But that doesn’t matter. The burden on proof is on those who make outrageous claims. Just as I have a hard time believing in an omnipotent deity who works miracles and guides our every actions in life, I’m disbelieving of claims that the U.S. government flew missiles into its own buildings in a ploy to use the subsequent paranoia of its citizens to invade two countries, starting an 11-year occupation that has cost over $1 trillion and more than 6000 American casualties, with the only tangible result being a relatively slight increase in domestic security (seriously, as bad as the Department of Homeland Security is, there are much worse governments out there; things could have gone the way Russia is going) and the distrust of any allies we may have had in the Middle East.

Oh, and despite the fact that the government leaks like a broken faucet (they couldn’t even keep Stuxnet under wraps), there have been no credible inside sources linking the government to anything but a series of bad decisions that were spun into a casus belli for the futile War on Terror. Whatever trust the population may have had in the government on September 12, 2001 is long gone. We went from blindly accepting that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to a 12% approval rating in Congress. That was some effective work there, New World Order. Not to mention that they can’t even rub out or discredit the people with the supposed evidence of the conspiracy. One would think that an entity able to pull off a false-flag operation as big as 9/11 would be able to plant some child porn on Alex Jones’ computer.

There are a lot of holes to plug before I can take this conspiracy theory seriously. I have to make too many assumptions about the infallibility or motivation of the United States government and the existence of some shadowy extra-governmental web of conspirators. The official explanation that terrorists from groups and countries known to intensely dislike the United States (for reasons dating back to CIA meddling during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and our involvement in the Gulf War) were able to take advantage of the complacency and fragmentation of the United States’ intelligence agencies and hijack multiple airplanes for use as instruments of destruction is a much simpler, much more credible explanation.

Is the U.S. government faultless? No, they could have easily prevented this had the various intelligence agencies cooperated and shared information linking Muslim fundamentalists to plots involving airplanes. And they certainly did take advantage of the post-9/11 fear to retaliate (the United States has a long, well-documented history rushing headlong into ill-conceived conflicts). But thermite? Controlled demolitions? The murder of nearly 3000 people? That’s a lot harder to swallow. It’ll take incontrovertible evidence to make me accept that, yet all I’ve seen by way of explanations are vague coincidences, hand-waving, and promises that proof exists.

TL;DR: I’m skeptical of outrageous claims. I’ll disbelieve them until provided with damn good evidence.

Also, I honestly don’t know why I’m defending a five-year-old article on a blog I hardly use.