(I first posted this at JREF today, but I thought you might like it.)

The 9/11 Truther Credo.

a.k.a.: The 9/11 TWOOfer Credo

(Inspired by (and text in blue shamelessly stolen from) The Woo-Woo Credo.)



Google “9/11 truth”. Think, “Wooooo”. Keep clicking on googlebombed links. Think, “Woo” some more. Refer to your googling as “real research”. Keep thinking, “Woo”.


Connect the dots. Read about “holes in the official story”. Make leaps to conclusions between one “hole” and another. Those dots just don’t connect themselves, you know.


Never look for the simplest, most obvious cause of something. Refrain from mentioning Occam's Razor (it's your nemesis). Instead, use Smacco’s Razor. “It couldn’t have been 19 hijackers – it must have been one big, corrupt gubmint/media.”


Fight strawmen valiantly. Repeatedly state that 9/11 was not caused by “Arabs in caves”, and that burning jet fuel alone did not bring down the buildings. Accuse your opponents of being George Bush-lovers, and dismiss their evidence accordingly.


Misuse technical terms as often as possible. The terms “squib” and “pyroclastic flow” are your friends.


Use one myth to support another myth.
“They were going to create a false-flag operation (Northwoods) in the Sixties therefore 9/11 was an inside job”.
“Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy therefore 9/11 was an inside job”.
“9/11 was an inside job therefore anyone who disagrees with me is a disinformation agent”.


Smoke weed copiously. You can never have enough paranoia and crazy thoughts.


Embrace paranoia. When someone uses facts to prove one of your claims wrong, call them a “disinformation agent”, “shill”, or say that they are “spinning”.


Always claim that the other guy is "closed-minded" and that you're as free-thinking as a newborn baby. Other woo-woos love the concept of "open-mindedness" and will take you into their inner circle without question. They have no tolerance for those "mean old nasty" types who demand evidence for everything.


You must believe that the word "anomaly" means proof of sinister gubmint activity.


Use the word "anomaly" as often as possible. If you can’t spell it, say ‘holes in the official story’.


Pontificate, use diatribe and rhetoric. Call your opponents, “sheeple” and urge them to “wake up”. They may have gone to sleep during your rants. They also need urging to “connect the dots” as you have.


Use Caps-Lock in the word “TRUTH” wherever possible, or at least capitalize the first letter of “Truth”. Better still, SHOUT TO GET YOUR POINT ACROSS. Bystanders may be as easily swayed as you are, you hope.


Call the “official story” (the scientific, evidence-based, professional investigation and conclusion) the “official conspiracy theory” so that easily swayed people will, in one fell swoop, stop using logic, science and evidence to analyse the material.


Call yourself a “skeptic”, so that easily swayed people will, in one fell swoop, think you are using logic, science and evidence in your discussion.


Accuse your opponent of being a liar, or try some other tactic that will (hopefully) make him angry. If he responds in kind to your endless taunts, change the subject to his anger, and accuse him of name calling. If he accuses you of provoking him, then you have changed the subject of the debate. If he stays on topic, keep the heat up. The Believers in the audience will forgive the worst verbal attacks you use, but they will think even the mildest replies he makes to you are personal attacks that undermine his argument.


Change the subject. When discussing the WTC, quote the reports of loud explosions and Steven Jones’ theory of therm*te, and then when someone points out those quotes are incompatible, refer to or post a long cut’n’pasted article from rense.com about Bush needing to be impeached.


Use incredulity.
Re: WTC7:
“I can’t believe that a WTC building not hit by a plane collapsed!”
So WTC1 & 2 collapsed?
“Er, no, they had to be demolished too.”


Ask questions. That makes it look as though you’ve done some thinking (or parroting).


Ignore answers. Keep asking the same questions. Think, “Wooooo”. It’s fun to say, “Wooooo”. 9/11 is all about fun, right? And feeling like you’re doing some “real research” and investigation. Because. They’re. Never. Going. To. Re-open. 9/11. Based. On. Your. “Investigation”.


Have inflated self-esteem. “All the structural engineers in the world are wrong, but I know the TRUTH”. .


Derail. In discussion forums, when others are discussing a topic, introduce a 9/11 twoof-related question. When someone replies with a quick debunk, make a huge post uploading all your brain’s delusions, and expect everyone to debunk them succinctly yet in depth, and to not refer to physics, engineering, FEMA, NIST, etc, or 9/11 Myths, Popular Mechanics, Mark Roberts, Wikipedia, etc, etc. When they try, accuse them of being disinformation agents. If they don’t try, claim you’ve proven the “inside job”.


--

And with acknowledgement to T.A.M., NickUK, LashL and Curnir:

Claim that you are “obviously” and “clearly” using “common sense” and that “experts are useless”. Ignore the fact that experts in physics, engineering, communications, aeronautics, mechanics, videography, photography, military operations, and all manner of numerous branches of science, technology, arts, humanities, and law disagree with the twoofer version, and be adamant that “it stands to reason” that the official story “doesn’t add up”. Use common sense and be incredulous that WTC2 fell first, and don’t “add up” the fact that the plane’s impact site was 20 floors lower than WTC1’s.

9/11 is all about fun, right?

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

I know. At the Loose Change forum, they've been urging people to upload the Saddam execution video to the web with their website's address stamped on the bottom, to get the twoofer message out. I thought they'd already lost the plot, but...

Yeesh. These people couldn't market meat to a lion...

The OP is a fair representation of the workings of the minds of not only 911 CTers, but CTers in general...

However...

This portion detracts from your argument. Unless you can show through evidence that drug usage is responsible for CT behavior, then the quoted portion is nothing but an ad hom.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

He never said that, only that drug use supports paranoia and crazy thoughts.
CTs might have paranoia and crazy thoughts but not everybode with that is a CT...

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"Who does not know anything, must believe everything."
Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach 1830-1916
our animal welfare board and organisation

I just consider it to be wildly speculative to introduce drug usage as a contributing factor (or whatever) in the behavior of CTers. That sort of speculation is simply not needed to prove the point that the CTers don't know what they are talking about.

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

<chuckle>
frustrated?
R.A.F. i agree the point should have been left unsaid, and it WAS speculation, however i dont think its all that wild either.... How many times did you read something crazy and ask youself.. "Whats this guy been smokin!?!?!"
LOL.. Well not a huge deal right?
Well i think we can all agree that evidence is in favor of leaving mind altering substances alone- or as Peirs Anthoney calls them: Mind Zonking Drugs
Sounds like this person is familiar with a name i wont mention in the 911 Pentagon thread
Orphia nay- ITS OK! these "freethinkers" make themselves pretty CLEAR that they would'nt know the Truth from a hole in a story- but they are a Small Minority. and they will ALWAYS exist- How many of US.. as Kids.. Speculated wildly and thought we had seen The "obvious" that others missed?
When i was a kid i thought i had the Big Bang all figured out- i even ARGUED with my science teacher...(i really WAS a kid! Seriously!)
Each person is somewhere on a path.. and as time passes- Most will move forward.. Some people, though, will just never grow up... Well thats their problem.
But dont undermine the intellect of the average person. You dont need a Degree in math and physics to know when someones capitalizing on Sensationalism.


Hint: try being a phone salesman and see how often people hang up on you when you ignore questions and run around in circles!

I think we've all seen this credo put into practise on a certain thread...

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This is no fantasy. No careless product of wild imagination. - Jor-El

Godspeed, John Glenn. - Scott Carpenter

And these atomic bombs that science burst upon the world that night were strange even to the men that used them.
- H.G Wells, The World Set Free

To the conspiracy crowd, radiation is a big Boogey Man that inspires terror and death in all who encounter it. - JayUtah

You forgot to mention that: when backed into a corner call all skeptics "dumb americans" and if they happen to be foreign call them liars Heh it's a special case of calling skeptics "George Bush lovers" but it happens often enough to warrant it's own line in the credo

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

You and Laguna2 both make quite good points. I wouldn't say it was "wildly" speculative, but rather "speculative". (For the record, I'm a "she" not a "he".)

I've been debating twoofers in several forums for nearly 15 months now, and they almost invariably follow the guidelines in the credo. Several of those twoofers have said in off-topic discussions (not admitting to me personally) that they like to smoke weed.

Although it is a borderline ad-hom, ridiculing them is attacking them personally too.

I might change the wording slightly when I post it at my blog:

Smoke weed copiously, or act like you do. You can never have enough paranoia and crazy thoughts.


I haven't read many of the 9/11 threads here lately, so I'm glad others have found similarities with person/s posting here too. Well, not "glad" that there are so many twoofers... you know what I mean. (Good comments, Neverfly.)

Yes, I've seen that quite a few times.

TY Orphia Nay
its actually a simpler goofier version of whats on Hoax thread- uhh NASA attitude...

I'd put that as: Accuse all skeptics of any nationality of either being dumb deluded Americans or working for the secret U.S. Disinformation agency.

Also:

If you find that board management actually requires you to follow some rules, accuse them of being run by the secret U.S. Disinformation agency. It doesn't matter that the board's focus is not [insert conspiracy theory of choice], that is the only important subject in the universe.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I like your version much better than mine VR.

Ok, that does it, you and the Elf are OFF my Will! Don't you hate it when there are people in the world that can express your ideas better than you can?

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

I see some interesting pattern to start emerge on this board. Some of the CT debunkers will post what a CT "would" say and the others CT debunkers then reply.
Uhm.. it is like talking to a mirror, isn't it?. What, not enough people paying attention to you? Nobody to talk at home? Cat is asleep? Fish died? Shopping mall closed?

People love to share their hobby with others. It's a form of socializing. It's not really any different than a CTer adding "just wait and see what the disinfo agents have to say about this", which gets followed up by five or six congratulatory slaps on the back by others (who may or may not be sock puppets).

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"The plan does not involve mayonaise."
"... I knew there was a catch."

You can't take the sky from me.

Ahh, sorry. "Act like everyone is the same person" is already on the woo-woo credo list, I believe.

So, no... it's not at all like talking to a mirror.

Does your mirror talk back to you after you've been speaking?

my TV does..

, Neverfly.

Great! I'm going to add that and some other suggestions from JREF to the Credo, giving credit, and upload the whole thing to my blog (small and insignificant that it is), but I'm thinking I might see about getting some free web space for it. If you object, or have any further suggestions, do the post-ish thingy.

This has me confused... i think he said that..
i dont disagree with the profile but
i just didnt say it- if you are giving credit i hope its going to the proper party



<cough, cough> in other words- him not me

Oops!! I had you on the brain, Neverfly! Apologies to you and Van Rijn.

<chuckle>
Van Rijns said quite a few quotable things
in fact hes listed in some signitures around here

"Right. If you see a plaid comet coming your way, it is definitely time to panic." - Van Rijn

That's why I took him and the elf off my will

(not to worry VR all there is in that will is debts )

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

No objections from this corner of the trench

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

<Smacks Sigma Orionis Upside the head>

Ah, good. My elf was a bit depressed there for a time.

Anyway, glad you liked my minor update of your comment. I have no problem with anyone using it.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

How does one tell that an invisible elf is depressed?
I assume that it also does not make sounds, which would also give away its location, so you can't listen for sobbing?
A sign of depression is often that one does not follow your normal routines, like going to work or social interactions. So, is a sign of depression in invisible elfs to stop working on being invisible and to become visible?

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Maybe he can Smell it