What would you say is the qualitative difference between people who consistently express skepticism about what government officials say and those who consistently accept official statements at face value (or worse, consitently criticize those who express skepticism)? Well, that would depend on who is expressing skepticism,(i.e. do they seem to be literate, do they seem to have any knowledge of or expertise in the subject(s) under discussion, and finally, do they have an excessive fondness for CAPITAL LETTERS and exclamation points!!!!!) I would also want to know how consistently they expressed skepticism- i.e. are they skeptical of oh, say, the claim that we landed on the moon, or do they focus their skepticism on areas where reasonable people might disagree about the truth of the matters at hand.
Regarding those who criticize inveterate skeptics, if I were to describe a qualitative difference between them and the ALLCAPS, I would like to whether they (skeptics) criticize them (ALLCAPS) merely for daring to disbelieve the government, or do they criticize them for a procrustean determination to stretch and twist any governmental statement into evidence of a vast and nefarious conspiracy that is everywhere, but somehow only visible to a select few who don't spell very well.
regarding a qualitative difference, I would suggest the skeptics prefer to apply Occam's Razor to these sorts of questions- the indefatiguable (sp?) ALLCAPS played with Occam's Razor once, but it cut them, and so they dropped it, and said "OWW- SHINY TOOTH THINGIE CUT BONGO!!!!!" and never touched it again.
Thats what is so aggravating about Free Rpublic sometimes. You try to express your opinion of "How this could be an accident, and lets wait for the professional investigators to do their jobs first", and you get blasted by the ALLCAPS because "you are an indoctrinated system dude." Or they start calling you a DemocRAT Socialist Leftist who can't get over the fact that Gore lost. Geez, I'm a Republican who voted for Bush fer chrissake!
I have worked in aviation for 19 years, and know that there are a myriad of things that can bring down an aircraft. I truly believe it was nothing more than a mechanical failure which caused catastrophic structural failure.
But the conspiracy aficianados on here love to look for the Bogey Man under every rock. The government always lies, and these people are right because they say so, the self appointed Dilettants Investigation Squad. They'll state that its everything from Stinger missiles to the Alien Nazi Terrorist Dwarfs with an Illudium Q238 ray gun. Couldn't be anything as simple as engine FOD, or a bird strike. They ought to go to work for the 'National Enquirer' or 'Star' ... they'd fit right in.
Doesn't it remind you of the movie '1941' with John Belushi? It would be comical if it weren't sadly true.