9/11, Americans for Prosperity, and the Truth

To his credit, Dr. Phil Zimmermann, did us the courtesy of responding to our assertion that he was, in fact, a 9/11 Truther in an earlier post. Dr. Zimmermann's reply was polite and respectful and we encourage anyone who reads this blog to give it a look.

Nevertheless, we continue to have strenuous objections to both Zimmermann's beliefs on 9/11 and his relevance at the Americans for Prosperity tea party in Sheboygan. To wit:

Zimmermann writes:

I feel that the engineering video I have linked raises a lot of very interesting questions. I don’t want to believe that there is some dark conspiracy behind the attacks, but I can’t simply ignore such compelling evidence. If anyone who has watched the video can convince me of why the claims are not true I would be happy to concede the argument and remove the link from my site.

(emphasis added)

The video can be found here. The "questions" raised by the video (and multiple imitators) have been independently debunked by numerous sources. One of the most accessible was a special issue of Popular Mechanics that sought to eliminate any and every doubt that 9/11 was an "inside job." We encourage Dr. Zimmermann to take a look at it.

The emphasized sentence above reinforces Zimmermann's belief that the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11 was the product of "controlled demolition." This is a view that is antagonistic to accepted facts. It is a sign that someone does not comprehend the basic elements of an event with fundamental importance to contemporary discussion. We can wax philosophically about post-structuralism, deconstruction and the age old question "What is truth?" -- but civic discourse does not operate on that level. Saying "There is significant evidence that the 9/11 attacks did not take place the way the government claims" is like saying "2 + 2 = Pancakes:" it makes no sense.

This is no small matter because having such a belief testifies to the believer's ability to make reasoned opinions on other issues. Zimmermann goes on to say:

I do not claim to be an expert on healthcare, just someone who is passionate about helping others and promoting freedom and accountable government. [...] AFP is certainly not promoting me as an authority on the subject.

This last assertion is fundamentally false. Zimmermann was billed as a "resident physician at the University of Wisconsin Madison" and carries the title of "Dr." -- both of which carry connotations of authority and expertise in medicinal and health care fields to the average observer. Zimmermann may not have thought he was being used as a "health care expert" (in which case he should have known better), but Americans for Property sure was suggesting as much.

We have little doubt that Zimmerann's beliefs, misguided as they are, come from a sincere place and with the best of intentions to correct what he sees are grievous injustices in the world. But that does not make his worldview with regard to 9/11 any more palatable. Nor does it make his proposed remedies any less ridiculous.

Take, for example, his recommendation that Wisconsin secede from the Union. Zimmermann claims an Independent Sovereign Wisconsin would benefit from no longer being entangled in the United States' military adventures. Perhaps. Yet, what Zimmermann fails to understand is that an Independent Wisconsin would need to raise and support its own self-defense force, a task that would without question require universal conscription. So an unintended consequence of Zimmermanns's desire to de-militarize Wisconsin would be total militarization of the state. That's an absurd and self-contradictory argument.

This is just part and parcel of the entire secession argument -- which exists as a ludicrous solution to shedding Wisconsin residents of the "evil" federal government. In fact, all secession would do is create the need for more government. Who would regulate the nuclear power plant in Two River if Wisconsin didn't have access to the NRC? How would senior citizens get back the money they put into the Social Security fund? I realize this is the unambiguous goal of many conservatives and libertarians, but one doesn't need to live in a State of Nature to know that life is nasty, brutish and short -- one only has to live without the FDA.

Americans for Prosperity wants that world. They cloak their arguments up in patriotic rhetoric, use philosophically complex words like "freedom" and "liberty" like buzzwords because they are part of the American vocabulary, but what they really want is deregulation for the sake of enhancing profits -- and AFP is obviously not above using the ignorance of it's speakers to prey on the ignorance of its constituents. That should speak to their credibility as much as it does to Zimmermann's.

Zimmermann's presence at the Sheboygan rally indicates one of two things to us. The first is that the organizers were so enamored at the idea of a doctor speaking against health care reform that they jumped at the first person they could find without properly vetting him. The second is that AFP was so happy that it got a doctor to speak against health care reform that they didn't care he was a 9/11 Truther or thought no one would notice. If the first case, then AFP is too disorganized to be considered a legitimate voice in the public discussion. If the second, then AFP is too craven. I suspect it was combination of the two and would like to see organizations such as AFP held accountable.

Towards the end of his reply Zimmermann writes: "This is a free country. We all have different views on issues and it is our ability to freely discuss our ideas that makes this nation strong." We couldn't agree more, but a variety of views doesn't make them all equal. As we noted earlier, we have little doubt that Zimmermann's intentions are good, that he has arrived at this views not by way of madness, but from a sincere desire to right the world's wrongs. That's never an easy thing to do, and sometimes can seem so daunting that there appears to be no other explanation than that the world is conspiring to keep good men down. But the world is a far more complicated place and answers are never that easy. We don't think Zimmermann should end his quest to make the world a better place, we just think he should try harder.