The death throes of a conspiracy theory.

[jaydeehess]

SHC

PROVE that Jay Utah does not know your birthday.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Actually, it makes perfect sense.

If Roosevelt was morally depraved enough to cage thousands of U.S. citizens for the non-crime of simply being of Japanese descent, why wouldn't he also be morally depraved enough to have a few thousand U.S. citizens murdered so he could finally have an excuse to join a war he was dying to drag the country into?

The kind of scum who would allow concentration camps for his citizens is also the kind of scum who would allow them to be sacrificial cannon fodder, and you've got no good argument to the contrary.

We've more or less let this run, but the dishonesty is starting to bug me. It's ridiculous of you to use the term 'concentration camps' to equate internment camps for citizens who originate from a now-enemy nation with Nazi extermination camps.

If it was as simple as you want to paint it, a president 'morally depraved enough' to kill thousands of his own people by failing to prepare them for a coming attack would have exterminated the Japanese Americans, not imprisoned them.

There is no reasonable argument for Roosevelt deciding to do nothing to mitigate the coming Japanese attack or prepare to take advantage of it to counterattack after the event. The evidence of Roosevelts inaction makes your claim unreasonable without hard evidence. The utter lack of any scrap of evidence makes it and you preposterous.

 

[JayUtah]

If you admit that it's a negative claim...

Try again. Everyone has been trying to tell you for days that it's a negative claim. You're finally admitting it.

...that means you can't possibly prove your Pearl Harbor conspiracy theory (Roosevelt didn't know!)

That's right, which is why it's irrational for you to lay that obligation on someone and then sit back and declare victory for your unsubstantiated affirmative claim. You continue to display either utter contempt or colossal ignorance for what a burden of proof is and why it exists.

The concept of a burden of proof arises from the observation that a proposition and its obverse do not have equal testability. Generally proof cannot be had for absence, negation, or lack, which is what the obverse typically expresses. Hence the obverse stands as the null hypothesis or presumption. Because proof can be had for the affirmative proposition, it is from that side that proof is expected.

We presume, but do not assert, the null hypothesis. The failure of an affirmative proof (for reasons such as absence of confirming evidence) does not establish the negative obverse (as many proponents insist their opponents to have argued), merely retains the presumption. But because the class of propositions from which the obverses arise is provably infinite, none of the corresponding affirmatives can be held rationally except by affirmative substantiation. Conspiracy theorists propose to hold them irrationally by arbitrary privilege or prejudice. While this categorical dissertation does not elevate any presumption to the level of fact (or even of theory), it does provide a rational basis for why the presumption is categorically the most plausible.

...which by default means you are a conspiracy theorist. You're theorizing about a conspiracy that you can't prove.

Word salad, tossed using your own private definitions. Sorry, not interested.

I've got you either way.

I love how conspiracy theorists relish the notion of a tautology that works inevitably in their favor. Real investigators work like crazy to make sure their rationales are not tautological. That's so they can be meaningfully tested.

Any questions?

I've asked you dozens, but you don't ever answer them. Why should you solicit more?

 

[DGM]

What do you have? Show me what you have and I'll take a look at it. If you provide a link, be prepared to summarize and explain the relevance of the contents within.

Show me the evidence that conclusively proves your conspiracy theory.

That would be a waste of time. Why don't you tell us where you get your information?

 

[tsig]

What do you have? Show me what you have and I'll take a look at it. If you provide a link, be prepared to summarize and explain the relevance of the contents within.

Show me the evidence that conclusively proves your conspiracy theory.

So it's not just spoon feeding, we also have to thump you on the chest to make you swallow?

 

[The Dark Lord]

SHC, prove that I have never seen your mother naked.

 

[JayUtah]

What do you have? Show me what you have and I'll take a look at it.

No, that's not how this works.

First, you don't get to keep your standard of proof secret so that you can move the goalposts.

Second, this is not just a standard-of-proof question, but also a method of proof. You've already admitted that you're demanding proof for a negative proposition. You must be aware after all this discussion that proof of a negative is impossible, except perhaps for specific, well-defined questions (e.g., "Prove that grandma is not in her bedroom"). Hence you have to justify exactly how the truth is to be understood by your demand for something that is impossible to provide. You have to explain how that doesn't simply write you off as irrational.

If you provide a link, be prepared to summarize and explain the relevance of the contents within.

No, you do your own homework. If someone provides a link, you're expected to follow it and read it. Laziness is not the path to wisdom.

Show me the evidence that conclusively proves your conspiracy theory.

Explain how there can be conclusive proof of a negative proposition. And further explain why the ordinary epistemological rules for burden of proof don't apply in your case.

 

[JayUtah]

PROVE that Jay Utah does not know your birthday.

+1

 

[SpringHallConvert]

No, you do your own homework. If someone provides a link, you're expected to follow it and read it. Laziness is not the path to wisdom.

Maybe you should do your own homework. If you can't summarize and explain the relevance of your own link, how would I even know you are familiar with the material? Anybody can claim they read something.

It's that whole "laziness" and "wisdom" thing.

 

[SpringHallConvert]

Try again. Everyone has been trying to tell you for days that it's a negative claim. You're finally admitting it.

If you can't prove your beliefs, which are dependent on a negative claim, then it looks like you are only speculating.

You're a conspiracy theorist. A government truther conspiracy theorist, but a conspiracy theorist all the same.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Maybe you should do your own homework. If you can't summarize and explain the relevance of your own link, how would I even know you are familiar with the material? Anybody can claim they read something.

It's that whole "laziness" and "wisdom" thing.

I have 164,000+ items on WWII online. That's how lazy I am.

 

[JimBenArm]

I have 164,000+ items on WWII online. That's how lazy I am.

Get to work, ya' slacker! Damn, my back hurts from carrying you!

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Get to work, ya' slacker! Damn, my back hurts from carrying you!

That's just Hyperwar. World War II Resources has a fair few items as well.

Better?

 

[000063]

Maybe you should do your own homework. If you can't summarize and explain the relevance of your own link, how would I even know you are familiar with the material? Anybody can claim they read something.

It's that whole "laziness" and "wisdom" thing.

Quote-mine.

No, that's not how this works.

First, you don't get to keep your standard of proof secret so that you can move the goalposts.

Second, this is not just a standard-of-proof question, but also a method of proof. You've already admitted that you're demanding proof for a negative proposition. You must be aware after all this discussion that proof of a negative is impossible, except perhaps for specific, well-defined questions (e.g., "Prove that grandma is not in her bedroom"). Hence you have to justify exactly how the truth is to be understood by your demand for something that is impossible to provide. You have to explain how that doesn't simply write you off as irrational.



No, you do your own homework. If someone provides a link, you're expected to follow it and read it. Laziness is not the path to wisdom.


Explain how there can be conclusive proof of a negative proposition. And further explain why the ordinary epistemological rules for burden of proof don't apply in your case.

 

[JayUtah]

If you can't prove your beliefs...

What beliefs? You're the only one who has stated a belief on this point. Go ahead, prove me a liar: link to the post in this thread where I have expressed a belief on whether Roosevelt had specific forewarning of Pearl Harbor. You can't do it, can you?

You're the only one making an affirmative claim here. And when asked to show evidence and argument in favor of it, you immediately turn about and demand that the only way you can be refuted or disputed is for your opponent to prove the obverse of your claim -- which you dishonestly style as something he must inevitably believe.

There is no obligation for your opponent to deploy the kind of refutation you demand, the kind you believe will be easily dealt with. There is no obligation for him to affirm your obverse in order to take issue with your direct claims. Your tactic here is clumsy and overused. You are simply trying to shift the burden of proof.

...which are dependent on a negative claim...

I've been through this twice before, so I have to assume now that you're being deliberately obtuse.

Indeed the obverse of your claim (as distinct from what your critic may or may not believe) embodies a negative. That's why it's irrational to place the burden of proof there, as you've done. And the fact that you recognize the obverse to be unprovable (not merely difficult to prove given the evidence, but epistemologically unprovable) makes it doubly deceptive for you to try to shift the burden there.

The concept of burden of proof arises from this. You are wholly ignorant of it, yet you're trying to declare victory based solely on epistemological grounds. I'm embarrassed for you.

...then it looks like you are only speculating.

Nonsense; the opposite of "affirm" is not "speculate." Declining to affirm the obverse, as you so desperately want us to do, does not constitute a resignation. It is instead a proper parry of a well-worn high-school debate trick. You simply are not as clever as you make yourself out to be.

You're a conspiracy theorist. A government truther conspiracy theorist, but a conspiracy theorist all the same.

Suspicious that no matter what's being discussed, or by what argument, this is always your conclusion. You have no apparent interest in deciding the question; only in tarring your critics for having the audacity to dispute you. In fact you have a whole thread to that effect.

 

[JayUtah]

Maybe you should do your own homework.

Do you have any argument that doesn't amount to feeble attempts at turnabout?

 

[000063]

Do you have any argument that doesn't amount to feeble attempts at turnabout?

The funny thing is that Phoenix Wright's defense technique involves a lot of bluffing, not merely gainsaying everything the prosecution says.

(The reference is that almost all of the Ace Attorney cases have "Turnabout" in the title.)

 

[EventHorizon]

[qimg]http://i839.photobucket.com/albums/zz315/ShadowKnight508/Anime%20File/phoenix-wright-objection.jpg[/qimg]

The funny thing is that Phoenix Wright's defense technique involves a lot of bluffing, not merely gainsaying everything the prosecution says.

(The reference is that almost all of the Ace Attorney cases have "Turnabout" in the title.)

Awesome! You win the thread! Anybody that uses a Phoenix Wright reference automatically wins any thread.

 

[jaydeehess]

Continuing on:

In this post I quoted the summary from one of the links in Gawdzilla's sig. "Myths of Pearl Harbor"
This addresses SHC's itch for a summary yet no evidence so far that SHC bothered to click a link yet.

If you can't summarize and explain the relevance of your own link, how would I even know you are familiar with the material? .

Third time now SHC.

Rumors abounded during the war, and the release of the Congressional Investigation Report on July 26, 1946, while containing information that would scotch most of them, did not end the speculations. Part of the problem with the Pearl Harbor Attack Investigation Report (PHA for short) was that it was in 40 parts bound in about 23 volumes. Extracting the answers to the bizarre stories that ran rampant was a daunting task for even the most serious researcher.

Today, however, with the aid of computer searching, we can locate information about events and people that have been buried in stacks and university attics for decades. Of course, no one will be able to convince the die-hard Roosevelt-haters that he didn't arrange, or at least allow, the attack, but for those of us who simply want the answers to questions such as "Why didn't the Opana Point radar-contact report reach Adm. Kimmel?", the testimonies of the people involved will illuminate the situation in a most satifactory manner.

Anybody can claim they read something.

It's that whole "laziness" and "wisdom" thing

Well its plain that you rarely if ever claim to have read anything and steadfastly refuse to do so with the links provided. That would support your claim to be lazy but wise.

 

[jaydeehess]

Do you have any argument that doesn't amount to feeble attempts at turnabout?

Perhaps not. If ever there was an arguement to be made for a poster being a 'bot' SHC would be an illustration of one. He simply gainsays, or takes a contrarian position on all issues.