my teacher told me a conspiracy theory about 9/11

[alexius]

WARNING

IF YOU ARE DESTRESSED ABOUT TALKING ABOUT 9/11 DO NOT READ

IF YOU DO NOT LIKE BAD SPELLING DONT READ



hello im from england and i dont really no much about politics but i was told this shocking conspiracy theory by my teacher.

he said that 9/11 was conducted by someone in the U.S.A he said that they needed to got to irac to get oil because it was running out every wer else, but to invade irac they needed a reason so they made it look like they fluw the plain into the Twin towers. and they needed a big shocking event otherwise no one would go along with it.now i was shocked at this theory .said it was all about getting power and money through oil. He also said they had to assasination of presedent kenady because he wanted to pull the army out of vietnam because to many ppl were getting killed to get the oil.

so that what i was told and i was quite shocked and it made me feel small ;(

 

[Gray Fox]

Well anything is possible, but I think the chances of that beeing true are very small, and could you explain that thing about the US beeing in Vietnam because of oil, cause that is not what I learned at school, in fact my schoolexams this year are all about the vietnam war, we have got a whole book just about that, and I never read anything about the oil.

 

[alexius]

sorry i dont know much about american history well it was probably somthing else then sorry

 

[Gray Fox]

It was the rollback politics of that time set out by the president before Kennedy. Anyways no problem dude if you don't know, you came to the right place to express your opinions and to learn stuff, we have a great community of left and right wingers.

 

[Eg.]

if you are in public school, hes is violating the law, have hiem fired

 

[Maxi]

Weeelll... i've read that conspiracy theory on the net, and heard it from a few people, and I don't buy it.

 

[Kangy]

if you are in public school, hes is violating the law, have hiem fired

Not in the UK he isn't.

Good day sah!

:thumbs:

 

[Ennui]

There are certainly strange consequences surrounding the attacks... but I think most of them are just coincidences. When I was in 7th grade (when the attacks occured) I did an extra credit project with my Social Studies teacher and several other students investigating what happened, we made some strange finds over the 2 months or so...

 

[Kommie]

if you are in public school, hes is violating the law, have hiem fired

Not in the UK he isn't.

Good day sah!

:thumbs:

He is not violating the law in the US either. Where on earth did you get such a notion?

 

[Eg.]

my moms a teacher, every once in a while i read here teacher newletter, which was talking about teachers right to free speech during the election


and if we wnated oil, y didnt we take saudi arabia or Iran, which have more, dumb theorists

 

[Kommie]

my moms a teacher, every once in a while i read here teacher newletter, which was talking about teachers right to free speech during the election


and if we wnated oil, y didnt we take saudi arabia or Iran, which have more, dumb theorists

It still is not illegal for a teacher to explain conspiracy theories. Everyone has free speech, regardless of being a teacher. It certainly is not illegal to voice their opinion. Maybe the school administration set those rules, in which case Its against "school policy"

 

[Kristafon]

if you are in public school, hes is violating the law, have hiem fired

I dont know if you live in america but here in engalnd we belive in "free speech" and all, so having a discussion about alternate explantions for events are allowed, along with talking about evolution and putting homosexuals in a good light (without getting your book banned).

 

[blahblahblah]

That theory has more flaws than swiss cheese has holes.

Here is a little taste of some flaws

- Iraq producing at maximum capacity would not affect oil prices dramatically. They do not have the infrastructure in place (pre and post war Iraq).
- Iraq is a part of OPEC which maintains a semi-effective oligopoly.
- The oil expenditure of the US army at war is probably more than what the US will/would benefit once Iraq has its quotats/limits raised.
- The US has never needed a "big reason" to go to war with somebody. Our culture is based on this "if we want it, we will find a way to get it as quickly and simply as possible". Blowing up skyscrapers and the pentagon isn't the easiest way to achieve that philosophy. Not to mention the pre-cursor of the Afghanistan conflict.
- AFAIK, there is no oil in Vietnam or southeast Asia. China does have some oil reserves, but they are being rapidly depleted. In fact when gas prices started hiking was when China had to start importing oil for the first time in its history.

I'm sorry to say your teacher is a nutball. Tell him to learn the facts before he starts spouting consiparcy garbage to impressionable students.

 

[smwScott]

The theory is ridiculous and there's absolutely no concrete evidence to back that up. It barely even qualifies as a conspiracy theory because the entire setup is based on grainy footage and a whole slew of "what ifs." Also, assuming the American government knew about the attacks and allowed them to happen, or to an even greater extent caused them themselves, they wouldn't have blamed it on Al Quaeda. They would have pinned it directly on Saddam and actually had a decent reason to invade the country.

Think about it logically.

Also, if your teacher is saying things like that in a public school then he probably should be fired. Teachers can't teach things like Creationism because it is scientifically impossible, just like a geography teacher couldn't tell you the Earth is flat. As a teacher it's your job to teach fact. To teach impressionable kids things which, to put it nicely, are not proven goes beyond free speech, and above all else is an irresponsible way to perform his job.

 

[bliink]

oh boy... just wait till gh0st reads this!

however, when any government is as powerful as the US government, well.. you'd expect there to be some not exactly legal secret activity of some kind.. I mean, you just expect it.

 

[seinfeldrules]

You're teacher needs to be fired. Plain and simple. Its people like that who spread hate and create problems in the world.

PS If free speech applied to teachers, couldnt they all teach about God and Creationism (or whatever its called)? The free speech argument when applied to teachers is quite weak.

PPS The US imports 40% of its oil from Venezuela. Its the fun fact of the day!

 

[bliink]

You're teacher needs to be fired. Plain and simple. Its people like that who spread hate and create problems in the world.

PS If free speech applied to teachers, couldnt they all teach about God and Creationism (or whatever its called)? Somebody like a teacher shouldnt have the right to say that.

PPS The US imports 40% of its oil from Venezuela. Its the fun fact of the day!

Ohh.. so you're warping the freedom of speech now? lol.. nah.. i'm not picking at that actually..

In fact, I would go so far as to agree with you (mostly) that theres an ethical line a teacher shouldnt cross.. I.e not teaching politics/religion.. its not right to abuse your position of authority as a teacher that way.
However, if he did want to teach about the conspiracy.. there would be a way to work it in, but not like that.

 

[seinfeldrules]

However, if he did want to teach about the conspiracy.. there would be a way to work it in, but not like that.

We could have 'conspiracy week', specializing in alien abductions, secretive CIA plots, and for the grand finale... the death of Elvis / Tupac(for the youngins)!!!

 

[bliink]

We could have 'conspiracy week', specializing in alien abductions, secretive CIA plots, and for the grand finale... the death of Elvis / Tupac(for the youngins)!!!

hehe.. exactly!

 

[blahblahblah]

well to us and many other people this is fact. everything u just said blah is nothing to contradict what i said. do u really think the u.s. never needed a big reason to go into somewhere? b/c im pretty sure it has happened many times throughout history. starting w/ roosevelt. and it's not just war for oil, it's also strategic points for taking out other coutries like iran, and saudi arabia, and north korea. they needed to connect saddam to it some how so what better way then to say that he helped fund al qaida and let them stay in the country, and then get him w/ some wmd charges.

theres also no concrete evidence to back up the governments theory either smw. and from what i saw the footage wasn't grainy at all, it was crystal clear... maybe u need to get ur eyes checked. and i am thinking about it logically, do you really believe everything bush says? do you really think there aren't people in the world and this country that are in power that could do something like this? if you dont then you are very close minded and trust people way to well. i believed the gov't too, but once you start hearing arguements from both sides, well it gets to be depressing to say the least.

bush and cheney both gain money from this venture. so why not?? i mean honestly why wouldn't they of? people are greedy and dont give a shit about other people. look at the companys that go over seas so they can manipulate the labor laws in other countries b/c ours are so strict... naive people is what is killing this world.

Theories of Economics

Theories and understanding of US Government

Theories and Laws of Physics

Theories and Laws of Chemistry

Theory of Fraud

All of those things stand in the way of your conspiracy theories. Sure, once in a while, one may change, but to violate all of them simulatenously? Impossible.

I've been through this horse and pony show before. There is absolutely nothing to substantiate any of these theories.

 

[blahblahblah]

rofl wtf are u babbling on about, how do any of those theories apply to this at all? and if their theory's then they may not be true, just as well this may not be true. but it's a lot more likely it is, givin the nature of the human being.

Those are all the areas any given conspiracy theory regarding 9/11 or Iraq break. A theory is a scientific term that is used to describe a rule/situation about something that has been repeated thoroughly. Not just 1, 5 or even 10 times. A theory is something that is pretty much proven. A law is infalliable. That is why we have many scientific theories and so few scientific laws. But note that theories don't get broken everyday because they have to be "tested by fire" before they are considered a theory.

For instance, do you know that there are three signs that must exist before fraud/deception (on a company/government setting) must have before it can have a chance to succesfully exist? Do you know that if fraud is perpetrated when all conditions are not met that it is usually exposed within a short period of time? I can tell you one of the signs that must occur is a lack of internal controls. I think you can agree with me that the US government has tons of internal controls (which is how it was designed). Therefore for mass government deception to occur is highly improbable. If deception did occur in our government, it would be exposed rather quickly.

What is my point? If your thoughts about 9/11 can't even hold up to tested scientificly theories, it can't be true. That is what I am saying.

 

[burner69]

Conspiracy 9/11?

Yes and No.

Osama and his crew carried out the operation, of that I had no doubt. As will all major political events conspiracy theories will spring up about it, but scrape below the first layer of them and they soon fall apart.

But with 9/11 there was a difference - Western people were told that Osama attacked because he was 'jealous of Americas freedom' or similar nonsense. But Osama claims it was because of Americas influence abroad, interfering wityh foreign policies in places like (I think, will have to check) Palestine. I hate the guy, but I believe him over the American Propaganda machine, which managed to hide its less than admirable foreign policies to the average citizen, who doesn't care what his or her country are up to abroad.

As for Iraq, Iraq is a tough one. I'm all for over throwing Saddam, just not to replace him with a similar (which seems to be happening at the moment), but the timing and build up to it makes be believe there is a lot more to it.

a) WMDs they KNEW HE DIDN'T HAVE is not an excuse to storm an entire country.
b) Just after Afghanistan, with many terrorists pi**ed at Bush, invading Iraq was a stupidly bold move. Now he has many terrorists after him, and has left Afghanistan unguarded practically which is allowing Al-Quaeda to regroup.
c) Current state of American economy.
d) Iraqs position, on the border of five other countries - a great place to hold if you wanna invade some other places.

Any one who allows their government to go into a war on one flimsy idea and come out on another without questioning it needs their heads looking at.
I'm not sure exactly why Iraq was inavded, but I know it didn't help the terrorist threat, and I know it was not about WMDs. Oil... possibly a part of it, but no man is surely daft enough to send his country to war over oil, knowing there is a chance the truth could get out.

I'm open minded, but dountful, in all respects. Except the 'official' truth. That's a pile of crap.

 

[Raziaar]

I think your teacher is a crackhead. Heh.

Our government may not be the best there is, but I doubt it's stupid enough to take down two gigantic buildings, killing thousands of people that help the united states economy, costing the government itself billions upon billions of dollars in damages, only to create the case of starting a campaign against terror in not only afghanistan costing billions of dollars, but also in iraq, taking american lives, and dozens of more billions of dollars of the governments money, only to jepordize the safety of the oil in iraq by giving terrorists more of an incentive to destroy it, and sending oil prices skyrocketing.

It's exactly the OPPOSITE of good, profitable buisness!

 

[Raziaar]

raziaar ud be surprised. specially to find out it probably didn't cost billions... seeing as it isn't the U.S. gov't that is going to rebuild them... and blah im still not getting what those sceintific theroies have to do w/ this. how does physics have to do w/ 2 towers knocking down and people in our country having something to do w/ it? maybe bush himself didn't know but it was planned by us, someone w/ in the administration.

and not all deceptions are found, not even close. there's so much shit we dont know about it's not funny. i mean just take a look at the patriot act or the patriot act 2. why haven't those been throwin out. especially #2?? which states that police can basically arrest anyone for any reason and go into anyones home w/o a warrant.

well i think if the terrorists were going to destroy the oil they would of done it already... obviously they aren't and that right there should be a sign of what side people are on.

I wasn't even TALKING about the billions that it will take to help rebuild iraq. I was talking about the expenses of all the equipment, the provisions for the men, the weapons, the ammunition, the fuel for the vehicles. The cost of sustaining a campaign is incredibly expensive, especially abroad.

well i think if the terrorists were going to destroy the oil they would of done it already... obviously they aren't and that right there should be a sign of what side people are on.

They have been! You can't just easily 'destroy all the oil'. They have been launching attacks on the oil wells, just as they have been launching attacks on the city infrastructure for power and water and sanitation, etc.

 

[Revisedsoul]

i can belive the kenedy assination one, but not the 9/11 one

 

[HunterSeeker]

I dont belive the US goverment conducted the 9/11 attacks, but that they knew about them and ignored them is something I think is possible, considering how much they have used them.

 

[Raziaar]

I dont belive the US goverment conducted the 9/11 attacks, but that they knew about them and ignored them is something I think is possible, considering how much they have used them.

Well, they get thousands upon thousands of terrorist threats all the time, its hard to tell which ones could be real or not, as most never happen.

 

[Operator]

Almost anything can happen so I for one don't really know and I'm quite sure none of us will know the 100% real truth for some time now, I just hope nothing more happens. I was going to say and we can all get along but I fear that may be humanly impossible ;( .

 

[JackelPDW]

What a pointless thread. Yea, I guess my ****ing friend who was in one of the airplanes just ****ing dissapeared, right? He wasn't a real person, just a figment of my imagination. Oh yea, and one of my other friend's mom who was on one of the planes to hit the towers, I guess she was just a figment of my imagination as well, huh? Where did they go? Some of you people need to get a dose of something called "reality", and stop subscribing to every half brained conspiracy theory.

 

[bliink]

What a pointless thread. Yea, I guess my ****ing friend who was in one of the airplanes just ****ing dissapeared, right? He wasn't a real person, just a figment of my imagination. Oh yea, and one of my other friend's mom who was on one of the planes to hit the towers, I guess she was just a figment of my imagination as well, huh? Where did they go? Some of you people need to get a dose of something called "reality", and stop subscribing to every half brained conspiracy theory.

I'm sure they didnt mean it personally.

 

[alexius]

i did say at the begining not to read if you are offended by talking about 9/11

 

[seinfeldrules]

i did say at the begining not to read if you are offended by talking about 9/11

Maybe you shouldnt post stupid shit. I'm sure you would be insulted if this was one of your family members in the plane, think of it from that perspective. Their lives are being turned into a conspiracy theory :frown:

 

[Tr0n]

Their lives are being turned into a conspiracy theory :frown:

A pretty damn stupid theory at that.

 

[burner69]

The tragedy of 9/11 cannot be underestimated.

Yet other tragedies are beginning to arise and little is being done about it. Like the tragedy of allowing a government to lie to its people about 9/11 (the motive for it), take its country to war to stop it happening again - which has been left, it seems, halfway through, allowing the people who carried out the 9/11 attrocities to regroup and do it all over again, then taking its people on a WMD hunt, which they admitted the year before he didn't have, and through all of this stirring up more terrorists.

That needs to be looked at carefully, because this war on terror isn't helping anybody.

And as for 'not knowing' about terrorists threats, or having to ignore them because of the number they recieve - here is a fact.

On Sept 10th, after recent threats being either picked up or reported, the CIA had 2 men tapping suspected terrorist phone lines.
10 were tackling drugs.

And yes, I beieve terrorism, particularly when specific threats have recently been made, is far more important than drugs. As, what harm do drugs do to society, exceptig those problems caused by prohibition.

What harm do terrorists do? A lot.
And the government.... perhaps even more...

 

[el Chi]

also the pentagon, that was done by a missle...

The thing that always fascinates me about this theory - or rather this part of the theory - is that whenever this information/"evidence" gets thrown about, no-one posits an explanation as to why the US govt. would want to "bomb" the Pentagon. To get enough cause to go to war? Well, after the attacks (whether they were real or not) they would have all the cause they could possibly need. How could the demolition of a large part of one of their more important military intelligence facilities be another sensible target? To me, that simply makes little-to-no sense.

And if they were going to do it, then why would they use a missile? Why not just commandeer a 747 (although I'm almost positive it was a smaller model - after all it was only an internal flight), surely the military or the secret service or whomever could get at least one at their disposal?

And then what about the dead passengers? What about the passengers who were on the planes that supposedly hit the Pentagon, or the Twin Towers for that matter? Were they simply rounded up and shot before they shot a "missile" into these institutions? And as for the planes that hit the twin towers - were they piloted by someone whose belief in and subservience to the government stretched to taking his own life and knowingly taking the lives of many many others?
That's a hugely dodgy argument. In fact, I'd go further than that - I'd say it's a shit argument full of holes and particularly suspect.

That said, I do believe there were some highly suspicious actions going on with the government and the intelligence services around that time and certainly since, although I do not believe that this stretches to knowing and wanton destruction of US civilian lives on US soil against important US institutions. The Bush administration is full of crooks, highly dodgy characters and more hidden agendas, complicities and dirty secrets than you can shake a WMD at, but I doubt that even they would be capable of something as bad as this.

 

[burner69]

do u know that there were drills leading all the way up till sept. the 10th 2001 that were practicing planes hitting the building... just like a fire drill u had in school, except it was in the 2 talles buildings in the country... can u people honestly sit there and say that our gov't not just bush had something to do w/ it? if you can then maybe your eyes should open a little.


i bet yea the answer will shock u!

Try opening your own. The government was told of a plan to hijack a plane and crash it into a large building. Perhaps in this case they were acting on intelligence and doing a little to reduce the casualties.

If the government were going to slam a plane into a building themselves why have drills about it? Surely they don't care about the number of dead - anyway the more the better, right?

The American government, like most governments, are f**ked in the head. They don't care as much about their citizens as many people think (like only sending a couple of thousand troops into Afghanistan where the terrorists dwelled, then sending many many more into Iraq where there was little or no involvement with 9/11, or indeed any terrorist activity. Or ignoring stark warnings from their advisors about a massive and imminent terrorist threat). But despite this they would not fly planes into their own buildings. They don't work like that, it's too risky.

Perhaps they did have something to do with it, but it would only be out of ignorance (for a purpose perhaps) - not direct involvment.

Before using facts like the plane drill you mentioned, try looking at it from all perspectives and see which fits best, and rings the most true. Although it might shock you! :O

 

[smwScott]

well to us and many other people this is fact. everything u just said blah is nothing to contradict what i said. do u really think the u.s. never needed a big reason to go into somewhere? b/c im pretty sure it has happened many times throughout history. starting w/ roosevelt. and it's not just war for oil, it's also strategic points for taking out other coutries like iran, and saudi arabia, and north korea. they needed to connect saddam to it some how so what better way then to say that he helped fund al qaida and let them stay in the country, and then get him w/ some wmd charges.

theres also no concrete evidence to back up the governments theory either smw. and from what i saw the footage wasn't grainy at all, it was crystal clear... maybe u need to get ur eyes checked. and i am thinking about it logically, do you really believe everything bush says? do you really think there aren't people in the world and this country that are in power that could do something like this? if you dont then you are very close minded and trust people way to well. i believed the gov't too, but once you start hearing arguements from both sides, well it gets to be depressing to say the least.

bush and cheney both gain money from this venture. so why not?? i mean honestly why wouldn't they of? people are greedy and dont give a shit about other people. look at the companys that go over seas so they can manipulate the labor laws in other countries b/c ours are so strict... naive people is what is killing this world.

I am a liberal, I hate Bush and do not believe anything he says. That doesn't mean I jump on top of any lose conspiracy theory I can find if it accuses him of something.

There are quite a few points in your post where you contradict yourself. You say you accept this as fact, when there is really no concrete evidence whatsoever to confirm it, then at the end of your post you say people are naive for refusing to latch on to every conspiracy theory that crops up. If they really caused the 9/11 terrorist attacks to create a link to Saddam, it would have been a direct link. As of now I don't believe the Bush adminstration has established any link whatsoever between the two.

You say there's no way to back up the governments "theory." Other than thousands of eye witness accounts and various footage both from the press, government, and personal cameras. Also, the Twin Toweres did not implode in any way. The jet fuel filled the shafts running up and down the building with extremely hot air and caused them to explode and collapse the building. The footage of the planes hitting the WTC is obviously real and the only explosion is caused by the actual planes.

As far as the Pentagon, all they have is very grainy footage to back up their claims. It was not a missle, a missle would not have made the initial explosion and then continued to penetrate through the wall. They found the charred hull tip of an American Airlines jet inside near the wreakage, the only theory I've heard explaining that is that the military also uses a similar hull tip on one of their models.

There are only a handful of conspiracy theories in recent history that have ever amounted to anything more than a pile of circumstantial evidence.

 

[ferd]

my moms a teacher, every once in a while i read here teacher newletter, which was talking about teachers right to free speech during the election


and if we wnated oil, y didnt we take saudi arabia or Iran, which have more, dumb theorists

Saudi Arabia for instance is way more dangerous than Iraq, and, most of the oil in Saudi-Arabia is given to the US anyway. The US en SA are good partners.

 

[OCybrManO]

If you look back through history, governments have done some horrible shit to their own people and blamed it on someone else in order to make their people afraid. Why? When your people are afraid for their lives it is easy to make them do whatever you want. All they have to do is get in bed with the media and all they have to do then is repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. I'm not saying I think we are necessarily going through that process right now... but I wouldn't be suprised in the least. We are certainly showing symptoms. Now, I'll leave you with a bunch of at least semi-related quotes (I've been collecting them for a while and looking for a place to dump them):

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
— Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
— Joseph Goebbels

"The rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious."
— Joseph Goebbels

“Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.”
— Mark Twain

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
— Albert Einstein

“I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.”
— Albert Einstein, 1947

“Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask: by whom has it been elected, and to whom is it responsible?”
— Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”
— Samuel Adams

“My instinct as an individualist and artist has always warned me most urgently against this capacity of men for becoming drunk on collective suffering, collective pride, collective hatred, and collective honor. When this morbid exaltation becomes perceptible in a room, a hall, a village, a city, or a country, I grow cold and distrustful; a shudder comes over me, for already, while most of my fellow men are still weeping with rapture and enthusiasm, still cheering and venting protestations of brotherhood, I see blood flowing and cities going up in flames.”
— Hermann Hesse

“The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.”
— Adolph Hitler

“The great masses of people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. Especially if it is repeated over and over.”
— Adolph Hitler

“Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship…Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
— Leading Nazi leader, Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials before he was sentenced to death

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”
— Thomas Paine

“Authoritarian government required to speak, is silent…Representative government required to speak, LIES with impunity.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte

“As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities.”
—Voltaire

“Praising our leaders, we’re getting in tune with the music played by the madmen.”
—Alphaville Alphaville

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
—Issac Asimov

“Herein lies a riddle: How can a people so gifted by God become so seduced by naked power, so greedy for money, so addicted to violence, so slavish before mediocre and treacherous leadership, so paranoid, deluded, lunatic?”
— Philip Berrigan

“If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.”
— Noam Chomsky

“When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
— Mohandas Gandhi

“If they turn on their radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to- air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace…We dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. It’s a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.”
— U.S. Brig. General William Looney, who directed the bombing of Iraq in the late 1990s

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
— H.L. Mencken

“Weapons are tools of violence; all decent men detest them.”
— Lao Tzu

“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.”
— Otto von Bismarck

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”
— Oscar Wilde

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."
— Tacitus, Roman historian

"Politics is the pursuit of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of more trivial men."
— George Jean Nathan

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
— Plato

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master."
— George Washington

"When the people fear the government, you have tyranny. When the government fears the people, you have freedom."
— Thomas Paine

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
— Benjamin Franklin

"America is at that awkward stage; it's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."
— Claire Wolfe

"Once governments are given the authority to restrict the liberty of some sane adults for what it considers their physical or moral welfare, there is no principled stopping point in terms of what governments will have the authority to prohibit."
— David Conway

"One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence."
— Charles Austin Beard

"In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either."
— Mark Twain

"Practical politics consists in ignoring facts."
— Henry Adams

"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant."
— Charles de Gaulle

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
— Daniel Webster

"In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from."
— Peter Ustinov

"Too many people are only willing to to defend rights that are personally important to them. It's selfish ignorance, and it's exactly why totalitarian governments are able to get away with trampling on people. Freedom does not mean freedom just for the things *I* think I should be able to do. Freedom is for all of us. If people will not speak up for other's people's rights, there will come a day when they will lose their own."
— Tony Lawrence

"By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments ... The major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments, as a deliberate policy of those governments ...that is, by the official representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity."
— John Hospers

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."
— William E. Borah

"Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the "Unknown". When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government."
— Henry Kissinger

"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything--you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
— Martin Niemoller

"Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself."
— Potter Stewart

"Stop tolerating in your leaders what you would not tolerate in your friends."
— Michael Ventura

"There are seven sins in the world: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice and politics without principle."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"The year 2000 will be a turning point for the New World Order."
— George H. W. Bush, 1990

"The victor will never be asked if he told the truth."
— Adolf Hitler

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
— Johann W. Von Goethe

"What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word 'We.'"
— Ayn Rand

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth."
— Vladimir Lenin

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
— George Orwell

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
— Helder Camara

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."
— Noam Chomsky

"Educators have lost sight of the purpose of a liberal education -- to foster the values of freedom and growth in students and, ultimately, to produce good human beings ... Although most educators agree that a liberal education is important, they spend too much time bickering over course requirements and not enough time talking about the qualities those requirements should instill in students. ... Students' educational success should be a measure of how well they listen, read, write, solve problems,empathize with others, and participate in their communities, not how many credits they accumulate. ... All the required courses in the world will fail to give us a liberal education if, in the act of requiring them, we forget that their purpose is to nurture human freedom and growth."
— William Cronon

"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them."
— Isaac Asimov

"These students are going to find out what law and order is all about."
— Robert Canterbury, Commanding General of the Ohio State National Guard, minutes before his troops fired on students at Kent State, 1970

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
— Friedrich Nietzsche

"As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it."
— Dick Cavett

 

[seinfeldrules]

So you're comparing Bush to Hitler, why dont you just come out and say it?