If you want an incredible example of self-deception and suppression of truth, here’s one from this morning. You will recall that I noted the less-than-honest and accurate words of one California attorney, Peter Sean Bradley. First, I replied to his comments on the Beckwith situation here. I walked through his entire article and responded to, and refuted, each point. Then, a little later, I replied to another article of his, here, demonstrating he could not even accurately identify the authors of the articles he was addressing (he confused James Swan and myself). So I had to blink a few times to make sure I was reading correctly as Bradley started off on his blog with this:
James White proves that I was right; his “schedule of values” is sadly askew. After dropping down into Kacy’s blog in order to question her as to why she found in him “uncharitable,” and, then, beating a retreat when he got his answers, White has strategically chosen to ignore my current post in order to dredge up a post from from last month, which is a master-work in the art of “not seeing the forest for the trees.”
I can only assume Bradley doesn’t believe anyone will follow his links. Either that, or he is one mighty confused person. I replied, of course, to Kacy, here, and that fully. The article he links to is directly, and fully, about his most recent post, not one from a month ago (he even links to the correct article, 1966; the one from a month ago is 1968). He is simply wrong to say I do not regularly provide links. This is a falsehood, but he refuses to back up his statements. He blames his bad research on the font size of the by-line! How about just admitting you blew it, Mr. Bradley, and apologizing? But then he argues that since I did not edit James Swan’s article, that, combined with his lie that I don’t link to other articles, still means I’m a hypocrite! In fact, you can surely tell the man is an attorney at this point, for, standing there with the facts squarely against him, what does he do? Check this out:
But I want to be accurate. Swan is the author of the relevant post, but White’s response to my post is tendentious and, we “exalted parasites” might say, non-responsive, and his allowing the post to be placed on his blog and his silence about its content properly allows the inference that he adopts its position.
And, really, that’s the point of the post. White doesn’t generally link and he doesn’t allow comments, but he is willing to jump in on other people’s blog if his feelings are bruised and he is willing to allow his blog to be used for hypocritical arguments.
See, when you are on the losing side of the facts, here is what you do. First, state that you want to be truthful and accurate. Then, make sure to shift the focus from your own errors (the false assertion that I do not link to others, which is self-evidently refuted by anyone with the temerity to examine the blog, and the misidentification of the author of the blog article) to accusations against the person you have actually lost the argument to. Do this by making vague accusations that you do not have to back up. In this case, wow them with lawyer-speak. Say the response is tendentious and non-responsive (despite the fact that it was his post that was tendentious and simply false). Then ignore the fact that Swan’s article was perfectly valid: the Envoy forum does preclude links to www.aomin.org, despite the fact that those in the forum are constantly commenting on what is said there. My lack of desire to open yet another IIA (Internet Ignorance Aggregator, i.e., comments section) is irrelevant, especially in light of the fact that 1) I make myself more available in public settings than almost anyone else I know, 2) both Mr. Swan and myself have quoted from the Envoy forums many times on this blog, replete with links, and 3) anyone on the Envoy forums can choose to comment fully on their own blogs, as even Art Sippo has begun to do. Swan’s point was that it is hypocritical to pretend you are open to meaningful dialogue when you are not. When there is no longer a toll-free phone number for Mr. Bradley to call (which he did not yesterday…maybe Thursday?), he can try to make his case. Till then, the jury has to return a verdict of “not guilty” to his accusations, and he is surely to be held in contempt of the highest court, that of truthfulness.
