Ever shut down a 9/11 Conspiracy Theorist?

[John Blonn]

I'd like to hear some stories detailing times when you completely shut down a twoofer in his/her tracks. Has there ever been a moment where you completely stumped a CTer with facts, wit, logic, or just pure debating skill?

Preference is given to face-to-face interactions, but online interactions are OK too. Recount the debate topic, your argument, and their reaction.

[Anti-sophist]

These moments never happen on-line because they can just be silent and let the topic sink away into the abyss. Or change the subject, etc.

In real life, however, I had a classic moment. My mom was given a DVD (I don't know which) by one of her very liberal co-workers, and she made me watch it with her, last time I was home, because it was very alarming for her and wanted opinions (keeping in mind she is a nurse, and I am an engineer). After I debunked every third word out of their mouths and showed her a bunch of stuff, she wanted me to go to work to confront the moonbat.

Apparently this lady had convinced the entire office, to some degree, of some aspects of the conspiracy theory, by spouting the usual fallacies and bad science. Most of the co-workers were skeptical and knew "deep-down" she was wrong, but obviously had no way of explaining it themselves. Here is basically how the conversation went, keeping in mind this was in front of many people who she'd spent alot of time trying to convince:

CT> Yadda, yadda, yadda, thermite residue
Me> Thermite residue? Do you know what that is?
CT> The chemicals in thermite
Me> Aluminum and Iron Oxide.
CT> Yea, those.
Me> Aluminum and Rust.
CT> I guess.
Me> Aluminim and rust proves thermite?
CT> ....
Me> You realize if a tornado hit your house right now, a bad scientist could find "thermite residue" in the wreckage, right?
CT> Look.. people heard the explosions...
Me> Thermite doesn't explode...
CT> Thermite doesn't explode? Haha!
Me> You know thermite isn't an explosive, right?
CT> Of course it is.

We consult wikipedia, where I show her and her coworkers that thermite is an incindinary. I take them to youtube to show them a thermite reaction. And one of her co-workers, the most skeptical of the bunch, goes "It didn't explode". At this point, all her co-workers realized she was wrong and became disinterested. They all had that moment where I confirmed one piece of her information was bad, and that was all they needed to dismiss the rest. It was like a giant mutual silent vindication. You could almost hear it.

I even talked her down from the intellectual ledge on almost all the issues after that. She was a die-hard liberal so the standdown and other LIHOP-light stuff was hard. Her conspiracy theory (like many) is based on an extreme hatred of Bush much more than anything else. It's just political cyncism.

The entire event really convinced me of how susceptible non-technical people can be to their use of fallacy.

[gumboot]

I had one recently that I would argue was a shut-down.

Was at work and a guy mentioned it offhand. I jumped on it and immediately launched my attack. :p

I don't recall the exact details - the discussion lasted some time and was interrupted by various work-related things. But he brought up every theory under the sun, and was obviously a Looser.

In the end he brought up arguments simply to test if I had an answer, which of course I did - I had heard them all.

At last he offered to email me some of his points so we could discuss it later, and he ceased bringing up any points whatsoever. Of course he didn't email me.

What was more interesting was a third participant of the conversation. We were on a film set, and people in the film industry in NZ are what I'd call your classic woo-woo profile. Alternative medicine, GE myths, conspiracy theories up the wazoo, anything remotely anti-US, they gleefully gobble it up.

The guy watching was a mild CTer on this issue, in my estimates. However by the end of the discussion he was rather vocally arguing in support of the official story.

I doubt I changed the first guy's mind (hence why he hasn't emailed me - he's not interested in the truth) but it felt really good that my demolition of the guy's arguments changed the opinion of someone else.

(Oh, and the CTer claimed to be an engineer which was an interesting twist, because he didn't bring any expertise to the discussion at all, merely regurgitating the same BS and tagging it with "I'm an engineer" each time.)

-Gumboot

[The Doc]

The best way to do it is pretend to be completley ignorant of the facts of 9/11 and play along for a bit, then lay the smack down :)

CT: Did you know a missile hit the pentagon!

Me: Really?! Wow... what makes you think that?

CT: Well there's no plane wreckage! And the lawn was undamaged.

Me: Jeez, that's amazing! So what hit the Pentagon

CT (acting smart): Well the only thing that could have done that is a cruise missile! Think about it... the government hasn't released any videos yet.

Me: Hmmm I see, so surely you've got a bunch of witnesses from the nearby highway who claim they saw a missile hit the building right? And I'll bet you 10 bucks if you tried to obtain the footage from the pentagon, a military installation, from any day of the year you'd get denied ;)

CT: Uhhh....

Me: Don't you think someone would have seen it... or more importantly not said they saw a 757?

CT: Man there's soooo much more evidence that the government did it, I suggest you watch Loose Change...

Me: Ah you mean the same Loose Change made by a film school drop out that claims all the passengers phone calls were fake and that the WTC's were brought down by controlled demolitions?

CT: The towers were brought down by controlled demolition! It's so obvious look at the facts!

Me: Riiight, so how do you suppose a sufficient amount of charges were placed in the building to bring it down without being noticed?

CT: You're just a tool of the corperate media... yadda yadda yadda.

---------

Good times :)

[ArmillarySphere]

I've found (but that may just be my normal modus operandi) that it helps to be extremely logical when you're arguing with someone with the exact opposite opinion. Sit on your emotions, no matter how ridiculous a counter-argument the other side comes up with. It's less likely to cause a hostile reaction if you at least give the impression that you're taking their arguments seriously.

Haven't had to discuss this particular CT yet - a friend of mine got alarmed by LC, so I sent him to Screw Loose Change :D Have successfully argued against creationism and death penalty though. All good fun :)

[JAStewart]

See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8820426888499996890#28m33s

Gravy VS Alex Jones.

Alex Jones tooooooooooottally loses this arguement.

[PerryLogan]

As a nontechnical guy, I don't get too many slam dunks like that thermite thing. Most of my arguments are critiques of the silly scenario the Truthers are selling. I ask them questions like "Why would they frame Osama, and not Saddam, if they wanted to invade Iraq?," "Could the most incompetent administration in galactic history have brought off the trickiest hoax in history, fooling everyonew in the world except you?" and "Would international bankers fund a plan to shut down Wall Street?"

But the conspiracy folks are too stupid to understand these arguments, so I don't get any good shut-downs that way. Verily, CTs are too stupid to understand the arguments that disprove them.

My best moments come when I catch the Truthers lying about Democrats, which is all the time. They're as bad as Republicans that way, but they do it for free.

Ironically, the Truther paradigm relies heavily on Republican disinformation about Democrats. The CTs have to make the Democrats look as bad as the Republicans--otherwise their paradigm won't fly. The two parties have to be made to look the same.

Since the Democrats are in no way like Republicans, you have to tell a lot of whoppers about Democrats to make the conspiracy thing fly.

So the Truthers go ahead make free use of the ample amounts of right-wing disinformation and lies about Democrats which are floating around everywhere.

You'll notice that most of what CTs say about Democrats and Democratic politicians comes from wingut junk news sources such as NewsMax, Fox News, and WorldNetDaily. This alone proves their whole thing is bogus, so I've gotten a few shutdowns that way.

But mostly they do the usual thing and start calling me an agent and making false accusations against me and my family and friends.

Footnote: For documentation on the tendency of Republicans to make things up about Democrats, read The Hunting of the President, by Joe Conason and Gene Lyons (this book has also been made into a documentary film), Blinded by the Right, by Joe Brock, and visit the website Media Matters:
http://mediamatters.org/

Also, talk to your local liberal.

[jhunter1163]

I shut a guy down once who was nattering on about how it was all about oil, and the US just needed a pretext to invade Afghanistan to secure the pipeline route, yada yada. I took this all in for a minute, then asked "How's Enron coming along with that pipeline anyway?"

End of argument.

[Kiwiwriter]

Now, Kevin is a well-behaved, smart kid, great to take along on trips, but being 17 years old, he falls for conspiracy theories easily. He would ask me about the Da Vinci Code and the Illuminati and the Masons and all that nonsense. I'd tell him about Occam's Razor.

I brought him with me to the Wild Bill Guarnere annual family dinner, which honors this actual veteran of the legendary "Band of Brothers," as depicted on HBO, and Kevin was fascinated by the old warrior and his internet fans, of which I am one.

We were dining with "Appell8," one of the members of the Guarnere web discussion page, where I'm "Kiwiwriter," of course. Appell8 is a federal appeals court lawyer in Washington, argues before the Supreme Court, well-connected, and Kevin tossed the conspiracy theories about the Pentagon bombing.

Kevin said that Flight 77 never hit the Pentagon, and it was a cruise missile. Appell8, however, reported up his chain of command directly to the Solicitor General and was friends with his wife, who died on that plane. Yes, Appell8 said, I knew her well, and there was no way she was sacrificed for some idiotic conspiracy.

He also made some other points...friends of his at the Pentagon who had seen the crash, other friends who were injured there, and military pals who were familiar with air crash investigations. Yes, it was a plane, not a cruise missile.

Kevin said something to the effect of, "I think I'll shut up now."

On the way back from the dinner, he told me that meeting Wild Bill and hearing about the horrors of Bastogne had made him realize that history was not just a black-and-white movie or a story, but real events that involved real people.

He learned a lot on that trip.

[twinstead]

(snip)...history was not just a black-and-white movie or a story, but real events that involved real people.


Wow. I wish the 'truth' movement would learn this as early as Kevin did.

Great story.

[Kiwiwriter]

Wow. I wish the 'truth' movement would learn this as early as Kevin did.

Great story.

If they did, they probably wouldn't be nutters.

Remember that at age 14, the world suddenly stinks. You have to pay adult prices, but can't get into adult events. Then at age 15, you start reading books that question the stuff you learn in civics class, and you learn that the myths and legends you were told are not necessarily true...Columbus didn't prove the world was round, the good guys don't win all the battles, the guy playing Santa Claus is a bum from shipping, and when your parents make noise at night, they're not re-arranging the furniture. At 16, you learn that adults get to drink, smoke, and have sex, but you're not allowed to. At the same time, you discover that your parents don't know anything, and all they do is clip your wings and deny you your inalienable right to do what you want.

So at age 17, you know everything, you know that your parents and all the adults are a bunch of hypocritical liars, the world stinks because it's all hypocritical lying garbage, and you still have to pay the adult price, but you're not allowed to get drunk or stoned. So back down to the basement and the internet hookup to whine to your like-minded pals on the web.

Don't forget to include lousy social skills, never getting a date, poor career and college futures, and horrible hygienic habits.

Now if you throw in a lack of education, a dysfunctional family, an organizer from a "Truth" movement with a line of goods (the world would be as perfect as you and me, but for the evil Trilateralists who blew up the World Trade Center), it's a short hop to waging internet flame wars over idiotic conspiracy theories.

Kevin, happily, avoided most of that. So it amazed us that he got into conspiracy garbage in the first place.

Fortunately, I have noticed over the years that you hear about people getting out of conspiracy mania and neo-Nazi mania and getting their heads straight. You don't hear as much about educated people who know the truth about the Holocaust and conspiracy theories making a similar break and becoming nutters.

The people who become these nutters are either blank slates before they get into this stuff or they're pre-disposed to it...Daddy was a Klansman, for example.

I like to point out how David Irving's daughter showed up at a newspaper interview with her mother -- while Irving was awaiting trial in Austria -- brandishing a copy of Anne Frank's diary. She was reading it. She was sending a clear message...she is breaking with her father.

[Brainster]

I've mentioned this before, but I share office space with a couple other guys working in the same general line of business. One afternoon I happened to be walking by an office and one of the guys was saying something about the size of the hole in the Pentagon. Sure enough two of them were watching Loose Change online. I gave them about 10 quick errors that they make, including the Wally Miller quote mining, and sent them an email with links to the Gravy guide and SLC (the blog; the movie wasn't out then). The guy who was pushing the CT to the other guy said later that day that he had to watch the movie again; the next day he told me that I was right, the movie was a bunch of BS.

Of course, that only works with a Denier newbie IMHO; once they've really swallowed the red pill it's hard to talk sense into them.

[Brainster]

Duplicate, sorry.

[CurtC]

Now, Kevin is a well-behaved, smart kid, great to take along on trips, but being 17 years old, he falls for conspiracy theories easily.I've had the thought before that giving a kid like this a copy of The Demon-Haunted World would be a good thing to do. I have a 17 year old nephew that I'm not that close to, but have thought about it.

[Big Les]

See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8820426888499996890#28m33s

Gravy VS Alex Jones.

Alex Jones tooooooooooottally loses this arguement.

I'd read that in transcript, but hadn't seen it. It's official; Gravy is a bloody hero.

[Quad4_72]

See

Gravy VS Alex Jones.

Alex Jones tooooooooooottally loses this arguement.

Here is the best line ever "High fives in place of facts good job." -Mark Roberts

[Kiwiwriter]

I've had the thought before that giving a kid like this a copy of The Demon-Haunted World would be a good thing to do. I have a 17 year old nephew that I'm not that close to, but have thought about it.


Yes, that would be a good idea.

[firecoins]

How could Alex Jones win? Gravy was using lawyer tactics. Thats so unfair. :rolleyes:

[Ceritus]

See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8820426888499996890#28m33s

Gravy VS Alex Jones.

Alex Jones tooooooooooottally loses this arguement.

Thanks for that link, I've been looking for it!

[Kiwiwriter]

See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8820426888499996890#28m33s

Gravy VS Alex Jones.

Alex Jones tooooooooooottally loses this arguement.

Alex Jones certainly came off as a grade A nutter. Wouldn't let Gravy talk, just kept yelling, mostly at the audience.

Alex relies too much on newspaper reports. He should know that newspaper reports are just the first rough draft of history, not definitive in any way. But that's not what he's about...folks here will know the answer, but I think he's an anti-Masonic nut.

And what's with that entourage of young men in black? Is he afraid of getting beaten up or does his ego need the wolf pack?

And how did the debate Gravy was setting up at the end come out?

And Amy's very cute...if this was 12 years ago, I'd be asking her out. That, however, is all behind me now...the only ladies in my life are my wife Kathy and my daughter Wallis. :)

[Bell]

See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8820426888499996890#28m33s

Gravy VS Alex Jones.

Alex Jones tooooooooooottally loses this arguement.

Dude! Gravy is totally a strawman and dumbo! :rolleyes:

Jones has like... newspaper articles!
Everybody now: Who believes 9/11 was an inside job?

[carlvs]

Not personally, but I do take credit for sending the alert that got Killtown thrown off here (I guess the Mods were not amused to find out that he or she had carried his vendetta against Val McClatchey to this forum...:D)

[Gravy]

That's a great story, Kiwi.

There was a Loose Change forum moderator named DJLegacy who was talking a lot of trash about me, knowing that I couldn't post there. Through an intermediary I challenged him to come here and debate me one-on-one. I was at work when he registered here. He posted here 76 times that day, still talking trash. When I logged in and said "Here I am, let's go," he immediately fled. That was my easiest, and funniest, "shut down."

Ground Zero is a curious scene. When I confront the hardcore deniers with facts, and show them the evidence that they're completely wrong, they shrug it off and as soon as I turn my back they spout the same nonsense to the public. However, they don't call me a government shill anymore, and I believe I've made an impression on newcomers to their cause (judging by their return rate).

That Alex Jones encounter was problematic for me. None of the cameras were on "my" side, so I didn't think I could hit Jones with facts as hard as I wanted to and still see some of that material posted on the internet. As it turns out, the deniers don't know when they're losing an argument, and they posted much more of that encounter than I thought they would. They even left in Jason Bermas telling Abby "The firemen are paid off." When I saw that I felt bad about not hammering Jones harder.

[Kiwiwriter]

That's a great story, Kiwi.

There was a Loose Change forum moderator named DJLegacy who was talking a lot of trash about me, knowing that I couldn't post there. Through an intermediary I challenged him to come here and debate me one-on-one. I was at work when he registered here. He posted here 76 times that day, still talking trash. When I logged in and said "Here I am, let's go," he immediately fled. That was my easiest, and funniest, "shut down."

Ground Zero is a curious scene. When I confront the hardcore deniers with facts, and show them the evidence that they're completely wrong, they shrug it off and as soon as I turn my back they spout the same nonsense to the public. However, they don't call me a government shill anymore, and I believe I've made an impression on newcomers to their cause (judging by their return rate).

That Alex Jones encounter was problematic for me. None of the cameras were on "my" side, so I didn't think I could hit Jones with facts as hard as I wanted to and still see some of that material posted on the internet. As it turns out, the deniers don't know when they're losing an argument, and they posted much more of that encounter than I thought they would. They even left in Jason Bermas telling Abby "The firemen are paid off." When I saw that I felt bad about not hammering Jones harder.

Thanks for sharing that, Gravy.

My wife's best pal was Mike Sheridan, operations manager of the World Trade Center until his retirement in 1994, and he was in charge during the 1993 blast. He saved a lot of lives that day. He was also a big wheel in the employees' union. He had a set of keys that opened every door in the complex, and if he lost that key ring, he'd be out $75,000.

He got to watch the towers come down from his home in Florida after retirement, but was back real quick for the funerals, as most of the PA guys who died were his friends and co-workers.

Every time someone said to him that either blast was anything but the work of 19 terrorists armed with boxcutters, he was furious. He knew what really happened, and he was very clear...the terrorists who hijacked the planes and flew them into the buildings did it. He had no tolerance for conspiracy nutters, and when he'd come back to New York (which he did often), and go to memorials or reunions for WTC workers and events, he was able to check himself from delivering a New York Irishman's right cross to those morons.

Mike kept his silence. There were good reasons. The biggest was his respect for the thousands of people and hundreds of friends that got turned to "crispy critters" there, as he put it. The second was that he was a private person, and didn't believe that his grief and others' pain should be displayed to TV cameras and opportunistic morons with penknives to grind and suffering to exploit for financial and egotistical gain.

Sadly, he died of prostate cancer earlier this year, so I can't trot him out, but I know that if he had been at that "debate," Alex Jones would likely have gone down on the deck when he started blathering about people being "paid off" to keep silent.

Anybody who says the firemen were "paid off" doesn't know firefighters. I do. I work with them in Newark and my father-in-law is a retired fire captain. You can't "pay off" firefighters over the deaths of their brothers. It's a question of loyalty that transcends most other relationships. It's like combat infantrymen and warship crews.

The Loose Change nutters assume the firefighters are paid off and have no loyalty, because they themselves have no loyalty, not even to each other. We see this in the immense speed with which they call each other government plants and shills, and hurl accusations and abuse at each other. The neo-Nazi nutters do the same thing on a grander scale, complete with homophobic insults on each other's web pages, and splintering off their various "parties."

You also see the Loose Change and neo-Nazi worship of money in their many behaviors...everything's about the fund-raising and the money. Buy the book. Buy the video. Buy the uniform. Back in 1999, it was "buy the Y2K survival gear." Heck, William Pierce sold his "Turner Diaries" novels, the ugly and poorly-written bible of his movement that was a manual for Tim McVeigh, to a Jewish publisher, Lyle Stuart. That's like Hitler selling the rights to "Mein Kampf" to the World Jewish Congress, or Dylan Avery selling "Loose Change Part V: The Exploitive Sequel" to the Republican National Committee.

They often project their own behaviors and attribute them to their enemies. It's interesting psychology, and I'm actually kind of fascinated by this pathology, because it's so bizarre.

When are you at the World Trade Center? I'll say hello, give some moral support. I live in Newark, but I'm a third-generation native New Yorker.

[John Blonn]

Good stories, everyone. I haven't met a truther in person yet, but I can't wait. The urge to annihilate their fantasy world is being bottled up without a truther to light up!

[uk_dave]

The LC crew also seem to be under the impression that the firefighters are scared to come forward publicly with their tales of CD.

Whic I find particularily strange since in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 New York must have been desperately short of trained firefighters and anyone who spoke out would in all probability not fear for losing their jobs as a result because they were too valuable to treat in that way.

[~enigma~]

Do the LC crowd actually think the NYFD is trained in demolition? If not how can they still make that dumb claim about "pull it"?

[Kiwiwriter]

The LC crew also seem to be under the impression that the firefighters are scared to come forward publicly with their tales of CD.

Whic I find particularily strange since in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 New York must have been desperately short of trained firefighters and anyone who spoke out would in all probability not fear for losing their jobs as a result because they were too valuable to treat in that way.

Yes, the NYFD had severe manpower problems after 9/11, with the massive losses. There was a flurry of promotions to fill the gaps, which heightened recruiting. Lucky for the NYFD, the sacrifice spurred applications, and there were a lot of names on the list anyway.

At any rate, the Fire Department is always reluctant to sack people, because training and experience in that field is at a premium. The LCers have little understanding of the world of the NYFD (as they have little understanding of anything else), and know that between civil service regs, the Firefighters' Union, and the need for trained guys, firefighters are not easily going to be fired, even if they speak out on issues.

You will recall that firefighters protested the withdrawal of firefighters from the site and even fought briefly with cops at that protest...and nobody was severely disciplined. The idea that firefighters are living in terror of losing their jobs or lives if they speak the "Truth" about 9/11 is absurd.

And if they did get axed by New York for some odd reason, municipalities across the nation and world would hire former New York firefighters, at higher salaries, to higher positions, because of their experience. New York has the largest fire department in the United States, and handles everything. Those are skills needed by the smallest volunteer company or the largest city, wherever it is.

LCers are clueless.

[Kiwiwriter]

Do the LC crowd actually think the NYFD is trained in demolition? If not how can they still make that dumb claim about "pull it"?

They can do some demolition work, usually in connection with fire defense -- knock down damaged structures to get at fires, create fire barriers, and so on.

[Polaris]

Good stories, everyone. I haven't met a truther in person yet, but I can't wait. The urge to annihilate their fantasy world is being bottled up without a truther to light up!

I may point you in the direction of my ex-g/f.

[~enigma~]

They can do some demolition work, usually in connection with fire defense -- knock down damaged structures to get at fires, create fire barriers, and so on.
From demolition during fire defense to a CD of a 47 story largest CD ever is quite a leap. Aren't those guys afraid of falling?

Oh...I forgot...the leader is do over Dylan.

:big:

[Kiwiwriter]

From demolition during fire defense to a CD of a 47 story largest CD ever is quite a leap. Aren't those guys afraid of falling?

Oh...I forgot...the leader is do over Dylan.

:big:

Obviously, as you indicate, going from knocking down a badly-burned two-family wooden house is a lot different from knocking down a steel-and-concrete 47-story building.

I prefer the conspiracy theory around the height...47. That's a number that pops up a lot in my life, and there's even a web page to which I subscribe that lists times it appears, which is amazingly often. U-47 sank the battleship Royal Oak, the C-47, P-47, and B-47 were all major US Air Force planes, the C-47 being the military version of the DC-3 Dakota. Moe Berg played 47 games in his first season in the major leagues. Diamond Row in New York is 47th Street. To get from Yankee Stadium to Shea Stadium by subway, you take the 4 and 7 trains, "47." The chief of New Orleans Police who resigned was 47 years old when he quit. RAF Cranwell started with 47 cadets in 1919. And so on.

Maybe Dylan Avery should do a movie on 47! :D

[~enigma~]

Maybe Dylan Avery should do a movie on 47! :DDon't even suggest that. Imagin...Loose Change - 47 times and still not right edition.

[Unfit4Command]

Yeah, I have a few different times. But they usually reply by calling me a government agent and continue to believe they're right when they can't provide a single rebuttle to any of my points.:)

[The Almond]

Back during my final year of graduate school, I was invited onto a campus radio show to talk about conspiracy theories in general. I was essentially the science expert. I made some general comments about the nature of conspiracy theories and then we opened up the phones.

Oh my God.

It was 2003, and the conspiracy movement was painfully disorganized, but that didn't stop every tin-foil hat wearing redneck within 100 miles of Clemson from calling in with "indisputable" evidence that (and I am not making these up):
1) George Bush personally detonated the explosives in the WTC
2) Space aliens personally detonated the explosives in the WTC
3) Canadians personally detonated explosives...
4) The explosions in the WTC were specifically predicted in Revelations and that this was most assuredly the second coming of Christ.

To be blunt, I was completely unprepared for the shear stupidity of these claims and I ended up saying things like, "That's impossible," and "Where's your evidence?" How do you argue with someone who claims as proof that he personally was visited by aliens who told him the truth about 9/11? I listened for 5 solid minutes as a man recounted his experience being abducted. WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY????

So, I never really shut down a truther. They did the work for me, and all I had to do was make peace with the fact that about 1 in 10 people on the planet Earth are completely insane. They know how to operate telephones, and they certainly know how to work a computer.

[chipmunk stew]

There was a Loose Change forum moderator named DJLegacy who was talking a lot of trash about me, knowing that I couldn't post there. Through an intermediary I challenged him to come here and debate me one-on-one. I was at work when he registered here. He posted here 76 times that day, still talking trash. When I logged in and said "Here I am, let's go," he immediately fled. That was my easiest, and funniest, "shut down."

DJLegacy of LC Forum Proves Gravy Dead Wrong!
As soon as he gets here, that is.... (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1686616&postcount=1779)
Ah, memories (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1689956#post1689956)...
memories (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=58104)...
and more memories (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=58105)...

[kimota]

Good stories, everyone. I haven't met a truther in person yet, but I can't wait. The urge to annihilate their fantasy world is being bottled up without a truther to light up!
Shouldn't be too difficult to find one. According to troothers, 86% of the American population doubts the official account.



Gravy VS Alex Jones.

Alex Jones tooooooooooottally loses this arguement.It's amazing that this video is posted by troothers, as if this supports them. That this is behavior that they proudly display. Although, in their twisted realities, they think that Alex Jones came out on top. I watched the segment before this one, part 3A, and early in the video, Alex Jones is giving his game plan: ignore what they say, stick to your talking points and throw out "straw man" and "yellow journalism" whenever you get in trouble. And he demonstrates that tactic to the T with Gravy, as well as ad hominem and getting a rally cry from sympathetic followers to try to drown Gravy out.

Part 3A has some terrible editing (I can't believe I spent over 10 minutes watching them wait for the subway), but there is a gem at 3:52:

"Help me. I'm stupid."
-Alex Jones
Alex needs assistance with the subway pass vending machine. Far be it from me to take a quote out of context.

[Crazycowbob]

Maybe it's just me, but did it seem those rally cries Alex led were a little quiet? I would certianly have expected a lot more noise out of his followers, being so inspired by the truth...

Could just be a cultural thing though, we tend to be a bit loud in Texas. ;)

[John Blonn]

lol yeah Crazycowbob - there were like 3 cheers with AJ. What a maroon...

[sat556]

In that video with Gravy and Jones, during the part where they are arguing over what Silverstein said, Jones says something like 'he was told to pull them out'. I though Jones maintains that the 'pull' statement was about the building and not the firefighters? Am I wrong?

[uk_dave]

If there is one person on this earth who would benefit from a little anal probing by our alien overlords, it's alex jones.

This is the non public thread, right?

[John Blonn]

I noticed that too, sat556. I guess some Jedi mind tricks used there too?

[kbm99]

I mostly just lurk here, but this thread really caught my eye, because for the last few months I've been in daily contact with a 9/11 CTer that I'd dearly LOVE to "discuss" things with, but


. . . it's my new boss.

[The Almond]

I mostly just lurk here, but this thread really caught my eye, because for the last few months I've been in daily contact with a 9/11 CTer that I'd dearly LOVE to "discuss" things with, but


. . . it's my new boss.

Invite him over here. We'll do the rest.

[kbm99]

Invite him over here. We'll do the rest.

Possibly, but I can't help suspecting the interrim period would be pretty uncomfortable for me. Besides which, the man seems deeply paranoid about a great many things beyond just the usual conspiracy nutjob stuff. I suspect he falls in that segment of the true believers for whom evidence and fact are just inconveniences when searching for Truth.

Luckily for me, he's quite good at his job and relatively easygoing despite the paranoia. It's just a frustrating situation.

[Poetry Hound]

I debate a lot of 911 CTers on YouTube. Anti-Sophist is right that on-line CTers usually just slink away. But many of them, when they run out of semi-rational things so say, accuse me of being a government spy and a cog in the conspiracy machine. I usually respond with, "No, YOU'RE the government spy sent by the White House to YouTube to say idiotic things so that everyone can dismiss CTers as paranoid lunatics. So far, you're doing a good job." That pretty much always shuts them up.