The SCMC: New information Comes to Light

[_Mister Scratch]

Let me see if I have this straight... You were excited to be going on this "mission" because the SCMC had been getting bad press?

You don't have it straight. You never do. You're plainly determined never to get it straight.

I said nothing about being "excited" to go on that "mission." I said that, given the then-recent publicity that the SCMC had been receiving, it gave me a momentary start when my caller identified himself as secretary of the Strengthening Church Members Committee.

You said, and I quote, that it gave you a "sharp thrill." Not a "momentary start," Prof. P. You are careful with your words. You have a large vocabulary. Now, you may wish you had written something other than, "a sharp thrill," but, sadly for you, you did not. You communicated to anyone with a rudimentary grasp of English and/or a dictionary that you were "excited"/"thrilled"/"gleeful" of getting to play "secret agent" for the SCMC. No more baloney, Prof. P. This is plainly what you meant. You were excited about getting involved with this Committee.

It is not even remotely like that! Unless, of course, you want to allow that the sister is also recruiting the help of secretive "big guns" who also happen to tape record the conversations of other dissidents, and to maintain "dossiers" on them.

Are you suggesting -- quite falsely, of course -- that I help to tape record the conversations of dissidents and that I maintain "dossiers" on critics?

No; I'm suggesting that your analogy is faulty. Which it is.

You keep "dossiers." I don't.

As others have already pointed out, you maintain an "RfM" archive. You like to claim that it contains "only about 17 entries," but I once cross-referenced these entries, which you posted on MAD, with the various quotes you used in your two fairly recent articles on online ex- and anti-Mormonism. It turns out that they didn't match up. Apparently, you've got more quote stashed away somewhere, or else you deleted them, or something. All I know is that, at least at one time, you had amassed more that the 17 quotes you listed.

Interesting change of tune, Prof. P. This was most certainly not what you were saying before. (It's also funny how you are blaming all of the negativity on him.)

I won't lie to please you, Scratch.

Very well, go ahead and lie in order to irritate me.

What would you like me to call it? A "conversation"?

Yes. It was a conversation, so it seems that it would be appropriate to call it a conversation. That's what I've been calling it all along.

I don't think that's very accurate.

I don't think that's really accurate, since it seems that he was pressured into talking with you. A "talk"? A "tete-a-tete"? A "confrontation"? What?

A conversation. That's what I've been calling it all along.

And, remember, I was there. Unless you're the man himself, you weren't.

Ah, well, here we go again. The old "I was there!" canard. Peculiar, isn't it, that when critics try to use this against the Church, you and your Mopologetic friends suddenly find all sorts of ways to discredit their experience! How about that! Example: Steven Benson's account of his conversation w/ the two GAs, including Dallin Oaks, who allegedly made the "grizzly bear" remark. Benson was there! Remember! He was there!

And you have no basis for alleging that he was "pressured" into talking with us. I have absolutely no reason to assume that to have been the case.

Yes, we do. His marriage was in jeopardy. You said so yourself.

Your claiming that he was "asked" is no more accurate---and, I would argue, even less accurate, given the evidence---then my suggestion that he was "pressured."

You weren't there.

I was.

You weren't at the Benson/Oaks meeting. Benson was. You weren't with the people Quinn interviewed on the subject of the SCMC. Quinn was.

You know literally nothing about it beyond what I've said. All you have, otherwise, is your perpetual compulsion to paranoid negativity.

You're forgetting that I also have the various accounts of others whose lives have been affected by the SCMC.

The power to dissolve his marriage.

The Church had no power to dissolve his marriage.

Oh, really? Then why was his wife upset about his newfound disbelief?

People who are frightened often become defensive and act in a belligerent manner.

Your attempt at amateur psychological analysis of a man whom you haven't met from a conversation at which you were not present will persuade those whom it will persuade. Perhaps only you.

I think it's pretty common knowledge that people who feel cornered will lash out. Do you disagree?

You have been saying, ever since your arrival on this board, that I am beyond low, and am barely human at all.

No, I've been saying that your relentless negativity and your insatiable compulsion to believe and assert the worst of believing Latter-day Saints is bizarre.

Where do I "assert the worst of believing Latter-day Saints"? Is the SCMC really the worst there is? Or do you think it actually merits my praise?!?

In fact, I think it pathological -- if it's not simply a phony provocation designed to get a rise out of your chosen target.

Right. Okay. More nasty, ad hominem swipes at my character. Keep it up, Dan, you're doing so well!

I do still believe that the situation itself was "Gestapo"-like, and that it smacks of ugly secrecy and subterfuge. Of conspiracy to do harm.

That's simply crazy.

No, it's accurate. And Quinn and Krakauer and Anderson and others who have looked into the matter objectively believe me. Why is it that you're unable to come up with any outside sources who will agree with you and say, "Why, yes, Prof. P.! You're right! The SCMC is perfectly benign. It doesn't do any harm at all!"

You did hold cards---I.e., that you were working on behalf of the SCMC.

Which he didn't know, which gave us no authority, which didn't come up. It was irrelevant to the conversation.

Just because he didn't know doesn't mean you didn't have extra authority/"cards".

The man, as you pointed out, in your own words, was concerned and worried about the SCMC, and yet there you were, lapping up all the delicious, secret irony that, in fact, you were working for it. You are like the undercover cop who chuckles to himself inwardly about having duped some criminal. That you viewed this struggling member in this fashion is quite telling, in my opinion.

You invent discreditable thoughts and low psychological states out of thin air, attribute them to me, and then condemn me for your fictions.

I'm simply drawing upon your own account. You may now regret what you originally wrote, but, sadly for you, that does not, in fact, change what you originally wrote.

Did his bishop or his SP tell the wife about this meeting?

She came with him. But she said little if anything during the meeting.

Ah, okay. This is yet another strike against you claim that he was there "totally on his own."

Good grief. Of course it's a strike against me. Everything is.

When I said he was there "totally on his own," I didn't intend that he was all alone. I intended that the decision to come or not to come was entirely his.

But the fact that his wife accompanied him implies that his decision to come was NOT "entirely his." It would be far more believable if he'd arrived solo. But, we know that the powers-that-be behind the scenes were pressuring him to shut up and come back to the fold, and so it seems likely that he was "coerced", at the very least, by his wife (and, by extension, the SCMC).

Has it ever occurred to you to consider, even theoretically, the possibility that I'm not a complete liar?

You're boring me.

Has it ever occurred to you that I may have a point and that you may be trying to defend the impossible?

[_Mister Scratch]

The collating of documents done by the SCMC facilitates the "digging" into members' personal lives, thus making it much easier to smear them.

Scratch is merely projecting what he would do if he had such documents -- and if the documents were of the kind that he falsely imagines them to be.

More smear tactics. You will be hard-pressed to find *any* commentary on people's real life, personal activity. This stands in stark contrast to what you and your Mopologetic pals do, which is discuss people's private sex lives (Quinn, Southerton), dig around among their acquaintances (Palmer, Beck), or totally fabricate evidence (Murphy). You are friends with, and contributed content to the "dossier"-heavy "Critics Corner" section of SHIELDS, Prof. P. You have no grounds to be attacking me on the basis of "dossiers."

[_Mister Scratch]

You are just as obsessed with RFM as scratch is with you.

What a profoundly absurd comparison. It is like equating a shaving nick to a decapitation. Have you lost all sense of proportion and perspective? LOL

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Hey, Wade---

What happened to your websites?

[_beastie]

Daniel,

I'm trying to point out the contradiction to you. Either you have obsessed enough over RFM to fairly make generalizations on the nature of the place or you have not. You want to have your cake and eat it too by insisting you aren't obsessed with RFM, but you are still qualified to make generalizations about the place based on your limited interest in it.

If you're obsessed with it - and you give that impression - then you could be qualified to make generalizations about the place, once having admitted your own bias, of course. It's better, if you're going to write a formal essay on the subject, to have actually taken careful notes during your obsessive observation so as not to have to rely on problematic memory. But you insist that wasn't necessary, and the quotes you saved are hardly notes or a dossier. (the subject, of course, would be RFM)

What's funny now is that you condemned RFMers for expressing opinions based on ignorance, but apparently you're doing the same thing - you say you have very limited interest or exposure to RFM, but still make sweeping generalizations about it. This is how you condemned such behavior in RFMers:

It is hard not to think in this context of Groucho Marx. “From the
moment I picked up your book until I laid it down,” Groucho wrote
to the novelist Sydney Perelman, “I was convulsed with laughter.
Someday I intend reading it.” Many on this particular message board
seem to be of the same mentality as the academic who was asked
whether he had read the new book by Professor Jones. “Read it?” he
replied. “Why, I haven’t even reviewed it yet!”

So how much of a board's postings - in specific, a very busy and fast moving board like RFM - should one be expected to actually read before reviewing it?

More generalizations:

But this does not exhaust the pleasures of that message board. It is
rife with personal abuse and bloodcurdling hostility, not uncommonly
obscene, directed against people the posters do not know and have
not met—against President Hinckley, Joseph Smith, the Brethren, the
general membership of the church, and even, somewhat obsessively,
against one particular rather insignificant BYU professor.

Again, just how much of a busy boards' posting should one be expected to read before stating it is "rife with personal abuse and bloodcurdling hostility"?

You even go on to generalize beyond RFM:

Characteristic of much secularizing anti-Mormon participation
on the Web is a corrosive cynicism that, in my experience, will erode
anything with which it comes in contact. It is not so much a reasoned
intellectual stance as an attitude, or even, perhaps, a personality type.
Those afflicted with such cynicism are like the dwarfs toward the
end of the last book in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, who are,
as Aslan expresses it, so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be
taken out of the walls in which they have enclosed themselves. Such
people claim to know the price of everything and everyone, although
they seem to recognize the value of nothing. But the problem may well
be in the cynic rather than in the object of his scorn. “No man,” as the
French saying goes, “is a hero to his valet.” Why? The German philosopher
G. W. F. Hegel is surely right when he responds: “Not because
the former is not a hero, but because the latter is a valet.”

Your reaction to my comparison of your obsession with RFM (or, excuse me, your limited interest) to scratch's obsession with you is an excellent demonstration of the human tendency to scold the "others" for certain behaviors or traits while remaining blithely unaware of one's own embrace of the very same behaviors or traits.

[_beastie]

What a profoundly absurd comparison. It is like equating a shaving nick to a decapitation. Have you lost all sense of proportion and perspective? LOL

Wade,

Someone who believes he can "help" homosexuals by categorizing their sexual behavior in the same group as pedophilia, necrophilia, and beastiality, should really avoid commentary on other people's lack of proportion and perspective.

[_mocnarf]

Can anyone provide a link the the RFM website. I have never checked it out and would like to.

[_beastie]

http://www.exmormon.org/boards/w-agora/ ... b_recovery

I find it the rough equivalent of the exmormon version of MAD. Neither are to my taste, but I do not agree with Daniel's over-generalizations, either.

[_wenglund]

What a profoundly absurd comparison. It is like equating a shaving nick to a decapitation. Have you lost all sense of proportion and perspective? LOL

Wade,

Someone who believes he can "help" homosexuals by categorizing their sexual behavior in the same group as pedophilia, necrophilia, and beastiality, should really avoid commentary on other people's lack of proportion and perspective.

I'll take that as a "yes". No suprise there. ;-)

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_beastie]

I'll take that as a "yes". No suprise there. ;-)

Of course. People who have perspective and a sense of proportion would all agree with you that a good way to "help" homosexuals is to tell them their behavior is on par with pedophilia, necrophilia, and beastiality. No sane person would question it.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Either you have obsessed enough over RFM to fairly make generalizations on the nature of the place or you have not.

So, according to Beastie Principle #2, in order to make generalizations about a subject, one must be obsessed by it.

That's even more ridiculous than Beastie Principle #1.

It's Friday night. Why don't you go out somewhere? Have some fun. That's what I'm going to do.

It's better, if you're going to write a formal essay on the subject, to have actually taken careful notes during your obsessive observation so as not to have to rely on problematic memory.

If ever I choose to write a formal essay, let alone an academic article, about RFM -- which I have no present intention of doing -- I'll certainly keep some notes. You may not know this, but I actually have some experience with academic research and writing.

Incidentally, one of the quotations that you cite as demonstrating my alleged obsession with (and ignorance of) RFM wasn't even about RFM. As for the others, I feel quite confident in standing behind them, even without either an obsession or a Beastie-approved "dossier."

There are several good movies out there. And you don't need to set up a dossier about them.