Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. As a libertarian, I have a lot of mixed feelings on the event and what has taken place since.
First, I don't believe these attacks happened because America is free or America is a democracy (although America is not free and it is not supposed to be a democracy). The reasons given by the terrorists have been consistent. It is mainly due to U.S. foreign policy. These attacks were revenge for U.S. wars, U.S. occupations, U.S. sanctions, U.S. aid to dictators, U.S. aid to Israel, and other related reasons.
Of course, all or most of the victims of September 11, 2001 had little to do with U.S. foreign policy. These were innocent people. It is the U.S. government responsible for foreign policy. Although one could sympathize with people in the Middle East suffering the consequences of U.S. foreign policy, it is wrong of the terrorists to target innocent people, regardless of their lack of options.
Although, by the same token, it is wrong of Americans to want to hurt or kill anyone who was not directly responsible for the terrorist attacks. You can call it collateral damage or anything you want, but it is still morally wrong to have people in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else die because Americans are seeking revenge. The terrorist acts should have been treated as criminal acts. If a criminal runs into a building, you are not morally justified to blow up the whole building if there are innocent people inside.
Unfortunately, September 11, 2001 gave the U.S. government an excuse to vastly expand with war and infringements on civil liberties. America is less free in 2011 because of it. The good news is that more people are waking up to this, with much credit due to the internet and Ron Paul.
You will mostly hear patriotic rhetoric if you watch television tomorrow. If you go on the internet, you will find other stories. There is a movie being released tomorrow that discusses the falling of the towers. It is not being called a conspiracy theory movie, but that is basically what it is.
I also have mixed thoughts on the conspiracy theories. Some of them really are way out there. However, I have always been suspicious of how the twin towers fell. They both fell, basically into their own footprint. But to make the whole thing worse, is the falling of World Trade Center 7. WTC 7 was a 47 story building. While that is much smaller than the twin towers were and typical in Manhattan, a 47 story building would be considered a skyscraper in most cities.
WTC 7 fell at close to free fall speed. Go on YouTube and watch a video if you haven't seen it. This building supposedly collapsed because of fired ignited from when the twin towers fell. WTC 7 collapsed just after 5:00 in the afternoon of September 11, 2001. It is only the third big building I know of to have ever collapsed like that due to a fire. The first two happened that morning.
If WTC 7 fell due to explosives, which is what appears to have happened, then that leads to all kinds of questions. It means the explosives had to have been planted before that morning. It means that insiders knew an attack was going to happen. It means that a few elites knew the attacks were coming and did nothing, allowing almost 3,000 people to die.
The only thing that makes me go the other way is that it is hard to believe that a few government elitists could pull off this whole thing. The whole thing probably could have been done with just a couple of dozen people knowing. While government as a whole is incompetent, certain individuals in government and connected to government can be intelligent enough to plan something like this.
Regardless, if WTC 7 was taken down by explosives, it leads to hundreds of more questions on what happened and who knew.
I don't push this subject all that often, except for those who show interest. The crazy thing is, even if people believed that the government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks, they still wouldn't be libertarians. That is another reason I don't push the conspiracy theories all that often. While I think it would help liberty in the sense that less people would be as trustful of their government, it still would be far from a victory for a libertarian agenda.
I know socialists/ leftists who believe in these conspiracies. At the very least, they believe the U.S. government is fighting illegitimate wars and responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of people. Yet, these same leftists want the government to provide our healthcare. What? So you think that the government starts wars and kills people, yet you want these same people that you call murderers to oversee the healthcare system in the name of helping the poor? If you think there are a bunch of murderous thugs running DC, why would you want them running the healthcare system? Do they all of a sudden become honest and genuine in what they say about helping the poor?
In conclusion, I would like to know what happened to WTC 7. If I knew, it would probably lead to a bunch of other questions. While exposing this would help the general public become more skeptical of government, it also won't magically turn them into libertarians. I do hope we eventually get answers though and I hope that Americans start withdrawing their consent to be governed. The sooner the wars and occupations end, the safer we will become.