Thursday, September 9, 2010

Rules of the Debate

  1. The Topic of our debate will be a claim that you make. It should be a claim that, if true,would help to refute the common narrative of the events of 9/11 ("19 members of Al Quaeda hijacked 4 planes, caught America's defences by surprise, flew them into buildings, and that alone caused caused all the death and demolition"). You should have evidence for it. That evidence should be available in books or on the internet, so you can make references to sources. You should be able to explain why your claim implies that the common narrative is not correct, and what else you think is correct. Very important: I want you to pick a very narrowly and specifically defined claim, that has specific implications. For example: Saying "the air force was stood down" would not be very narrow or specific. The sort of claim I want to debate might be as narrow and specific as: "General Arnold issued an oral order to NEADS in Rome to delay the launch of the alarm fighters at Langley AFB at some point between 9:03 and 9:15". Another example: Saying "There were pools of molten steel at GZ" would be a little vague (how do you know? Where? When?). Better claim would be: "Rescue worker John Doe spotted a pool of molten steel underneath the rubble of building WTC5 on September 22, 2001, as he told a reporter of the NYT a week later".
  2. The Goal of the debate is not to prove or disprove the whole story of 9/11 or any alternative theory. The objective is to evaluate your claim. Is it true? Is it proven? Does it imply what you think it implies? In other words: Is this claim a good argument in the overall debate about what happened on 9/11? The answer does not have to be a yes or no. Could be a number of things. Claim is proven true, and does have implications. Or claim is proven false and should not be used any longer. Or claim is true, but does not mean anything that merits its use. Or we can't determine if the claim is true or not. 
  3. Your Objective therefore should be to present the best and strongest claim you have: The one that you are most convinced of. The one that has the strongest evidence for it. The one that has the most damning implications. Chose wisely! Because My Objective will be to show that your claim is not true, not proven, or does not have serious implications, and to conclude that you really have nothing at all in your hands against the common narrative, as your one best claim turned out to be unconvincing.
  4. To Participate, you have to sign up to blogger.com and become a member of my blog. Contact me somehow and kindly ask me to invite you to this blog. Indicate the topic you wish to discuss. I will then invite you become a member of this blog, so you can write bog postings.
  5. You present your claim by writing a new blog posting. We will debate by writing comments. We may agree over time to edit postings, or write new postings. For example, I might ask you to clarify a few things, link to sources, etc.
  6. Quite likely, we will not agree on an outcome. I realise it is hard to convince me, and hard to convince most of you. But I promise I will consider everything you say fairly.
  7. Netiquette: I will not call you names, and you will not call me names. You will not accuse me of being bribed, a member of the NWO, etc., and I will likewise abstain from making such accusations.
  8. Stay on topic! Since you picked the claim you want to defend, thart is exactly the topic we will discuss. Stick to it! If your claim is "John Doe spotted a pool of molten steel underneath WTC5", you would be off-topic if you argued that "Jane Doe spotted molten metal dripping from WTC1", unless you can convince me that her molten metal is the same that John saw. If your claim is that General Arnold ordered a stand-down, don't tell me that the LearJet of Payne Steward was intercepted some years earlier, as that has nothing to do with any orders given in 2001.

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