Secretary of State John Kerry made a fool of himself today on Capitol Hill. He actually told a House committee Americans should not worry! When did he don the uniform of Officer Barbrady, of South Park fame? But he did one valuable service. He utterly destroyed the Truther Narrative.

The Truther Narrative: what is that?

Since shortly after the fall of the World Trade Center, the political enemies of then-President George W. Bush agreed on a strange narrative. They denied anyone flew airplanes into the World Trade Center. Despite thousands of direct witnesses, not merely watching on television but on the scene, they said: no planes. They soon found out they could not say that with straight faces. So then they said the planes didn’t bring those buildings down. Rather, the original builders pre-wired them with demolition charges on every joist on every floor. The purpose: to kill thousands of people, blame an outside enemy, and turn America into a police state.

Antiwar demonstrators in Los Angeles, Calif., on 28 October 2007, insist the government blew up WTC-7 This is a key Truther Narrative element. Photo: Damon D’Amato on Flickr, CC BY 2.0 Generic License

Those who still push the Truther Narrative, point to the abrupt collapse of World Trade Center Building Seven. That building housed the Port Authority before it fell. Several days after the fall of World Trade Center One and Two (the Towers), Building Seven collapsed, seemingly without warning or prelude. To this day, Truthers accuse the builders of pre-wiring Building Seven with demolition charges, and simply setting these off days after the first event. They ignore one thing: the Towers fell and rocked the ground as severely as an earthquake might. And no one builds to resist an earthquake in New York City.

The extreme liberal left kept up this narrative for years. But they gradually abandoned it. Obama did have a “Czar,” Van Jones, in his administration. Van Jones hews to the Truther Narrative. But he no longer works for the Obama administration or the government.

Exit liberal Truthers; enter libertarian Truthers

Sadly, the Truther Narrative lives on. Liberals no longer find it useful to their ends. Maybe they know no one they want to reach, will believe it.

But some libertarians believe the Truther Narrative. All libertarians believe government does too much. But some among them, the rational anarchists, believe free people need no such thing as government. Police protection? Private security, fee-for-service. Military? Militia standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the border. (And no projection of power). Travel abroad at your own risk, or do not travel at all. Courts? Private arbitration. Enforcement? The “Coventry Treatment:”  either banish an offender or simply refuse to trade with or talk to him. Such a system can only work if no outside enemies exist. So these particular libertarians refuse to admit Americans have any enemies but what they make. Therefore they cannot admit the world has people in it who want to kill Americans for being Americans. So who knocked down the World Trade Center? The United States government itself. Therewith the essence of the Truther Narrative.

The Truther Narrative began serving the interests of extreme elements of the Democratic Party. Today it serves the interests of rational anarchists. Thomas Jefferson said the people have the right to abolish a tyrannical government, and institute a new government to replace the old. A rational anarchist asks: why bother? And a modern libertarian Truther says: Don’t you dare!

Latest Truther madness meets its match

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Last weekend, the al-Shabab group published a propaganda video. They tried to incite Somalis living in Minnesota to storm the Mall of America and shoot the customers.

Or so we hear. A certain Truther at Sodahead.com, whose username this correspondent shall not mention (for that would break the SodaHead Terms of Service), actually demanded proof positive the video came from Somalia, and did not in fact come originally from a United States government studio. (This user, by the way, has plenty of company on SodaHead. Any of at least a dozen users could have said this.)

In all fairness, this video went public at a most convenient time for the Obama administration. They seek funding for the Department of Homeland Security, and preservation of Jeh (Junum) Johnson’s pretended authority to let illegal aliens stay in this country. They therefore have a moral hazard. To stir up fears of a terrorist attack on American soil best serves their interests.

Well, apparently, John Kerry didn’t get the memo.

Our citizens, our world today is actually, despite ISIL, despite the visible killings that you see and how horrific they are, we are actually living in a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally, less deaths, less violent deaths today than through the last century.

Wha-a-t?!?

Even Judge Andrew Napolitano, always quick to suspect entrapment in any terrorism sting case, could not believe what he heard. Neither could Director of National Intelligence James Clapper:

When the final accounting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled.

What does this discrepancy do to the Truther Narrative?

If the Truthers are telling the truth, would not John Kerry play the terrorism threat to the hilt? Would he not go even further than Director Clapper did? Would he not renew Obama’s call for a civilian security force? (Internal Security Force? John Forsythe, call your agent!) Of course he would. Instead he downplayed the threat. Almost as though he were a Truther himself. What possible purpose could he serve, at all consistent with the Truther Narrative?

Truthers everywhere must admit: they could never predict this. Nor did they ever say ahead of time that any officer of the United States government would describe the terror threat in any but the starkest terms.

You have, therefore, just seen an epic failure of a political theory.

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