Wednesday, August 06, 2008
It's the Rule of Law, Stupid
If one thing has been clearly established about George W. Bush, it is that he simply does not understand what the law is, or (much the same thing), why it is.
Two Contending Impossibilities
The collapse of World Trade Center buildings One, Two, and Seven seems to present us with two facially impossible hypotheses. The first is that not one or two but three buildings could be brought down in exactly the manner of a controlled demolition but without any human agency other than the haphazard and asymmetrical impact of flying airplanes or (in the case of Seven) debris. This seems impossible to me, and I seem to be joined in that opinion by quite a few sober and judicious members of the building professions. (See http://www.ae911truth.org/.)
But the competing hypothesis seems equally implausible: That someone managed to place tons of explosives in those buildings, coordinate their detonation with kamikaze attacks witnessed by the whole world, and keep it a secret. This of course is the great Achilles heel in all conspiracy theories -- once the conspiracy reaches a certain size and complexity, it becomes increasingly unlikely that it could be pulled off successfully, and even more tellingly, that it could be pulled off in perfect secrecy.
I only know one thing to do when an undeniable event cannot be plausibly explained: Conduct more investigation and research. This is what the United States Government needs to do. Its continuing failure to do so will be widely construed -- not unreasonably, in my opinion -- as further evidence of a conspiracy. Some are already saying that the government is in the hands of a ruthless junta and that everything we hear and see in Washington is an elaborate charade to maintain the forms and rituals of democracy. I don't believe this, but it would be refreshing to see some unmistakable signs that it ain't so.
And again, I also find it impossible to believe that those buildings -- all three of them -- collapsed like that without help. In the law of evidence there is a concept known as the "doctrine of chance." While its precise outlines are very far from clear, the core concept is that in order to prove that a defendant's conduct was intentional rather than inadvertent or innocent, it is permissible to show that the events constituting the charged offense resemble a number of similar events any of which might be accidental or random in isolation, but all of which in combination must have been the result of intentional conduct. The paradigmatic case was the English defendant who insisted that his wife had drowned accidentally in the tub. The crown was allowed to prove that his two previous wives had also drowned in the tub. The extreme unlikelihood that three wives would accidentally drown in the tub formed a permissible basis to infer that the third drowning had not been accidental at all.
So too here. It may be conceivable that one enormous skyscraper would free-fall into its own footprint as the result of a fire. It might even be conceivable that a second, similarly designed skyscraper would do the same thing. But when a third skyscraper, of a quite different configuration, falls into its own footprint on the same day, in the same place, at the same time -- well, to quote an old friend, my mama didn't raise no fools. If you want me to believe that's what really happened, you're going to have to conduct a real investigation and look at all of the relevant evidence, including that of reluctant witnesses, such as the kind of guys who shoot old friends in the face and then have a couple drinks to feel better about it.
But the competing hypothesis seems equally implausible: That someone managed to place tons of explosives in those buildings, coordinate their detonation with kamikaze attacks witnessed by the whole world, and keep it a secret. This of course is the great Achilles heel in all conspiracy theories -- once the conspiracy reaches a certain size and complexity, it becomes increasingly unlikely that it could be pulled off successfully, and even more tellingly, that it could be pulled off in perfect secrecy.
I only know one thing to do when an undeniable event cannot be plausibly explained: Conduct more investigation and research. This is what the United States Government needs to do. Its continuing failure to do so will be widely construed -- not unreasonably, in my opinion -- as further evidence of a conspiracy. Some are already saying that the government is in the hands of a ruthless junta and that everything we hear and see in Washington is an elaborate charade to maintain the forms and rituals of democracy. I don't believe this, but it would be refreshing to see some unmistakable signs that it ain't so.
And again, I also find it impossible to believe that those buildings -- all three of them -- collapsed like that without help. In the law of evidence there is a concept known as the "doctrine of chance." While its precise outlines are very far from clear, the core concept is that in order to prove that a defendant's conduct was intentional rather than inadvertent or innocent, it is permissible to show that the events constituting the charged offense resemble a number of similar events any of which might be accidental or random in isolation, but all of which in combination must have been the result of intentional conduct. The paradigmatic case was the English defendant who insisted that his wife had drowned accidentally in the tub. The crown was allowed to prove that his two previous wives had also drowned in the tub. The extreme unlikelihood that three wives would accidentally drown in the tub formed a permissible basis to infer that the third drowning had not been accidental at all.
So too here. It may be conceivable that one enormous skyscraper would free-fall into its own footprint as the result of a fire. It might even be conceivable that a second, similarly designed skyscraper would do the same thing. But when a third skyscraper, of a quite different configuration, falls into its own footprint on the same day, in the same place, at the same time -- well, to quote an old friend, my mama didn't raise no fools. If you want me to believe that's what really happened, you're going to have to conduct a real investigation and look at all of the relevant evidence, including that of reluctant witnesses, such as the kind of guys who shoot old friends in the face and then have a couple drinks to feel better about it.
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