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“Credible” allegations, revisited — 44 Comments

  1. It bears repeating that two women accused Moore of sexual assault. The other accusations were window dressing (padding the numbers so to speak). An anomaly was the 28 year old that accused Moore of grabbing her butt when she was a client of his.

    Leigh Corfman, 14, accused him of fondling her
    Beverly Nelson, 16, accused him of sexual assault
    Debbie Gibson, 17, dated a few months and mother approved
    Gloria Deason, 18, few dates and mother approved
    Gina Richardson, 18, one date and unwanted kiss
    Wendy Miller, 16, accused him of asking her on date, but mother refused
    Kelly Tharp, 17, accused him of asking her, but never dated
    Becky Gray, 22, accused him of asking her, but never dated
    Tina Johnson, 28, accused him of groping her in 1991

  2. There is a saying that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” In addition, the last-minute surprise gotcha-claim has long history, especially by Democrats. Add to that that there is no claim of recent untoward behavior (especially given the conventional wisdom that sexual predators seldom stop their behavior).
    .
    So, overall, I did not find the accusations “credible”, in the meaning of “having a reasonable likelihood of truth.” I would categorize them as “possible” or, perhaps, “remotely possible”. All in all, given the unfolding of events, while I would not have voted for Moore in the primary, I’d’ve had no qualms about voting for him in the election.

    One sad consequence is that the use of these types of last-minute accusations has been further encouraged.

  3. Well, it worked. All the press had to do was come up with a plausible claim, and specifically time it to do the most damage. Does anyone believe a 40-year-old story just _happened_ to break when it was too late to change the ballot?

    There’s literally no defense against this kind of journalistic mugging, and as we’ve seen, the press is willing to plumb more and more depths in the pursuit of their agenda.

  4. Credibility is a decision of the finder of fact. The person making the allegations should be under oath and subject to full cross examination. Even people under oath lie. They lie all the time. This is due process; not the political process.

    With Franken, we had a picture. With Weinstein we had volume and other stuff.

    Anita Hill was under oath but there were no witnesses to the events other than her and Clarence Thomas. She was crossed and many other witnesses testified. While her allegations were serious, the body politic did not find her credible.

  5. Neo,

    You are not going to get anywhere arguing legal principles as, or qua, moral principles, with Bill.

    What he is probably constitutionally incapable of grasping, is that these legal principles have in fact arisen as expressions of the moral sensibility of the people, to paraphrase what might have been an apocryphal Blackstone observation.

    His agenda flows from his moral sensibilities and notions of obligation, which are antinomian, much less formal, and more emotion based than most of the commenters here.

    He not only wishes to keep his skirts clean, he wishes to make sure that everyone else is convinced of his doing so, and to be convinced of the fact that you understand that for Bill, all men are brothers … even if it kills you.

    For me, the individual mandate was enough of a reason for me to leave Obama to freeze to death in 6 inches of frigid ditch water if the stars ever aligned themselves so. For Bill, no loss of liberty ever leaves one so lacking that there is not at least some emotionally satisfying opportunity to be had for redemptive moral posturing while being transported on the tumbrils.

  6. Since at least 1973 feminism has been seeping through the culture. The movement was based on the idea that women can do anything a man can, and that ALL jobs/careers should be available to women. But then it was decided that women were sometimes treated badly by their male workmates. Usually it was sophomoric sexual posturing or crude/unacceptable language. Corporations were quick to pick up on this and soon HR departments were holding training sessions for promoting understanding of women’s rights and sensibilities. Handling complaints about men’s treatment of women on the job became one of the HR department’s big activities.

    I lived in that history and was affected by it. I saw the way the wind was blowing and bent over backward to avoid any kind of sexual nuance toward female coworkers at all. It wasn’t easy. Human nature being what it is, there are many different types of females in an airline company. Some are looking to advance to the top. Some are looking to find a husband. Some are doing the job strictly for the travel benefits. Some are sexually promiscuous and looking for sex. Some are supporting a man who can’t support them. Etc. Some are open minded and tolerant, others are close minded and intolerant. Some are comfortable in ribald men’s company, others are not. The 70s and 80s were a minefield of getting used to the feminist demands and the accusations that came down the pike.

    Where am I going with these thoughts? Just this. Feminism declared war on men and the culture was rearranged to meet their demands. Tell me you were sexually abused or assaulted. If you want me to believe you, there had better be a record of you reporting it to the proper authorities./ (rape – police, sexual innuendo or words – Human Resources, your husband, your boy friend, your parents, etc.) Women don’t have to take any unwanted sexual advances and haven’t had to for many years now. They have power and can no longer hide behind the claim that they have been abused and they have just suffered it in silence. Anytime old accusations arte trotted out against any candidate, my mind set is that they are probably an election tactic. Before I will believe any old accusations I have to see proof that the accuser reported the abuse to the proper authorities.

  7. I understand the tendency of even bright people such as Bill to place their faith in what they deem to be the “credible”.

    It may be a person whom they find credible because they think they discern that quality in someone’s personal style or mode of presentation or even their material circumstances; or it may be someone’s version of events that they find credible because, say, the asserted time-line makes sense to them and they can discern no obvious holes in their story.

    I get that. I do. It’s human.

    But, respectfully, alarm bells really should go off when we hear someone condemned just because their accuser is said to be a “credible” person asserting a credible allegation.

    I’ve lived in Australia’s crime capital for the last 17 years and until a couple of years ago practiced law here.

    Sometimes very accomplished new clients attended my office distraught because they felt such shame at being ripped off by a fraudster because he/she seemed so “credible” they had to be told not to feel gullible or stupid.

    Con-men without the ability to present credibly are soon weeded out of the field – which, by a process of elimination, leaves us with a pool of entirely credible and very convincing con-men out there seeking marks, does it not? Fraudsters who lack credibility don’t eat.

    It also works the other way, which has often been a balm to my heart.

    Several times a client would attend the community legal centre devoid of shoes or shirt. Sometimes unwashed and always quite personally eccentric such people were, at the very least, quite unprepossessing. Certainly they did not, at first or even second blush, present in a way that most people would consider” credible”.

    Nevertheless, if their stories held water – which they usually did – they deserved their day in court: and that’s often when their true qualities shone through.

    So often when the other side to the dispute, (usually a former partner with monied family and a smoother, more practiced and “credible” presentation), spun their version the facts held together.

    But so often their case held water only because they seemed to be able to recall every single detail of every single long-ago conversation, however innocuous. Likewise these people always seemed somehow to be able to recall every single date and time of day and location of of every innocuous meeting they ever had that was germane to the case – and yes, they usually admitted nothing and no detail, however small, of what the other side said.

    Such practiced and smooth people always sound credible when their version is pleaded in writing or is related by them in a lawyer’s office or to an audience or when it is recounted in a newspaper article but as all lawyers and judges eventually learn – people, if they are honest, just don’t have perfect recall about even recent facts, let alone long ago things that they had no reason at the time to suspect might one day matter.

    On the other hand, I will never forget those times when one of my unprepossessing and superficially unimpressive clients would admit in court to gaps in their memory and conceded points that hurt their case, (and which they could have gotten away with denying had they wanted to). But they didn’t want to: because, to my surprise and to the client’s eternal credit, lying and dishonesty was beneath them and they simply wanted to tell the truth and nothing more. Such people were rare but thankfully not as rare as you might fear. It was as if such people, many of whom had never read a book had instinctively knew the truth of the words assigned to Sir Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons:

    “When a man takes an oath he’s holding his own self in his hands, like water, and if he opens his fingers, he needn’t hope to find himself again”.

    What a shame that so many people of both sexes don’t understand or choose to ignore that truth.

    Appealing surface attributes of an accuser can and do impress us and can make him or her appear to us very credible – but externals can also mislead us and so we must therefore be on guard against being swayed by their appeal just as we must guard against condemning out-of-hand the less physically impressive and less superficially appealing.

    Likewise, an accuser’s version of events may sound accurate enough in their details to be true but that web may be spun from nothing more than lies – sometimes brilliantly so.

    It’s a shame but the truth is that it takes a full and open enquiry where an accused can put the allegations to proof by testing the evidence such that only a court or semi-judicial tribunal can offer for the truth to emerge.

    Those who haven’t been denounced unjustly by a false accuser are very fortunate indeed and for good reason may not understand my point – but those who have suffered that ordeal will relate.

  8. Here in Southern California we had the McMartin Preschool case, with the lives of members of the familiy of the school’s founder completely ruined by CrAzy allegations elicited from preschool kids.

  9. Something I learned as a young man is the first tale told has the advantage.

    That becomes the starting point of the “truth”. The second person is now left with proving why the first story isn’t the “truth”. It’s a natural advantage.

    Over time the veracity of the stories may be sorted out, but always be the telling the story first.

  10. The saddest part of this affair is that it widens the already yawning gap between the GOP establishment and the Tea Party/insurgent wing. Mitch McConnell’s PAC ran $4 MILLION in ads against Mo Brooks solely because he is a member of the House Freedom Caucus. There was no reason for interfering to this extent in a primary except a sense of entitlement by McConnell.

    The appointed incumbent Luther Strange had huge baggage that would probably have sunk his candidacy once the Left wing attack machine focused on him. His appointment by the disgraced governor after then Attorney General Strange’s department was looking into the Gov’s shenanigans stank to high heaven. The governor then resigned.

    Lots of blame to go around though. Once Moore won the primary he was torpedoed by people like Sen. Richard Shelby whose call for people to write in other people handed the election to Jones.

    Plenty of other GOP establishment types like McConnell and Paul Ryan and Ivanka Trump did not heed Neo’s admonition. Probably because they preferred a Democrat to someone not like them.

    This is a huge loss to the GOP. I could see this costing the President a conservative Supreme Court pick. We already know that Murk and Collins will vote against anyone who is not an abortionist so the best we can hope for is another Kennedy or God forbid a Souter or John Paul Stevens.

  11. Ira, that’s a good point you make – I recall reading about that case and others like it.

    It is very, very scary how readily for many people – even bright ones – charges, if repeated often enough and loudly enough and if asserted by people or agencies whom they respect enough – soon rise in their minds to “facts”.

    I’ll see you your example and raise you one Lindy Chamberlain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Chamberlain-Creighton

    Lindy Chamberlain, who suffered the loss of her new-born baby daughter, Azaria, when she was taken and eaten by a dingo at the base of Ayer’s Rock, is undeniably Australia’s most famously and egregiously wronged accused of modern times.

    Her treatment remains a permanent national disgrace and scandal.

    Here’s an important point we must always keep in front of us: a very big part of what stoked the mass hysteria and mass condemnation of Mrs Chamberlain in the minds of most Australians at the time was her personal demeanour filmed and broadcast to the nation over the hours and days immediately following her loss that most Australians interpreted as just too matter-of-fact and accepting of her baby’s disappearance.

    I recall listening intently, like most Australians, to the radio talk back and tv shows over the following months as well as to the debates in law school classes where nothing else seemed to be discussed for months among staff and students.

    People – mainly women for some reason – denounced her as the killer because she “wasn’t upset, the way any normal mother would be”, or words to that effect. That was the heart of it, it still seems to me.

    Lindy and her husband Pastor Michael Chamberlain were people of deep religious faith and members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and because of that faith held to and were comforted by the belief that their daughter was in Paradise.

    So there was that. There was also the fact that the very private Lindy was probably just not of a demonstrative temperament anyway.

    It is frightening to consider the truth that in the court of public opinion it is never enough to be innocent – one must also and at all times ensure that one appears and speaks and even dresses in such a way as to satisfy the mob that one is not “weird” and therefore guilty.

  12. There really is a reason why civilized nations replaced mob rule with court judgments. We have seen for ourselves how quickly — and wrongly — the mob can “judge” when the law does not rule.

  13. Ms. Neo. Thank you for your thoughtful piece. When we have politicians, who jump on and say things about smoke being there, so there must be fire, that doesn’t help. Which leaves out smoke screen.

    Perhaps you might reconsider the Ramseys. Not long ago records were unsealed which reveal perhaps the authorities bungled the job, and the parents didn’t good answers, and yes, they might have been responsible.

  14. BrianE Says:
    December 19th, 2017 at 8:04 pm
    Something I learned as a young man is the first tale told has the advantage.

    That becomes the starting point of the “truth”. The second person is now left with proving why the first story isn’t the “truth”. It’s a natural advantage.

    Over time the veracity of the stories may be sorted out, but always be the telling the story first.
    * *
    “A lie can go around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”

    Attributed in various forms to just about every public figure that might have said something similar.

  15. DNW Says:
    December 19th, 2017 at 6:38 pm

    His agenda flows from his moral sensibilities and notions of obligation, which are antinomian, much less formal, and more emotion based than most of the commenters here.

    He not only wishes to keep his skirts clean, he wishes to make sure that everyone else is convinced of his doing so,
    * *
    I won’t presume to read Bill’s mind, but the phenomenon of “virtue signalling” is well known. The following article, which I excerpted at length today in the “Spurlock” thread*, explains how the liberals have developed compassion into an addiction (my son coined “virtue addict” in response to reading it).

    https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-case-against-liberal-compassion/

    *
    http://neoneocon.com/2017/12/14/spurlock-denounces-himself/#comment-2336135

  16. I think we might see more evidence – to one side or the other – surfacing if either the accusers go forward with their charges legally; or if they just disappear now that Moore lost the election.

  17. AesopFan:

    I predict the charges will never go to court. They are too old and too unprovable. That’s the beauty of using the press for this purpose: you never have to substantiate your charges with evidence. Allred is well aware of that, IMHO.

    Each side (Moore and I believe Nelson) has threatened a defamation suit against the other. I don’t think we’ll see those suits either. Moore would have a nearly impossible burden of proof if he tried to sue Nelson for defamation. And if Nelson tried to sue Moore for defamation, as far as I know she would only be able to say that Moore called her a liar, and I don’t think that’s enough to win a defamation suit against someone you have accused of sexual assault 40 years old.

    And if the allegations were politically motivated (which I tend to believe), then they have accomplished their main motive already, anyway.

  18. Milwaukee:

    Thanks for the compliment.

    But as far as the Ramseys go, that’s tabloid stuff. There is no credible (and most definitely no persuasive) evidence that they are guilty of anything regarding their daughter’s death. These rumors and this tabloid-spread innuendo dies hard. Mrs. Ramsey is dead, but Mr. Ramsey lives on, and the newspapers will never stop trying to frame him.

  19. Neo @10:10. Agreed.

    There’s also another, “threshold”, issue that prevents more cases being filed than any other: the likely financial capacity of your defendant.

    Is he/she of sufficient means to be able to satisfy (ie.pay out), any verdict and judgement you might obtain after your long, tiring and expensive litigation?

    A verdict against a straw man is no victory worth the effort.

    A wise Supreme Court Registrar once gave me a tip as a cub-lawyer: “Never let the principle run away with your client’s money”.

    Excellent advice, that.

  20. Ira, you probably also remember the Wenatchee, Washington cases about the same time, or maybe a few years later. Talk about a witch hunt!

  21. 1996. Atlanta Olympics. Security guard Richard Jewell discovers a bomb and triggers the evacuation of Olympic Park before anyone is killed. The usual culprits, namely the low IQ twit/hick on NBC, Tom Brokaw, and CNN, breathlessly tar Jewell as the bomber. He dies less than 10 years later of health complications, despite settlements from NBC and CNN. 1996 was peak “credible allegations” it would seem.

  22. Remember the days when a black child can get himself brutally murderedfor whistling at a white woman, democrats are bringing us right back to that godforsaken era.

    Btw, when will Al Franken resign as he promised? the last day right before his term expires?

  23. The claims didn’t work, since Moore didn’t lose because of them. He lost because the GOP establishment withdrew their support, effectively throwing him under the bus. This gave permission for voters to indulge their sinful pride by staying home, exactly as intended.

    The GOP withdrew their support not because they thought the allegations were true, but because McConnell didn’t like Moore. Both he and Brooks had publicly declared that they wouldn’t vote for McConnell as Majority Leader.

    This entire kabuki theater was really about one man keeping his position as Majority Leader, then fooling everyone into thinking it was about something else.

  24. It’s so frustrating and discouraging to see how many people jump to conclusions and judgment, instead of waiting for good info–including especially our media. Got to disagree with you as to the ultimate culpability of the Ramseys though. My initial thought was that they must have been involved in their daughter’s death, but I was open-minded and have followed the case closely since. I’ve seen several presentations regarding the case as part of continuing legal education for prosecutors, and I’m over 90% convinced that the parents are involved. Not sure if it was the father abusing her and it went too far, or if her brother dealt her a grievous blow to the head with a flashlight and they covered it up. This conclusion/opinion is not based on tabloids at all.

  25. So democrats’ outcry for sexual assaults against women all of a sudden disappeared into thin air following the end of AL election. The 10 or so female democrat senators remain completely silent when AL Franken is not showing any sign to make good of his promise to resign over sexual assault allegations, some democrats are even openly expressing their regret to call for his resignation prematurely and wishes to recant that demand. unlike right before the AL special election democrats don’t seem to care much about sexual allegations anymore, no demand for Chris Matthews to resign after a report that NBC paid thousands to buy the silence of a woman who was filing sexual assault complaints against Matthews. everything changes after the election, beg for one to question, do democrats care about social injustices, or do they just care about elections? They went back to their old ways to protect their own from abuse allegations and silent the accusers, there was never a purge as suspect by commenters here or anything like that, they just put on a show to claim the moral high ground over the Republicans and Roy Moore right before the election, just like the clockwork of race baiting we have been witnessing every two years.

  26. The left in America is especially evil because democrat voters in America are especially stupid. When evil people keep on being rewarded for doing evil things without repercussions, their evilness escalates…

  27. “AesopFan Says:
    December 19th, 2017 at 9:49 pm

    DNW Says:
    December 19th, 2017 at 6:38 pm

    His agenda flows from his moral sensibilities and notions of obligation, which are antinomian, much less formal, and more emotion based than most of the commenters here.

    He not only wishes to keep his skirts clean, he wishes to make sure that everyone else is convinced of his doing so,
    * *
    I won’t presume to read Bill’s mind, but the phenomenon of “virtue signalling” is well known. The following article, which I excerpted at length today in the “Spurlock” thread*, explains how the liberals have developed compassion into an addiction (my son coined “virtue addict” in response to reading it).”

    That is a fair enough point, and I can neither read Bill’s mind nor intuit his motivations without evidence, either.

    However, Bill was good enough, or unguarded enough, to answer a simple question for me during our final discussion that nailed his overall stance down quite unequivocally.

    Bill had consistently claimed to be a “rule of law” man.

    When posed a hypothetical in which the deportation of illegal aliens would lead to a restoration of respect for and the effective return to a rule of law; and then asked if he would accept such legal means to a greater legal end, he replied: No.

    He felt that the human costs to the illegals would be too high, even if granting the stipulations I had included regarding their just treatment in-process.

    So much for Bill’s commitment to the rule of law, then.

    I can’t take someone like that seriously when they once again start posturing about law and moral principles and civic duties..

  28. The accusation about how Clintons murdering those who know their secrets and about to testify against them, while covering up by make them appear to be suicide are pretty credible too if possibility is the only criteria. It is very possible that the Clintons have broken the law, it is very possible that someone in the know of their secrets might got in trouble with the law too and might rat them out for lighter sentencing, it is very possible that Clintons would murder these people and set them up as suicide, I don’t have any proof but they are all very possible therefore the accusations are all credible in the same logic Liberals are applying to allegations against Moore.

  29. Whenever someone rushes to judgment on scant or suspicious evidence, as the press so often does especially when it fits into their preconceived ideas, my first thought is of the immortal Emily Latella.

    There are almost no consequences for them for being wrong but there are often terrible consequences for those they’re wrong about. It doesn’t matter to them, they just move on to the next rush to judgment.

    That’s one of the reasons I have such great disdain for the press. I never believe anything they say if it supports their obvious agenda unless I can prove it from other sources.

  30. The “conspiracy” strawman is getting boring.

    How on earth could so many women unknown to each other hatch up a consipiracy and get the Post go for it? Why that’s ludicrous! Of course it is.

    The common factor makes it obvious. The “conspiracy” is the Post reporters. All they had to do was get together a bunch of unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable allegations, by asking if necessary thousands of people, until they had enough of them to be worth printing.

  31. Another aspect to this:
    Why didn’t McConnell use this against Moore in the second round of the GOP primary?

    Do you think he didn’t have any connections in AL politics that could tell him about “what everybody knew” regarding Moore?
    The answer is simple: he didn’t use the allegations because THEY DIDN’T EXIST before the WaPo invented them.

    After Moore won the primary, McConnell and company pretended to be shocked, SHOCKED!, at the allegations. They gave permission for their more gullible followers to throw Moore under the bus.

    So McConnell got all the benefits of a Democrat smear campaign without having to get any of the dirt on himself. Isn’t that convenient?

  32. Dave Says:
    December 20th, 2017 at 9:24 am
    The left in America is especially evil because democrat voters in America are especially stupid. When evil people keep on being rewarded for doing evil things without repercussions, their evilness escalates…
    * * *
    Since one popular definition of insanity is “repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results” then we would have to deduce that the left is evil but not insane.
    On the other hand, they did nominate Hillary…

  33. Matt_SE Says:
    December 20th, 2017 at 3:42 pm
    Another aspect to this:
    Why didn’t McConnell use this against Moore in the second round of the GOP primary?

    Do you think he didn’t have any connections in AL politics that could tell him about “what everybody knew” regarding Moore?
    The answer is simple: he didn’t use the allegations because THEY DIDN’T EXIST before the WaPo invented them.

    Frederick Says:
    December 20th, 2017 at 3:31 pm

    The common factor makes it obvious. The “conspiracy” is the Post reporters. All they had to do was get together a bunch of unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable allegations, by asking if necessary thousands of people, until they had enough of them to be worth printing.
    * * *
    The two allegations of clearly abusive behavior (whether they actually occurred or not) may have been underground for years, but not considered credible (given their scarcity and the counter-testimony of the “respectable” dates) until the Weinstein Watermain burst and gave the Post some cover to go forward.

  34. Irv Says:
    December 20th, 2017 at 12:35 pm
    Whenever someone rushes to judgment on scant or suspicious evidence, as the press so often does especially when it fits into their preconceived ideas, my first thought is of the immortal Emily Latella.

    There are almost no consequences for them for being wrong but there are often terrible consequences for those they’re wrong about. It doesn’t matter to them, they just move on to the next rush to judgment.

    That’s one of the reasons I have such great disdain for the press. I never believe anything they say if it supports their obvious agenda unless I can prove it from other sources.
    * * *
    Almost is a very slim exception. Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw paid a small price (equivalent to pleading down from an aggravated felony to a misdemeanor IMO), and some lesser lights had to be fired when their lying became too blatant to obfuscate, but no one will even get a bad rep for “just reporting the news” on Moore IF the allegations were, in fact, false.

    I have about reached the point where I don’t even think about believing anything until at least 3 days after the story breaks, and some of the counter-analysis and exculpatory evidence can surface.

  35. Dave Says:
    December 20th, 2017 at 12:13 pm
    The accusation about how Clintons murdering those who know their secrets and about to testify against them, while covering up by make them appear to be suicide are pretty credible too if possibility is the only criteria….I don’t have any proof but they are all very possible therefore the accusations are all credible in the same logic Liberals are applying to allegations against Moore.

    * * *
    Hard to argue with Dave on this one.
    And its not just the Clinton v. Moore comparison that applies.

  36. neo-neocon Says:
    December 19th, 2017 at 10:10 pm
    AesopFan:

    I predict the charges will never go to court. They are too old and too unprovable. That’s the beauty of using the press for this purpose: you never have to substantiate your charges with evidence. Allred is well aware of that, IMHO.
    * * *
    I concur.

  37. AesopFan and Dave:

    And I am quite skeptical about both sets of accusations: Nelson’s against Moore and Broaddrick’s against Clinton.

  38. Frederick:

    “So many women” is two. The others were women who seem to have actually dated Moore and have nothing much to report except that fact. If memory serves me, the WaPo found one “credible” accuser and the daters. Allred found the other “credible” accuser—after the WaPo story came out. And in my opinion it’s likely that—as with Allred’s daughter Lisa Bloom—Allred probably offered the Moore accuser (Nelson) some perks.

    And the WaPo found the women in its story, not the other way around. (Much as Sabrina Erdely did at the University of Virginia, perhaps.) You go to the right place, follow leads and rumors, you interview people, you ask around, and if you talk to enough people you’ll find the ones you’re seeking, or someone willing to tell the story you want told.

    You are either naive or pretending to be naive, because it’s not hard to see how it could happen that way. Whether it did happen that way we don’t know.

  39. @neoneocon:You are either naive or pretending to be naive, because it’s not hard to see how it could happen that way.

    Erm, maybe read what I wrote again? We’re not disagreeing.

  40. Frederick:

    I guess I read it quickly and didn’t see the sarcasm—but now that you point it out, it’s there. My error.

  41. Ymarsakar:

    Remember that old syllogism bit?

    Major premise: All humans are mortal.
    Minor premise: All Greeks are humans.
    Conclusion: All Greeks are mortal.

    So, here’s the one I get from your last comment:

    Major premise: All humans care what people believe.
    Minor premise: Ymarsakar doesn’t care what people believe.
    Conclusion: Ymarsakar is not human.

    That’s meant to be a joke, of course. I realize that you’re human. But it reminded me of a discussion we had years ago in which I pointed out that you often talk of humans as though they are the “other.”

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