From: revpk@cellar.org (Brian 'Rev P-K' Siano)
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,alt.censorship
Subject: Robert Sheaffer Whines About Exposure
Date: 20 Aug 92 01:44:04 GMT
Organization: The Cellar BBS and public access system


 
 
Robert Sheaffer writes:
 
> If anyone did not yet realize that Mr. Brian Siano, the reverend
P.C.,
> is a person of very low integrity, this blatant posting of the
private
> E-mail I sent him should remove all doubt about that. As he must
> surely know, for he is no Usenet Neophyte, the posting of private
> e-mail, with attribution but without the sender's knowledge or
consent,
> is a flagrant violation of all network rules and etiquette. Every
> so often, some dumb schmuck or some newcomer does this, and is
> justifiably flamed. But this guy is no Brian-come-lately, so I
cannot
> imagine what excuse he will offer, for there surely is none. Decent
> people of the net, if you are offended by scoundrels such as he, let
> him know this and flame away! But be warned: your flames may someday
> be posted in public. In fact, let EVERYONE be warned: whatever you
> send this asshole in private email is likely to turn up in public,
> without your knowledge or consent. Shame on you, Brian.
 
     Such emotion! After writing lengthy screeds maligning both the
loyalty, rationality, and motives of his opponents, Robert Sheaffer
has the gall to yelp when someone decides to share his methods of
intimidation with the world! And considering his sloppiness with
facts-- as amply documented throughout this argument-- methinks
Sheaffer's being a little overcompensatory in his invocation of "Net
rules" as a standard of behavior.
 
     I might as well present a silly rationalization of my own. What
if I'd answered? Sheaffer's already made up his mind about his
opponents, as one can see by the 'scoring' he'd presented-- even the
slightest deviation from complete acceptance of Sheaffer's world-view
constituted derangement, delusion, and irrationality. The more I
thought about it, the more malevolent the loyalty test became-- echoes
between both the McCarthy witch-hunts, the Hollywood Ten, "Red
Channels," the purge trials in the Soviet Union and the ideological
cleansing of Khmer Cambodia were more than obvious. The best way to
put a stop to this sort of nonsense is to expose it publicly for what
it is.
 
> I cannot see how he can call what I wrote a "loyalty test". I
intended
> it as a "reality check," to see how deeply his head was buried in
> the sand. All (except one) of the assertions from those questions 
> are supported by newly-declassified Soviet archives, revelations
> that are excruciatingly painful to dyed-in-the-wool leftists, as it
> shows them to have been utterly duped by Soviet disinformation,
> and that the right-wingers they reviled were in fact correct. 
 
     The sad thing is how screwy the above paragraph is. The
revelations over the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss are no surprise, the
info on Gus Hall is even less so, and there aren't a lot of leftists
who look up to Armand Hammer, either. As far as I can tell, the only
'leftists' for whom the 'revelations' have caused pain are either
borderline nut cases, or they exist solely in Sheaffer's fevered
imagination.
 
> Brian and I were having an extended email discussion of certain
issues, some political,
> some not, and seeing his reflexive 'leftists-can-do-no-wrong'
stance,
> I decided to pull his chain a bit. I expected I'd get his goat a
> little with this (and expected I'd probably end up answering a
> similar questionnaire from him!), but I never expected him to blow
his
> top, totally and completely. 
 
     Actually, nearly all of our discussions were regarding the JFK
assassination. They'd started out sort of playful, with both of us
trashing most conspiracy theories. But they'd turned acrimonious when
Sheaffer began equating nutty conspiracy-mongering with my politics,
an association I'd hoped he was intelligent enough _not_ to make.
After all, I was the one who recirculated the article on conspiracy
theories on sci.skeptic-- you'd think Sheaffer'd know how I stood,
after that.
 
     But nope; according to Sheaffer, these Looney Lefties believe in
all sorts of nutty stuff, so They Must Be Thrashed Soundly. (Imagine
if someone decided that Californians are Nutty, and saw fit to try to
convince Sheaffer that UFOs were nonsense.) 
 
     The sense I gained was that Sheaffer is somewhat intolerant of
opinions not completely in accord with his own-- and since he tends to
make sweeping equations between different opinions and the
International Communist-Feminist Menace, he can dress this pathology
in facile patriotism. Samuel Johnson was explicit on this tactic.
 
     I've already explained the main reason why I didn't mail a
similar test back to Sheaffer-- the ethics of such tests are
reprehensible. But another reason was that the nature of such 'tests'
are selective, and-- as evidenced many other such tests I've seen--
are burdened with a freightload of assumptions and bad associations.
(For example, does support of workers' right to strike make one a
Communist? Or even an anti-Capitalist? Neither strikes _me_ as a valid
inference.) If I did compose such a 'test,' I'd want it to be far more
grounded in solid reason than Sheaffer's.
 
     Other Email correspondents will have hopefully noticed that I
tend to be a lot less combative in Email-- there's less 'playing to
the crowd.' However, such easing of tensions is anathema to Sheaffer.
 
> Let's face it, Brian, you lost it, and
> you lost it but good! That's what happens to people who are forced
> to deal with a crumbling Weltanschaung! Drink two coffees, and call
> your analyst in the morning. Reality CAN be dealt with by most
people,
> and the world contains many stockbrokers and accountants who used to
> be as radical as you when they were young and foolish. Learn to
appreciate
> the taste of crow, learn from your mistakes (both in politics, and
in
> net.rules), and someday perhaps you'll have a firm grasp on reality.
 
     Damn straight. I get angry when presented with blatant
falsehoods, bad reasoning, and smug, half-witted rationalizations for
the status quo. There is a big difference between being critical of
the United States and open support of the Soviet Union, but you seem
to equate the two. Early on, you claimed that your Redbaiting of Yours
Truly was a 'useful' act. So's accusing people of treason without
solid evidence, if 'usefulness' is the criteria for debate-- such
tactics were common in the Stalinist USSR, and apparently, they still
are common in Robert Sheaffer's arena of debate.
 
     Since WHEN have I ever championed the Soviet Union as being
superior to the United States? Since WHEN have I ever condoned the
Gulags? Have you seen ANY material I've posted that can solidly be
characterized as endorsement of psychiatric prisons, military
expansionism, clandestine surveillance of the population, or any of
the other evils of the Soviet Union-- or even of Red China? And where
do YOU get off demanding that I somehow 'prove' my rationality to you
by answering your silly 'reality check?' If I have to prove this stuff
to you, then you're too far gone for ANY degree of reason.
 
     And you have the nerve to bitch about how my sharing your
McCarthyite ravings with others is a 'breach of Net rules?' get real.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian "Rev. P-K" Siano                                  revpk@cellar.org
"What? They have BIGGER DICKS?! _BOMB THEM!!!!_"
                        Our Leaders, paraphrased by George Carlin
Newsgroups: soc.men,soc.women,alt.child-support,alt.dads-rights,misc.legal