I'd also like to chime on his final note. There are people (teens/early 20s) who use reddit today who totally missed 9/11 either because they were just too young or hadn't been born yet.

I'm going to tell you what I remember of 9/11 in a semi-orderly way. The factual details can always be looked up, but that's not the point is it? This is about the emotions of that moment.

Watching the planes crash into the twin towers was terrible but that part didn't even seem real at first. It was the number of tragedies that came just moments after as the news cameras tried to focus in on the wreckage that made it real. I could see small things from several floors above where the plane crashed were starting to fall. Not many but just a few at first, then a few more. Then I think we realized they were people. They were jumping off the highest floors of the building because they couldn't get past the plane.

I felt sick - my face became flushed and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Every extremity felt cold. I was ashamed to be watching these people jump. They were committing desperate suicide to escape the pain of a death by fire and it was on TV and no one could help them. All we were doing was watching and I felt ashamed to watch.

There was the massive evacuation too, people walking in the streets as fast as they could. All you could feel was how amazing New York was for not becoming some zombie town that didn't step all over children and the elderly to escape. New York was America and the whole world felt American that day.

The towers collapsed. I didn't expect it, but what do you expect when a plane goes into a tower? Every single person who was still inside them died. But TV just shows a collapsing block of cement and metal, it doesn't show hundreds of thoughts and emotions and dreams suddenly snuffed out. It was so hard to be connected to the lives inside the tower. But I knew the moment those towers went down that America had been changed.

Everyone who witnessed 9/11 has their own interpretation of how they believe America would be changed forever too. Some thought we'd lost innocence, others felt we'd lost the American feeling of invulnerability, some felt a part of the collective American soul died, while others couldn't put words to it.

But here's how I believe America had been changed: we became harder. We've always been hard, even southern Californians are hard. We may be friendly or polite to people, but we have a history of not giving a fuck, and that's what I mean by hard. The Wild West glorifies that hardness, usually in the face of the adversity of evil, or bad weather, or Indians. But American hardness has its darker side too, in our constant deal-breaking with Native Americans our attitude was always tough shit. Pick any American problem that exists today and there will be a very large number of people with the hard solution. Poor? You're lazy; work harder. So 9/11 made us harder. That's my perception, others see a different America.

The fact that the towers stayed up so long after they had been hit is the best middle finger those we gave to the terrorists. The towers tried with every ounce of strength to stay up and they managed to save people despite going down. They were built by American workers and handled by American engineers. They were examples of the greatness we can achieve when come together. In their final moments they proved themselves to be patriots - if two towers could ever be called patriots.

But then white dust went everywhere. The evacuating New Yorkers were covered in a white powder. Somehow we all kept watching and the news anchors kept talking. Theories abounded. The New Yorkers were so scared, and once again I could do nothing but watch.

But this time there were firemen and police. And America began to rally. It like an inch at a time. Nails scraping on anything to get a grip. The firemen were heroes the police kept everyone safe.

And the day continued on and more details filled in the blanks we had in our knowledge.

So to answer OP's question - if we found out that 9/11 was an inside job there would be some incredible outrage. Yes I'd suspect violence in some places. I'd imagine firemen and police might even go on strike, and when either of those two groups go on strike then you've got major issues. If any members of the Army or Marines go AWOL or stage a public disobedience of orders in front of cameras then that will be major. Protesting will work. Violence against property will be tolerated until the one moment a person gets hurt. Then it's game over in terms of public support.

The revelation would change America again and it wouldn't undo the changes to America from the first event, those changes are still emotionally etched into the minds of the people who witnessed 9/11. Only knowledge can temper their feelings.

Terrorists used 9/11 to successfully set the terms of a war. Not because they had taken out the Towers, but because they knew how we would respond to being terrified. We were going to unleash hell on whoever was out there and we'd damn the consequences. And the terrorists knew that, because we cause a lot of collateral damage in our pursuit of enemies. And collateral damage = angry civilians = new recruits & more money. Their ultimate goal was always local, but they used the US and Israel to attract newbies. America is terrorist recruitbait.

If 9/11 was an inside job then we have to reexamine the entire purpose of many of our government structures. The American response internally would be almost as bad as if we were in another country!

We wouldn't trust anyone. So all departments would get sweeped clean. Even someone with a minor issue would get fired. Our bureaucracy would suffer a brain drain as smart people leave for the private sector in fear.

We'd fire every department head on principle and then next voting season vote against almost every incumbent, good or bad, out of anger. We'd demand sweeping legislative reform on topic X, Y, or Z and guess what? Congressman A just happens to have a fully drafted massive bill ready to pass and before you know it we've created a brand new Department of the Gestapo with a broad powers and a massive budget that we can no longer control once it's been made.

Is all this sounding familiar to all of you yet?

There'd be good things of course, our investigations into this imaginary conspiracy would lead us to understand many of the motivations leading up to it and we would be able to set up circumstances to prevent the motivations from ever reoccurring. The Democrats will call this better regulation and the Republicans might call it something something socialism or whatever is buzzworthy.

Soon the search for the truth, which started with a national unified series of protests and patriotic actions will be replaced with ever more cynical and self-serving behavior by everyone involved.

Here's the horrible truth: you don't need to conspire to create a national tragedy and then do all the things you want, you just have to be prepared for a national tragedy and take advantage of the event to implement your own goals.

Conspiracy is too difficult. Preparation is easier.