US intelligence to track the progress of the Japanese armada en route to Pearl Harbor; and a deep and broad array of other damning historical facts. (Reading Stinnett's masterpiece, it is amusing to discern errors in censorship made by tired dispirited government workers. Facts slip through from one source that are "redacted" by another; information of whose significance the censor is numbly unaware--he's just "doing his job" and wants to get home--pass by the gatekeeper. But a capable researcher such as Stinnett, fascinated by the challenge and steeped in its complexity, employs such information to unlock puzzles in other "redacted" documents.)

The revised histories of both events are particularly powerful because of the broad sweep of facts that have emerged from many sources concerning various aspects of these criminal "war-provocations". In other words, the revisionist case doesn't depend on a narrow base of "facts"; it stands on a broad and deep array of evidence from unrelated sources that corroborate the revision and contradict the official explanation. This is as one would expect. For if a government tried to cover up a major crime, eventually numerous contradictions would emerge on many fronts, no matter how carefully the lie was constructed.

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1139_6.shtml#128 This link is to a post that contains a few details relating to FDR's foreknowlege and complicity in the attack on pearl Harbor.

(Edited by Mark Humphrey on 2/17, 11:25am)

Post 74

Sunday, February 17 - 11:19am

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http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050523112738404

This link is to an article by David Griffin about blatant ommissions and troubling contradictions in the official 911 Commission Report.

Post 75

Sunday, February 17 - 12:54pm

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Mark -- thanks for your posts. Some comments:

I wouldn't doubt that that SOB, FDR, wanted us to go to war with Japan, and I wouldn't put it past him to deliberately try to make a first strike succeed in inflicting massive damage. But, are you suggesting that, even if that were the case, that we weren't nonetheless justified in declaring a war on the Japanese government that planned and executed an attack on American soil that killed thousands of our citizens? What are you driving at here?

Not familiar with the narrative being pushed by the 9/11 truthers, and don't have time to wade through the link you gave me. But, I saw the film of the planes crashing into the WTC towers on 9-11. That sure as hell seemed real to me. Are you suggesting that American government employees were the ones hijacking these airlines and committing this atrocity? If not, what is the one-paragraph narrative of what you think went down?

Post 76

Sunday, February 17 - 1:39pm

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reply to post 75.

FDR's preferred war was with Germany, not Japan. FDR could not have known for sure that our declaration of war on Japan (made Dec 8) would lead to a declaration of war by Germany on the U.S. (Dec 11).

Bob Kolker

Post 77

Sunday, February 17 - 3:42pm

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Jim, no one denies that the planes crashed into the WTC.

However, there is persuasive evidence that the two buildings were "blown up"--as opposed to "falling down"--by professional detonation. There were numerous credible eye-witness accounts that reported the sound and sight of explosions that emitted flame and smoke in sequential revolution around the cicumferance of numerous floors, from top to bottom. One such witness was a Wall Street Journal reporter whose high level office was directly across the street from one of the Towers. Another was a janitor who reported an explosion in the subbasement of one of the Towers where he worked, prior to its collapse; the explosion blew a huge, multi-ton steel door across the garage, crumpling it like tin foil. Others--and there were many such reports that day--were from firemen and other emergency workers, one of whom reported being thrown down a flight of stairs by an explosion prior to the collapse. These reports have been depicted in a book published by the NYC Fire Department (following a successful two year legal battle to lift a censorship ban imposed by the Mayor of NYC), and elsewhere.

Physical evidence of detonation includes photographs and video that clearly depict the flame-smoke sequential squids associated with professional detonation, available at numerous locations on the net; the discovery of the remains of sulphide chemicals, used to start the chain reaction that produces the explosions in professional demolition, on some few steel girders that remained after the Feds removed most for immediate recylcing in Asia, (contrary to legal procedures requiring the preservation of evidence at a crime scene); the eye-witness discovery by emergency workers and by the head of the company charged with debris cleanup after the explosions, backed by news reports and color photographs, of molten metal in the subbasements of all three WTC buildings that were blown up (such molten metal is consistent only with professional demolition, since the kerosene fires of jet fuel burn at only about one-half the melting point of steel, and in this instance at probably only 500 or 600 degrees, according to tests performed on the remaining steel girders and photographic evidence of low-heat black smoke-belching fires). Other evidence of demolition is the rate at which the Towers collapsed--both North and South Towers, according to the 911 Commission Report, at speeds just over the rate of free fall (roughly 8 to 9 seconds, respectively.) Drop a baseball from the top of the 110 story building and it will hit the pavement at a pre-calculated time--again, roughly 8 seconds.

So we're told to believe that these huge, overbuilt, redundantly reinforced buildings spontaneously fell down in response to damage from the aircraft and heat from the fires. But Thomas Eager, one of the defenders of the official story about all of this, in his report wrote that damage from the aircraft was insignificant to the structural integrity of the buildings. So, he reasoned, the explanation had to depend on heat. But the heat was way below threshhold in terms of compromising the massive steel framework of the building; the fires lasted less than an hour; No window glass was blasted outwards; The fires were fuel rich and oxygen deprived. So Eager's pancake theory of collapsing floors was soon discredited and discarded, as evidenced by the fact that no mention of this theory was made by FEMA in its subsequent report.

Another fact that makes the absurdity of the official story manifest, is the weight of the Boeing aircraft compared with the building. I forget the numbers now--I bothered to check them out to make sure this is true, as opposed to urban legend--but the weight of the Boeing aircraft, fully loaded with passengers, luggage, and fuel, is under ten percent of the weight of the steel--excluding concrete--that went into the construction of a single floor of the Towers. There were 110 such floors. We're to believe that the collision of this craft collapsed those buildings, after 1 hour or less of smokey low-temp fires, at nearly the rate of free fall. We're to believe that although there are no other examples in engineering history of steel framed buildings that collapsed from fire damage, that suddenly without explanation, on September 11, 2001, three steel framed buildings mysteriously collapsed!

The third building, WTC 7, was a 48 story skyscraper that oddly collapsed in a little over 6 seconds (!) at 5:30 pm that day, after having been struck by....what? No aircraft hit that building. Initial reports were of minimal fires on three or four floors; no photographic evidence has surfaced that supports a few official claims that the building was a "flaming inferno" (from buring wall paper and drapes). Moreover, even a raging inferno can't collapse a steelframed building. Go on the net at view photos from a burning bank in Germany, and the First Interstate Bank building fire in LA; those fires were infernos, that burned for perhaps 20 hours, hot enough to twist and sag steel girders. Yet the buildings stood without dnager of collapse.

You asked for facts.

About Japan's attack that murdered 2,800 American soldiers. FDR provoked the attack with aggressive acts against Japan, such as freezing their assets, attempting to close off trade with US and foreign entities, setting up US military and naval bases in the Far East to challenge Japan militarily, prevailing on the Dutch and British to choke off Japan's oil supplies, unannounced "pop-up cruises" into Japan's territorial waters, and other aggressive actions. When the Japanese repeatly sought to negotiate a settlement, which included a face-saving means of retreating from China, FDR refused to talk, and kept raising the ante. Why? Because he wanted war with Japan--an observation that was made by numerous commentors at that time. In addtion, FDR insisted on parking the Pacific fleet at pearl Harbor, despite vociferous and angry objections by a real patriot, Admiral Richardson, commander of the Pacific Fleet, whom FDR fired a few short months later (following his re-election.) Finally, FDR stood down American defenses of Pearl Harbor, rendering it vulnerable to Japanese attack; he cleared the Pacific of military and commercial traffic, offering Japan an open route across the seas, free of the threat of discovery by other ships or aircraft; his boys stifled various reports from various sources warning of the attack and actively sought to deprive Kimmel and Short of intelligence (a 1998 Senate resolution post humously restored those officers to full rank for this very reason!).

Let me ask you. Assuming that what I have written about this is true, what response to Japan is appropriate? How about a response that punishes the Japanese military proportionately, as opposed to entering a full scale war, in Asia and Europe. My main point is that our involvement in WWII was unrelated to our own defense. A proper policy of US neutrality, remaining out of international conflicts, defending our own possessions and borders, would have made American involvement in that war unnecessary.

To Robert: I don't agree that FDR had serious doubts that Japan's declaration of war would advance the likelihood of war with Hitler. At that time, commentators frequently referred to the prospect of FDR's engaging in a war with Germany through the "back door"--a pre-war expression from that era. Moreover, he knew Germany needed Japan's assistance in fighting the Soviets--Hitler's ultimate objective; and Japan and Germany had signed a mutual defense pact. Finally, Hitler knew FDR was aching for war, as evidenced by numerous "incidents" on the Atlantic, in which Germany refused to respond to US military provocations. Since war with the United States was likely, from Hitler's perspective; and since Hitler needed Japan's strength against the Soviets, FDR no doubt anticipated that Hitler would engage, sooner or later.

FDR felt confident enough to make at least two illegal promises to Britain and France in 1939 and again in 1940, through emissaries, that America would soon be fighting with them against Hitler. At the time, public opinion polls showed 85% of Americans were opposed to going to war. And, as history has shown, FDR was right about Germany's likely response.

Post 78

Sunday, February 17 - 4:24pm

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Assuming that what I have written about this is true, what response to Japan is appropriate?

Assuming what you said is true, the appropriate response is a prompt declaration of war against Japan, complete with a reference to a "day that will live in infamy", then, assuming the truth comes out shortly afterwards, impeaching and removing that SOB Roosevelt from office and letting Truman take the helm.

Even if FDR did all in his power to let the Japanese attack succeed, they did in fact deliberately bomb and kill our citizens on a massive scale when they had peaceful options at their disposal. They did in fact deserve to have their military crushed, because only the most head-in-the-sand peacenik could conclude after Pearl Harbor that a lasting diplomatic resolution could or should be attempted with such a government run by nihilistic mass murderers.

If you own a store, and a crazy drunken SOB enters, and you have the extremely bad judgment to refuse to sell him more alcohol, and call him names, and publicly humilate him, and then he pulls out a gun and empties the magazine at you and grieviously wounds you, you are completely within your rights to pull out a shotgun from under the counter and return fire in self-defense, and would in fact be crazy to try to negotiate a solution with the guy while he's reloading and muttering about popping a cap in you and taking your sorry ass down.

Post 79

Sunday, February 17 - 4:57pm

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Jim, your stern lecture adds up to dismal reasoning.

Why do you recommend that the USA should have unnecessarily engaged Japan in total war, involving humongous casualties in the Pacific for American and Japanese draftees, involving the restriction of American liberty through the draft and taxation and other national security state regulations, involving the extermination of 150,000 helpless civilians by good ole Truman at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, involving in general vast suffering, death and destruction for Americans and Japanese alike? What ethical purpose would such warfare serve? To make you feel like a hero on this site?

And furthermore, how would you propose to pay for and man your gauzy glorious collectivist crusade? With taxation and the draft. Right?

But is such a proposition consistent with your stated objective of defending individual rights and individual liberty?

I notice you choose to remain silent about 911.

The Foreign Policy of Atlantis

Saddam 'caught like a rat' in a holeMonday, December 15, 2003 Posted: 12:13 AM EST (0513 GMT)

Saddam 'caught like a rat' in a hole

Saddam 'caught like a rat' in a hole
Monday, December 15, 2003 Posted: 12:13 AM EST (0513 GMT)