Corrected By Reality

The first casualty of war is the truth- a quote attributed to many individuals which rings true for the war against irrationality. Not only is truth the first causality, but logic quickly follows. A good indicator of irrational thinking is when an individual contradicts themselves repeatedly. In reality, contradictions do not exist- which is why arriving at a contradiction means that one should “check their premises, you will find that one or more of them is often wrong.”

Conspiracy theories are often chock full of contradictions and gullible folks are caught repeating those contradictions without thinking them through. For a large majority of the 9/11 conspiracists, this is due to their political position. They hate Bush / this government / government in general, so soaking up anything anti-Bush / anti-American / anti-government is easy- whether it makes sense or not is unimportant. One need to look no further than the claim of a conspiracy theory regarding 9/11 itself to see a gigantic example of this: I have yet to see any conspiracist give me a full timeline of the events of 9/11 without contradicting the major events. What I mean is- a conspiracist will say that WTC 1 & 2 were taken down by controlled demolition, but Flight 93 was shot down. One event demands government involvement- the other suggests that the government knew nothing of what was happening, and is covering that lack of knowledge up. It makes no sense.

This lack of consistency was recently perfectly demonstrated by the same blujesus character I mentioned in another post. In a somewhat dishonest attempt to answer the 9/11 Conspiracy Challenge, blujesus presented some of his criteria- one of which was so blatantly contradictory that it’s puzzling that as of this post, he still tries to defend it.

According to blujesus, if Bush were to testify under oath before an independent commission (one he says should be headed by Kucinich), then blujesus would admit that he is wrong. The political bias is immediately easy to see, but it goes far deeper than just identifying political figures which he likes or dislikes. He is of course attempting to hitch on to the facts of the 9/11 Commission and use them for his own political advantage. Whether he realizes it or not, it’s that very act of positioning that is likely the reason that Bush refused to be placed under oath during his testimony.

First, this does not even qualify as a response to my question (I ask for a fact or piece of evidence specifically to avoid this sort of dogma) and is instead a demand for action, which is covered in the earlier post regarding common answers to the Challenge. Second, to imply that the individual who blujesus would be accusing of the murder of 3,000 people would suddenly be so overwhelmed by the power of oath as to admit to his crimes is highly irrational. I not only find it hard to believe- but am certain that the statistics would support the statement that it’s unusual if not unheard of that putting someone under oath would force them to admit to their crimes- especially a crime as heinous and insane as the multitude that conspiracists accuse Bush of. When it was pointed out to blujesus that this criteria was self-defeating, his response was to fall back to his real reason behind the post. He did not address the rationality of his claim, but instead attempted a strawman argument claiming that putting people under oath is legitimate, other people have been put under oath, and that I must be rejecting the sanity of judges and prosecutors who put others under oath. This tirade continues to be his primary defense against my rebuttal, despite the fact that I have corrected him numerous times.

How can people like blujesus not see the outright stupidity of their claims? I tried another approach- to follow his logic to its conclusion. I asked him- if Bush were to placed under oath and sat quiet, lied, made a bunch of monkey noises, or maybe even just got up and left- would blujesus still admit that he’s wrong? Of course, he was unable to answer the question and instead continued to try to impose his strawman. Would he admit that people can lie under oath? Yes- he was capable of doing that, but insisted that the truth still comes out through investigation. He failed to notice that he shot himself in the foot by admitting that truth is not only objective and unrelated to the act of putting someone under oath, but is indeed discovered through investigation. Though he admits to small pieces of his story being inconsistent, he’s incapable of committing to the fact that it’s entirely irrational. He recognizes that facts are facts regardless of whether someone admits to them or not- he recognizes that putting someone under oath will not suddenly make them truthful- and is even willing to admit that previous attempts to put people under oath have not exactly been successful (he attempted to use Clinton as an example… when I pointed out that Clinton lied, he retreated back to his previous strawman argument).

So what gives? If an argument is made up of A and B and both A and B are found to be false, why would a person still try to maintain that argument- even after admitting it’s clearly wrong?

When you arrive at a contradiction- check your premises, you will find that one of them is often wrong. It’s not that people like blujesus are interested in truth or even addressing my Challenge- which would be a fair assumption since he’s trying to respond to my Challenge- instead, they are interesting in political puppet shows where they can shove their hand straight up the puppethole of some politician they do not like and make him do things they would not normally do. When their fantasy is threatened, they attack the individual pleading for reason by forcing him to watch the puppet show and demand that he support or condemn a particular actor. The brute force strawman arguments necessary to perform this kind of a puppet show have produced such a ridiculous string of claims that it’s difficult to keep track of what blujesus even believes at any given moment (even by his own words). He is often forced to ignore 3 or 4 rounds of questions just to keep repeating his strawman arguments, and then suddenly claims victory for no reason at all.

I turn the spotlight on this sort of thinking because it’s the greatest threat to reason as I see it- individuals who are so blindly wrapped up in their own hatred or fueled by a passion pushed onto them by individuals seeking to manipulate their very sense of being. I don’t really believe that blujesus is capable of putting forth the argument on his own- because I don’t see him defending it with any sort of thought process- he’s just repeating what he’s told to repeat and puking out catch phrases that he’s memorized from various sources. It’s that sort of hatred and manipulation that has caused a large majority of the 9/11 conspiracists in the US and elsewhere to believe what they believe. It’s not through careful consideration of the facts, scientific inquiry, critical thinking, or anything of any objective rational process- it’s pure political dogma.