Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

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Marcus
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

Post by Marcus »

Dr Moore wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 7:06 pm
Doctor Scratch wrote:
Tue Jun 28, 2022 5:34 pm
This is almost too funny. For those who remember, I joined this board after calling out Louis for personally attacking Palmer in his book. Louis said he had never attacked anyone and I called his bluff with a citation. Louis called me a liar, and so did Dr. P, and so I pointed out page and paragraph where Louis, in his own book, in his own words, rationalizes himself in assaulting Palmer’s character.

Midgley likes to hurt people. He likes how it feels to cause pain. The best offense is a good offense, eh? But for appearances, in Midgley’s logic, he justifies his offenses by pretending to defend Joseph Smith. Any excuse to hit someone. Annny excuse’ll do.

I’ve come to appreciate something about Louis Midgley, thanks to my friend’s (and her mother’s) memories of him wielding a sick kind of loud, physically threatening dominion in his home chapel all those years.
The man is a prototype small man loser who would be wholly irrelevant as an old man, probably mopping floors and harassing school kids as a janitor somewhere, except for one thing. He discovered “intellectual history.” What a farcical career he’s made, criticizing and bullying others from the safety of his “ivory tower,” egged on by peers who either match his sadism or are too afraid to stand up to him. He’s been pretending at history or religious studies or whatever you want to call it, while living out a callous wet dream making other people look bad. Alive or dead, he doesn’t care. I think he rather enjoys bullying the dead. Rather necro the way he speaks of Palmer to this day, if you ask me. But has he contributed anything of value to the world once you strip away the polemic bullying? Nope. It’s a total waste. The man found a way to get paid and even be celebrated for assaulting others. Louis Midgley tells you everything there is to know about the root value system of Mopologetics. It’s bankrupt in every way.

All of which I am certain Doctor Scratch has said more eloquently a thousand times for the past decade plus.

Oh, and lest Louis or his band of buddies cry foul — this isn’t attacking, it’s intellectual history. Doesn’t feel good, does it? Such an a$$hole.
re what i bolded, i hope dr. moore doesn't mind if i repost the details he gave:
Doctor Scratch wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:27 am
This was posted in a separate thread here, but it really deserves its own topic. This is one of the most disturbing posts that I've ever read concerning any of the Mopologists:
Dr. Moore wrote:A very close friend of mine grew up in Louis Midgley's ward -- the same ward where he still lives now with a chapel on 4300 N in Provo. My friend's memories date to approximately 25-30 years ago.

I learned this fact just today, entirely by chance, as we were talking about a newly discovered shared common interest -- Mopologetics.

The first thing she (my good friend) said at the mention of the name Louis Midgley was "I know him!" and then that he was "terrifying" to her as a young woman, because he was known throughout the ward for regularly squeezing the young women's hands too tight and slapping women in the ward across the backs of their shoulders. As in, it caused actual physical pain. She has only one image memory about Louis, that being a mean person who appeared to enjoy inflicting pain. She recalled numerous occasions where she and other young women would have to shake his hand, knowing he would not let go until they yelled "ouch." And that, her own mother was one of the recipients of these back-smacks, and that as they happened regularly, men nearby would guffaw and shake their heads, while women would titter uncomfortably as if happy not to be the target that time.

Now maybe this was just a quirk of personality. My home ward had "that guy" too - the one who really got off on those painful squeezing handshakes, showing their superior righteousness through strength of the handshake. "That guy" in my ward said it was part of his strategy to give us young men strong handshakes so we could be good missionaries.

But then she also recalled that Louis appeared to really hate it when women would debate him in church and that it felt to her, as a young woman, that he was always shouting in church. She recalled one specific time when her mother was debating Louis about church history, and Louis was jsut rolling his eyes and shouting back at her. Rather a scarring moment for her as a young woman. She said that he had a "violent superiority" about him. Whether or not he intended such a response, that's how he made my friend feel and she believes it was a common response to his presence.

Louis may object to these recollections and even protest, but the point isn't to make any specific allegation but to show yet another example of a person whose lived experience was to feel threatened and unsafe around Louis. She wanted to be clear that Louis never did anything to her knowledge by way of overt violence or anything of a #MeToo nature. She simply recalls a terrifying "jackass" around whom she and her mother and the other women and young women she knew did not feel physically safe. It was a thing for them, she remembers. She added that Louis was not the only one in her ward with this type of reputation, that Louis' good friend "Gordon O." once raised his hand as if to backslap a woman in the ward who was debating an issue, and Louis was there and that she and others saw it.

Of course, this would have been the 1990s, and things were different then. :roll: Weren't they? At any rate, that's a perspective that came up totally unprompted, which gives this nasty Gina Colvin saga a sort of twisted darkness. Is Louis seeking out ways to belittle an outspoken woman because that's how he self soothed as a younger person? Too bad, if true. Professional help might be in order (but I'd suggest a male therapist). Louis may be old and physically frail at this point, and his days of hand squeezing and back smacking may be over, but the decades-long pattern of making an unsafe environment for women is evidently a known fact in certain Provo circles. Those women may have endured those years in silence, humoring him as something between a jackass and a quirky zealot, but that doesn't make it right and their silence doesn't make him right. If he's convinced of his good intentions, then he may consider that intentions don't matter if you make others feel unsafe.
We already know about Midgley's stalking of Gina Colvin, along with him screaming obscenities (allegedly) at the Lynn Whitesides vigil, and him going off at the Tanner's bookstore. Plus, he himself boasted about punching a classmate in the stomach while in junior high school. His habit of bullying and physically assaulting other people has already been established--by his own admission.

But this is an absolutely stunning and devastating allegation for the simple reason that Midgley is a pillar of Mopologetics. He is a central figure at "Sic et Non" and at Interpreter, just as he was at the old FARMS Review and the old-school Maxwell Institute. His behavior is applauded, defended, and/or ignored by all of the other Mopologists, and indeed, they recently gifted him a festschrift barely a few months ago. And yet look at this latest allegation, and what it says about how monstrous his behavior has been. Why would they defend this? This is so utterly vile and contemptible that it wouldn't surprise me if this winds up being the thing that burns the entire enterprise to the ground. Just recently, DCP was warned by several posters that he ought to see a doctor over his ailing health. It may very well be that he ought to devote equal attention to the toxic waste dump in his "Comments" section named Louis Midgley. The man is a huge liability, and keeping him on board may be as much--if not more--of a risk to the organization's survival that Will Schryver ever was. Schryver was horrible in terms of the things he *said* about women, but I don't recall ever hearing about him sadistically trying to physically hurt women. I think there are many reasons to believe that these allegations about Midgley are true, and if they are, then it speaks volumes about those like DCP, Allen Wyatt, and Kiwi, who count him as a friend, and who defend his despicable behaviors.

Truly, this is one of the most vile things I've ever come across in all my years of studying Mopologetics. Go ahead and attend a screening of "Witnesses": you'll be forking money over to one of the best friends of a man who (allegedly) slapped women aggressively on the back in the hopes of physically hurting them and seeing them in pain.
[bolding added by me]
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Dr Moore
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

Post by Dr Moore »

Thanks. Yeah, he is a scumbag. I’m sure he’s nice to his “friends” but that doesn’t excuse the wake of terrible experiences he has created for others. Unapologetically and defiantly I might add.
Last edited by Dr Moore on Fri Jul 01, 2022 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

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Yabut, he's just got a "colorful way of expressing himself," and a "very vivid personality." That there's a trail of trauma and collateral damage is acceptable as long as he's stuck it to a few "critics" along the way.


:roll:
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

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Midge wrote:They could also still be ranting about how I took a trip to Sydney, Australia, and then by ship for two weeks to New Zealand, and then back to Sydney, so that I could somehow track down Gina Colvin in Christchurch during the four hours we were touring and also having a lunch in that city, and also making at my request a look at the Mosque were that idiot killed more than fifty people and wounded many more.

What actually happened is that when we reached the LDS chapel next to the that wonderful Christchurch Domain (park), the Stake President, who was busy when we arrived closing the meeting in which he had just finished dividing two Wards into three, immediately came up to me and pointed to Dr. Nathan McCluskey, who is Gina Colvin's husband. He told me that Nathan wanted to meet me, which turned out to be true. Nathan just happens to be Gina Colvin's husband. Nathan immediately indicated that his wife hates me. Really? Why? Because, he explained, I know more about Maori things that she does. So they get into an argument every time I publish a thing about Maori Latter-day Saints.

One must keep in mind that Gina was raised by her European LDS mother, and hence has had to "become" Maori as an adult. Gina has subsequently indicated that she "is a New Zealander of Maori, English, Irish, Welch, German and French descent." Be that as it may, Nathan and I are friends--Gina not so much.
Someone please forward this on to Gina and her husband. I'd love to hear what they think about Gina hating Midge for "knowing more about Maori things." And to know exactly what Gina's husband thinks of his "friendship" with Midge.
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

Post by Marcus »

drumdude wrote:
Wed Jul 06, 2022 8:10 pm
Midge wrote:They could also still be ranting about how I took a trip to Sydney, Australia, and then by ship for two weeks to New Zealand, and then back to Sydney, so that I could somehow track down Gina Colvin in Christchurch during the four hours we were touring and also having a lunch in that city, and also making at my request a look at the Mosque were that idiot killed more than fifty people and wounded many more.

What actually happened is that when we reached the LDS chapel next to the that wonderful Christchurch Domain (park), the Stake President, who was busy when we arrived closing the meeting in which he had just finished dividing two Wards into three, immediately came up to me and pointed to Dr. Nathan McCluskey, who is Gina Colvin's husband. He told me that Nathan wanted to meet me, which turned out to be true. Nathan just happens to be Gina Colvin's husband. Nathan immediately indicated that his wife hates me. Really? Why? Because, he explained, I know more about Maori things that she does. So they get into an argument every time I publish a thing about Maori Latter-day Saints.

One must keep in mind that Gina was raised by her European LDS mother, and hence has had to "become" Maori as an adult. Gina has subsequently indicated that she "is a New Zealander of Maori, English, Irish, Welch, German and French descent." Be that as it may, Nathan and I are friends--Gina not so much.
Someone please forward this on to Gina and her husband. I'd love to hear what they think about Gina hating Midge for "knowing more about Maori things." And to know exactly what Gina's husband thinks of his "friendship" with Midge.
and this:
Nathan immediately indicated that his wife hates me. Really? Why? Because, he explained, I know more about Maori things that she does. So they get into an argument every time I publish a thing about Maori Latter-day Saints.
that is utter BS. Midgley is flat out lying. why does he continue to ratchet this up?
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

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All you can call it is some sort of malignancy. Of the same sort that causes Daniel to bury misrepresentations of footnotes in obscure books he thinks haven't been digitized yet.
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

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DanielPeterson Mod Louis Midgley • 3 hours ago

Louis Midgley: "They could also still be ranting about how I took a trip to Sydney, Australia, and then by ship for two weeks to New Zealand, and then back to Sydney, so that I could somehow track down Gina Colvin in Christchurch during the four hours we were touring and also having a lunch in that city, and also making at my request a look at the Mosque were that idiot killed more than fifty people and wounded many more."

Oh, they have. The whole trip was, so far as I can tell from what they say, all about tracking Gina Colvin down. After all, I guess, apart from Ms. Colvin there is nothing to suggest that you have any actual interest in New Zealand. Right?

Louis Midgley: "My remark, for all I know, could soon be sending some of my critics into fashioning nasty and false things about me. "

That's a virtual certainty. But I'm rather grateful for it. Any time spent demonizing you is time that isn't spent demonizing me. Even these poor souls have only twenty-four hours in a day.

Louis Midgley: "Hatred is a very bad counselor."

Amen.
I think I understand the situation now. Peterson keeps Midgley around, because Midgley makes him look less unhinged. wow. with friends like that....
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

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… and also making at my request a look at the Mosque were that idiot killed more than fifty people and wounded many more.
What is it with these macabre fools and visiting places where Right-wing zealots murdered people?

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Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

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DanielPeterson Mod Louis Midgley • 3 hours ago

That's a virtual certainty. But I'm rather grateful for it. Any time spent demonizing you is time that isn't spent demonizing me. Even these poor souls have only twenty-four hours in a day.
Can't we demonize both of them at the same time?
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Re: Louis Midgley Issues Another Threat to Gina Colvin: "She deserves a good trashing."

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Everybody Wang Chung wrote:
Wed Jul 06, 2022 11:17 pm
DanielPeterson Mod Louis Midgley • 3 hours ago

That's a virtual certainty. But I'm rather grateful for it. Any time spent demonizing you is time that isn't spent demonizing me. Even these poor souls have only twenty-four hours in a day.
Can't we demonize both of them at the same time?
Our seething rage only has so much room. Apparently. I've been told this by a reliable online blog.
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