Avatar

That's one hell of a baseless accusation. No one "let" 9/11 happen any more than they "let" the Hindenburg disaster happen or they "let" Pearl Harbor happen, or "let" the giant wildfires in souther California happen...

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. All you've done is present out-of-context photos, massively misinterpeted memos, and the unspoken premise that the US government is utterly evil no matter what it does.

Make no mistake--I beleive the "Patriot Act" to be a badly and hastily written mish-mash of opportunism by the more hawkish folks in Washington. I would think that if 9/11 had been staged or "allowed" to happen just for the purpose of passing the Patriot Act, the Act would have been a lot more polished than it is.

Conspiracists. Sheesh.

chapka

We're not talking about a question of interpretation here. We're not talking about ambiguous orders which might or might not have granted certain authorities. We're talking about orders which simply do not, on any reading, grant any such authority, and furthermore some of which explicitly state that they do not confer any additional authority.

If the government wants to try to seize control of the entire American infrastructure, it can try. The existence of these executive orders is irrelevant to this question.

Consider the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Some people will tell you it requires individual gun rights, and some limit it to the militia mentioned in the Amendment. You can make a plausible, or at least colorable, argument for either interpretation, based on the language. If you had asked your question above in the context of one of the above interpretations, it would be a reasonable question.

What you did was not like either of those positions; it was as if someone had said, "Obviously, the Second Amendment gives American citizens the right to shoot non-citizens without legal repercussions." It's simply not reasonably derivable from the language we're examining.

I think a more interesting question is this. It's pretty clear that you never read the executive orders in question before you posted them, since several of the numbers are incorrect and all of the descriptions are the same as the ones posted all over the web. If I had to guess, I'd say you probably copied them from infowars or prisonplanet. Now, as we've seen, much of the information on those sites has been shown to be simply incorrect, time and again. I know you've seen the list I sometimes post of 9/11 conspiracy claims that turned out to be bullshit. Given that, why would you continue to take something they say on faith, without even looking into it yourself? Do you honestly not think that these sites may have a bit of a credibility problem?

If you disagree with my reading, give me a plausible reading of your own. But give yourself some credit; don't just do a cut and paste job. Actually read the document and see for yourself what it says.

JohNeo

No, no our government wouldn't do anything so overt...they only operate in secrecy, quietly rounding up their own citizens (aka voters, workers, consumers, taxpayers) , taking them from their homes and sticking them in these concentration camps to conduct medical experiments and executions.

(Sung to the tune of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus) Paaarrranoia! Paranoia! Paranoia! Paranoia! Paraaaanoia!

DrewJ, you'd better look around you and see that your own government is out to get you.

Cynical-Chick

Yes, Drew, the entire US government knows you're right and is out to get you, just you! You'd better watch your back, mon ami.

Avatar

An excellent point.

If the "evil government" is as evil and efficient as the conspiracists claim, why are they still alive? One would think that after murdering thousands just to (insert your favorite evil motive here), they wouldn't have any problem:

a) ...shutting down websites that show proof of their evil,
b) ...eliminating the handful or two of "devoted investigators" who create or maintain those sites,
c) ...tracking the movements of not only the "investigators" but everyone who ever visited said sites as well,
d) ...elmininating anyone who disagreed with the party line en masse.

That's always been the biggest stumbling block for conspiracists: If their enemies are so big and evil, why are they still alive?

MrFrosty

It's part of the conspiracy, man.

If they fragged all the peeps, it would prove them right! It's part of the conspiracy to do nothing and let us do the discrediting for them.

I solved it, I fucken solved it