"Defenders of the official version of 9/11 claim that people who question the government's account are anarchists who want to tear down the United States of America.
This is important because many Americans in a position to be able to spread the truth or help to obtain justice will fight any effort which they think will destroy America.
Are 9/11 truth activists, in fact, anarchists?
Well, I've been involved in the 9/11 truth movement for years, have spoken with many of the leading advocates for 9/11 truth, and have been involved enough in various groups and discussion boards to have a sense of the types of people who question 9/11. Based on that experience, I would say no.
Specifically, I would guess that no more than 1% of those who question 9/11 are anarchists. The overwhelming majority are conservatives, liberals, democrats, republicans, greens, libertarians, grandparents, teenagers, young parents, professionals, professors, students, scientists, engineers, lawyers, politicians, architects, and others who love America and want to fix the system and improve the system, not destroy it. I believe that other long-time 9/11 truth activists, such as Steve Watson and Paul Joseph Watson, have similar estimates.
Indeed, most people who question 9/11 believe that most "anarchists" within the movement are actually agents provocateur hired by the government to disrupt the movement.
Anarchy Doesn't Help
For those 9/11 truth advocates who promote anarchy because you sincerely believe it is better than any form of government, let me take a minute to respectfully address that idea.
Did you know that the same Founding Father who argued for periodic revolutions to keep the government honest also argued against tearing down something unless you have something better in mind to replace it? Its true. Thomas Jefferson, the most vocal advocate of the citizens' right to revolt to ensure honest government also cautioned against tearing something down unless it was for the express purpose of replacing it with something better.
Is Jefferson right?
Well, the law of entropy says things tend towards disorganization. It has taken billions of years for life to evolve from one-celled, to multi-celled, then on to plants, animals, smart monkeys, humans, then human society.
No one wants to tear down the state of organization so completely that we go back to monkeys (without the ability to talk), or one-celled critters . . . so the question is how much organization do we want to destroy?
Have you ever lived in the woods for a month with no backpack, no stove, no lighter, no high-tech sleeping bag? No, I didn't think so.
Do you want to live as a native american? Okay, but the native americans had survival skills, cultural traditions, and knowledge developed over many hundreds or thousands of years (especially counting knowledge gained before the migration from Asia to America), stored in the database of oral traditions. If you tear away all of that organization, you're going to be a lot more like this lonely guy than a native.
I could go on, but my basic point is that you need to think through how much organization you really are willing to give up before you go tearing everything down.
It is easy for a teenager to criticize his parents, but a lot harder to actually create a better adult life for himself. A teenager looks silly and immature when he criticizes everything his parents do without understanding the challenges he'll face as an adult. But a young person who rebels against his parents and then creates a better adult life is doing important and heroic work.
The Constitution and The Free Market
The Constitution is a brilliant document. Sure, its not 100% perfect. For example, people of color, women, and non-landowning men weren't counted as citizens. But the basic principles and vision enshrined in the Constitution are tremendously good.
The main problem is that the U.S. hasn't lived up to the Constitution. Even before the ink had dried on the document, anti-American forces -- who had ideas very different from those of the Founding Fathers -- worked to try to undermine and weaken it. Maybe we need some tweaks or even a constitutional convention to make sure that liberty is better protected, but the founding document is basically sound.
What about free market capitalism?
The situation in America today is that corruption is so rampant that the little guy doesn't get a fair shake and the corruption might cause the whole economy to come crashing down at any minute. But does that mean that free market capitalism itself doesn't work (like Karl Marx theorized)?
Well, we don't currently have free market capitalism. Some giant corporations pay little or no taxes The government gives huge grants to certain corporations as part of its effort to promote American exports. The government steps in to prop up the stock market when it is taking a nosedive. And laws are often skewed to favor the big guy. So the problem isn't necessarily with free market capitalism -- we don't have that system in America today.
Moreover, Adam Smith, the "father" of free market capitalism warned against the accumulation of too much wealth in too few hands. He warned that over-consolidation would corrupt the free market and destroy its benefits. So the problem isn't necessarily with Smith's idea of the free market, but our failure to heed Smith's warning about corruption of that system.
Finally, the free market only works if buyers have full information about costs -- both present and future. For example, let's say someone is deciding whether to buy a share of stock in an oil company, but he doesn't know that that oil company supports death squads in Iraq (hypothetically), which will in turn make millions of people in the middle east hate America, which in turn will lead to a world war (which the U.S. may very well start at the urging of the same oil company), which will bankrupt America, which will cause suffering for him and his family . . . .
Would he have bought that share in the oil company stock if he had known all of that? Probably not. If he had known that, he could have made a rational decision. Again, the problem is not necessarily with free market capitalism, but with failing to follow the basic principle that full information is needed for people to make their decisions. The problem is that the true costs of our government's and corporations' actions are being hidden from us.
Is communism better? Look at how Stalin treated his people! How can anyone espouse communism in this day and age?
Maybe someone can come up with a new, better system. But for now, tweaking the Constitutional form of government and free market capitalism is the best way to go, in my opinion.
Instead of tearing everything down and having to reinvent the wheel, and recreate the years of organization which have occurred, why not keep the good and throw out the bad? Throw out (and jail) all of the corrupt criminals who have perverted those systems. Throw out the mechanisms which create an uneven playing field for the wealth. Refine the systems in major ways so that they more accurately reflect the intentions of the Founding Fathers and Adam Smith.
But why start over with some paleolithic version of reality? Why not take the best of modern life and jettison the worst? Why have to start all over at square one?
Why not keep the momentum going of the insights and inspirations of the Founding Fathers and others throughout history who have dreamed big?
posted by George Washington at 9:47 AM"
