I don't label myself with the labels invented by others, particularly not with the labels invented by my enemies.

Normal? what the fuck man... suspect use of perjoratives

suspect use of pejoratives

What are you talking about?

You just insulted everybody here lol. That's what I'm talking about.

I didn't lawl.

I never trusted authority figures, but I was raised in a 1% neighborhood just outside New York City. The town is filled with CEOs, writers, tv news hosts, politicians, scientists, engineers, and lawyers and they raised their children to feel like they were the authority figures.

I'm not a "debunker" or a "truther" I'm just somebody who grew up in the same town as the lords of Wall Street and K Street. I know what they think about the rest of society and I know what they want to do to us and my conscience won't let me live with myself after its over if I don't try to stop it. .

Tell us more, please! What have they said? What makes you think they have the power to pull it off?

Get away from those labels, they're divisive and distractions and serve no purpose.

This question implies that being a "truther" (seeking the truth) is abnormal.

I was in NYC for the week of 9-11, 16 blocks away, doing training at a brokerage firm (from the Midwest) and we were in the top 5 floors of a relatively close building. We were role playing sales calls when we noticed the first plane hit (Just mass smoke, we didn't see the direct hit on the first one) coupled with the rocking and pounding sound in the distance. We all went to the window to watch it all go down, about 10-15 of us in a top level conference room. We were watching the news via a TV in the corner at the same time off and on. One of the other trainees was a former pilot for Delta who's market was retiring Delta pilots. He was probably 45 or 50. The brokerage industry does this a lot. They recruit others from high income, big pension professions.

We were all staring at the smoke when the second plane hit. I can remember him saying that it was definitely not a commercial aircraft. This was within seconds of the 2nd plane hitting the other tower. From our point of view we could see a partial underbelly and entire side from the front corner of the second plane to the tail.

Later that evening back at the hotel we were staying at, the former pilot was seriously not doing well. He was from Texas, had no friends or family in NYC and was extremely shaken. We all talked quite a bit and came to know each other pretty well over the course of the week using each other's phones, trying to get home finding rental cars, taxis, bus, rail, etc.

We had a girl in our group who was trying to console him at the bar (and god knows what else) later that evening and were all glued to the TV. The hotel we were at basically opened the bar and said have at it. This guy (former Delta pilot) was rocking back and forth in his bar stool, staring at the bar, shaking saying it wasn't a civilian plane, it wasn't a civilian plane. She assumed he was just upset and because he was a former pilot, that he was upset because it hit to close to home for him and after about 15 drinks the guy turned psychotic and completely freaked out, screaming in her face saying I don't give a F about the pilots you stupid B. This is all BS, don't you get it. That was not a civilian plane, not American Airlines, not Delta. It was a military, I've flown them.

I'll never forget this. It was real, not on TV, not in a chat room. This guy was 100% flipping his lid. 24-48 hours prior he was the guy that was the best dressed, had done more pre-work and had already had tons of success in sales. Was well spoken and probably staring down the tunnel of extreme success. This guy had his shit together. 24 hours later a complete and total mess. This dude was going to the looney bin if he ever got home.

I was a bar tender in college and grew up around drunks and have lived all around and met thousands of people throughout my life and feel I have a great perception about people. This wasn't a show or attention getting by this guy. He saw something that day, knew it to be 100% correct and never probably thought something like this would happen or may have, who knows.

He was also a former fighter pilot, did ROTC with the Airforce and was stationed at Eglin AFB during most of his career. We were in the same car together on the way to the hotel from the airport which took hours. We got to know each other pretty well. I had mentioned a cousin who was also stationed there and had recently retired as well (from the AF), which got our convo started in such detail a day prior.

This is what made me a skeptic from the start.

I see a great story. I was trying to read it all but with all due respect, can you make a tl;dr for this?

Yeah. Was in training, NYC, 9/11. Guy in class was former Airforce pilot and recently Layed off Delta pilot. In high rise A few blocks away. When he (& we) saw the 2nd plane hit he said that it wasn't a commercial plane that hit. He swore it was a military plane from looking at it.

Over the course of the evening he completely went insane at the hotel. Wasn't the type to do so at all. Well before anyone saw news. Well before all the documentaries and conspiracy theories.

Thanks.

Your very language is marginalizing. You're pining into the thought patterns of those enemies which seek to keep your mind closed.

common sense and the historical context of today

Insinuating....what? That we're not normal?

Please, just for a minute, ignore my username and whatever RES flair you may have tagged me with and read what I'm actually saying with your preconceptions aside for a moment. Please, just for a minute, then you can go back to hating me if you wish.

Here's my thing: I don't understand why someone can't be both. Or neither. Or whatever the equivalent of "agnostic" would be in this case.

I try to be as rational as possible. On the 9/11 thing, for example. I don't know what happened that day. None of us do. Honestly, I don't completely buy the "official story." I also don't believe much of the speculation about it. There are bad arguments on both sides, there are good arguments on both sides. I don't fully believe that either case is airtight.

OK, you're calling BS on me. I argue with people about it. I was doing it just a few minutes ago. Again, please keep ignoring stuff, just a little bit more.

You may see me reacting to what I consider to be the particularly bad arguments on the "truther" side because there are many of them and they are bad for the dialogue as a whole. Getting to the good, hard facts in the debate is difficult when people continue to use arguments that have been proven to be incorrect (even if they don't want to accept that they are incorrect) or completely ignore an opposing point of view, or don't take the time to listen and consider, even for a moment, that they might be wrong.

If I see a particularly bad argument from the other side here, it's generally been addressed by someone else and I leave it be. However, this is a bit more rare, as there are more "truthers" represented here. But if you looked, I believe there have been a few occasions where I've actually disagreed with the "status quo."

"Big deal," you say, "you probably just did that to try to trick us." I guess if I was in your shoes, I'd probably be skeptical of me as well. Fair enough.

Anyway, going back to the 9/11 thing for a minute, here's my loose change. These are my opinions and beliefs, and I recognize them as such and do not claim any of them to be factual. Just what I think based on what I have seen.

I think that that those in power knew of the 9/11 plot regarding the WTC and allowed it to happen. I don't think that Bush and Cheney could have pulled something like that off, start to finish, during the less than 9 months of his presidency to that point. Yes, they could have started planning it earlier than that, I suppose. But if Bush didn't get elected, then it wouldn't have worked, and I don't believe the election was rigged. Anyway.

Hijackers flew planes into WTC 1 and 2. These buildings collapsed due to the planes crashing onto them. No nano-thermite, no explosives, just the planes. And yes, I've watched videos and read arguments suggesting that the physics doesn't work. And I believed it for a time. However, if you take a chance and give the opposing viewpoint a real look with a truly open mind (and the capability of understanding the physical forces at work here), the "official story" wins.

I don't believe the official story on Building 7. But I don't believe there's solid enough evidence that it was a controlled demolition either. Neither argument has fully convinced me, and it seems like there is a lot of disinformation on both sides, which makes me lean towards the notion that there's something fishy. If TPTB knew of the impending attack, then perhaps it was convenient for them to use it as an excuse to get rid of Building 7. Seems like they'd have had plenty of good reasons for it. However, I don't think there's enough evidence to come to a reasonable conclusion.

Thank you if you've bothered reading this far. I'm going to go full batshit crazy now.

There's also an irrational part of me that thinks that the "official story" of the some of the stuff in NYC was intentionally flawed, and that part of the "truth" movement was infiltrated or instigated by people whose intentions are to keep the conversation / debate focused on the incidents in NYC and off of the bigger inconsistencies with the other 2 planes, where there really are many more troubling issues (no video evidence, no way to make a phone call from the plane, precision strike on the pentagon by a very low flying plane by a relatively unskilled pilot who apparently had amazing barnstorming skills, etc.). I think TPTB hijacked the 9/11 hijacking for their own purposes. Partly to push through the Patriot Act, partly to destroy evidence, partly to help push through the need for a needless war, and probably other reasons also.

However, I recognize that this is not a belief founded in solid evidence, and it's prolly a bit out there, so I do not go shouting it as truth from the rooftops. It's irrational and I know it.

So there you have it. If you made it this far, then you may stop ignoring my username and/or RES flair if you wish and assume this was all a distraction from my true nefarious purposes and not simply me trying to communicate and/or with people like a normal human being.

Thanks for reading my wall of text.

I think we go through phases. When first presented with this idea my instinct was 'the Government is simply not efficient enough to pull this off."

The thing that I kept coming back to was the physics. If 20 or so floors pancake collapsed into the floors below they would encounter resistance at each floor. This would mean a progressive collapse that takes much longer than the actual collapse. This has always been the smoking gun in my estimation.

You're on the right track. Have you heard of WTC 7? The collapse of WTC 7 is biggest smoking gun out all the smoking guns.

From everything I've read on WTC 1 and 2 (which, admittedly, probably isn't everything available, I doubt anyone has read "everything") the physics for the collapse being solely due to the plane impacts are fairly sound.

But I'm done arguing about that today, as I need to sleep. And I'm tired of it. No pun intended. So perhaps we can agree to disagree just this once and spare each other from giant walls of text laced with links...?

Actually I was just making a comment, not at all looking for a debate. I recognize I do not have a lot of background in this, vaccines are what interest me.

and I don't believe the election was rigged

there'e more evidence for that than LIHOP

Man, this is really good. Please make a tl;dr for this. Because I read the first part and it was good. This will hopefully make you a 'truther'

1: Nano-thermite, thermite, thermate found. 2: Steel melted, only thermite would've caused this. 3: Free fall collapse. 4 Symmetrical collapse. 5 Multi ton steel beams deep into other buildings. 6: Evidence for explosions, like squibs. 7: Buildings were designed to have a plane crash into it, yet they collapsed an hour later. 8: NEVER before in HISTORY has an steel structure collapsed due to fire. 9: Fire burnt for 92 days after 9/11, even when the area was flooded. Thermite can supply it's own oxygen under water. 10: WTC 7 collapsed. 11: WTC 7 only had small office fires yet it collapsed symmetrically and in free fall. 12: 3 frames released of the Pentagon 'crash'. Out of many, many video's. 13: FBI confiscated the takes very quickly and warned the people who saw the 'crash'. 14: Only plane wreckage near the Pentagon could be picked up by hand. 15: One hole, 8ft wide, Penetrated 3 rings of steel reinforced concrete. 16: Where was the NTSB on 9/11 in general? 17: Grass on lawn of Pentagon untouched. 18: No plane to be seen in Pennsylvania. 19: Scientifically impossible that plane vaporized. 20: Removal of Ground Zero rumble started very quickly, breaking the law. 21: No mention of WTC7 in the 9/11 Commission report. 22: Mysterious deaths of 9/11 eyewitnesses and of people who were in the news pointing at the problems with the official story.

Unfortunately, a wall of text with no sources does not an argument make.

Even with sources, you don't appear to be presenting any information I haven't already considered. Much of it doesn't look particularly relevant to the specifics I stated, but as you say, you didn't read the whole post. Fair enough.

And I don't do tldrs, sorry. If I'm interested in reading a book, I'll read the book and not the cliff notes. Important bits get left out, and I don't want to read other people's ideas of what's important and what's not. I don't think others should either. It only serves to dilute rational discourse.

Not trying to be an ass, sorry if this sounds rude.

A wall of text with common sense does. Nah, I get it.

Btw, the last piece of your >wall of text makes me think you need to search help. I'm serious man.

Btw, the last piece of your >wall of text makes me think you need to search help. I'm serious man.

Btw, the last piece of your wall of text makes me think you need to search help. I'm serious man.

Btw, the last piece of your >wall of text makes me think you need to search help. I'm serious man.

Nothing.

I have always thought that it's fatally foolish to offer blind trust to anyone - person or organization - except your parents, spouse, and children... and depending upon conditions, spouse can become iffy quickly.

Question, research, think, conclude.

Except when you conclude you cease doing the first 3 and move to defending your conclusion.

The trick is to care less about what the truth is and more about discovering it.

Yeah, some people just need to get convinced before they ask "But why would the American government do it".

Tell us more, please! What have they said? What makes you think they have the power to pull it off?