Dan Peterson's Poor Judge of Character: Redux

[_MsJack]

Ray - No, I've never been in Dan's situation, and you didn't answer my question. If I were in Dan's situation, I wouldn't expect help to come from people whom I hadn't been particularly kind to in recent years. My policy on Dan-Scratch threads has usually been to stay out of it. I don't pile onto Dan when I agree with what Scratch is saying, and I don't rebuke Scratch when I disagree with what he is saying. I just stay out of it. Dan seems to create drama wherever he goes---even when Scratch is nowhere to be found---and I'm no longer interested in being a part of that. I never was interested. The few times I was dragged into it against my will were absolutely exhausting.

Re: the c-word incident, harmony deleted William's words when she saw it because she was shocked that he had called her that. MrStakhanovite, who posted on the thread saying "u mad willard?" within minutes of it happening, affirmed that William had said what harmony claimed he said. If you think that William is ashamed of any of the things that he said to women on our forums, then you haven't been following what went down. He repeatedly affirmed that he was proud of all of it. The only thing that he indicated any regret for was calling Emma Smith a "champion bitch," and even then, he still didn't apologize.

I haven't known the moderators at MDB to let the c-word stand in the Terrestrial forum; they generally move it to the Telestial forum. They usually try to preserve the actual words of a personal attack by moving it, but I have seen them merely delete the attack altogether. It happens.

As for Will's "misogyny", and in spite of his posts here, I don't believe he's a "misogynist". Far, far from it. I'm totally with Dan on this.

Emphasis mine. Ray, the question isn't whether William is a misogynist outside of his posts here. I never made any claim to know anything about how he behaves outside of his posts here. The question is whether or not his posts here were characterized by misogyny. And here, what he did went far, far beyond calling one woman the c-word.

[_Eric]

It's pretty clear now (just as it was back when the accusation was made) that William Schryver did not use the c-word at harmony as claimed by Ms. Jack. I don't know why this useless accusation is being recycled.

These two threads are good refreshers:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18091&start=315

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18141

Rollo Tomasi's witness testimony/statement deserves some consideration.

It was also demonstrated in the first thread that the c-word has been allowed to stand in its asterisk form many times on this board.

[_RayAgostini]

Emphasis mine. Ray, the question isn't whether William is a misogynist outside of his posts here. I never made any claim to know anything about how he behaves outside of his posts here. The question is whether or not his posts here were characterized by misogyny. And here, what he did went far, far beyond calling one woman the c-word.

It's late, and I'm tired, but I'll try to reply.

So what should I do now? Email Will and tell him he's a damned low-life misogynist?

The real problem here, for me, and I'll use a phrase from Kishkumen, is that he's an "ideological bedfellow" (we both love the Book of Mormon).

Do you really think it's necessary to harp on this, forever and a day? Do you think harsh words on message boards make up a person's whole character? Do you hold Will to a higher standard than any of your Christian friends? Do they swear? Did they ever use the c-word at any time in their lives? Will you disown them because of that?

If Will was a critic who had used the c-word, would you have spent so much time and extended so much effort to try to entirely discredit him? I think you know the answer to that. His "great" "sin", is that he's a Mormon, and even worse, a Mormon "apologist", so anything that could make him "an offender for a word", is right on the cards, though this will never be applied to any significant degree to "non-Mormons".

If you'll excuse my brashness and un-PC-ness, I hear this "word" every day, and far more, having worked in the trucking and taxi industry for 25 years, but I've never judged my work colleagues by this, or their general crudeness of language. As Joseph Smith said:

"I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm, and administering to the poor and dividing his substance, than the long smooth faced hypocrites. I don't want you to think I am very righteous, for I am not very righteous. God judgeth men according to the light he gives them."

I just read Eric's post, and I think that also deserves serious consideration. But that's not my main point. My man point is that even if Will had used this word, or seems "misogynistic", the bottom line has to be how he treats women in real life. Have you observed this? Did you do a study on it? Have you spoken to the women who interact with Will on a daily basis, and asked them whether they think he's a misogynist? Or are you just going to keep making him an offender based on your judgement of message board posts?

[_Kishkumen]

As for Will's "misogyny", and in spite of his posts here, I don't believe he's a "misogynist". Far, far from it. I'm totally with Dan on this.

Emphasis mine. Ray, the question isn't whether William is a misogynist outside of his posts here. I never made any claim to know anything about how he behaves outside of his posts here. The question is whether or not his posts here were characterized by misogyny. And here, what he did went far, far beyond calling one woman the c-word.

It seems pretty clear to me that both conservatives and liberals use the term misogynist to their own advantage, with conservatives tending to hold a higher bar for what passes as misogyny, while liberals have a lower threshold. The treatment of the term misogyny by Daniel and Will is in keeping with the rather more obtuse conservatives who want a very technical definition of misogyny that would be very difficult to prove, while most people would see the tendency to run women down and prescribe a certain role to them as misogyny.

As someone who enjoys, rather than fears, powerful women, I think Daniel and Will are somewhat callous and cavalier about this issue, but undoubtedly they would find someone like me to be a namby-pamby liberal.

[_MsJack]

It's pretty clear now (just as it was back when the accusation was made) that William Schryver did not use the c-word at harmony as claimed by Ms. Jack and MrStakhanovite, the latter being the only person confirmed to have seen the quote before it was deleted.

Fix't.

I don't know why this useless accusation is being recycled.

Read the thread. Kevin Graham suggested that Dan was okay with William calling a woman the c-word. I said this wasn't the case because Dan was among those who believed that William had done no such thing.

These two threads are good refreshers:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18091&start=315

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18141

Rollo Tomasi's witness testimony/statement deserves some consideration.

I agree on all points.

So what should I do now? Email Will and tell him he's a f*****g low-life misogynist?

I don't propose anyone e-mail William to take him to task in private on the matter. People tried to do that long before I did my thread, and he played the victim card and rebuffed them. I also don't encourage people to be vulgar or disrespectful to William. A sentiment to the effect of, "Yes, William's treatment of women on our forums was misogynist, inappropriate, and especially unbecoming of a member of the LDS church" would do the trick.

Do you really think it's necessary to harp on this, forever and a day?

No, and I've done no such thing. Since my thread wound down last year, I've largely left the issue alone.

Do you think harsh words on message boards make up a person's whole character? [SNIP] the bottom line has to be how he treats women in real life.

I don't believe in "Internet personas," Ray. I don't accept a dichotomy between "on the Internet" and "in real life." The Internet is "real life." Those are real, breathing, flesh-and-blood human beings that you are interacting with behind a computer screen, and they can really have their feelings hurt through what goes on here. Sexualizing women and applying sexist slurs to them on the Internet is the same as doing those things in "real life."

I suspect that you yourself don't really accept such a dichotomy, either, or else you wouldn't be trying to take me to task for going after William. After all, I only went after him on the Internet. It's not like I showed up on his doorstep in Utah and called him misogynist to his face. So what's the big deal?

Do you hold Will to a higher standard than any of your Christian friends? Do they swear? Did they ever use the c-word at any time in their lives? Will you disown them because of that?

You keep on bringing up the c-word thing as if that were my only complaint about William. For the last time: it wasn't. My complaint about William was that he routinely sexualized women by referencing their appearance and sexual attractiveness to him, and by using sexual slurs against them---some vulgar, some not. I'm starting to think you've never even read my misogyny thread.

Even if we took the c-word thing off the table---even if we decided that Eric and all of the apologists who called MrStakhanovite a liar and a "suborned witness" were in the right---I would still be taking issue with the way William treats women. My thread still would have happened.

I have no friends (Christian or otherwise) who treat women that way. If a friend did treat women that way, I would try to persuade them to stop. If they refused to stop and boasted about acting that way, I would definitely stop being friends with them.

If Will was a critic who had used the c-word, would you have spent so much time and extended so much effort to try to entirely discredit him?

If he were rising in the Mormon studies scholarly community and he treated women that way? Most definitely. I'm offended that you would even suggest that I only did what I did because William was Mormon and/or an apologist. Have you forgotten who it is you're talking to? I'm sorry, but I've never seen you so delusional.

William's "great sin" was repeatedly employing misogyny and sexism towards women who tried to engage his arguments. Period.

[_Kevin Graham]

Got anything else to say, Kev?

Do you ever wonder why DCP has chosen to no longer respond to you?:

LOL!

Don't kid yourself Ray, Dan loves to respond to me. He is still starting threads about me when he knows I am unable to respond back. That just goes straight to his cowardice. And when I make him look like the fool he is, he manages to convince dupes like you that he is a poor victim of stalking or what not. The fact is Dan loves to claim he is being stalked, but he has managed to convince himself along with his little cult followers that none of his thousands of internet posts mocking dissidents or the dozens of hit pieces he's published attacking us in a general way, have played any role in the attention he keeps getting. As if we all just drew his name from a hat or something and decided we'd be critical of him, instead of say, any of the other folks who have written for FARMS.

You haven't learned a thing, have you Kevin?

From you? I admit, I haven't. The fact is liars frequently try to shield the fact that they're liars by accusing the messenger of calling everyone a liar. This was another point of refutation on the MAD forum that drove Dan Peterson ape**** last year. Citing Dan's idiotic assertions as if they represent some kind of axiomatic, sage-like wisdom, when in fact they are exactly what we'd expect from someone who cannot deal with evidence, is something we'd expect from those who spend all their time kissing his fat arse..

So answer me this Ray, is Dan Peterson a liar for telling us for years that he doesn't get paid to do apologetics?

If not, why not?

Let's make this easy.

[_sock puppet]

Dan seems to create drama wherever he goes---even when Scratch is nowhere to be found---

Yeah, but just like religion in general needing a devil, the few remaining electrons orbiting the nucleus that is DCP, they need a scapegoat. His online name is Scratch.

[_Kevin Graham]

It's pretty clear now (just as it was back when the accusation was made) that William Schryver did not use the c-word at harmony as claimed by Ms. Jack. I don't know why this useless accusation is being recycled.

That isn't clear at all. The argument that he didn't use that word in his post, just because the word has stood uncensored elsewhere is a bad argument. First of all, in this case he was calling a moderator the c-word, who was present as the exchange played itself out.

Secondly, we have multiple witnesses who saw it. Third, William is a proven liar whom we would expect to lie about this. Fourth, William claims that what he wrote was something rather innocuous, which we know the moderator would have never censored. So if you want to question the rationale for deleting the post, you have to consider what William claims to have posted as well. If you want to say the mods never delete things like this, well you still have to deal with the indisputable fact that this particular post was censored, so it must have been something really, really bad. Right? Rollo's "testimony" is that he doesn't remember seeing it. That's not good evidence that it was never there,

Also, I saw the offending post but I honestly cannot say with 100% certainty that I remember exactly what was said. But I do remember it was really, really, really offensive, and it was bad enough to make me threaten Schryver with physical violence the next time I saw him. When I saw them talking about the c-word post I didn't flinch for a second because I remember seeing his post was really that bad.

All of this is really beside the point because it represents just one example among dozens which point to his overt misogyny. The fact that Ray is focusing on this one example in order to prove William is "far, far from a misogynist" is pretty damn hilarious. He's starting to thnk like an apologist again and he doesn't even seem to realize it. Pretty soon he is going to be arguing that Schryver is a victim as well.

[_Eric]

Secondly, we have multiple witnesses who saw it.

I think we really were only left (besides harmony) with one reliable witness, and his testimony - in my opinion - is mitigated by Rollo's.

All of this is really beside the point because it represents just one example among dozens which point to his overt misogyny.

I understand this, just like I did when the original thread was started, and have limited my comments to the c-word story because, frankly, it was the one thing I found unbelievable

The fact that Ray is focusing on this one example in order to prove William is "far, far from a misogynist" is pretty damn hilarious. He's starting to thnk like an apologist again and he doesn't even seem to realize it. Pretty soon he is going to be arguing that Schryver is a victim as well.

That's not my position. I'm glad I don't feel compelled to make such an argument. I don't know what I think of Mr. Schryver, to be honest.

[_Kevin Graham]

Well, I certainly have no reason to believe Mr. Stak was lying about this. It would make no sense for him to do so unless he conspired with harmony on this point, which I don't think is a credible scenario. Clearly if Stak was lying, then he knew he was lying, which means he knew that at any moment, harmony, who deleted the post, also knew he was lying as well. Which means he knew he was setting himself up for immediate exposure as a liar... unless the two of them conspired behind closed doors... which makes no sense to me given harmony's limited commentary on the whole thing.

But for me the strongest evidence is the fact that I saw the post and it didn't phase me in the slightest when I later found out they were talking about him using the "c-word." That seemed perfectly consistent with what I saw.

But in any event, this is really beside the point. We could totally delete that example from the record and the evidence would still be overwhelming against Schryver. Dan Peterson's defense in this case is lame because it pretty much says Schryver cannot be a misogynist because he didn't show any misogyny towards his family in Dan's presence.