Rambling Thoughts About 9/11/01

I remember 9/11/01.

I remember that before that date, NSA spying was a theory from conspiracy kooks. I remember checkpoints as something that only Nazis and Soviets did. I remember when being strip-searched in order to travel was unthinkable. The indignities we now suffer daily were unimaginable, and the idea that they would become so commonplace that people didn't even notice them anymore much less resist them was an absurdity.

I remember that on that date, it was surreal to watch the aftermath of the attacks. Due to the time zone difference, everything was over by the time we were awake and aware of the news. Here on the opposite side of the country, NYC is for most of us as foreign as London. In fact, I have family members who have been to London but not NYC.

I remember after that date how the eventual conspiracy theories and partisan blame game ramped up, muddying the waters of rational discourse on the subject. I can offer no definitive opinion on such matters beyond my personal skepticism.

My architectural knowledge makes me skeptical of the official reports, especially regarding the collapse of the infamous WTC7 tower, but my knowledge of the inherent flaws of government makes me even more suspicious of any claims regarding a massive government conspiracy kept wholly secret after all these years. Some claims appear to have merit based on my limited knowledge, but the conclusions drawn appear generally unsupported by the available evidence, instead relying too heavily on preconceived prejudices.

I must withhold judgement on all sides of the 9/11 debate, and instead merely point out that if it was Al-Qaeda terrorism, it was clearly blowback from decades of US government foreign adventurism and meddling in foreign affairs that had long been in violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution that allegedly binds it.

If it was elements if the US government, why do you need a major event like 9/11 to prove that the government is corrupt and evil when the evidence is widely available that it has long been in violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution that allegedly binds it?

If it was some kind of extra-governmental secret society or corporate collusion orchestrating events and manipulating government into certain responses, the danger of a territorial monopoly in violence that is a government is magnified, and again the violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution that allegedly binds it is revealed.

It is easy to blame foreign people with different beliefs, apply collective guilt to a massive segment of the global population, and rally behind the troops or in support of politicians. It is harder by far to step back from the propaganda in which we have been immersed since birth, shake off the partisan mindset, step back from patriotic fervor, and try to see the world as it really is.

I have not always had my current skepticism of government. I became politically aware during the Clinton era, and his first election was the first political event of which I remember being aware. I grew up in a conservative-leaning household in the midwest, and was thus well aware of the corruption exhibited by his party during those 8 years. I had hope that the opposition Republicans would reverse the evils of the democrats when George W Bush was elected, but became disillusioned over the years as the alleged conservative principles of the Republicans were readily trampled underfoot.

I explored third-party politics in an effort to discover a solution, and became a supporter of Ron Paul in the 2008 and 2012 elections, but the blatant corruption within the political machine for all parties disgusted me. Ron Paul and his supporters introduced me to philosophical and economic theories that I had to explore in depth. I read Frederic Bastiat, Lysander Spooner, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, Robert Higgs, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and the works of too many other writers to name.

In short, 9/11/01 is a date surrounded by a cloud of propaganda and deception making the event difficult to understand, but the necessary conclusion from the available evidence is there can be no political solution to any problem due to the nature of the incentives involved, and the perverse incentives of political power guarantee a destructive outcome from any "solution" offered. The Constitution is a tool to protect the political class, not a bulwark against tyranny. Any excuse will be used to seize more power over us, and that power once attained will never be relinquished.

With apologies to Lysander Spooner: "But whether 9/11 be one thing, or another, this much is certain—that it has either been a consequence of such a government as we have had, or that government was powerless to prevent it. In either case, the government is unfit to exist."

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Image credit: Wikipedia

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