The Lies of Colby: New Spartacus? McAdams...

[Albert Doyle]

I
Tenth, McAdams felt no remorse for the mental anguish he caused, or the physical danger she was in. In fact, it was the opposite. He gloated about ruining her career at Marquette, and perhaps elsewhere.

I find it very odd that you want to forcibly shut up DVP, but you think the above is OK. Don't you?

Let me add two more points:

1.) If Abbate had stayed there and she had been attacked by one of McAdams' blackshirts, do you realize the lawsuit Marqueette would have faced? Because Holz admits he has a history of doing this stuff.

2.) If they had done nothing, this would have made McAdams de facto president of the college. In other words, he was running things. As informed by his minions there, he would then terrorize other instructors who were not as rightwing as he was. Holz alludes to that in this letter, namely that other faculty members expressed fears that they would be on his hit list. McAdams would have been a RW Robespierre.

If I hear this first amendment plea one more time I will vomit.

Any freshman student in poly sci understands a simple fact about the first amendment: your freedom of expression ends at the beginning of your neighbor's nose. You have no right to intimidate, terrorize, slander and set up for physical abuse your neighbor or colleague.

That is what McAdams did.

I guess my points are mostly theoretical since McAdams sort of became the Fetzer of Marquette and kind of brought it on himself. If you read the Marquette letter he's being fired mostly because he ran roughshod across faculty policy and codes of conduct.

I'm always wary of anyone who dismisses 1st Amendment rights because it is greasing the edge of the slippery slope that all of us face. That's why defense of possible violations of any free speech rights McAdams might have is in all of our interests.

Believe it or not, while the offenses you cite are pretty severe they are still subjectively interpreted and, believe it or not, secondary to free speech rights. The student may have had all those negatives and possible motives, but you can't deny him any possible honest free speech feelings he may have had. It's sort of a "Your right to accuse ends at the nose of his legitimate beliefs" kind of thing. You might think you've made a good case against his motives but you can't completely assume that to the point where you deny him any possible earnest beliefs. So even if McAdams and the student acted inappropriately, they still have a right to their earnest beliefs and therefore a right to express them freely. Especially in an academic setting.

I think what set off McAdams is he saw what every conservative fears. He saw Ms Abbate declare firm "Homophobic" rule and deny any discussion. Being an assassination denial blowhard, he then went into full FOX News mode in order to exploit the opportunity - operating in his usual mode. He blurred the lines between internet informality and the temptation to utilize the power of the internet against a perceived political enemy. Did he go too far? Probably. However, the reason I make these points is because, after reading the Marquette letter, even with McAdams' bad behavior, there is still a free speech issue at the core of all this that, even with McAdams' offenses, was genuinely kept as the focus of the event. What Marquette keeps safely out of view in its letter is that Ms Abbate did declare Homophobic rule in her class and forbade discussion. When she did that she fairly made herself open to academic challenge and, no matter how much you might disagree, McAdams had a fair right to do so. As much as I hate to be a defender of assassination denier McAdams he's right on that one and I would be forced to rule in his favor if I were judging it. lol - I'm sure if Charles were still here he'd be saying I warned you about him. But, no, I'm just as happy as anyone to see Kennedy assassination disinformationist McAdams censured and de-jobbed. I think the issue we are talking about is Marquette should have just stated that McAdams was fired because of conduct violations instead of mixing it with the topic. However if they do that then they are opening themselves to a suit by McAdams that his free speech rights on a particular issue were violated by the university. Free speech is like a lifeboat we are all in together. Poke holes in it and we all go down.


The difference between this and Von Pein is that Von Pein is a person who can be specifically isolated as not arguing honestly. Debates might be sanctuaries of free speech but they also have rules. Debates also have a purpose and are conducted in order to reach a conclusion that involves some kind of judgment. Some genuine debates might honestly be argued to a stalemate by honestly-arguing opponents. This, however, is not the case with Von Pein and the Kennedy assassination. Von Pein's offense is that he doesn't respond to, honor, or recognize reasonable legitimate points and evidence. David Josephs touched on it in his entries. The best example of this were your own exchanges with Von Pein. In each and every instance Von Pein ignored the level of reasonable evidence and conclusions you had offered in order to intentionally regress to moot assassination denial rhetoric. What Von Pein does is ignore the opposition's offering in order to return to a disingenuous, prescripted text of Warren Report apology designed to pre-empt that progress that has been acheived by conspiracy advocates. What theorists like Stephen Roy ignore is that Von Pein has violated the codes of honest debate by doing that and shouldn't be allowed to. Von Pein's methodolgy is like a carnival barker with a pro-WCR tent calling people in to see his show. That's a wholly dishonest method that ignores and violates the idea and purpose of the highest forums of such debate. Von Pein might elect to practice such form but eventually he has to be held accountable for it. His defenders somehow skip that phase when defending his rights. May I remind you that your asking on the EF why Von Pein was still allowed on the board was the impetus for your own removal by the misguided Mr Simkin. You were basically ousted by the same logic Marquette ousted McAdams for. Surely input comes before right as has been proven by the rejection of some other assassination characters from both boards. In my opinion, a person who refuses to argue honestly as a matter of practice, as Mr Von Pein exhibits, is not one whose free speech right should either be honored or tolerated. He's clearly a propagandist against the facts as his majority input, even if he does offer corrections in some instances. Those corrections don't save him nor do they alter the overall picture. What rights do defenders/deniers of back-shooting CIA cowardice and treason really have? People are losing the focus here. This isn't some pretty parlor game, it's a fight for the truth over the bloody slaughter of a good president.


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