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Edited on Thu Mar-23-06 07:53 AM by HamdenRice
I was reviewing the old thread by Harvey Korman that was recently revived which includes a discussion about whether LIHOP or MIHOP are easier to prove.
In other words, if MIHOP is what actually happened, it necessarily includes the elements of proof of the more "believable" LIHOP. So we should concentrate on LIHOP because it is easier to prove.
It occurred however that this is actually false and leads me to believe that if you think MIHOP actually happened, it is more efficient to concentrate on the elements of proof of MIHOP.
Here's why: the main element of proof of LIHOP is actually the internal mental state or motivation of the main actors, while MIHOP depends on physical and circumstantial evidence, whether it's controlled demolition, impossible flight patterns or intelligence and family connections.
LIHOP can only be proven using the oral testimony of the participants about their internal reasoning or at best, communications between them about their motives.
Imagine a man standing on the sidewalk watching a child cross the street as a car barrels toward her. The man does nothing to save the child. We now try to figure out why the man let the child get hit -- was it because he wanted the child to die and let her get hit (LIHOP), or because he was too stupid or slow to realize what was happening (incompetence theory). Even if the man had evil motives (LIHOP) he can easily claim incompetence, and there is no way we can disprove this. Without the ability to read minds, we can never know whether the cause was LIHOP or incompetence.
But if the man MIHOP we can prove that. We would have evidence of an insurance policy on the child's life payable to the man, or some conspiracy between the driver and the man. In other words, the evidence of MIHOP is external to the man's internal mental state.
The one way that LIHOP would be as proveable as MIHOP would be a record of communication among conspirators. But my worry about this is -- contrary to the position of the debunkers -- any initial conspiracy would have included an extremely small number of people, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and a few black ops chieftains, and I doubt their communications were reduced to paper.
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