Tuesday, August 31, 2010

A Propaganda-Proof People

The blowback from last Friday's Forum hit earlier this week in the form of an e-mail from a friend:
Hi Bryan,
How are you doing?
Just wondering, a friend of mine at work was pretty ticked off at you for a show of yours she listened to this weekend. She said that you were saying that Fox [N]ews fans are delusional, and that you didn't reference what people should be watching or listening to instead.  Just curious if you have time, could you further explain??

Uh-oh.  Looks like I might have some 'splainin' to do.  All right, let's get to it.

Yep.  I said that people who rely SOLELY on Fox News for their information, thinking that they're no longer being propagandized are, in fact, deluding themselves.  Of course the same is also true for those who depend entirely upon CNN or NPR or any other single source of information.  The problem is that there is no unbiased source of mass communication and the single greatest challenge for anyone who wishes to be informed today is to be capable of sifting through all the spin and propaganda to clearly comprehend the way things really are.

It's not so much a matter of which information source we use as a matter of developing our ability to use critical thinking skills in order to correctly interpret that information.  As citizens, our greatest responsibility during times of crisis is to think clearly and independently.

My biggest beef with Fox News is that too many people think they're getting all the information they need when, in fact, the information is just as spun and the debate is just as controlled as anything they'd get from the mainstream media.  Too often we forget that information isn't always the same thing as truth.

Talk radio listeners exacerbate the problem when they become content to simply repeat whatever talking points they hear Beck, Rush or Hannity saying.  Parroting someone else's words creates a dependency that tends to make a person dogmatic in their viewpoints.  Dogma coupled with an inability to articulate one's own thoughts is a perfect recipe for defensiveness when one encounters a differing viewpoint.

Before retiring a few years ago, Charley Reese was a writer of unusual clarity.  Here's what he had to say about thinking we know it all:
But since our means of learning are limited so that we can never learn everything about anything, we should avoid being dogmatic. I don't mean living in a constant state of uncertainty, but we should at least always concede the possibility that what we think is so isn't so. I have trouble understanding people who get emotionally upset when they bump into an opinion they disagree with.  
Does that last sentence not describe the scorched earth approach taken by many of the top names in talk radio who feel they must shout down, marginalize or hang up on anyone whose opinion differs from their own?

If you dare deviate from what the talking heads of ANY of the mass media sources consider the acceptable parameters of debate on a given issue, prepare to have disapproval heaped upon your head.  And the rancor won't just be from the commentators, but also from those faithful viewers or listeners who have hitched their ideological wagon to a particular star.  Whether it's the person who just knows that "our news media" would never lie or the one bearing their testimony of "Brother Beck" to you, your dissent, however mild, represents a threat to their worldview.  
Charley Reese
Charley Reese made a recommendation years ago that I took to heart and I offer it now to you:
Take this little test: Pick out any national issue or any national political figure and ask yourself, What do I really know about this issue or this person? The honest answer in most cases will be not much that hasn't been spoon-fed to you by liars and propagandists.  
Once this realization occurs a person can begin to actually study the issues for themselves and take responsibility for their own viewpoint.  The beauty of this approach is that it is much more based in reality than simply taking talking points from a professional propagandist.  There is real effort involved in thinking for yourself, but the payoff is that you will never be at the mercy of another in knowing what to think about a given issue.

One last quote from Charley Reese to drive the point home:
Remembering and imagining are not thinking. Emotional reactions or ideological reactions are not thinking. Belief in the "word magic" of labels is not thinking. Faith is not thinking.
Thinking is the use of reason to determine the truth as best we can. To do that, we have to shuck emotions, desires and wishes and look at the world in its nakedness as it is, not as we wish it were or as someone else has told us it is.
Reality is not affected by our desires or by our comprehension. We glean data from our senses of that world outside our bodies and use our brains to draw inferences from the data. We have to conform to it; reality will not conform to us.

My point on Friday was that we need a propaganda-proof citizenry now more than ever but few Fox News viewers or talk radio listeners would ever admit they were being bamboozled.

Sorry, folks, that includes Fox News too
This is where there is simply no substitute for a true blue liberal arts education.

It’s been nearly 60 years since Mortimer Adler and then-president of the University of Chicago Robert Hutchins set about publishing the Great Book series containing the greatest works of Western thought spanning a period of nearly three millennia.  The published collection is a remarkable achievement in and of itself, but the purpose for which Adler & Hutchins set about compiling the Great Books of the Western World is as timely today as it was in 1952.
The Great Books series
The first volume of the 54 book set is titled The Great Conversation and in it the editors make a powerful case that the disappearance of the great canon of Western Thought from education portends a calamity rather than progress.  They clearly saw that while America’s standards of living were continually rising in terms of material comforts, a majority of adults were becoming impoverished morally, intellectually and spiritually.  The predictable result of this type of educational malnutrition is a trend where each successive generation is further impaired in its ability to think for itself.

In Hutchins’s words:
We believe that the reduction of the citizen to an object of propaganda, private and public, is one of the greatest dangers to democracy. A prevalent notion is that the great mass of the people cannot understand and cannot form an independent judgment upon any matter; they cannot be educated, in the sense of developing their intellectual powers, but they can be bamboozled. The reiteration of slogans, the distortion of the news, the great storm of propaganda that beats upon the citizen twenty-four hours a day all his life long mean either that democracy must fall a prey to the loudest and most persistent propagandists or that the people must save themselves by strengthening their minds so that they can appraise the issues for themselves. 
Hutchins understood that study of the great books provides one with a more well-rounded grasp of humanity, history, politics, morals and economics that enable the reader to effectively exercise their own mental abilities rather than waiting for experts to tell them what to think.

It's been nearly 60 years since Hutchins made the following prescient observation:
 “The trials of the citizen now surpass anything that previous generations ever knew.  Private and public propaganda beats upon him from morning till night all his life long.  If independent judgment is the sine qua non of effective citizenship in a democracy, then it must be admitted that such judgment is harder to maintain now than it ever has been before.  It is too much to hope that a strong dose of education in childhood and youth can inoculate a man to withstand the onslaughts of his independent judgment that society conducts, or allows to be conducted, against him every day.  For this, constant mental alertness and mental growth are required.”  
The editors of the Great Books in no way pretended that the series was a panacea by which all of our problems could be answered.  Instead they recommended them as tools to further one’s self-education by allowing the reader to come face to face with what the greatest thinkers of the past 3,000 years had to offer.  Only those who have actively put in the effort of studying great thinkers like Herodotus, Plato, Descartes, Machiavelli, or the many others whose works comprise the Great Books can accurately attest to the insight such study provides to better understanding the current issues and crises of our own time.

It was once considered self evident that a liberal education (meaning a well-rounded one) was how a person gained the necessary thinking skills to be capable of perpetuating liberty.  Today, in ideological circles, the very word “liberal” causes some to have palpitations and others to reflexively genuflect to the state as their master and savior.

The Great Books won't teach a person what to think, but by studying the great ideas (even the ones that were wrong) our minds become trained in how to think and how to ask the right questions.  This type of education doesn't even require a formal classroom setting.  Most liberally educated people got that way by diligently spending a bit of time reading and studying daily in the privacy of their own study or bedroom.  There are no shortcuts to self education and that's why the concept is such a tough sell to generations that prefer to plop down in front of the TV or computer and be entertained.

Mortimer Adler said it best:
Anyone who has done any thinking, even a little bit, knows that it is painful. It is hard work-in fact the very hardest that human beings are ever called upon to do. It is fatiguing, not refreshing. If allowed to follow the path of least resistance, no one would ever think...Whoever passes by what is over his head condemns his head to its present low altitude; for nothing can elevate a mind except what is over its head; and that elevation is not accomplished by capillary attraction, but only by the hard work of climbing up the ropes, with sore hands and aching muscles.
What real learning feels like

Instead of waiting for someone to tell us what sources to tap for information, we need to develop our thinking skills to the point that we can avail ourselves of many sources and accurately sift truth from error.  This type of independent thought is what inoculates a citizenry against the effects of propaganda from any side of the political spectrum.





17 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting this.

    Max Weismann
    Center for the Study of The Great Ideas
    Founded in 1990 by Mortimer J. Adler and Max Weismann
    E-mail: TGIdeas@speedsite.com
    Home Page: http://www.thegreatideas.org/
    A not-for-profit 501(c)3 educational organization

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  2. Bryan, Thanks for the insite. The ideas you are presenting are at least helping me to be more of a critical thinker. I have always felt that the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. Most of the media I am exposed to is very conserative so the dehumanizing of muslim groups comes easy. It has been my experience that muslims as a group (I have met muslims from eygpt, nigeria, angola, malasia, russia, and america) are just like you and me, they have children like me, they have dreams of a good life just like me. When our media portrays these people in the way they do, I have to say the truth is somewhere in the middle.

    Thanks for the good work.

    Cody Jordan

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  3. Thank you for writing this. All to often I find it disturbing what the agitators (Beck, Hannity, Rush, Alex, Savage...the list goes on) write or speak. An agitator is a person who actively supports some ideology or movement with speeches and especially actions. I read or listen sometimes till I just can't take it anymore. Rarely does an agitator want to be challenged or comprehend there could be another way of thinking. As Chuck Baldwin wrote on 8-27-10; "Get real, folks, and start thinking for yourselves. Ask yourself why Fox News never (or hardly ever) invites non-establishment patriots to appear on their network. Why do you not see former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts on Fox News? Why do you not see former Georgia congressman and Presidential candidate Bob Barr on Fox News? Why do you not see former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura on Fox News? Why do you not see former Director of the US Office of Economic Opportunity and Presidential candidate Howard Phillips on Fox News? Why do you not see Presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin on Fox News? The list is endless."
    No it isn't fair or balanced on any station, it's propaganda, it's ideology.
    Please do as Bryan and so many others have recommended and pick up and good book and learn to think, rationalize, logically reason and comprehend for yourselves and on your own. Even better, get with your neighbors and/or friends and teach and/or listen to what you've been, or they've been reading and learning.

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  4. Anyone who knows me knows I'm all for putting in the work to be educated, and to break the shackles of relying upon what any news network or figurehead says to gain an understanding of current or past events; however, I disagree with this statement in particular Bryan, and your solution (as I understood it from reading this article) in general: "As citizens, our greatest responsibility during times of crisis is to think clearly and independently."
    It's not my article (which, by the way, you wrote brilliantly as usual), so I'm not saying you should change what you wrote and I'm not telling you what you should think, but I would submit that a more urgent priority in a time of crisis for anyone (especially Americans) is to turn to God, and become inspired in our thinking.
    Thinking clearly can be good; however, it implies allegiance to Self or reliance upon Reason to discern right from wrong or truth from error. Now, it would be fine to embrace an epistemology of Reason IF we never made mistakes in judgment; but, since we are all human and therefore fallible, it cannot solve today's problems.
    Education is good, ONLY if through it we become more capable instruments of God in bringing ourselves, our families, and our fellow man to God. This is the real solution. No other can suffice. I see this as THE lesson of history; all others are incidental.
    If I ever must choose between being educated or being inspired by God, I will choose being inspired by God EVERY time. Knowledge will not save us; only Christ can.
    Fortunately, very seldom (if ever) is it a mutually exclusive choice between education OR inspiration; ideally, we can all become both educated AND inspired by God. However, to think that more liberal arts education will solve America's problems is, in my mind, nothing but a distraction.

    Respectfully,
    A big fan of yours :-)

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  5. I like your take on this, vash. And I agree that without God's help, our efforts would be doomed to failure.

    As I understand it, one of the pillars of a liberal arts education is a belief in a power higher than oneself. Getting better acquainted with one's Creator should be a natural consequence of studying the great thinkers.

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  6. I thought the article was very good. I had to chuckle though when I got to the end and read that you were the author because your response to the information I presented you about 9/11 was as prejudiced as any I have ever encountered. Definitely not the reaction of one who is free from the propaganda of his environment and willing to evaluate contrary information outside the narrow box of accepted dogma created and reinforced by the so called "conservative" media. The media has done a great job creating a visceral reaction to anything "conspiratorial" in nature. You can read all the great thinkers you want and never break free of their pavlovian programming until you come to the realization of the overriding truth that the conspiratorial view of history is the most accurate and that americans are no more immune to the will to power and the corruptibleness of wealth that hitler or stalin or mao. And bush would have no more concern hitting our towers than stalin would have sending men to the gulag.

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  7. Let me see if I'm reading you correctly, Shane: If I don't toe a particular line that you espouse regarding possible government complicity in the 9/11 attacks, then I'm as brainwashed as those who simply parrot whatever talking points they hear in the mass media rather than thinking for themselves?

    So if I don't think like you, I must not be really thinking for myself, huh?

    Who's being dogmatic here, Shane?

    As I've told you before, Shane, I don't know all the answers to the questions that remain about 9/11. The jury is still out as far as I'm concerned. Re-read the Charley Reese quote about assuming we cannot be mistaken in our viewpoints.

    I'm still open to new truth, but I'm not going to regurgitate what you tell me about 9/11 conspiracies without first vetting the information by studying it for myself. So far I haven't found the corroboration to support the viewpoint you're promoting. That simply means I don't have all the answers, not that you're wrong and I'm right. Or vice versa.

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  8. Hehe, if anyone remembers, 9/11 was THE issue that Glenn Beck used to hijack Debra Medina's Texas Gubernatorial campaign. Irrelevant to her jurisdiction, Glenn brought it up and harped on it for almost the whole interview, goading her until her final response was "I still have questions and think more investigation into it would be a good idea," a decent, fair-minded answer; however once she was off air Glenn immediately discarded her good ideas about Texas state sovereignty, government transparency, responsibility and answerability (the issues pertinent to her area), and wrote off her campaign. She had been a close challenger of Rick Perry, an incumbent hack, up to that point, but after that interview with Glenn Beck she was sunk.
    Now Glenn says (while insisting he's not "fear-mongering"), "I fear for a coming Reichstag moment." Um, he missed it. It happened 9 years ago this Saturday.
    I believe it's fine if you still are undecided about government complicity in the tragic events of 9/11 Bryan, especially in public. If you're interested and sincerely open to further information, shoot me a private email. I can supply you with plenty of good material- if you want to learn more facts. Facts, while often helpful in finding truth, are not themselves truth. As far as learning truth goes, I believe that must be spiritually discerned, and that responsibility rests upon each of us individually.

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  9. Regarding your response to my first comment, I must insist it's not just a difference in "semantics." While you may understand a liberal arts education to have a pillar of belief in a higher power, not everyone shares that understanding. Perhaps, if you prefaced every usage of the phrase "liberal arts education" with clarification of what you understood it to mean, your intended message would be more accurately received by your readers. However, I believe the conclusions and solutions you present in the original article would still be flawed (though less so).
    While I agree many of the "great thinkers" were inspired by God, I find their writings, though useful and interesting, insufficient to direct the world to God. In fact, to put it bluntly, I believe "Natural Law" to be a washed out excuse for not simply saying God, and though the men who coined the phrase and established it as a working replacement for God's Law really believed in God's Law and were just trying to support it with Reason and Logic (in an effort to unite and appease divergent Protestant interpretations of God's Law), the modern corruption of it makes it a distraction at best, and a clever means of deceiving the elect at worst.
    Study of the "great thinkers" usually is understood to mean study of the source documents comprising the philosophic, literary, and economic achievements of the western world. This study, while potentially profitable, stimulating, and worthwhile, has never led a man to God. In fact, at least in my own observation, it leads unprepared men and women to such gods as Natural Law and Reason (or worse, the god of Self or Self-interest), and not to the One True God. "To be learned is good, IF (and only if) they hearken to the counsel of God" (emphasis added).
    I'm all for education. In fact, I'm all for liberal arts education too- AFTER one becomes inspired by God. Never as a means for one to become inspired by God. For instance, that would be like me saying to my daughter, "I want you to become inspired by God, so I think you should go read Aristotle, Nietzsche, Rand, and Orwell." They were good writers, and all of them wrote many true things. It's just not sufficient to bring the world to God.
    I believe the Scriptures should be re-enthroned as the standard of education, to be overseen by parents and not outsourced to other men and women, as the means by which to bring our children closer to God and become inspired in all things. AFTER which, by all means, study the great books. But not before. Doing it before invites disaster, because people start "supposing they know of themselves, therefore their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them nothing. And they shall perish."

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  10. You make many points with which I agree. This particular blog post was intended for a broad audience and would sound a great deal more like what you're espousing if it were written for a religious audience exclusively.

    I consider scripture to be among the Great Books too. One reason why the Bible wasn't included in the 54 volume set was because Hutchins and Adler felt that it was already widely distributed.

    I wonder if that's still the case 60 years later?

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  11. But if what I've said is true and you find yourself agreeing with it, who are the people that need to hear it the most, the religious audience or the broad one?

    Distribution of copies of the Bible does not equal faith in/understanding of its messages, 60 years ago nor now. I hope to inspire as many as possible to make serious study of the scriptures a priority. The Great Books are the great questions of the world; the Scriptures are the great answers to the questions. If more people realized that the scriptures contain the answers to today's pressing questions and had the faith to find them, they'd hunger and thirst after them and be satiated. The great books leave the reader (spiritually, not intellectually) empty and dry. I only want to direct people to the only true source of peace in a world of turmoil.
    "11 And also it is an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation, and to all the pure in heart—
    12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it—
    13 Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—
    14 These should then be attended to with great earnestness.
    15 Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things....
    17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed."

    You're an excellent writer (much better than I), but in my opinion you can do even better. Don't adjust (read: dilute) your message to fit your audience; elevate your audience to higher truth through your writing. Then, rather than people just saying "thanks for articulating what I already knew and felt," you'll help them think and grow in new, hitherto unknown ways. I believe that being bold in this day and age requires, not apologetic writing, but a perfect declaration of absolute truth. "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear (i.e. fear of offending a non-religious audience); but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord" -2 Timothy 1:7-8

    But then, I'm more of a theologian at heart, not a philosopher :-) despite GWC's best efforts to persuade me otherwise.

    Do you know who I am yet? lol

    And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather EXPOSE them. -Ephesians 5:11

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  12. Bryan,

    By the tenor of your reply, you make it sound as if you have actually spent some time "vetting" the available facts about 9/11. I find that unbelievable to be completely frank. The situation is fairly similar to that which I, and I'm sure you, encountered many times as a missionary. You approach a person about the church and they proclaim themselves to be an expert about the church when every thing they say screams of ignorance about the church. They're the kind that make you want to quiz them about the exploits of Porter Rockwell in the BOM just to see how far they will go with it before they admit their ignorance of the subject at hand. As a missionary you know that you have something deep and gritty that can challenge the minds of even great scholars and yet the willfully ignorant person in front of you thinks they know all about it. Likewise, the facts available about 9/11 are deep and unsettling and not promulgated solely by village idiots.

    By your cavalier dismissal of that voluminous evidence with the statement, "I'm still open to new truth, but I'm not going to regurgitate what you tell me about 9/11 conspiracies without first vetting the information by studying it for myself. So far I haven't found the corroboration to support the viewpoint you're promoting," you tell me as surely as does the reluctant investigator, that you, in fact, have done no significant research into the topic. I don't want you or any one to take my word for it any more than a missionary wants the people they meet to believe without studying either.

    And unlike the gospel, I realize that this is an issue where there is the possibility for error on my part and I study and study to make sure that I know what I am talking about and I am open to the thoughts and ideas of others who are willing to examine the evidence at face value. But instead of finding myself in the midst of open minds, I find most people to be like yourself, unwilling to look fact in the eye and judge it for its own merits because they are, apparently, so far brainwashed by their upbringing and the pavlovian training of the existing propaganda apparatus, that they are unwilling to even put themselves in a mental state to even consider the possibility let alone study it out and come to an informed decision. It seems that most WANT to believe it false because the enormity of the crisis should it be true is too overwhelming and so, with the first criticism they can find, feeble though it be, they cast everything aside, deluding themselves with the notion that they have studied it out and found nothing of merit.

    As to your "vetting", I would be willing to wager that you have not yet found the time to watch that dvd I gave you some 2 or more years ago. If you continue to insist that you are in deed an expert on 9/11, I would issue you a challenge. I would propose that you demonstrate your grasp of the subject matter by reciting the three pieces of factual evidence which for you cast the most doubt on the government version of what happened on 9/11 and why you choose to reject that evidence and believe the government story. That should be an easy assignment for one who reads and writes with the ability which I readily concede that you possess.

    Shane Baker

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  13. It looks as though this is the hill you've chosen to die on, Shane. You don't seem inclined to persuade me to your point of view so much as to beat me over the head with it until I capitulate. Is that supposed to be an effective way to win converts?

    You've obviously spent a great deal of time on this issue and I don't begrudge you one bit for what you know. But tell me, is this particular conspiracy the keystone to all that is destroying our nation today?

    I believe our national decline began long before that fateful day nine years ago and that there are many more factors contributing to our cultural downfall than simply political intrigue.

    Some questions have remained fairly constant over the past 3,000 years and they are still a part of the Great Conversation (which includes much more than just who was behind 9/11).

    If you believe that your efforts are best spent promoting what you know about 9/11, then please follow the dictates of your conscience. Start a blog, host your own radio show, write a newspaper column, do whatever it takes to promote your point of view. I can tell you from experience that ideologues and monomaniacs who frame their worldview around a single central issue (taxation, home birth, the environment, etc.) seldom command the kind of widespread impact they might have had.

    No one seems to enjoy a one note symphony.

    In the meantime, I will continue to use my time and my understanding in a manner that best serves my mission. If that is unacceptable to you, then it will just have to remain your problem and not mine.

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  14. I would love to have a discussion centered around the facts regarding 9/11 rather than whether or not it was important. But unfortunately most have nothing to say because they know so little about it. I gave you a dvd and sent subsequent e-mails to you which you refused to answer. Had you answered then, I would have been delighted to discuss the facts surrounding 9/11. Even now, if you were interested, I would be more than happy to do the same. Although I tend to have an acerbic pen, I have no interest in fighting with you or anyone, but I am completely baffled and a little ruffled by people's unwillingness to even discuss the issue; a reluctance which you continue to manifest as we have as yet not even talked about a single fact of 9/11 but only talked our way around it. For instance, I would like to know what you think about the fact that Professor Steven Jones, formerly of BYU, found thermite and thermate in the dust collected from the WTCs; these are an important component in the cutter charges used used by demolition companies. But as long as we sit around arguing about whether or not it matters, we have no chance to talk about these other facts which have actual bearing on the case.

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  15. This event is certainly not a keystone issue in and of itself. Obviously our country has been in decline for many years; probably from it's inception really. We would probably agree on many things that our country is doing wrong and in the proper role of government in addressing those issues. What we seem to disagree on is the idea of conspiracy. I do not believe that the decay of our country is strictly by chance, but rather that there is a group or groups of powerful elite who are contriving to establish world government and that these evil people are motivated or prompted by Satan much in the same way that we mutually believe the leadership of the church to be guided by God.

    I do agree that an enlightened informed populace, such as you advocate for, would be a pretty difficult crowd for the insiders to manipulate. But I believe that it would always be a weakness for the crowd to not know about the existence of the insiders conspiring to overthrow their freedom.

    I have written two papers which I think will explain my position better than this hastily written blurp if you would send me an e-mail that I might forward it to

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  16. Shane, you DO understand that I'm not saying you are wrong, don't you? I have no doubt that you've put many more hours into studying this issue than I have.

    Nevertheless, I have watched Dr. Jones presentation and he makes a number of incredibly compelling arguments. From time to time I've found other articles which point to holes in the official version of what happened on 9/11, and I've read these articles with interest though I still maintain that I do not have enough information to categorically state who is responsible. As I've said before: I simply do not know for certain.

    I view the official version with great skepticism, and I am certain that the events of 9/11 provided many government leaders (and elite unelected power brokers) the cover they needed to consolidate an unprecedented amount of control over the American people. I also believe that power grab is part of a larger contest that has existed since the beginning of man.

    I'm curious as to which e-mail address you had sent your earlier inquiries. I honestly don't remember seeing repeated attempts from you to contact me on this matter. And I certainly don't consider you a crackpot for holding a different or even stronger viewpoint than my own on 9/11.

    Two of my closest friends and fellow Pro-freedom conspirators hold views similar to yours and have discussed the possibility of an inside job with me on numerous occasions. They too, have questioned why I hold the point of view that i do, but we've never felt it was a particularly divisive issue between us.

    I would welcome an opportunity to read your papers. Send them to thatdanghydekid@gmail.com and I will gladly read them. I too would welcome a discussion with you. Please understand that I tend to lean toward Occam's Razor on most matters, but that doesn't mean I'm claiming to have all the answers.

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