Dear R,
Thanks for your email.
Evidence is everything.
But evidence -- or purported evidence -- is also endless.
We know, as psychological fact, that if Obama's birth had been filmed "live" on a Honolulu beach with Don Ho playing ukelele in the background, people who want (need?) to believe Obama was born in Kenya (sonofabitch mother-fucker Trump being the primary exponent of this particular conspiracy theory) those same believers would refuse to accept the film even if Kodak provided validation.
Instead, the film would be relegated to the bin of "fake news."
And it would end up in the trash because there is overwhelming psychological need to trash it. (It is just too risky to jeopardize loss of one's religion.)
Instead, the film would be relegated to the bin of "fake news."
And it would end up in the trash because there is overwhelming psychological need to trash it. (It is just too risky to jeopardize loss of one's religion.)
In the end, we are called upon to make judgements about evidence - and very few judgments can be absolutely certain.
For example, we now know that eye-witness testimony -- given by witnesses who were in the same room when a crime was committed -- positively mis-identify the perp one third of the time.
Concerning your reference to Jerry LaFouriere -- the fellow who says he witnessed the delapidated state of Sandy Hook school after years-long vacancy...
Are you aware that La Fouriere garners only 7 (seven) internet hits - and very sketchy hits at that.
Why only seven?
Search Results
Newtown Is 'Still So Raw,' 5 Years After Sandy Hook Shooting - The ...
Dec 13, 2017 - Not all the signs of the bloodshed that erupted five years ago at Sandy Hook Elementary are as visible. But they exist — in the features of the new school building, like bullet-resistant windows and reinforced walls, meant to ease the fears of parents still haunted by memories of a 20-year-old man storming ...
Missing: jerry lafouriere
Truthers say Sandy Hook was faked. They're monsters. I was there - Vox
Jun 5, 2017 - So-called “Sandy Hook truthers” have threatened victims' relatives; they've accused them of lying, and claimed that Gene Rosen — a man who lived next to the school, and in whose home survivors of the shooting found refuge — is a “crisis actor” who made up his story. Some have also speculated that my ...
Missing: jerry lafouriere
Remembering Sandy Hook five years later - MSNBC.com
Dec 14, 2017
It has been five years since the shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut ...
Missing: jerry lafouriere
The Sandy Hook Shooting and the Evolving Second Amendment | Time
time.com › History › politics
Dec 14, 2017 - On the anniversary of the school shooting, TIME talks to a historian of the Second Amendment about Sandy Hook's place in history.
Missing: jerry lafouriere
Where To Donate To Honor Each Of The 26 Sandy Hook Shooting ...
Dec 14, 2017 - Thursday marks five years since the horrific tragedy in Newtown.
Missing: lafouriere
Sandy Hook Facts.com - Home | Facebook
Sandy Hook Facts.com. 235 likes · 6 talking about this. SandyHookFacts.com is a study of the evidence concerning the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary...
Amazon.com and YouTube: Accessories After the Fact of Fraud ...
Jul 17, 2017 - The pattern that has emerged from their recent practices of banning books and censoring YouTube videos about the purported Sandy Hook child ... none of it fits any of the content presented during this interview with a man, Jerry Lafreniere, a resident of Connecticut who knows the area well, who used to ...
And what about my own La Fouriere post which I blogged (just now) as "fake news?" http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/01/i-know-jerry-lafouriere-and-he-told-me.html
Suddenly, La Fouriere has eight hits, an instantaneous statistical surge of 14.3%!
If you had stumbled on my bogus LaFouriere post without knowing I had authored it, would you accept it as evidence?
And why?
Or, why not?
In my experience, "good evidence" usually "smells" like good evidence.
And bad evidence smells bad.
Of course, "The Smell Test" isn't the only criterion for evaluating evidence.
But it's a pretty good place to start. (As is "The Straight Face Test.")
Consider.
"Jerry LaFouriere, Sandy Hook" gets 7 hits whereas my google search "Jesus was a sodomite" gets 4370 hits.
"Jerry LaFouriere, Sandy Hook" gets 7 hits whereas my google search "Jesus was a sodomite" gets 4370 hits.
You also mention a witness to Sandy Hook school's long-term vacancy -- a fellow named Richard Plante.
But when I googled "Richard Plante, Sandy Hook" I got 17 hits, most of them impertinent.
But when I googled "Richard Plante, Sandy Hook" I got 17 hits, most of them impertinent.
The "rules of evidence" are much more important than our ability to procure (create?) feeble and usually ideologically-driven "evidence"
saturated in confirmation bias.
As I've said before, I don't think any of "your" Sandy Hook evidence would be admitted in a court of law even if judge and jurors were comprised of people who never heard of Adam Lanza.
I have also pointed out that Sandy Hook (judging by its demographic profile) is a largely Republican, 2nd Amendment-supporting community so that hundreds of long-term local residents would SWARM over "the press" with reports that the school had been vacant for years... if, in fact, it had been vacant.
For me, the fact that NOT ONE local resident has come forward proves that these two (barely-referenced) "outlier reports" (LaFouriere and Plante) are parsecs removed from admissible "evidence."
Finally (for now) I am a guy who believes the observation of Jimmy Carter's Attorney General Ramsey Clark that "the greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy."
Not a cell in my body "needs" to believe that "my government" is beyond reproach.
I have NO need to protect my "faith system/political religion" by believing Uncle Sam is incapable of monstrosity. (In fact, I believe my government is as capable of monstrosity as "my" Catholic church is capable of monstrosity.)
I have NO need to protect my "faith system/political religion" by believing Uncle Sam is incapable of monstrosity. (In fact, I believe my government is as capable of monstrosity as "my" Catholic church is capable of monstrosity.)
Indeed, I assume Uncle Sam is perpetrating monstrosity ALL THE TIME.
I also believe that a lopsided percentage of American conspiracists feel justified adhering to their fundamentally far-right conspiracy theories because Trump himself is a conspiracist whose basic epistemological stance is to discard "inconvenient truths" as "fake news."
Mark my words.
This epistemological catastrophe is the most deadly menace to the American body politic we have ever experienced.
Mark my words.
This epistemological catastrophe is the most deadly menace to the American body politic we have ever experienced.
Here is a meme I created this morning:
N.B. The substance of my outlook on Trump's super-saturated despicability holds true for nutritional supplement scammer Alex Jones.
I again encourage you to spotlight The Core Conspiracy by which Trump (and his plutocratic forebears) bamboozle the dimwits.
It comes down to this...
I again encourage you to spotlight The Core Conspiracy by which Trump (and his plutocratic forebears) bamboozle the dimwits.
It comes down to this...
More to come, Mordecai.
Pax tecum
Alan
Great "Religious Right" Cartoon: "Satan Himself Comes Disguised As An Angel Of Light"
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