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Comment by cwyers | Hacker News Reader

...am I the only person who didn't know that Stallman is a 9/11 truther?

There is a page on Stallman's own website which contradict this:

"I don't believe that the US government directly planned or instigated [the attacks of September 11]. But in a larger sense it laid the foundation for them, through two decades of support for armed religious fanatics in Pakistan and Afghanistan, up to and including the Taliban."

No, I don't think stallman is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. When people quote Stallman they tend to be vague, and the quote in the article simply said:

"even if you believe that the government had nothing to do with the attacks of September 2001,"

What is lacking is context. It may be simply a comment regarding the US Foreign policy. After all, the reason Al-Qaeda had power in the first place can be directed linked to weapons and money which the US gave to Al-Qaeda in order to have a proxy war with the Soviet.

I try to listen to all of his talks on the web and I don't think that I have ever heard him say that, but I might have missed it.

BTW, those four images are inflamatory. I can't find them on the fsf.org web site. If the author placed those there, and they have nothing to do with the FSF or Stallman, then this article should be hell banned, if that is possible. If Those four inflamatory images are from FSF or Stallman's web properties then I would like to see evidence (URLs please). Shame, shame, shame on the author if he just placed those images to be provacative.

At least 2 of them are LaRouche, not Stallman/FSF, so I'd agree with you that they are unfair and inflammatory. The Obama/Hitler one is apparently from LaRouche organizers [1]. The global warming one obviously is as well. The Windows 7 sins image is actually from the FSF [2]. I don't know about the Swindle image.

[1] http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/03/29/lyndon-larouche...

[2] http://en.windows7sins.org

They are illustrating the author's contention that Stallman's rhetorical approach is similar (and similarly offputting to anyone not already committed to the cause) to that of the LaRouche crowd, and are presented in pairs with a LaRouche poster beside one from the FSF/Stallman side (the Windows 7 sins is from the FSF, I'm not sure of the origin of the "Swindle" poster but the "Swindle"-as-abusive-alternate-name-for-Kindle thing is something that, per the letter writer, Stallman engaged in in the speech.)

In my opinion, including a picture of Obama as Hitler (which has nothing to do with any Stallman/FSF statement) raises an already tenuous ad hominem attack to its Godwin extreme. That they aren't clearly labeled is disingenuous at best.

Its not an ad hominem attack. Saying Stallman's arguments are wrong (or, in a weaker form, that they should be dismissed) because of the tactics similar to those of the LaRouche crowd similarity would be ad hominem.

Saying that Stallman's presentation of his ideas is, in fact, alienating to people who aren't already converts, and that the presentation's similarity to LaRouche extremists tactics is helpful in understanding why that happens (whether or not it should happen) is tactical criticism.

There may be a problem with it, but it isn't even remotely ad hominem.

https://stallman.org/stopping-terrorists.html

In a footnote at the bottom here, he says he believes (believed?) Cheney played a role.

There's this too: https://www.stallman.org/articles/911-new-investigation.html

But I don't care for the comparison of Stallman to Lyndon LaRouche. That's just trolling.

Thanks for the link. I know a few people who think that Cheney knew 9/11 was going to happen. Personally I doubt it.

Wow, what a fallacy quote out of context. On the same page you linked he says:

I don't believe that the US government directly planned or instigated those attacks.

I believe the footnote states that he changed his mind after having written the article. I also failed to see it the first time I read through, though I appreciate your desire to get the facts out there.

I look forward to the day when 9/11 enters the same category as the JFK assassination, and questioning the official story is merely fringe and not (necessarily) crazy. 2300+ engineers are on record disputing the science of the 9/11 Commission; even if they're utterly mistaken, it doesn't mean every single one is a paranoid lunatic.

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