Ray A: The Gandhi of Internet Mormonism?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Yes, the truth is that you made a false accusation.

I believe that the accusation is true, based not merely upon my sense of Ray's character but upon the fact that Scratch's alleged behavior here is strikingly consistent with his prior behavior elsewhere.

[_Ray A]

Yes, the truth is that you made a false accusation.

Your reputation is now just about half-way down Niagara Falls. I'm waiting for the Splatt.

You know you're a brazen liar, and you know you altered the posts I quoted. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters, Scratch - you know the truth, and I know the truth. Wiggle all you want, but you're not going to wiggle your way out of the truth that we both know.

[_Gadianton]

You have my permission to mark me as anything, if I ever altered any PM.

That wasn't the point. I, in fact, don't care if you "lied" over a deeply heated personal confrontation in PM. It was DCP who implied that if you did do it, which he doesn't believe you did, that it would mark you as a "brazen liar". It's just my opinion that if he did think you misrepresented the PM exchange, that he wouldn't really consider it a matter of "brazen lying", as with the "outbursts", he'd find different words to describe the matter and factor in mitigating circumstances. Just my opinion.

[_Daniel Peterson]

It was DCP who implied that if you did do it, which he doesn't believe you did, that it would mark you as a "brazen liar". It's just my opinion that if he did think you misrepresented the PM exchange, that he wouldn't really consider it a matter of "brazen lying", as with the "outbursts", he'd find different words to describe the matter and factor in mitigating circumstances. Just my opinion.

You're wrong. Whoever altered the e-mail is a brazen liar.

I'm quite confident that that person is Scratch.

Those are separable propositions, and I separate them.

[_Mister Scratch]

It was DCP who implied that if you did do it, which he doesn't believe you did, that it would mark you as a "brazen liar". It's just my opinion that if he did think you misrepresented the PM exchange, that he wouldn't really consider it a matter of "brazen lying", as with the "outbursts", he'd find different words to describe the matter and factor in mitigating circumstances. Just my opinion.

You're wrong. Whoever altered the e-mail is a brazen liar.

I'm quite confident that that person is Scratch.

Those are separable propositions, and I separate them.

And are you a "brazen liar" yourself, FreeThinker?

[_Gadianton]

It was DCP who implied that if you did do it, which he doesn't believe you did, that it would mark you as a "brazen liar". It's just my opinion that if he did think you misrepresented the PM exchange, that he wouldn't really consider it a matter of "brazen lying", as with the "outbursts", he'd find different words to describe the matter and factor in mitigating circumstances. Just my opinion.

You're wrong. Whoever altered the e-mail is a brazen liar.

I'm quite confident that that person is Scratch.

Those are separable propositions, and I separate them.

I'm just not buying it, with all due respect. I mean, is Ray a "brazen liar" for agreeing with Scratch not to reveal the correspondence in the first place, and then doing so? (as Beastie has pointed out) And if Ray did that, and if Scratch were "guilty", would that not mitigate the severity of his deception at all?

[_Ray A]

I'm just not buying it, with all due respect. I mean, is Ray a "brazen liar" for agreeing with Scratch not to reveal the correspondence in the first place, and then doing so? (as Beastie has pointed out) And if Ray did that, and if Scratch were "guilty", would that not mitigate the severity of his deception at all?

What would you have done in my situation? What did you do? You wanted to "answer my hypocrisy", right? You admitted it was a "bit unethical", yet you still did it. What created this desperation??? I'm using this only as an example I can think of.

Why should I act any different (perhaps a "bit unethical", to use your phrase), to personal attacks, than you do?

I will read your reply in the morning.

[_Gadianton]

I'm just not buying it, with all due respect. I mean, is Ray a "brazen liar" for agreeing with Scratch not to reveal the correspondence in the first place, and then doing so? (as Beastie has pointed out) And if Ray did that, and if Scratch were "guilty", would that not mitigate the severity of his deception at all?

What would you have done in my situation? What did you do? You wanted to "answer my hypocrisy", right? You admitted it was a "bit unethical", yet you still did it. What created this desperation??? I'm using this only as an example I can think of.

Why should I act any different (perhaps a "bit unethical", to use your phrase), to personal attacks, than you do?

I will read your reply in the morning.

Ray,

I'm not wholesale accusing you of anything or judging your motives. I'm drawing attention to DCP's terminology that teeters between a descriptive and normative usage. If either of us lied to protect a Jewish family hiding in our basement from the Nazis, would we also be "brazen liars?" If so, then I don't have a problem with DCP's coining because that would reveal enough context to rule it descriptive. If not, then that means context is being taken into account to form a clear moral judgment. I did what I felt I needed to do, you felt you did what you needed to do, DCP felt he did what he needed to do in sharing your private correspondence, isn't it possible that if Scratch is "guilty" that he felt he did what he needed to do? And this is where the problem is, please try to understand what I'm saying here. DCP and others (yourself?) feel that uncovering the contents of the PM alone, devoid of any context will not just reveal who is "lying" but who is a "brazen liar". Do you see what I'm getting at?

If that's all we need to know, then all I need to know in order to judge DCP as a gossipmonger is the fact that he shared your private correspondence with a third party. That you made public your correspondence with Scratch to be a brazen liar. That I strongly insinuated private information to be a dishonest traitor. I'm refraining judgment on any "misdeeds" from your recent exchange with Scratch. My main interest is consistent reasoning.

[_Daniel Peterson]

And are you a "brazen liar" yourself, FreeThinker?

No. I'm not.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I'm just not buying it, with all due respect.

You can buy it or not, as you choose.

It's true, nonetheless.

I mean, is Ray a "brazen liar" for agreeing with Scratch not to reveal the correspondence in the first place, and then doing so?

I haven't followed this dispute, but, no, I don't think revealing the correspondence after one had agreed not to do so would constitute "brazen lying" if one had what one seriously judged to be a compelling reason for breaking the agreement. This is, I recognize, a slippery slope. But many ethical quandaries are. I don't condone light violation of promises, but it's not difficult at all to come up with a myriad of situations where most people would agree that a promise can (or even should) be broken with moral legitimacy in the face of changed circumstances.

I didn't have a formal agreement with Susie Q, for example, not to publish our correspondence. But I will cheerfully admit that, when I asked her permission to do so and she refused that permission, we had an implicit agreement that neither of us would publish it. And, in fact, I kept to that agreement for (as I recall) about a year -- until Susie Q's often-repeated and gross mischaracterizations of our exchange, which were plainly designed to impeach my character, reached such a point that I felt, in defense of my reputation, that I needed to let people see what had actually been said.

And if Ray did that, and if Scratch were "guilty", would that not mitigate the severity of his deception at all?

No, not in my judgment.