[Vision2020] An Open Letter to Dave Johnson, the Daily News, and Lewiston Tribune

[Douglas Wilson]

Joe,

Not a problem. Getting back from Slovenia always does the same thing to me.

Let me address your a, b, and c first.

a. Those who contradict what someone says in defense of his own 
innocence have the burden of proof. In the last forty-eight hours, I 
have been accused of some truly horrendous activities in this space. The 
fact that the accusations are lurid doesn't make them false, but the 
fact that they are accusations does mean that the one making them 
assumes the burden of proof. The discussion does not start on that 
famous "level playing field." If someone here claimed that I had put 
Sitler up to his crimes, is it up to me to disprove this allegation?

b. Anything you read from me on the legitimacy of deception was written 
about the legitimacy of deception in war and war-like conditions -- 
telling the enemy pilot that your tank is a bush when it in fact is not 
a bush, and telling the Gestapo that you have no Jews hiding in your 
basement. Would I lie to the Gestapo in such a circumstance? You bet, 
and with a clean conscience. Rahab and the spies, the Hebrew midwives 
lying to Pharaoh, and so on. But is it legitimate to lie to fellow 
parishioners, citizens, family? No, not at all -- it is breaking the 
ninth commandment.

c. If you are baptized in the triune name, then I would consider you a 
baptized Christian. Whether or not your beliefs or practices line up 
faithfully with that baptism would be something about which I would have 
no idea. But assume for the sake of discussion that we would differ on 
what constitutes faithfulness to Christian baptism. How would that 
relate at all to whether or not I let Steven Sitler prey on additional 
victims for a couple years in order to keep my crazy little empire going?

Do I report any and all illegal activity? Well, what are we talking 
about? 37 mph in a 35? Running at the pool? Jaywalking? Smoking dope 
with visionaries to get them to calm down a bit? Adultery? Tearing 
labels off mattresses? I clearly don't have the MPD dialed in, and I 
don't believe that I have ever met a pastor who has reported all 
potentially illegal activity he may have heard about. I cannot imagine a 
better way to get the authorities extremely annoyed with you. Pretty 
soon they would be looking at me the way that city staff must look when 
Charlie Nolan comes in to file a new complaint about how I am combing my 
hair these days. So let me turn this around. Joe, do you report to the 
authorities all violations of the law that might come to your attention?

The case for the need for Citizen Ament to recuse himself is really 
straightforward. I don't think he should be asked to recuse himself from 
the council's legislative functions at all. That is what elections are 
for. He won his seat, and he should have the right to say as many silly 
things as he wants while sitting in it. But the setting from which we 
were asking him to recuse himself was a judicial one, where the council 
was hearing an appeal. Legislators can be partisan; that is the point, 
really. But judges must not be. And Citzen Ament had demonstrated in 
numerous ways that he is not qualified to sit in an objective, 
non-partisan judicial capacity.

Thanks for the interaction all. I am going to stay subscribed for one 
more day, and if nothing new turns up, I will follow the inspiring 
example of Joan and unsubscribe. But by this I must hasten to add that 
additional colors or font sizes from Wayne Fox do not count as something 
"new." And I further maintain that said colors and fonts do not 
determine anything, one way or the other, with regard to my alleged 
mendacity.

Douglas Wilson

Joe Campbell wrote:

>Doug,
>
>Sorry to take so long in getting back to you. I've been pretty busy since getting back from Slovenia.
>
>You write: "Two members of our community did do some awful things. But the only risk that anyone faced occurred /before /those sins were discovered. After those sins were discovered by the church, no one was at risk at all. The reason no one was at risk after these discoveries was that we did what responsible churches are supposed to do in such circumstances."
>
>I understand what you are saying here but you have to admit that from my vantage point I can’t be certain that any of this is true. (a) Several folks have said things that seems to contradict some of what you say above. Couple this with the fact that (b) I have actually read essays of yours where you argue that it is OK for Christians to lie to non-Christians, and (c) I have read essays of yours which suggest that you would not consider me to be a genuine Christian, despite my claims to the contrary.
>
>Given (a), (b), and (c), what would you believe, were you in my shoes?
>
>You write: "When a child molester is discovered, the laws of our community require that it be reported to the appropriate authorities, which is exactly what we did, within hours. The law should not require, and in fact does not require, an announcement to the public that someone is accused of child molestation."
>
>Are you suggesting that every time you know about some law being violated by some member of your congregation, you are obligated to report it to the authorities?
>
>After all, the "gambling ring" was illegal, you knew about it, yet you did not report it, right? So that has to count as prima facie evidence that you do not always report the illegal activities of your church members. Together with the claims from others that in fact you knew about allegations of sexual abuse before it was reported, it would be epistemically irresponsible of me to believe you. This is not proof that what you say is false but a responsible epistemic agent should believe otherwise.
>
>Finally, you write: "can you see how, from our perspective, this is all just harassment simpliciter?"
>
>Well, not really. It is hard for me to see how much of this is not harassment since I am generally on the side of this debate that is critical of CC and NSA. 
>
>I am a straight, white, church-going Christian, so I'm not sure why I would pick another straight, white, church-going Christian to harass. Sure, I disagree with some of your specific views but that is true of most other folks, as well. As you no doubt know by now, I'm a professional philosopher. Most of the folks I know disagree with me on some issue or other. Moreover, it is hard to get much work done in philosophy if you decide to harass those with whom you disagree. 
>
>My recent desire to talk about all this now has little to do with your religious and philosophical views and more to do with what I perceive to be a demonstrated disrespect for the law and the democratic process. You tell me I've got you all wrong but really, Doug, the actions of NSA and CC speak louder than your words. The attempt to recuse Ament gives me no indication that you care one bit about my views about this subject.
>
>I am not saying that you are lying. For all I KNOW, everything you say may well be true. But why should I believe any of it?
>
>Best, Joe
>
>  
>