tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post113345530798286157..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: JesuitryRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1133482876710441032005-12-01T19:21:00.000-05:002005-12-01T19:21:00.000-05:00From my blog today:Hi observer,You truly don't get...From my blog today:<BR/><BR/>Hi observer,<BR/><BR/>You truly don't get this. My pointing out of double standards does not require an absolute equivalence of the two instances. There was enough similarity for hypocrisy and double standards to be present. In both cases:<BR/><BR/>1. Someone pretended to be someone else.<BR/><BR/>2. Both efforts involved falsehoods about the persons.<BR/><BR/>3. Both were intended as jokes and humorous. <BR/><BR/>That's more than enough for my observations to stand. Of course there are some differences, too, but they don't wipe out my present argument:<BR/><BR/>A. Frank and several of his anti-Catholic cronies thought I was obsessed in trying to find out the true identity of the hoaxster at all. <BR/><BR/>B. Yet when someone "spoofed" Frank he had to find out in one day or else federal charges would be filed. He had no sense of humor at all about it, whereas I have had a lot of fun with my would-be character assassin.<BR/><BR/>C. Frank's friends saw nothing at all wrong with the hoax at my expense, whereas it is Chicken Little when someone does this to one of their buddies.<BR/><BR/>D. If we are to compare the two efforts, the one directed towards me is far worse (thus more worthy of rebuke from any fair-minded person). Frank's had him (egads!) admitting he was wrong in a recent controversy, and saying he was sorry. How terrible! My fake blogger (though obviously more purely comic) called me a "moron", said I "hated" theological opponents, and portrayed me as the most infantile, selfish, self-absorbed, self-obsessed individual imaginable. Frank and his cronies blithely assume these things about me. Even when I oppose this kind of blog, to them it is proof that I am this kind of person. I can do nothing at all to disabuse them of these opinions.<BR/><BR/>E. Whether something is clearly humorous or not does not wipe out the insults included and intended in it. The smears against black people in the Jim Crow and slavery eras were always thought to be very funny. But who was laughing? Well, bigots, of course. The Nazis did many visual and literary slanders of German Jews, which they thought were very funny. Likewise, when an anti-Catholic does a spoof of a Catholic intended to mock and ridicule him, anything goes, and all the anti-Catholics think it is great fun and hilarious (largely, I say, because of a prior extreme disposition against all things Catholic, and bigotry). <BR/><BR/>F. It has been an ongoing effort of the leading anti-Catholics to smear folks. Steve Hays said it was only me who has been subject to such spoofs. But James White has been compoaring Catholic Answers, Karl Keating, Jimmy Akin, Pat Madrid and others to Jack Chick's level of "argument" for many years now. White did a caricature of Pat Madrid in which he was being stoned as an idolater. Examples are legion. I've documented many of them myself. Eric Svendsen quickly endorsed the fake blog, saying that it was obvious to one and all that it was an accurate portrayal of my personality and person. He also put out a <I>National Enquirer</I>-like spoof in which I had a child coming out of my chest who said, "I would rather die than be in Dave Armstrong's chest."<BR/><BR/>So there is humor and there is humor. Just being "comical" does not wipe out all intent to severely insult. These are obviously concerted efforts to smear my name and harm my reputation so that people won't read my stuff, or read it with such a slanted view of me that they will be too skeptical to be convinced of anything.<BR/><BR/>The Turk spoof was like a flat-out compliment in contrast. All the more reason why, if these guys condemn that, they should condemn with all the <I>more</I> vigor, the purely vindictive, spiteful attempts to slander me.<BR/><BR/>It remains stunning, even for anti-Catholics (with their already very low standards for truthfulness, seeing that they lie about Catholics and Catholicism all the time), to not immediately recognize the double standards which I have chronicled. But it's not surprising to me in the least. I knew how these guys would react, and they have fulfilled my expectations to a tee.Dave Armstronghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07771661758539438173noreply@blogger.com