Debate John Titor: Real Time Traveler or a Hoaxer?

[Passive_Extremist]

Re: John Titor Debate!

" Series of Waco type events...- John Titor"

LA Police cross the line

Toddler Hostage dies in standoff

A 17-month-old girl was killed Sunday night in a shootout between police and a gun-wielding man who held her in his arms on a South Los Angeles street as he shot and wounded a SWAT officer in the shoulder, authorities said. The suspect, identified as Jose Raul Lemos, also died at the scene.

http://www.latimes.com/la-me-shooting11jul...-home-headlines


I know some of the city dwellers in JT's future might just look at this and think the cops were doing their jobs, but the police aren't going to admit to wrong doing , that's why I think JT sited Waco as obvious example of law enforcement crossing the line and I think this is pretty similar.

 

[Apogee]

Re: John Titor Debate!

I know some of the city dwellers in JT's future might just look at this and think the cops were doing their jobs, but the police aren't going to admit to wrong doing , that's why I think JT sited Waco as obvious example of law enforcement crossing the line and I think this is pretty similar.[/QUOTE]



I know Titor's libertarian-ish militia-happy anti-goverment future plays well to the conspiracy-oriented mind...

...but I'm afraid, having read the details of this incident - crazed gunman firing erratically - that in saying the police crossed the line you're just plain reaching here.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roth Joint
There's no doubt selflessness, charity and the ability to work together are not very high on the list of priorities nowadays.




Well, that is entirely debatable Roth Joint.

Its reasonable enough to harbour suspicions on the motivatons of politicians and their agendas I suppose...but there's more sanctity and hope in a small child's efforts to collect tin cans for a famine relief drive than all the compromised half-assed efforts of leaders round a summit table. Quite how you can dismiss every day, common charity work or the Live8 movement or the likes of Oxfam, Save The Children or any number of other organisations commited for so long to making an impact on the Africa problem, as being of short duration and quickly forgotten is beyond me. But even if we were to assume that its true for everyone ( when was the last time you marched or donated or took a stand politically?) this lack of altruism you seem to believe in would still not change the following fundamental fact:

Human beings have evolved emotionally very little since the days of our Neanderthal cousins. I find it very difficult to believe that much will change on this score between now and 2036 no matter how much war and social upheaval takes place.

Even in the highly unlikely event that the Titor posts are the genuine article, and he has developed his critical, condescending attitude to our world from the viewpoint of a future society pieced together from the remnants of the old, the people in it will be much the same in terms of their human failings as those that exist today. Whats more, I would say that a world that has a common expression along the lines of - ' a safe place is anywhere that a hungry person can't walk in a day' is about as far from the utopian ideal as can be imagined - regardless of whether Titor blames us for bringing those circumstances about.

Titor's future world hasn't reached the enlightened heights of social perfection that in its selflessness, charity and ability to work together people don't need politicians or an army. Any society they've developed will be subject to the same corruption, fear, deceit and b/s that we must struggle against today.

As 'Mr Dark' on another board put it:

"...people in the year 2036 might well look back on the first years of the century as being a "golden age" of freedom and plenty, or a barbaric dystopia of ignorance and hypocrisy."


or, as would be more accurate, a society with both positive and negative qualities, like most other societies in human history.


People are people no matter what decade they come from. We can only struggle to improve the justice built into our governments. The politicians of 2036 will be no different to the politicians of today.

All the Titor Hoaxer has succeeded in doing with these cynical statements is illustrating the fact that the more things change - the more they stay the same.

By passing judgement on our time, he has merely highlighted the hypocrisies and shortcomings of this fictional future of his. A future where people are no more and no less mercenary, exploitative and deceitful than they are today...

...certainly something worth pondering as we sip thoughtfully from our John Titor mugs and recline in our John Titor T-shirts..
Last edited by Apogee : 21 Minutes Ago at 03:50 PM.

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[Passive_Extremist]

Re: John Titor Debate!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Apogee\")</div>

I know Titor's libertarian-ish militia-happy anti-goverment future plays well to the conspiracy-oriented mind...[/b]

How does that disprove it?


.<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Apogee\")</div>

..but I'm afraid, having read the details of this incident - crazed gunman firing erratically - ?that in saying the police crossed the line you're just plain reaching here. [/b]

...and you're convientently ignoring the part where they blow away a little baby in order to protect themselves, I'm afraid you're trying to downplay the officers responsibility, what's your agenda?

 

[Apogee]

Re: John Titor Debate!

...and you're convientently ignoring the part where they blow away a little baby in order to protect themselves, I'm afraid you're trying to downplay the officers responsibility [/QUOTE]


I'm not trying to downplay the officer's responsibility and I'm certainly not ignoring that a young child was killed. I'm merely pointing out that under the circumstances described in the article...

"About 6:20 p.m., Lemos emerged from the building with the toddler. He was holding a weapon and again firing erratically, shooting an LAPD tactical officer in the shoulder.

As other officers moved in to rescue their wounded colleague, police exchanged gunfire with Lemos. The girl also was hit."

...all this after two hours of negotiations with a gunman described as rampaging, intoxicated on drugs and 'crazed.'


I find it difficult to believe that a guy who'd use a baby as a shield in a gunfight is anything other than as described - "crazed." I don't believe either that the officers who fired had much choice in the matter, they weren't shoting to protect themselves but a colleague the guy had already hit and may have been about to kill:

"We did our best. It was tremendous stress?. The suspect dictated the outcome." "Our deepest sympathies go to the family,"

All I'm saying is that it doesn't stand up as a great facsimile of a Waco type event to me. Sounds to me like, once their colleague had been shot and wounded, those officers were put into an impossible situation. I'm certain they had no intention of harming the child, but on this telling, they certainly weren't the ones who had provoked the situation.

Its merely my opinion that, as I said, the attempt to shoehorn real-life events like this into the Titor manifesto, is...reaching.

As for my "agenda". I don't have one except to critique the John Titor Hoxer's claims. This question sounds a little paranoid to my ears.

 

[Passive_Extremist]

Re: John Titor Debate!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Apogee\")</div>

I'm not trying to downplay the officer's responsibility and I'm certainly not ignoring that a young child was killed. I'm merely pointing out that under the circumstances described in the article... ?
?
\"About 6:20 p.m., Lemos emerged from the building with the toddler. He was holding a weapon and again firing erratically, shooting an LAPD tactical officer in the shoulder.

As other officers moved in to rescue their wounded colleague, police exchanged gunfire with Lemos. The girl also was hit.\"
?
...all this after a two hour stand-off with a gunman described as 'crazed.'

Doesn't stand up as a great facsimile of a Waco type event to me. Sounds to me like, once their colleague had been shot and wounded, those officers were put into an impossible situation. On this tellingt, they certainly weren't the ones who had provoked the situation.[/b]

Nothing personal Apogee, but this is a typically obediant not questioning authority response that JT was warning us about. Instead of swallowing the official story, I think JT was alluding we should look past the official report and judge for ourselves if law enforcement was commiting a criminal act.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Apogee\")</div>

As for my \"agenda\". I don't have one except to critique the John Titor claims. This question sounds a little paranoid to my ears.[/b]

I'm just trying to figure out the driving force behind the hostility towards the JT believers or "fence-sitters" as some people here like to call them. When that stops, you can then discredit my claims as paranoia.

 

[Apogee]

Re: John Titor Debate!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Passive_Extremist\")</div>

Nothing personal Apogee, but this is a typically obediant not questioning authority response that JT was warning us about. Instead of swallowing the official story, I think JT was alluding we should look past the official report and think for ourselves to decide if law enforcement was commiting a criminal act.



I'm just trying to figure out the driving force behind the hostility towards the JT believers or \"fence-sitters\" as some people here like to call them. When that stops, you can then discredit my claims as paranoia.[/b]

Wasn't trying to discredit your claims as paranoia, just wondering why you asked me what my 'agenda' was. That's what struck me as a bit paranoid.

Besides, not to worry, I know something of the nature of paranoia myself. A word of explantion: I'm one of the original 'conspiracy junkies,' you see.
On the subject of the the JFK assasination, for example, there was little written matter that I'd not read on the subject and I spent many years absolutely certain that the official explanation of the Warren Commision was so much fiction.

I believed at one time or other that it was the CIA that had been responsible. Later, depending on what theory I was reading, the Mafia seemed more likely, or the Cubans, or French Mercenaries or the Military Industrial complex or Johnson, or Jackie or the Pope...

Each theory seemed on the face of it entirely plausible. One thing was certain though, Oswald probably did not do the shooting and even if he did he had not acted alone.

So I cannot be described as obediant or someone who swallows the official version of news events unquestioningly.

But as I've got older, and my reading and learning continues, I've left my conspiracy junkyism behind...the ideas and the supposed facts that supported it have all fell by the wayside until the only 'credible' answer is the one that people might have been happy with originally had it not been for human error and false assumptions.

So I've come to believe solidly in two things...

Firstly that the complexities of human nature, our capacity for screw-ups and the kind of dis-trust in government that the JFK assasination wrought - has created a generation who see too many shadows. Sometimes a spade is just a spade. Sometimes governments aren't all-calculating, they're just made up of dumb people who make mistakes and try to cover their asses.

And secondly....Lee Harvey Oswald did it and he did it alone.

So I don't believe everything I read anymore. But sometimes, believe it or not, the first version of a story can in fact be the correct one.

 

[StarLord]

Re: John Titor Debate!

Passive,
This isn't even close to what constitutes a Waco type event.
What response did you think the police SHOULD have taken in this instance? Let the LONE armed suspect take off with his hostage to vist some other mayhem upon other innocent people?

 

[sinister]

Re: John Titor Debate!

I think it's important tho to think about what "waco-type event' really means. I don't believe this is a "term", i.e. some vague group of words that has in our society come to mean something very specific, I believe it was just an idea. This is a phrase that Titor used, that we've built up into a term simply for the sake of making it easier to talk about these things. But I think that phrase has tripped us up a lot. We should be looking at the Patriot Act (not that none of us are, I think we all recognize how important the Act is). Waco, to me, was about the feds overstepping their boundaries, shifting from protectors of the people to enforcers of law (in my mind, two very different things). Waco was also about the end result, the outcome, of this shift. I've been scanning the massive amounts of incoming news lately for anything related to the Patriot Act (i.e., any stories that involve law enforcement utilizing this new power), and the results are pretty stunning. There is a seperation going on, between the citizenry, and what has become "authority". We are all becoming far more desensitized than ever before, very rapidly. What this means is that law enforcement may be less likely to feel empathy towards the "criminals", and the "criminals" are increasingly not caring. I've heard the phrase from my friends 'whatever, cops can do whatever they want anyway" countless times, and yet there's a mentality that law, rules, and authority have much less impact as they did before. My generation is growing up to not give a ****, and law enforcement has more power to do something about it than ever before. I see it as a vicious cycle, and I think this is what Titor wanted us (time traveller or not) to take from 'waco-type events'. Just because the Patriot Act passed through Congress, does not make it, in my eyes just. And therefore, I will not obey, listen, or support it. Just because police are in their powers to do something, does not make it "okay", I don't care how many judges, senators, and policy-makers put their stamp of approval on it, they aren't the ones who have to live with its direct effects.
I watched a video recently of some protestors here in Santa Cruz, mostly students, protesting California's refusal to pay our campus workers decent wages, despite the huge surplus they have. It was at night, and the protestors had taken residence in a series of tents on campus, in a field within the view of our campus' headmaster's residence (which lies on campus). The police arrived, and preceded to 'sleeper hold' every single protestor as the protestors were zip-tied and placed face-down in a row, one after the next. People were screaming, although not the people being zip-tied, their tongues gagged and hung out from the pressure point hold, there was little they could say. They were held at the police station until someone finally realized what the police were doing was illegal. As soon as someone came up to the station and informed the police they were wrong, they let them go, charged with nothing. It became obvious to me the police had never intended to charge these protestors, and isntead held them, for no reason.
Ya, paranoia's a bitch when there's no cause for it, and I don't walk around corners stealthily, checking for cops, but I do have my eyes open. I guess I might not call these things 'waco-type', if I was in Titor's place, but I would damn sure recognize them as a sign of too much power in authority's hands, corruption, desensitization, and an impending collapse of said system. I'm trying to think about what would have happened 10 years ago in these exact situations, I remember when police shooting someone down, hostage-taker or not, would only happen once in a great while. Now it seems like this sort of thing happens every damn week. This leads me to believe there is a change occuring, a movement in a certain direction. And that direction can be nowhere good.
To wrap this post up, I've made a lot of blanket statements, so let me clarify. When I say 'law enforcement', I don't mean to criticize all of it. Many people I would consider friends without a moment's thought are involved in law enforcement, and I know some people here are too. Don't take offense, I can recognize the difference. Just like every other thing, there are people with good and bad intentions. Thoughtful and toughtless.

 

[Passive_Extremist]

Re: John Titor Debate!

This isn't even close to what constitutes a Waco type event.


I beg to differ starlord, in my judgement this is exactly like a Waco type situation where the law enforcement officers cross a line and violate peoples rights, just like Waco.


What response did you think the police SHOULD have taken in this instance? Let the LONE armed suspect take off with his hostage to vist some other mayhem upon other innocent people?

Not shoot the baby. They should've had training to deal with this, use it. And If shooting the hostage was the answer, that means hostages have no rights.

 

[Apogee]

Re: John Titor Debate!

What response did you think the police SHOULD have taken in this instance? Let the LONE armed suspect take off with his hostage to vist some other mayhem upon other innocent people?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"Passive Extremist\")</div>

Not shoot the baby. They should've had training to deal with this, use it. And If shooting the hostage was the answer, that means hostages have no rights.[/b]

No amount of training can prepare a law enforcement officer for every possible contingency. Especially where a madman whose just shot a cop is concerned. We don't know all the details of that tragedy...it sounds to me like they were presented with an impossible situation. If its a question of hostages having rights, then do those rights not also extend to the law enforcement officer who in the course of their duty - trying to help that hostage - has their life threatened as well?