Ray A: The Gandhi of Internet Mormonism?

[_Mister Scratch]

I explained above that he thought that anti-Semitism and anti-Mormonism were different in that the former are much more violent and more dangerous. That's it. I don't think the comparison is at all anti-Semitic and neither did he. If anything (as I stated above) he thought this meant that Hamblin was identifying with the Jews by comparing their difficulties to his own.

Well, I disagree. I think the presumptuousness inherent in the identification is highly problematic. It reminds me of the lower-class white guy who uses the 'N-word' since, by his rationale, Black gangster rappers do it, so he should be able to as well. Simply because the white kid, in his own mind, think he is justified, does not make it so.

When you want to show a strong distaste about something you don't identify yourself with the persecuted party that you supposedly hate.

You also don't take advantage of others' suffering in order to score rhetorical points.

Since by comparison to those above Professor Hamblin is a media nobody I don't think it would appear at all.

But that wasn't my question.

Though if such a thing did come out (with full context) I don't think it would be interpreted as horribly offensive. Also depends on spin. I'm not sure what an appeal to popular response proves though. People who would hang others based on 30 second media bytes are not worth listening to in any case (unless of course you're trying to start a riot or are in politics).

In the end, Nehor, I am rather astonished that you would try to defend Hamblin's outburst. Let's face facts here: it was very ugly, angry, and disquieting. Why anyone would want to try and defend such behavior is beyond me.

[_The Nehor]

I explained above that he thought that anti-Semitism and anti-Mormonism were different in that the former are much more violent and more dangerous. That's it. I don't think the comparison is at all anti-Semitic and neither did he. If anything (as I stated above) he thought this meant that Hamblin was identifying with the Jews by comparing their difficulties to his own.

Well, I disagree. I think the presumptuousness inherent in the identification is highly problematic. It reminds me of the lower-class white guy who uses the 'N-word' since, by his rationale, Black gangster rappers do it, so he should be able to as well. Simply because the white kid, in his own mind, think he is justified, does not make it so.

When you want to show a strong distaste about something you don't identify yourself with the persecuted party that you supposedly hate.

You also don't take advantage of others' suffering in order to score rhetorical points.

Since by comparison to those above Professor Hamblin is a media nobody I don't think it would appear at all.

But that wasn't my question.

Though if such a thing did come out (with full context) I don't think it would be interpreted as horribly offensive. Also depends on spin. I'm not sure what an appeal to popular response proves though. People who would hang others based on 30 second media bytes are not worth listening to in any case (unless of course you're trying to start a riot or are in politics).

In the end, Nehor, I am rather astonished that you would try to defend Hamblin's outburst. Let's face facts here: it was very ugly, angry, and disquieting. Why anyone would want to try and defend such behavior is beyond me.

The whole point of my exercise in contacting my friend who spends MUCH of his time monitoring anti-Semitism and hates it greatly was to see if it was as you say ugly, angry, and disquieting. One of the people who should have been most offended was not. You on the other handseem to want to feel offended on their behalf in order to be able to put the label "anti-Semite" on someone you disagree with. I note that every time has name comes up you mention in passing how much he hates Jews. You are the one using other's suffering from real persecution to score a few points in your little game. I personally find that disgusting.

[_Daniel Peterson]

You have pronounced "psychotherapeutic judgment" on me, Prof. P.

Not really. As I've said, I have no idea what motivates your obsessive hatred for me, what animates your dedicated effort to blacken my character.

And you and your FARMS pals don't?

That's correct.

Tell me, are you really this blind to the stuff that occurs in the pages of FARMS Review?

I don't grant the accuracy of the spin you place on your selected quotations and paraphrases.

Do you really think that Bill Hamblin's claim that Mike Quinn is a "bad historian" is anything but a "demonization"?

Academic disagreement, even when sharp, is not "demonization." Academic reviewers pronounce books "bad" and arguments poor in thousands of journals around the world every week.

Your favored accusations -- e.g., that I'm a pathological liar, an anti-Semite, insane, a smear-meister, and etc. -- go well beyond academic disagreement, and cannot plausibly be compared to even the toughest of what typically occurs in academic reviewing.

You have been letting this stuff go on for years, and it has destroyed people's lives!

If I believed that we had ever actually "destroyed" anybody's life, I would feel terrible. I'm not the monster that you want others to believe me. But I'm aware of no such case. I don't believe that we have the power to do so, in any event, even if we desired it.

<Ahem.> And where is the 2nd Michael Watson Letter?

I've explained, several times, that Bill says he misplaced it. I think that very unfortunate. I wish it hadn't happened. I was more than a bit unhappy when I heard about it. But I saw the letter, and so too (in the course of our normal source-checking) did Dr. Shirley Ricks, the production editor of the FARMS Review, and Alison Coutts, the FARMS publications director, and at least one source-checker -- and the quotation from it in the FARMS Review is, apart from its greeting and its signature, complete. If you want to accuse us of collaborating to forge a letter and attribute it in print to the First Presidency, you're entirely free to do so. Ideally, though, you will do so under your own name rather than anonymously, and you will bring your accusation to the attention of the Office of the First Presidency. If you're right, we will face serious Church discipline, and your accusation will be vindicated.

Certainly, I feel no shame in calling you and your "friends" rumor-mongering assholes---which, let's face it, you are. You guys helped to destroy people's lives. I feel no shame at called Ray A a "deranged prick" who blackmails people and breaks promises.

I certainly don't believe that you feel any shame about smearing me and others, or that foul language embarrasses you. I think you've lied rather obviously in certain specific cases when it has served your interest to do so. And, of course, that, either out of sincere misguidedness or mysteriously motivated hatred, you continue to slander the character and misrepresent the views of people you've chosen to target.

by the way: you still are not addressing the issue re: LDS academic embarrassment.

There's no issue. You've invented it out of whole cloth. And, anyway, I see no point in attempting to engage you (of all people) on any substantive topic.

I simply want to go on record, again, as denying your malicious slurs against my character, and want to call attention, once again, to what I think is yet another clear example of your mendacity.

[_Mister Scratch]

The whole point of my exercise in contacting my friend who spends MUCH of his time monitoring anti-Semitism and hates it greatly was to see if it was as you say ugly, angry, and disquieting. One of the people who should have been most offended was not.

I know that you believe this, but there are some problems here. For one thing, you left out crucial information the first time you mentioned this. For another, we have no idea how you set up the story for your friend. I would imagine that you felt it necessary to include a lot of "context" in order to cushion the disturbing blow of Hamblin's rant.

You on the other handseem to want to feel offended on their behalf in order to be able to put the label "anti-Semite" on someone you disagree with. I note that every time has name comes up you mention in passing how much he hates Jews.

CFR? I believe I've said stuff like, "Bill 'anti-semite' Hamblin", though I can't ever recall stating outrightly that "Bill Hamblin hates Jews." (I could be wrong, though.)

You are the one using other's suffering from real persecution to score a few points in your little game. I personally find that disgusting.

Are you referring to the "suffering" of LDS? If so, you've got to be kidding. (Lol....)

[_Daniel Peterson]

This suggests that Mormon philo-Semitism is predicated on whether or not Jews will shut up about proxy baptisms---I.e., "We'll be nice to you, but you've got to compromise your beliefs and allow us to baptize you into the LDS Church." I find this attitude incredibly disrespectful. Further, I doubt that Jewish groups much appreciate(d) the various pro-Nazi sentiments which were expressed by WWII-era Brethren.

The above paragraph is fairly typical of the spin you put on even fairly innocent and straightforward statements.

I'm merely being realistic. If group A agitates against and criticizes group B, group B's attitude toward group A is likely to become less positive. There's nothing here about a quid-pro-quo or a threat. It's simply an acknowledgment of human nature.

As to the supposedly pro-Nazi statements (pro-Nazi is putting it a bit strongly, but I'll let that pass for now) of certain brethren in the 1930s, yes, there were a few. But that was true well beyond Mormonism. (Not all of the Germans and Austrians, even, who supported Hitler, were viciously evil. The movement appealed to Germanic idealism and morality. Falsely and demonically, as it turned out. But the initial appeal was there.) And, as the nature of Nazism became more apparent, such statements ceased.

[_The Nehor]

The whole point of my exercise in contacting my friend who spends MUCH of his time monitoring anti-Semitism and hates it greatly was to see if it was as you say ugly, angry, and disquieting. One of the people who should have been most offended was not.

I know that you believe this, but there are some problems here. For one thing, you left out crucial information the first time you mentioned this. For another, we have no idea how you set up the story for your friend. I would imagine that you felt it necessary to include a lot of "context" in order to cushion the disturbing blow of Hamblin's rant.

You on the other handseem to want to feel offended on their behalf in order to be able to put the label "anti-Semite" on someone you disagree with. I note that every time has name comes up you mention in passing how much he hates Jews.

CFR? I believe I've said stuff like, "Bill 'anti-semite' Hamblin", though I can't ever recall stating outrightly that "Bill Hamblin hates Jews." (I could be wrong, though.)

You are the one using other's suffering from real persecution to score a few points in your little game. I personally find that disgusting.

Are you referring to the "suffering" of LDS? If so, you've got to be kidding. (Lol....)

I provided no context. I'll check the e-mail. I asked him an introductory question, something along the lines of, "Is this anti-Semitism?" I then copied verbatim what he said. He didn't know where I stood on the issue at all.

And Bill 'anti-semite' Hamblin doesn't strongly imply that "Bill Hamblin hates Jews." You're odd.

Actually, I was referring to Jewish suffering. I know LDS suffering only gets a yawn from you but I was hoping your attempt to make Hamblin into an anti-Semite wasn't projection on your part. Should I stand corrected?

[_Mister Scratch]

You have pronounced "psychotherapeutic judgment" on me, Prof. P.

Not really. As I've said, I have no idea what motivates your obsessive hatred for me, what animates your dedicated effort to blacken my character.

I told you already: If a man steps on your neck for long enough, eventually you are going to stop politely asking him to remove it.

Tell me, are you really this blind to the stuff that occurs in the pages of FARMS Review?

I don't grant the accuracy of the spin you place on your selected quotations and paraphrases.

"Selected quotations"???? I provide verbatim quotes, and links to the articles in question. You don't *ever* do this kind of thing, and expect us to swallow your counterarguments on the basis of your bloviation and nothing else.

Do you really think that Bill Hamblin's claim that Mike Quinn is a "bad historian" is anything but a "demonization"?

Academic disagreement, even when sharp, is not "demonization." Academic reviewers pronounce books "bad" and arguments poor in thousands of journals around the world every week.

Then prove it. I am unaware of a single reputable, mainstream academic journal which produces the same kind of demonization and vitriolic crap that is FARMS Review's stock-in-trade. Will Bagley and Erik Johnson, among others, agree with my view, by the way. Do you have any evidence at all to back up your claim here? No. You don't. And I hereby predict that you will now fall back on your latest excuse, which is that you won't engage this "substantial issue" since I am too mean / mendacious / dishonest / malevolent, etc. Boy, labels sure are fun, aren't they!

Your favored accusations -- e.g., that I'm a pathological liar, an anti-Semite, insane, a smear-meister, and etc. -- go well beyond academic disagreement, and cannot plausibly be compared to even the toughest of what typically occurs in academic reviewing.

Yes, I agree that they cannot be compared to "what typically occurs in academic reviewing," but, then again, FARMS Review is not "typical academic reviewing." It is a smear journal, devoted to demonizing and attacking critics of the Church. If you want to show me another reputable academic journal that is on a par with FARMS Review in terms of mud-slinging and near-libel, then I am all ears. You guys traffick in innuendo, gossip, and outright insult, and I have got the evidence to prove it.

You have been letting this stuff go on for years, and it has destroyed people's lives!

If I believed that we had ever actually "destroyed" anybody's life, I would feel terrible. I'm not the monster that you want others to believe me. But I'm aware of no such case. I don't believe that we have the power to do so, in any event, even if we desired it.

You have stood by and allowed hit piece after hit piece to be published in FARMS Review. You have advised TBMs to "distrust" Quinn. Do you "feel terrible"? No. You instead continue to sanction this stuff.

<Ahem.> And where is the 2nd Michael Watson Letter?

I've explained, several times, that Bill says he misplaced it. I think that very unfortunate. I wish it hadn't happened. I was more than a bit unhappy when I heard about it. But I saw the letter, and so too (in the course of our normal source-checking) did Dr. Shirley Ricks, the production editor of the FARMS Review, and Alison Coutts, the FARMS publications director, and at least one source-checker -- and the quotation from it in the FARMS Review is, apart from its greeting and its signature, complete. If you want to accuse us of collaborating to forge a letter and attribute it in print to the First Presidency, you're entirely free to do so. Ideally, though, you will do so under your own name rather than anonymously, and you will bring your accusation to the attention of the Office of the First Presidency. If you're right, we will face serious Church discipline, and your accusation will be vindicated.

Right. I figured that, deep down, you want vengeance. You want the FP to punish me, etc. I don't want the same for you; all I want is for you to take responsibility for some of the rotten and/or unethical things you've done. An apology, even. That's it. No visits from your SP, no trip to the mental ward, no threats of lawsuits (unlike you), etc.

Certainly, I feel no shame in calling you and your "friends" rumor-mongering assholes---which, let's face it, you are. You guys helped to destroy people's lives. I feel no shame at called Ray A a "deranged prick" who blackmails people and breaks promises.

I certainly don't believe that you feel any shame about smearing me and others, or that foul language embarrasses you.

Then why did you just try to claim above that I was "embarrassed"? You are changing your theory in an awful big hurry, Prof. P.

I think you've lied rather obviously in certain specific cases when it has served your interest to do so.

Yes, I am quite aware of the fact that you have never extended me the simple courtesy of taking me at my word.

And, of course, that, either out of sincere misguidedness or mysteriously motivated hatred, you continue to slander the character and misrepresent the views of people you've chosen to target.

by the way: you still are not addressing the issue re: LDS academic embarrassment.

There's no issue. You've invented it out of whole cloth. And, anyway, I see no point in attempting to engage you (of all people) on any substantive topic.

I simply want to go on record, again, as denying your malicious slurs against my character, and want to call attention, once again, to what I think is yet another clear example of your mendacity.

Very well. I want to go on record, again, as denying your and your friends' malicious slurs against the characters of many folks whose scholarship was reviewed in FARMS Review, and I'd also like to call attention, once again, to the fact that, rather like your MADboard oppenent, Yme, you continue to dodge the issue. I guess you must not have a good rebuttal. Pop!

[_Mister Scratch]

This suggests that Mormon philo-Semitism is predicated on whether or not Jews will shut up about proxy baptisms---I.e., "We'll be nice to you, but you've got to compromise your beliefs and allow us to baptize you into the LDS Church." I find this attitude incredibly disrespectful. Further, I doubt that Jewish groups much appreciate(d) the various pro-Nazi sentiments which were expressed by WWII-era Brethren.

The above paragraph is fairly typical of the spin you put on even fairly innocent and straightforward statements.

"Innocent and straightforward"? I don't think so. We both know that the Church has behaved in very sneaky ways on this issue, and that because of this, Jewish groups have sued. There is nothing "straightforward" or "innocent" about this at all, in my opinion. If the Church would simply respect the desires of these Jewish families, all would be well and good. But, of course, this isn't the way things have worked.

I'm merely being realistic. If group A agitates against and criticizes group B, group B's attitude toward group A is likely to become less positive. There's nothing here about a quid-pro-quo or a threat. It's simply an acknowledgment of human nature.

"Agitates against and criticizes"? And you are accusing me of spin? The Jewish groups say, "Hey, look, we'd appreciate it if you'd respect our religious and cultural heritage and not baptize us into the LDS Church." That hardly counts as "agitation and criticism" in my opinion. And there very much was a "quid-pro-quo" sort of negotiation going on. You didn't say, "Hey, LDS sympathize with Jews. We like Jews. Can't we all just be friends?" You said, "Jews have few friends in the world, including LDS, so don't alienate us." This was clearly a threat, albeit a fairly mild one.

As to the supposedly pro-Nazi statements (pro-Nazi is putting it a bit strongly, but I'll let that pass for now) of certain brethren in the 1930s, yes, there were a few. But that was true well beyond Mormonism.

Which misses the point, of course. Nevertheless, I do have to give you credit for at least acknowledging this. Perhaps keeping this in mind will help make clear why a statement such as "Jews have few friends in the world" might seem suspect coming from an LDS apologist.

[_Mister Scratch]

I provided no context. I'll check the e-mail. I asked him an introductory question, something along the lines of, "Is this anti-Semitism?" I then copied verbatim what he said. He didn't know where I stood on the issue at all.

And Bill 'anti-semite' Hamblin doesn't strongly imply that "Bill Hamblin hates Jews." You're odd.

Actually, I was referring to Jewish suffering. I know LDS suffering only gets a yawn from you but I was hoping your attempt to make Hamblin into an anti-Semite wasn't projection on your part. Should I stand corrected?

What? What are you talking about? I was not the one dropping the "K-bomb" every other sentence in order to berate people on RfM. Look, Nehor, I get that you are really upset / embarrassed about the fact that Prof. Hamblin lost his cool in so dramatic a fashion. But, fact is, he has never apologized or owned up to this. (as far as I know.) If he wants to say he's sorry, then sure, I will stop picking at him.

[_The Nehor]

I provided no context. I'll check the e-mail. I asked him an introductory question, something along the lines of, "Is this anti-Semitism?" I then copied verbatim what he said. He didn't know where I stood on the issue at all.

And Bill 'anti-semite' Hamblin doesn't strongly imply that "Bill Hamblin hates Jews." You're odd.

Actually, I was referring to Jewish suffering. I know LDS suffering only gets a yawn from you but I was hoping your attempt to make Hamblin into an anti-Semite wasn't projection on your part. Should I stand corrected?

What? What are you talking about? I was not the one dropping the "K-bomb" every other sentence in order to berate people on RfM. Look, Nehor, I get that you are really upset / embarrassed about the fact that Prof. Hamblin lost his cool in so dramatic a fashion. But, fact is, he has never apologized or owned up to this. (as far as I know.) If he wants to say he's sorry, then sure, I will stop picking at him.

Ummm....again, you're missing the point. THERE WAS NOTHING TO APOLOGIZE FOR!!!! That is what I am saying. You keep pretending that I am trying to diminish some hostile intent when my point has always been that there was no hostile intent.

I'm not embarassed because of anything Prof. Hamblin said. I don't know the guy. I do however hate it when people like you use accusations of anti-Semitism in such a way. I happen to have seen the real thing (i.e. non-verbal).

Let's get a little more blunt. Hamblin suggested an analogy. In this analogy:

Anti-Mormons = Anti-Semites

who hate

Mormons = Jews

In this analogy Hamblin is a Mormon. This would make him a Jew in the analogy. If you want to accuse him of having a persecution complex you MIGHT have an argument but I doubt it. Still, calling him an anti-Semite is so much more juicy huh?