Fetzer/Burton Moon Landing Debate Finale

[James H. Fetzer]

Charles, while I am and remain a huge fan, your argument appears to be flawed. In particular, if we make a cost/benefit analysis of these "engagements", we need to take into account the benefits as well as the costs. I consider this from an intellectual point of view, while you are doing so from a political. This is not surprising, especially given that I am a (now retired) professional philosopher, who has taught logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning for 35 years. As an obvious point, it is difficult to defeat a position if you do not engage it. The benefits that seem to me to derive from engaging in debate include these:

(1) by engaging the enemy, I learn the arguments they have to present;

(2) by engaging the enemy, I have an opportunity to defeat their position;

(3) by engaging the enemy, I encounter their tactics and can expose them.

Strictly speaking, discounting or ignoring an opponent's arguments on the ground that they are unworthy or corrupt is an example of the ad hominem fallacy. The strength of an argument is independent of its source, except for appeals to authority, which can be fallacious (when the authority is not an expert with respect to the issues on which s/he is cited) or non-fallacious (when s/he is). Even though these may be "bad guys", with which I agree, their arguments are not, on that count alone, either unworthy or unsound. Absent proof to the contrary, after all, their position might even be right or else be widely supposed to be.

It is difficult to appreciate how an enemy can be defeated without engaging it -- and this is as true with regard to JFK and 9/11 as it is with regard to the moon landing hoax. In the case of the former, we have THE WARREN REPORT and THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT to debunk. With regard to the moon landing hoax, the situation is murkier. If a subject is more taboo than 9/11 -- which is gradually becoming more respectable -- then it has to be the moon landing hoax. Being given the opportunity to debate it, I have taken it and done my best -- within the parameters of the debate, which my opponent frequently violated -- to prove them wrong.

No one who has read through the thread would have serious doubt that (1) I learned more about the arguments they have to present, (2) I had the opportunity to defeat them, and (3) I encountered their tactics and exposed them -- not just once or twice, but repeatedly throughout the thread. It is my belief that my arguments -- which revolved around Jack's work, by and large, with assists from Duane -- were more convincing and that I succeeded in exposing their shady tactics. But none of that would have happened had I not engaged in this debate at all. I would suggest, therefore, that, in this case, at least, the benefits outweigh the costs, which I invite you to consider.

I don't know what's "tender" about my sensibilities in sensing that you were suggesting I was collaborating with the enemy! For a former Marine Corps officer, that's rather strong language.

Dear Jim,

This is precisely the response I attempted to engender when I deliberately used a confrontational tone in my previous post.

I made no such suggestion of "collaboration" in your case insofar as the verb "to collaborate" as I use it here is defined as "to cooperate with or willingly assist an enemy of one's country and especially an occupying force."

The key word: "willingly."

If you seriously contend that somehow I am accusing you of being a Quisling, then there's nothing I can do to change your mind. Please tell me that this is not the case.

I write again: Absent repeated, unambiguous reminders of the foul nature of your once-removed EF correspondents and their villainous games, your published engagements with them deliver the very prizes they most ardently seek.

Burton, his fellow tools, and their masters are delighting in this thread. Andy Nine-Iron's bow tie must be spinning! The "Colby" ghostwriters must be painting the streets of Colonia Dignidad brown -- you know, the color of their shirts!

I take on intellectual opponents on a wide range of issues -- JFK, 9/11, Wellstone, now the moon landing hoax -- but, even when I have not trusted my opponents, I have not supposed that I was betraying the faith.

You make my point so powerfully: You are not, in this case, facing off against "intellectual opponents." You are doing battle with enemy sappers!

BUT WHEN YOU REFER TO THEM AS ANTHING BUT ENEMY SAPPERS -- AND ESPECIALLY "INTELLECTUAL OPPONENTS" -- YOU BESTOW UPON THEIR PROFFERED ARGUMENTS THE DIGNITY OF YOUR OWN ACCOMPLISHMENTS, INTELLECT, AND REPUTATION.

YOU ARE ELEVATING THEIR LIES TO THE LEVEL OF RESPECTABLE ARGUMENT.

PLEASE STOP IT!

I really don't understand this -- to me, seeming change in -- attitude.

Don't do this, Jim. My attitude toward you -- my respect and affection for you and all you've accomplished for our shared causes -- remain undiminished. Friends and colleagues are allowed and even obliged to do what we're doing here: taking each other to task.

Please don't doubt for a nanosecond that a prime objective of the enemy is to create rifts in the allied forces aligned against them. The acrimony on this thread was instigated and further fueled to do just that.




If you knew you were being baited, then by the nature of this conflict you were obliged to acknowledge the game up front!!! Expose the bastards and ONLY THEN hand them their empty heads!!!

The only opportunities presented were the opportunities for the enemy to infiltrate these pages, suck you into yet another playing field-leveling exchange, and further establish the bona fides of their mouthpieces.

They have made the most of those opportunities.




Nor did I when I registered at the EF and played on its killing field for at least two years. But even my thick Sicilian head was penetrated by the increasingly transparent skullduggery of Burton, "Colby," Nine-Iron, et al.

When I began to hold their reptilian feet to the fire, they lied, cheated, and effectively cast me out.

I am grateful.

Now you confirm your awareness of "duplicity and deception" at the EF, yet you continue to engage the bastards on their terms.

For those who appreciate what's going on, it exposes their techniques and makes them more obvious to a wider audience.

This sentence is inherently contradictory. For "those who appreciate" the nature of the enemy agents on the EF, your engagement approach is as unnecessary as it is counter-productive.

For members of the "wider audience" who do not enjoy such appreciation, your engagement approach does nothing but further entrench their ignorance by implicitly bestowing respectability upon the enemy agents.

Subtle just doesn't cut the mustard in 21st century America, I'm afraid. We have no choice but to call a spook a spook.

If we don't expose their lies and duplicity, they are going to continue to take others in.

There, you've proven my greater point regarding our friendship and shared goals

We stand, shoulder to shoulder, facing the enemy.

Any fair and balanced person, I submit, learned from this -- not just about the moon landing hoax, but the underhanded methods of an enemy we all despise.

NO!!!

You are obscuring the enemy's "lies and duplicity."

Given everything we know about our culture and the sophisticated propaganda machine of the enemy, there is absolutely no reason to conclude that, absent direct, repeated statements of the dark truth, contemporary readers will see through the enemy's means and methods.

Let's stay together, Jim. There's too much at stake to allow the bastards to divide and conquor.

In friendship,

Charles