A Skeptical View of the 9/11 Truth Movement

The 9/11 Truth Movement claims to have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that destruction of the New York World Trade Center Twin Tower Buildings on 9/11/2001 was perpetrated by unknown elements inside our government, a so-called "inside job".  Their main argument is that the Twin Towers did not fall from the impact of airplanes alone, but were helped along by explosive charges placed in the buildings by government agents, days or weeks before the 9/11/2001 event. They have lined up more than a thousand building experts to sign a statement saying the cause of the collapse is problematic and requires further investigation.

When 9/11 truthers watch the video of the collapse of the Twin Towers, they see apparent evidence of explosives too numerous to mention here. However, none of that evidence holds up to reasonable scrutiny. They would have us believe that an invisible, inaudible,  ripple of remotely detonated charges, obscured by the descending cloud of debris, leads each building down, starting at the point of aircraft damage.

In addition to the lack of valid evidence, here are three reasons why the explosive charge theory is not a reasonable one.

(1) Planting the explosives would require the action of a dozen or so building demolition experts, working in an occupied building, yet undetected by anyone, knowing that they were a part of a plot to kill thousands of innocent people, and knowing that they themselves would likely have to be assassinated to maintain their silence.

(2) It is quite reasonable that the buildings fell solely from aircraft impact, because the buildings were never designed to withstand an impact by such large aircraft at such high speed with so much fuel aboard (contrary to truther claims). Fire from aircraft fuel was so intense that liquid aircraft aluminum can be seen flowing out of windows! Structural steel has only a fraction of its strength at those temperatures.

(3) Most importantly, consider the likely thought process of the 9/11 attackers in the planning stage. In order for the 9/11 event to qualify as a truly outrageous atrocity, it is not necessary that the buildings actually fall down the same day they are attacked. The buildings are ruined anyway, and enough people are killed by the aircraft strikes alone to call it a success. The 9/11 attackers would never have bothered with explosives because they would have incurred a far greater risk of their plot being discovered, for very little added "bang". Besides, they had a reasonable expectation that the buildings would fall from aircraft impact alone.

Be aware, I am not saying that 9/11 wasn't an inside job. It may well have been. I am saying there is yet no valid evidence. Truthers remind me of the people back in the 1980's who believed all the moon landings were faked, because they have much apparent evidence to support their theory, but they fail to examine that evidence critically for alternative explanations.

The Environmentalist’s Favorite Energy Source

Next time your environmentalist friend tells you we need to stop using fossil fuels to save the planet, ask him or her - What is your favorite energy source?

How would a true environmentalist answer that question? It is puzzling, because environmentalists have actively campaigned against almost every energy source out there. They complain that nuclear power is too dangerous and has a waste disposal problem, that wind power has whirling blades that kill birds, that sun power uses acres of unsightly mirrors in the desert, and that geothermal energy sites are mostly in ecologically protected areas. Hydro power is in such disfavor they even want to demolish existing dams!

Environmentalists do tend to favor ethanol and hydrogen, but neither of these are viable energy sources. Ethanol from corn is not energy positive and will never survive without endless government subsidies. Hydrogen is not an energy source but is merely an inefficient way to store energy from other sources.

No, environmentalists have no favored and viable alternative to fossil fuels. Their intent is apparently to starve the world economy of its needed energy by government action. That is a formula for poverty and possible de-population. As for me, I love petroleum, people, and prosperity.

Stop Trying to Create Jobs!

I know this heading sounds crazy. After all, everyone wants more jobs. All of the presidential hopefuls have their own jobs plan, and President Obama even created a new “Jobs Czar” position in his cabinet and appointed General Electric's CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, to the post.

But is job creation really a proper government policy goal? To answer this question, we need to ask what we want the economy to do for us. How about this: The economy should create as much wealth as possible with as little human effort as necessary.

Really, isn’t this just good common sense? Why would you want to expend any more human effort than necessary to create the products and services that people want and need? Obviously, labor-saving devices and increased worker productivity are good things, yet you might think they are bad things if you are too focused on jobs.

Too bad so many people in government make exactly that mistake. They are so motivated to protect existing jobs that they do so at the expense of job creation and wealth creation. It causes them to pursue such wrong-headed policies as import barriers, export subsidies, government make-work projects, a large standing army, a complex tax code, and burdensome regulations that divert valuable resources.

This is not to say that government is helpless to cure unemployment. It can do so by ending government policies which make it less profitable to hire workers; policies like minimum wage laws, the payroll tax, and laws making it difficult to dismiss workers or easy to be sued by workers. Also, a lower corporate tax rate would help.

Lately we have had some severe job-killing new policies, specifically, the threat of Obama-Care, restrictions on domestic energy production, impending EPA greenhouse gas regulations, the re-regulation of business accounting guidelines (Sarbanes-Oxley), and the reform of financial practices (Dodd-Frank). Maybe that’s why companies have become reluctant to hire (well duh).

According to the insight of von Mises, a free economy naturally produces low unemployment because human capital is the scarcest of all resources. That’s why excessive unemployment is always a government failure, never a market failure. Remember that next time someone complains that the economy isn’t producing enough jobs.

It’s Illegal Not to Do That

With the recent passage into law of the National Healthcare Reform Act contemptuously referred to as ObamaCare, people have been expressing their outrage over one particularly offensive feature know as mandatory insurance. This would make it punishable by fine for individuals not having employer-provided coverage to not buy health insurance. A dozen state legislatures have even passed resolutions attempting to nullify this law in their state, claiming it is unconstitutional and unprecedented. But is it really, or are there other existing crimes of inaction (other than the payment of taxes) which could serve as precedents for the ObamaCare individual mandate?

When considering possible crimes of inaction, here are some that come to mind: compulsory school attendance for children; the requirement to serve in the military when the draft is activated; the requirement to report child abuse when observed; the requirement to verify employee legal status when hiring a worker; firearm registration; the requirement to serve on a jury when called; the requirement to purchase automobile liability insurance and to wear a seat belt or a helmet; food nutritional labeling; and coming to your city soon – mandatory recycling! I suspect we could come up with thousands of other examples if we pored through all the federal regulations.

I must regrettably conclude that crimes of inaction have long been with us, although there are no such laws that I would support. Our government apparently has the power to tell us what to do as well as what not to do. To my way of thinking, the power to command behavior is the power to enslave. Maybe we need a constitutional amendment that says something like this: Congress shall make no law mandating any action other than the payment of taxes. What a huge roll-back of the regulatory state, and a tremendous defense for our liberties, that would be! But first, please ask yourself - which of your favorite laws would be nullified, and could you live without them?

As for the constitutionality of ObamaCare, don’t be silly. Where is it stated in the constitution that the federal government shall regulate health care? (Answer: no place.) Lack of constitutionality hasn’t stopped our federal government for decades now, and in spite of recent lower court rulings, I expect that at least five Supreme Court justices will find some lame excuse to justify ObamaCare.

Gay Marriage

I am dismayed that so many Republican candidates believe it is the duty of government to deny gays the right to marry. They call it “defending” marriage, as if gay marriage were somehow a threat to anyone. Are they afraid we are all going to turn gay? Or maybe it is just mean-spirited; they wish to make gays as miserable as possible.

The fact is that gays are going to continue to marry each other and live together, with or without state approval. Laws like California Proposition 8, to “define” marriage as between a man and a woman, do not affect the actual practice of gay marriage, but they do allow the state to discriminate against gays in the area of marital privilege, through laws governing such things as inheritance, divorce, community property, child custody, visitation rights, taxes, and benefits.

It is interesting that currently over sixty percent of major corporations provide employee benefits to same-sex partners, yet only five states plus D.C. recognize gay marriage. This is a disgrace, but it is not surprising. Government has a long history of discriminating against its own people. There was a time, for example, when 38 states banned inter-racial marriage.

Government has the obligation to treat all people equally. That comes from the 14th Amendment of the federal constitution, which says states may not deny any person the equal protection of the law. Perhaps a future Supreme Court ruling will strike down state laws which currently discriminate against gays.

Gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights as everyone else, including the right to form a legal contract commonly known as marriage. Moralists who believe they must defend the institution of marriage by discriminating against gays have their morals on backwards.

Legalize Marijuana

I have never used marijuana and don’t even know anyone who does. So how can I be so sure it is safe to make marijuana legal? The answer is simple. Legalizing marijuana has nothing to do with how safe or how harmful it may be. Lots of substances are harmful (like cyanide, and arsenic), yet BATF and DEA SWAT teams are not breaking down doors in the night looking for them.

If we are concerned that people may harm themselves with marijuana, why are we harming them even more with prison. We have over half a million people in prison for violating non-violent drug laws. Prison is more harmful than marijuana.

Is the threat of prison supposed to prevent drug use? If so, it is not working. We have about 40 million people in the U. S. who are occasional users of illegal drugs. That is more people than when President Nixon launched the federal war on drugs in 1972. Our last two presidents admit to trying marijuana. Do we really want all these people in prison? The U. S. already leads the world in incarceration rate.

If marijuana were legal, would it be more of a problem? Well, alcohol was more of a problem during prohibition than it ever has been since, so it seems logical that drugs would be less of a problem if they were legal. For one thing, we would not have pushers on campus like we do now. For another, terrorists would not be funding their activities with illegal drug money like they do now. For another, we would not have so much crime and gang violence like we do now.

Do we need drug laws to protect our children? Actually, teens report that marijuana is more accessible than alcohol and cigarettes. The reason is simple: pushers don’t ask for ID. It seems reasonable that if we treat marijuana like alcohol and cigarettes, marijuana will be less accessible to teens.

Do we need drug laws because marijuana is immoral? It seems dangerous to me to let the government decide morality, because there is no end to it. Gambling, pornography, homosexuality, being absent from church on Sunday – all these things have been illegal in the past because of government’s moral judgment. Here is my moral judgment: leave your neighbor alone as long as he is not hurting anybody but himself.

So why do we have drug laws anyway? One reason comes to mind: the ever-expanding power and authority of the federal government. It is seen in the merciless pursuit of sick and dieing medical marijuana patients in California by the federal DEA, even after our state legalized medical marijuana. It is seen in the asset forfeiture laws which allow the government to confiscate your property without due process of law. It is seen in the ban on growing hemp. The war on drugs has become an excuse to expand government power.

Most of the points I have made here would apply not just to marijuana but to all illegal drugs. However, the voting public is not ready to consider legalizing all drugs. So let’s take them one at a time. Marijuana, being the least harmful and the most medically useful, is the logical place to start.

Recommended reading: “Why our Drug Laws Have Failed and what we can do about it”, book by Judge James P. Gray.

What Part of “Infringe” Don’t You Understand?

The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, in striking down the Washington D.C. total gun ban, unfortunately left the window open for President Obama to declare that he supports what he calls “common sense” gun laws. My question is – Will common sense be applied to determine if any of the proposed gun laws are actually constitutional?

The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution declares that the right of the people to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed. The dictionary defines “to infringe” as “to act in violation of, or to transgress”. Assuming that “arms” mean fire arms, that is, guns not too large for one man to carry, I arrive at the common sense conclusion that most (maybe all) of the current gun laws are unconstitutional, let alone the ones being proposed.

And what is being proposed? The proposal that frightens me the most is called “national gun registration”. This may seem harmless at first, but in fact is very dangerous, because registration is a logical precondition to confiscation. (And confiscation is a logical precondition to genocide, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)

Gun registration is unconstitutional for the same reason that concealed carry permits are unconstitutional. These laws convert a right into a privilege, to be granted or denied at the whim of the state.

The constitution does not say that the privilege of the people to keep and bare arms shall be regulated for the purpose of public safety. Gun control advocates and Supreme Court justices should stop pretending that it does.

And what kind of society would we have if we declared all of our gun laws unconstitutional. I think we would have a safer society, from criminals as well as from government tyranny. It works for Switzerland.

What to Say to a Global Warming Alarmist

Global warming true believers claim that humans, by using carbon-based fuels such as coal and oil, are degrading the earth’s climate. Their solution is to have a government policy which will restrict the use of these fuels, world-wide. They favor international multi-lateral agreements to accomplish their goal, coupled with economic sanctions to force compliance. They see the United Nations playing a key roll, perhaps evolving into a form of world government. They claim to have a scientific consensus on their side, and they are willing to marginalize anyone who disagrees with them, with charges of being anti-science and anti-environment.

What do you say to such people? Here are a few of their most frequent claims, followed by my thoughtful response.

“Humans have been polluting the atmosphere with carbon dioxide by burning coal since the industrial revolution, and that has raised the earth’s temperature, because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas.”

First, it is wrong to label carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Carbon dioxide is a vital component of the atmosphere and is absolutely necessary for all life on earth. Second, the total accumulated amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide contributed by humans is estimated to be only 100 parts per million, or one hundredth of one percent! This is about 150 times smaller than the average concentration of the main greenhouse gas, which is water vapor. The carbon is theoretically warming, but you will never see it in real world measurements.

“But the earth has warmed in the last 100 years!” That’s right, and the observed warming, decade by decade, correlates quite well with measured solar activity, and not with carbon dioxide content.

“You will be sorry when Greenland melts and floods the everglades, and when polar bears and penguins go extinct.” Greenland was green when first discovered one thousand years ago, yet the everglades have been around for at least ten times that long. Polar bear populations have more than doubled in the last 30 years. Penguins suffer from over-fishing of their feeding areas, not from an un-noticeable amount of extra carbon dioxide.

“The debate is over, the science is settled, and a consensus has been reached.” Yes, a consensus exists among climatologists corrupted by an obscene amount of government funding. The rest of the scientific community disagrees.

“We have a moral imperative to save the earth.” No, we have a moral imperative to preserve human liberty; it is never moral to expand government.

“You global warming deniers are no better than holocaust deniers.” The similarity between global warming alarmism and the holocaust is that both are the result of too many people accepting uncritically what their government is saying. In the case of the holocaust, it was the idea that the Jews were responsible for all of Germany’s misfortunes. In the case of global warming, it is the belief that carbon fuel is responsible for everything that can go wrong with weather and climate. Both belief systems are false.

Dumping On the Tea Party Movement

The tea party movement seems to be a spontaneous and leaderless grass roots response to the outrageous way our federal government has been behaving lately. Thousands of people showed up in public photo-op demonstrations around the country, and in D.C., to protest the economic stimulus package, the bank bailouts, the auto company bailouts, socialized healthcare, the Federal Reserve, unfunded entitlements, and the explosion in federal debt. They thump the constitution and claim to value liberty. But do they really?

Who are these people? Apparently they are a coalition of disgruntled Republicans and independents, perhaps boosted by some spin-off from the so-called “Ron Paul Revolution”. There was even a Nashville convention, with Sarah Palin as a speaker. Will there soon be a “Tea Party Party”?

I certainly agree with the alarm that the tea party goers have over the current state of affairs, but my question to them is – Where have you people been!? Why weren’t you protesting when George W Bush was trampling civil liberties, inventing foreign wars, and expanding the national debt? Where were you when George W Bush, in his final year, signed off on the initial stimulus package and bank bailouts?

Here are some more questions for the tea party people:

You say healthcare should be provided by the market, not by government? Fine. Does that mean you are now ready to repeal Medicare? And why is government-run healthcare so different from government-run education. Under the ethical principles of socialism, you should accept both; under the ethical principles of liberty, you should accept neither.

You say you don’t want cap-and-trade, and you don’t want the EPA to restrict emissions of carbon dioxide. Fine. Does that mean you are now ready to abolish the EPA? The EPA has been trampling private property rights from it’s very inception, with such weapons as the Endangered Species Act and the Wetlands Preservation Act. The EPA is not compatible with liberty, nor is it even constitutional.

The questions could go on, but my point is - I suspect the tea party goers approve of big government, just not “bigger” government. If the tea party goers truly loved liberty as they claim, they would be supporting the Libertarian Party, not spawning a new movement.

Social Security has Always been Bankrupt – Morally!

Consider the problem: some people retire in poverty, either because they don’t save enough for their retirement, or because their private pension plan fails. FDR’s 1935 New Deal solution was to force everyone into an Old-Age Survivor Disability Insurance (OASDI) plan, commonly called Social Security. Thank goodness we have a Constitution to limit such arbitrary authority of government - or so we thought. While much of the early New Deal legislation was declared unconstitutional, by 1937 the Supreme Court was so corrupted by progressive socialist ideology that it allowed Social Security to stand.

Even though people were being forced to pay for this “insurance”, many people loved the new system. Why? For two reasons. 1) Payout was based on your pay history, not your contributions, so older workers got something for nothing. 2 ) Half the contributions were taken from a person’s employer, so younger workers thought they were getting something for nothing too. Of course, employers would respond by paying people that much less, but few people were (and are) that economically aware.

Politicians love Social Security most of all, because it allows them to conceal deficit spending. Here is how it works. OASDI taxes generate more tax revenue each year than the system pays out, and Congress mandates that the extra money be used to purchase government bonds at a special low interest rate. Congress then spends the money, but the money is called tax revenue, not borrowing, for purposes of computing the deficit. (OASDI is a tax – get it?) This funny accounting means that our national debt is actually about $12 trillion larger than claimed (according to Forbes, October 1995). Alas, this party will be over starting in about 2016, when annual Social Security payout will first exceed annual OASDI tax revenues, at current tax rates.

Even assuming Congress can repay all of its borrowings, the system still becomes insolvent in about 2042, because of the ever-growing liabilities of an aging population. To solve this problem, politicians would love to keep raising the combined OASDI tax rate, which started at 2% of pay in 1935, and is now over 14%. That is the way the socialist countries of Europe do it too, but because they started ahead of us, their combined payroll tax rate is now approaching 50% (in France and Italy), with no end in sight. Such a high tax on employment is a real job killer, and it partially explains why socialist countries have such chronic high unemployment rates.

If Social Security is so great, why must workers be forced to participate? Furthermore, how can the government claim greater wisdom than the individual for deciding when and how much to save for retirement? Many young households carry debt on their house, car, and credit cards, ranging in interest rate from 6% to 15%. Does it make sense for these households to be investing money for retirement at 2%? Clearly, they would be better off paying down their debt first, and saving for retirement later. So much for the wisdom of government.

It has been proposed to allow workers to put part of their OASDI tax in a private account, protected from political whim, to possibly grow by investment. This would alleviate the problem of stealth deficit spending, and it might improve the rate of return for some workers. But it still does not address the basic moral problem - that Social Security is a socialist program founded on force and plunder. Instead of being fixed, the program should be ended.

Because two-thirds of people polled now say they expect nothing from Social Security, it may be politically feasible to end the program. This can be done as follows. 1) No new participants added to the system. 2) Pre-retirement participants allowed to opt out. 3) Means testing for all current and future retirees. 4) Funding shortfall paid from the general fund. The time to do this is now, before the baby boom generation retires.

Healthcare Welfare

Regarding the Medicare Modernization and Prescription Drug Act of 2002 passed by our Republican congress and signed by President Bush; I do not support expansion of the welfare state into the area of prescription drug insurance. Consider these points.

1. Seniors are the second most affluent segment of society, but even if they were not, it is not right to single out any one group to receive special favors at the expense of others.

2. The plan separates payer from recipient, which will cause an increase in the cost of drugs for everyone, by adding demand that is insulated from cost.

3. The plan adds another $50 billion a year in entitlement costs, at a time when our profligate congress is running half-trillion dollar annual budget deficits.

4. It is unconstitutional (but dare I even mention this, since all of Medicare and most of what the federal government spends money on these days is not included in it's enumerated powers).