[Vision2020] Response to Website Contact (rec'd from TomandRodna.com)

[Joe Campbell]

Fair enough, Paul. I'm not an enemy of anonymity. I wouldn't want to ban it,
for instance. I've had some bad luck with it, locally speaking. It is abused
on the Daily News website in a way that seems to play into the hands of the
local, radical right -- just to use one example.

Do you think it is impossible to know who wrote something if the author is
anonymous? Don't you think one might have reason to believe that an
anonymous posting is written by a particular person or a particular church?
After all, you don't know for certain who is writing this letter. If
absolute certainty is the measure, then no one knows anything. If something
less is the measure, then were you to follow local politics for a number of
year's, you might have pretty good reason for belief in particular cases.

Two things I don't like in public debate, things that I think are harmful to
public debate: lying and deception. Reasons for belief are hard to come by
and the value of public debate, as I see it, is that we can get a variety of
reasons for and against a variety of issues. But if someone offers nothing
other than lies, fallacies, or some other form of deception, that is a
disservice to the debate.

Maybe he/she believes that X on the basis of fear, for instance. But how can
his/her fear be a reason for me to believe that X? It can't. All one can do
in that case is -- in an effort to get one to believe that X -- is share the
fear. That can't be a good thing. Thus, in public debate we have an
obligation to provide objective reasons for belief, not sneaky rhetoric. And
as a matter of fact, there are quite a few local conservatives who use
anonymity as just one more tool in the rhetorical tool box. I don't see how
anyone benefits from that, though I understand how someone might fool
him/herself into thinking there is a benefit.

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:38 PM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com>wrote:

> If these people are anonymous, how do we know they are all from the same
> church?
>
> Also, I wasn't claiming that anyone here was demonizing anybody, only that
> society demonizes the concept of "sexual offender"; so much so that even
> being
> accused of a sex crime and proven innocent later can still screw up your
> life.
> It's not too much of a stretch to think that arguing against this sort of
> thing
> can get you into trouble, depending upon what your circumstances are.
>  Hence, a
> possible reason for the anonymity.
>
> In today's world where your iPad follows your movements and multi-national
> conglomerates follow your every webpage click, I would say that privacy and
> anonymity are in need of defending upon occasion.
>
> Paul
>
> P.S.  Practice safe web browsing - run Adblock and NoScript or their
> equivalents
>
> and delete cookies from obvious ad agencies.
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
> To: Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com>
> Cc: Rosemary Huskey <donaldrose at cpcinternet.com>; Moscow Vision 2020
> <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> Sent: Wed, April 27, 2011 4:21:55 AM
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Response to Website Contact (rec'd from
> TomandRodna.com)
>
> If all the anonymity is coming from the same members of the same church,
> that's
> not a good thing. Not good because it might be hiding the true opinions and
> influence of the church or it's members.
>
> And I can't help but note how ironic it is that you use the term
> "demonize."
> When NSA calls secularism "evil," when Bouma's pastor calls Mormons
> "blasphemous" -- both cases of literal demonization -- it gets counted as
> "religious" opinion. Yet pointing out that a pedophile has been left in the
> care
> of an unqualified pastor is "demonization."
>
>
>
> On Apr 26, 2011, at 10:54 PM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On 04/26/2011 08:09 AM, Rosemary Huskey wrote:
> >> Hi Tom and Visionaries,
> >> Because "Concerned" isn't concerned enough to sign his/her name we can
> >> easily dismiss his/her opinions.
> >
> > While I can sympathize with this statement in a lot of different
> > contexts, there are plenty of times where anonymity can be a good
> > thing.  For example, when you want to state an unpopular opinion
> > relating to a topic that is often demonized to such a degree that merely
> > stating that someone is going too far can bring unwelcome pressure to
> > bear upon yourself.
> >
> > I'm not actually that "Concerned", though.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > =======================================================
> > List services made available by First Step Internet,
> > serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
> >               http://www.fsr.net
> >          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> > =======================================================
>
>
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