Skeptic club vs Ultimate CTist group tips & help!

[fourtoe]

I'm the president of BASS (Bruin Alliance of Skeptics and Secularists) at UCLA and the most wonderful comment was left on our club's blog:

On 03.24.09 Garko Factor said:

A group I am part of would like to have a discussion with your group about the failure of the 911 commission report and whether the incompetence of that commission is tantamount to treason under the Constitution Article 2 Section 3.
We also cover other topics that might be interesting to your people. We showed a film about genetically modified food recently which was highly promoted on KPFK we even had the creator of the film on the radio on the day of the showing.
I think we should discuss.
Best,
Garko Factor

I would love nothing more than to talk to these folk at our club and set them straight. Not only is this guy a troofer, a NWO CTist, Ron Paul supporter, it just so happens that he is an advocate for Scientology.

I thought this was too good to be true. And I also thought that I should do a lot of research but I should also ask for help from you awesome kids here on JREF on this.

The reason why I would want help is that his website has A LOT to cover. I can't post links yet but my friend LostAngeles can so she'll direct you to this guys blog and our club's blog as well.

Thanks in advance and stuff!

[LostAngeles]

Seriously, this is a treasure trove.

TRUE CONFESSIONS (http://trueconfessions.info/).

ConspiRaider advised in IRC that we keep them to a single topic (likely 9/11) as CTers tend to bounce around. I figure the best plan of attack is to wade through their stuff to be prepared for what they might throw out and keep their asses on topic. So yeah, advice highly welcome on this.

ETA: BTW, this is not an April Fool's prank, unless El BASS Jefe is pulling one on me.

[JoeyDonuts]

I would love nothing more than to talk to these folk at our club and set them straight. Not only is this guy a troofer, a NWO CTist, Ron Paul supporter, it just so happens that he is an advocate for Scientology.

Bolding mine.

First off, welcome!

Arm yourself with the Gravy sites. One-stop shop for conspiracy lancing.

Next, don't expect to "set any of them straight." They will hop around and squirm and claim that the mountain of evidence for the official version of events and invalid because it came from the government. Given the amount of other nuttery they are into, they are already heavily emotionally invested in their worldview. You can bukakke them with facts and things that have been empirically proven time and time again and they will hand-wave them away, move the goalposts, move on to FEMA camps or other Alex Jones B.S. The people in this group see themselves as crusaders, the standard-bearers of light in the darkness. That's a hard fantasy to let go of once you get invested in it. They will be lost causes until they see things as they really are. Or finish their doctorates and turn into pseudoscience-spouting loonies like Dr. Judy Wood.

The people you should worry about convincing are the "lurkers." The people who will show up to the 'debate' or whatever it's called. Some of these folks are on the fence (if the audience hasn't been pre-staged by your woo friends which would not surprise me.)

In closing, you should have a good idea of what their arguments are going to be better than they do. Time is on your side here, as the last original theory to get squeezed out of 9/11 truth folks is the Pilots for Truth 'North of Citgo' flight path, which even a good chunk of the movement itself sees as bunk.

You'll know you've got them on the ropes when they start accusing you of being New World Order CIA Bilderberg Grove FEMA disinformation operatives or some such crap.

Good luck, and remember the exhaust port is only 2m wide, so you'll have to use your targeting computer.

[Caustic Logic]

Some recommendations from a non-expert debunker:

1) Don't act like you're trying to hard - keep in mind they asked you, and also their opinions and straightness don't matter much to anyone, maybe even themselves. That said, good chance to practice some skill in a field you're interested in...

2) Give THEM the choice of some topics they think are really good - not just "9/11" but specific pieces of evidence or specific arguments. Collapse speed, some quote, the Pentagon (if you go there my old site is good - frustratingfraud.blogspot.com, check the sidebar links). Try and get these given to you prior to the slaughter, about an hour of research may suffice, depending. Bring specifics here for better pointers if need be.

3) Employ methodical logic to break down their claims - fact a, fact b... relations between these facts, and address each one - be fair and admit when you can't disprove this or that, or they may be right on one thing, but clearly show how what they claim means X could mean X, Y or Z, with X unlikely because... Truth is about facts and reality, show them who's a Truther. And then shake hands and invite them to join you.

[Ohnoes]

I'm no Pro Debunker or anything but just remember to keep your cool as they will dig at you in attempt to get you rattled.

Plus, if they support Scientology then they probably aren't going to be bringing a full plate to the table if you know what I mean.

[Brainster]

Sounds to me like they are going to focus on the commission, so I would bone up with Shenon's The Commission and also Kean and Hamilton's Without Precedent. Shenon can be a little tendentious but his facts are generally accurate, so I would push that here's this guy whose book is very critical of the commission and yet that ends up concluding that they were mostly right.

I discussed the Shenon book extensively here (http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/2008/11/commission-by-philip-shenon.html).

Not surprisingly, he's quoted the wrong part of the constitution; article 2, section 3 reads:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

He could mean Article 2, Section 4, but even that just lists treason as a possible reason for impeachment. Or perhaps it's Article 3, Section 3, which describes treason as follows:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

One presumes that he'll push "adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort," part. According to Wikipedia (I'm sure you can find a better source), nobody has even been tried for treason since the Civil War, and even there an obvious traitor like Jefferson Davis, while indicted, was never brought to trial, let alone convicted. So you could definitely point to the hilariously disproportionate notion of the 9-11 Commission facing treason charges in court when Jeff Davis never did.

If they give you the typical blizzard of factoids on one particular point, don't respond point by point. Go for the nuclear option. If they pull seventeen reasons why Flight 77 didn't crash at the Pentagon, ask them to admit that very large Boeing airliners crashed at the WTC. Assuming they accept that, why would the plotters hesitate at crashing a third plane into the Pentagon?

This forces them to either theorize (where they get into trouble) or acknowledge they don't know. You can also skillfully paint your opposition into the extreme truther as Ron Wieck did masterfully (http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://video.google.com/videoplay%3Fdocid%3D-4732132614662229339&ei=ryvTSfvJI9XslQfO0Z37Cw&usg=AFQjCNF79xggaVxiDAtHJUg9T9amvevqUw) a few years ago with Les Jamieson. Jamieson was objecting that it hadn't been proven that Flights 11 and 175 had hit the towers. Wieck pointed out that a segment of the Truthers believed that it was two other planes that hit the towers; "Surely you don't believe that?" he asked. Well, Les admitted a little sheepishly that he did believe just that. Just a terrific job by Ron.

Familiarize yourself with some of the common truther myths about the commission. For example, they will point out that the first chapter of the Kean/Hamilton book notes that the commission was set up to fail. Read the paragraph that follows that statement and you'll quickly see that they don't feel that it did fail.

Good luck and hope this helps!

[fourtoe]

Thanks to everyone whose posted so far. A lot of these suggestions are definitely gonna be taken in account when we plan for this whole thing.

I've debated (informally) Creationists/IDiots and my favorite crazy people, the LaRouchebags. I've looked at a number of the sites on these subjects including the ones made by Gravy, Brainster, and WalterEgo.

I've also seen all the Hardfire episodes on 911* (not Mackey's though, soon!) and pretty much know the arguments concerning NIST. However, I am not too familiar with the Commission Report and thanks Brainster for the info.

I'm definitely aiming for the fence sitters on this one, too.

I also like the usage of bukakke JoeyDonuts.

Again, every post so far I am going to have in mind when I set this up. Hopefully that will be later tonight.