man & nature # 210 ~ the last word on the Paul Lester Affair

A humid Summer morning on the Au Sable • click to embiggenA fair number of Paul Lester friends and apologists have come to the fore to excoriate me for labeling his "opinion" and "doubts" - that healthcare expeditions are fictitious until "proven" otherwise - as ignorant and that he was acting ignorantly in denying their existence because all evidence that he had seen/read was merely "hearsay".

It has also been suggested that I used a racial epitaph - to call a spade, a spade - in calling ignorance, ignorance. Give me a break .... long before ignorant and hateful people misappropriated the phrase, it simply meant To speak plainly - to describe something as it really is. That is exactly how I used it and how I meant it. To suggest otherwise is entirely unwarranted and utterly without merit of any kind.

Several followers of The Landscapist have indicated that they will no longer do so. Hey, FYI, people come and people go. And it's worth noting that, with one notable exception, those who have stated that they are moving on have contributed absolutely nothing to the proceedings here - you won't be missed.

It has been suggested that I would never talk face-to-face with Paul Lester in the manner in which I have addressed him "from hundreds of miles away". FYI, try me.

It has also been inferred that I do not walk-the-walk as stated in my stand up and be counted entry. FYI, I did not include the notion of suffering-fools-(or foolish behavior)-gladly amongst my many virtues.

The list and the beat goes on and on.

What I find very interesting in all of this is that not a single Lester apologist has addressed his "hearsay" statement regarding healthcare expeditions. You might remember that topic - you know, the one that started this ruckus.

The "opinion" that ranks right up there with those regarding "death panels", and Obama - the Socialist Nazi foreigner, euthanizing the elderly and infirm, and all the rest of the ignorant stuff that is polluting the discussion on healthcare in this here US of A.

Now here's the thing, some have stated that Paul Lester is a nice guy but, if one hoists this notion up Lester's own petard, those statements are nothing but hearsay. After all, I have not seen Paul Lester with my own eyes. I have not personally witnessed that he is a nice guy. Hey, for all I know, there is no Paul Lester and this whole thing is waste of time.

All I know about Paul Lester is contained in the ridiculous comments he left on this blog regarding healthcare expeditions. That and the fact that he implied, inferred, or suggested on his blog that my "personal belief" that healthcare expeditions exist was, well, ignorant.

His CYA protestation (self-serving deniability at its finest) that his opinion regarding my actions was not an Ad Hominem attack aside, Paul Lester was suggesting nothing less than the fact that I was acting without knowledge of, information about, and awareness of healthcare expeditions - that I was spreading hearsay.

He was, quite simply, questioning my integrity. Of course he was only doing so because, being the reasonable man that he is, he was just trying to discover the truth.

But enough about Paul Lester, let's talk about me.

My reason(s) for the use of the words ignorant and ignorance to describe some of the ideas and actions that have been polluting our national discourse about healthcare is quite simple. I am horrified by the thought and the reality that the rest of the world - they are paying attention - sees / hears / and reads very little from those who believe and know that the words and actions (like holstered handguns and shoulder-slung assault weapons outside of townhall meetings) of a fringe element in our society are both ignorant and wrong.

IMO, it is well past the time for well-intentioned and informed people to speak out against this stupidity. To shout down those highly vocal and visible individuals (and organizations) who make us all seem like a country of ignorant idiots. It's time to drive them back into the dark shadows from whence they came.

It is time to stop tolerating those who advocate violence and spread lies and disinformation and do so behind the guise of "differing opinions" and their "right" to do so.

Comments

[Infamous J]

John Mayer says; "From Wikipedia: Nazism, officially in German as National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers to the ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party or NSDAP under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945."

Well alrighty then so that makes the old DDR (Deutsche Democratic Republic) a democracy.

Sheesh exactly how deep does the ignorance run in this country?

J