RFM on Kamp in Court

[Marcus]

Now I'm confused. I have no problem with the threads here, and I've expressed my negative opinion repeatedly, and will continue to do so, i'm sure. I thought you meant going beyond that.

I didn’t mean to misrepresent you, I understand you now on the first part. What do you mean by going beyond it?

I thought you were arguing that he or the board should be doing something different in terms of disclosing information. I don't think that can be forced, but we can certainly discuss our various opinions in threads here. Vigorously. And even repeatedly.

[drumdude]

I didn’t mean to misrepresent you, I understand you now on the first part. What do you mean by going beyond it?

I thought you were arguing that he or the board should be doing something different in terms of disclosing information. I don't think that can be forced, but we can certainly discuss our various opinions in threads here. Vigorously. And even repeatedly.

Gotcha, no I have no issues with the rules!

[Res Ipsa]

LOL. Is “calling out Dehlin” a new former Mormon purity test of some kind? The only avoidance going on here is you avoiding the fact that your “principled” basis isn’t principled at all. If you think John Dehlin should be humiliated or punished, that’s okay. Just don’t try to pass off whatever your deal with him as principled. A rule that you want to apply only to John Dehlin isn’t a principled anything.

This reads like a complete non sequitur, Res. This discussion of Dehlin is no different than many discussions here about other public figures like Trump. There’s no requirement that anyone else meet this “principled criticism” test, except for some reason now there is for Dehlin?

I’m struggling to see what makes Dehlin so special.

Your assertion that my motive in posting here is to avoid calling out Dehlin is the actual non-sequitur. Thus my "purity test" reference.

I'm not the one making Dehlin a special case -- that's you. You were arguing that Dehlin had some sort of obligation to disclose his affair with Rosebud and her subsequent firing to all future prospective employees because he has criticized the church for not providing informed consent to convert prospects. That goes far beyond criticizing Dehlin. It appeals to a principle (consistency or avoidance of hypocrisy) to justify arguing that Dehlin should be humiliated for the rest of his life because of the Rosebud issue.

My initial reaction was that this was a punitive desire on your part wrapped up in the window dressing of an argument based on principle.
So I asked some question to see if you were willing to apply the Dehlin Rule in similar contexts. That's when you effectively ended the exchange and I expressed my opinion and said I would move on.

There is nothing wrong for criticizing Dehlin for (1) cheating on his wife (2) having an "emotional affair" with a co-worker in a subordinate position and (3) accepting action by the board that, despite superficial appearances, amounted to a retaliatory discharge of the subordinate co-worker. Or for his taste in clothes or anything else. The three things I listed above were wrong and stupid. Bad, John!!!

But what you proposed goes far beyond that; it would require him to endure permanent humiliation as a condition of doing business. As with your suggestions that he devote a full episode (which is like a couple of hours) to what would effectively be a public shaming or to do something similar in written form using terms that you want him to use, it sounds 100% punitive to me.

If you want to punish JD, whatevs. The problem is justifying your desire to punish by appealing to some kind of neutral principle. (Sauce for the goose, or how ever you want to describe it.) Unless you can demonstrate that you are serious about applying that principle on some kind of consistent basis, it's just window dressing on your desire to punish.

I suspect that you wouldn't treat my example of the climber in the blizzard as being the same as stealing cars for a chop shop. An appeal to consistency is based on more asserting that the same rule should apply in both situations. It requires a showing that the two situations are similar enough to justify applying the same rule in both cases. You are applying a rule that John is claiming should apply to a multi-billion dollar organization that demands 10% as the fee to get access to super heaven to a situation involving a small organization that is going to pay the person that you think should be warned. But you don't appear willing to apply this rule to anyone other than Dehlin. So, why the pretense of an appeal to some kind of principle?

[Res Ipsa]

I was responding to what you said about Mormon leaders here, which I agree with:
I agree with you very, very much that the discussion about the LDS church is "valuable, even if it risks calling out, humiliating, and punishing Mormon leaders."

I just don't consider Dehlin to be in that category. I know enough to not be interested in listening, to not donate, and to know i dislike his character and would never trust him. That's enough.

Fair enough. I don’t think Dehlin deserves an entire forum devoted to criticizing him. One thread, to me, seems appropriate but I can understand you and Res disagreeing with that.

What's the total count of Dehlin critical threads now? Seriously, people get to talk, argue, criticize, whatever here. Carry on.

[Res Ipsa]

I didn’t mean to misrepresent you, I understand you now on the first part. What do you mean by going beyond it?

I thought you were arguing that he or the board should be doing something different in terms of disclosing information. I don't think that can be forced, but we can certainly discuss our various opinions in threads here. Vigorously. And even repeatedly.

Yep.

[Res Ipsa]

I thought you were arguing that he or the board should be doing something different in terms of disclosing information. I don't think that can be forced, but we can certainly discuss our various opinions in threads here. Vigorously. And even repeatedly.

Gotcha, no I have no issues with the rules!

I'm not aware of any issue that the rules have with you.

[drumdude]

Fair enough. I don’t think Dehlin deserves an entire forum devoted to criticizing him. One thread, to me, seems appropriate but I can understand you and Res disagreeing with that.

What's the total count of Dehlin critical threads now? Seriously, people get to talk, argue, criticize, whatever here. Carry on.

It’s probably less than 1 percent of the DCP threads…

[Res Ipsa]

What's the total count of Dehlin critical threads now? Seriously, people get to talk, argue, criticize, whatever here. Carry on.

It’s probably less than 1 percent of the DCP threads…

Touche.

[drumdude]

This reads like a complete non sequitur, Res. This discussion of Dehlin is no different than many discussions here about other public figures like Trump. There’s no requirement that anyone else meet this “principled criticism” test, except for some reason now there is for Dehlin?

I’m struggling to see what makes Dehlin so special.

Your assertion that my motive in posting here is to avoid calling out Dehlin is the actual non-sequitur. Thus my "purity test" reference.

I'm not the one making Dehlin a special case -- that's you. You were arguing that Dehlin had some sort of obligation to disclose his affair with Rosebud and her subsequent firing to all future prospective employees because he has criticized the church for not providing informed consent to convert prospects. That goes far beyond criticizing Dehlin. It appeals to a principle (consistency or avoidance of hypocrisy) to justify arguing that Dehlin should be humiliated for the rest of his life because of the Rosebud issue.

My initial reaction was that this was a punitive desire on your part wrapped up in the window dressing of an argument based on principle.
So I asked some question to see if you were willing to apply the Dehlin Rule in similar contexts. That's when you effectively ended the exchange and I expressed my opinion and said I would move on.

There is nothing wrong for criticizing Dehlin for (1) cheating on his wife (2) having an "emotional affair" with a co-worker in a subordinate position and (3) accepting action by the board that, despite superficial appearances, amounted to a retaliatory discharge of the subordinate co-worker. Or for his taste in clothes or anything else. The three things I listed above were wrong and stupid. Bad, John!!!

But what you proposed goes far beyond that; it would require him to endure permanent humiliation as a condition of doing business. As with your suggestions that he devote a full episode (which is like a couple of hours) to what would effectively be a public shaming or to do something similar in written form using terms that you want him to use, it sounds 100% punitive to me.

If you want to punish John Dehlin, whatevs. The problem is justifying your desire to punish by appealing to some kind of neutral principle. (Sauce for the goose, or how ever you want to describe it.) Unless you can demonstrate that you are serious about applying that principle on some kind of consistent basis, it's just window dressing on your desire to punish.

I suspect that you wouldn't treat my example of the climber in the blizzard as being the same as stealing cars for a chop shop. An appeal to consistency is based on more asserting that the same rule should apply in both situations. It requires a showing that the two situations are similar enough to justify applying the same rule in both cases. You are applying a rule that John is claiming should apply to a multi-billion dollar organization that demands 10% as the fee to get access to super heaven to a situation involving a small organization that is going to pay the person that you think should be warned. But you don't appear willing to apply this rule to anyone other than Dehlin. So, why the pretense of an appeal to some kind of principle?

I think it’s a little more clear now.

I do think John’s desire for the church to practice “informed consent” is a pretense for him to criticize the church and humiliate them as much as possible. So I think that’s why you’re seeing the same thing with my challenge that he do the same to himself.

John is just more easily able to frame his cause as noble when he’s fighting a trillion dollar church that extracts millions from his members.

[Res Ipsa]

Your assertion that my motive in posting here is to avoid calling out Dehlin is the actual non-sequitur. Thus my "purity test" reference.

I'm not the one making Dehlin a special case -- that's you. You were arguing that Dehlin had some sort of obligation to disclose his affair with Rosebud and her subsequent firing to all future prospective employees because he has criticized the church for not providing informed consent to convert prospects. That goes far beyond criticizing Dehlin. It appeals to a principle (consistency or avoidance of hypocrisy) to justify arguing that Dehlin should be humiliated for the rest of his life because of the Rosebud issue.

My initial reaction was that this was a punitive desire on your part wrapped up in the window dressing of an argument based on principle.
So I asked some question to see if you were willing to apply the Dehlin Rule in similar contexts. That's when you effectively ended the exchange and I expressed my opinion and said I would move on.

There is nothing wrong for criticizing Dehlin for (1) cheating on his wife (2) having an "emotional affair" with a co-worker in a subordinate position and (3) accepting action by the board that, despite superficial appearances, amounted to a retaliatory discharge of the subordinate co-worker. Or for his taste in clothes or anything else. The three things I listed above were wrong and stupid. Bad, John!!!

But what you proposed goes far beyond that; it would require him to endure permanent humiliation as a condition of doing business. As with your suggestions that he devote a full episode (which is like a couple of hours) to what would effectively be a public shaming or to do something similar in written form using terms that you want him to use, it sounds 100% punitive to me.

If you want to punish John Dehlin, whatevs. The problem is justifying your desire to punish by appealing to some kind of neutral principle. (Sauce for the goose, or how ever you want to describe it.) Unless you can demonstrate that you are serious about applying that principle on some kind of consistent basis, it's just window dressing on your desire to punish.

I suspect that you wouldn't treat my example of the climber in the blizzard as being the same as stealing cars for a chop shop. An appeal to consistency is based on more asserting that the same rule should apply in both situations. It requires a showing that the two situations are similar enough to justify applying the same rule in both cases. You are applying a rule that John is claiming should apply to a multi-billion dollar organization that demands 10% as the fee to get access to super heaven to a situation involving a small organization that is going to pay the person that you think should be warned. But you don't appear willing to apply this rule to anyone other than Dehlin. So, why the pretense of an appeal to some kind of principle?

I think it’s a little more clear now.

I do think John’s desire for the church to practice “informed consent” is a pretense for him to criticize the church and humiliate them as much as possible. So I think that’s why you’re seeing the same thing with my challenge that he do the same to himself.

John is just more easily able to frame his cause as noble when he’s fighting a trillion dollar church that extracts millions from his members.

Could be. I don't know the man well enough to make that kind of judgment. I think I'm going to be quoting Ken Burns a lot for a bit.

I am reminded of what the journalist I.F. Stone once said to a young acolyte who was profoundly disappointed in his mentor's admiration for Thomas Jefferson. "It's because history is tragedy," Stone admonished him, "Not melodrama." It's the perfect response. In melodrama all villains are perfectly villainous and all heroes are perfectly virtuous, but life is not like that.

https://www.brandeis.edu/commencement/2024/burns.html