So, first you claim that no one else agrees with my viewpoint, then I post a national poll that proves you wrong, then you say, well, you didn't really mean that, only that my arguments are faulty, then you say that only un-educated people (unlike you) could possibly hold such beliefs. Now, you say it's my credibility. Your comments are a laugh riot. What next?
What's next? Okay, here's the part where I show what really happened, instead of subscribing to your manufactured inferiority complex.
First, the initial claims to which you responded with the reference to the Fox News poll were
not made by me, but by other people. Of course my not having made a statement has never stopped you from trying to hold me to it, but your straw-manning is legendary here. It's like pulling teeth to get you to respond to what's actually said rather than to what you fervently wish had been said.
EventHorizon said this:
I'm pretty sure Robert Prey is doing some sort of performance art here. He has to be. Or maybe it's some sort of social experiment. Nobody could possibly believe the nonsense he's posting and he knows that. I think he's just trying to see how riled up he can make people.
Note how he specifically refers to "the nonsense [you're] posting." He's not talking about other people believing something similar. He's talking about people who believe
you -- specifically how there don't appear to be any.
You answered him in short order with a reference to the Fox poll. In other words
you changed horses, not he. You tried to convert the argument into one of general belief in some conspiracy, not your personal credibility. EventHorizon attempted to correct you a few posts later, but you ignored it.
In
this post I said substantially the same thing as EventHorizon, to wit:
You conflate two questions. The first is vague public suspicion over the JFK assassination. The second is your personal performance here in this forum. I'm inclined to believe that a substantial number of uninformed people might answer a pollster a certain way based on nothing more substantial than vague suspicion. But kindly don't equate that with the number of people who would subscribe to your pathetic arguments here.
Your only response to my statement was your standard reference to the "Amen chorus of pooh-poohers," which you write so often I fear you have a keyboard macro set up for it. You said absolutely nothing about the inapplicability of a national poll to your personal performance, which is clearly what EventHorizon and I both challenged you on. The question was
never whether people have a similar viewpoint, but whether your performance (art) was a credible argument.
Then a page later came this
Right out of your mind?
Seriously, Bob what would you call someone who, after having his claims soundly proven to be wrong and is completely unable to provide ANY evidence to counter the commonly accepted theory, restates the same arguments and asserts that he is correct?
to which you once again cited the Fox poll and asserted on that basis that "the commonly accepted theory" is the conspiracy theory. However you failed to address that BorderReiver -- as had both EventHorizon and I previously -- specifically calls attention to
your performance in this thread. The question is not whether others share a belief similar to yours, but whether your arguments in favor of that belief have any credibility. A national poll that doesn't investigate the reasons for others' belief simply does not support a contention that
your reasons are rational and well-argued.
Non sequitur.
I now reiterate the point I mentioned previously: the poll identifies those who believe in
some conspiracy theory without attempting to discern whether that's any specific belief. But you have a specific belief. You don't subscribe to all the variants of the JFK assassination conspiracy, only the one that says the fatal shot came from in front. How can you be so sure that's the specific belief that the poll respondents have in mind? What if they think the shots came from the Grassy Knoll? What if they believe they came from the storm drain? What if they don't have any specific belief and are just wary of some government report? These things matter.
Contrary to your attempts to spin things otherwise, I have been entirely consistent in my argument regarding your use of this poll data. You're the one desperately trying to change the subject, and trying (with no success) to make it look like I'm the one changing horses.
I never said that JFK conspiracy theories are held only by "uneducated" people. I merely pointed out that Gallup noted an inverse correlation between the reported level of education attainment and reported belief in a JFK conspiracy. I made no representation about your level of education or mine. I'm simply noting that if education can be considered a proxy for critical thinking and trained reasoning, then this may say something about the objective credibility of JFK conspiracy theorists.
You, on the other hand, immediately tried to make it a personal argument -- "Presuming you would classify yourself as one of the 'more educated,' eh?" I have occasionally mentioned your increasing reliance on personal attacks and digs, but now it's starting to become acute. I do not presume to be highly educated, I simply am. According to the U.S. Census for 2010, I fall somewhere between the 90th and 97th percentile of educational attainment, depending on how the attainment is defined. If that intimidates you or makes you resentful, I do not apologize.
Your disdain for formal education has become more and more apparent, and I'm afraid you will simply have to deal with the consequences of that. Not everyone will share your disdain. I evaluate arguments, knowledge, intelligence, and reason based on how well they are made manifest. You are on equal footing with everyone else in that respect. Rather than try to call you uneducated and dismiss you at that, I and a number of people have attempted to impart knowledge to you, or led you to it. Your reaction to those efforts also speaks volumes.
