You've gotta hand it to DaveScot - when he goes down, he does so while ducking directly into the punch. Here's his absolutely perfect reply to everyone who pointed out that he fell for a scam. I could not have written it to make him look more ridiculous if I'd done so myself. You could not have intelligently designed this kind of hilarity; it can only arise spontaneously:
To everyone who's pointed out that the ACLU story is a fabrication according to snopes.com - that's hardly the point. The pictures of Marines praying are real. The fighting and dying to protect the interests of the United States is real. The request to pray for them is real. So I removed the fake names, noted the ACLU statement is rumor, and quoted a very real former Marine Sergeant's sentiments instead. If anyone has a problem with that they can KMA. Google that.
HOO RAH! Semper Fi!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the perfect ID advocate's response when being caught peddling nonsense - "the fact that my claim is false is irrelevant." Sure, the claim that the ACLU tries to stop Marines from praying is false; but Marines do pray, so it's close enough. This is a bit like a kid claiming he should get an A on the test because he spelled his name right, even if he got all the actual questions wrong. He removed the fake names, but left in the fake claims. Dave, thank you so much for this little gift. There is nothing funnier, truly, than watching you bluster and pose and make a complete fool of yourself. To quote your benefactor: "Right on!" Right on, indeed; even when you're wrong.
P.S. And by the way, even the first picture, the huge one of all the marines praying, is faked - and badly, I might add. It's a doctored photo of the same 3 or 4 guys copied over and over until it looks like hundreds of guys.
Update: As one of my readers predicted, Dave has now added a second rationale that goes something like this: Okay, so the story isn't true. But it's what the ACLU really, really wants secretly even if they don't say it:
The ACLU has certainly stood against prayer in public school even if led by students in extra-curricular settings like graduation ceremonies and football games. There is not one iota of doubt in my mind that the ACLU would love to do the same thing to prayer in the military. Prayers led by commissioned and non-commissioned officers in the Corps are common. The military builds and maintains chapels on military bases. They employ religious clerics whose job is spiritual counseling and leading worship services. Anyone that thinks the ACLU wouldn't stand against that if they could get away with it needs their head examined. They simply know the American public wouldn't tolerate it and the ACLU would be so harmed they might never recover as an organization. So they bite their anti-religious tongues in the interest of self-preservation.
How amusing. The ACLU has defended Nazis, communists and NAMBLA, for crying out loud, all of which did enormous damage to their public standing and cost them vast numbers of members over the years. Does Dave really think that they avoid taking unpopular positions? Now, if Dave actually wants to take aim at someone who is against having the military pay chaplains, he should be arguing with James Madison, the father of the Constitution and primary author of the first amendment. Madison did, in fact, take the position that military chaplaincies violated the establishment clause, a position that even the staunchest separationist does not take today (nor do I, I might add).
I should also add that it's absurd to claim, as Davey boy does, that the ACLU is "anti-religious". Of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ACLU members and leaders I've known personally, only a small percentage of them were non-religious. Most of them were either Christian or Jewish themselves. You do not have to be an atheist to defend strict separation (a position I don't personally take). Among our founding generation, some of the most staunch advocates of complete separation were Baptist ministers.
What makes this even funnier to me is that it's played out exactly as I hoped it would. When I first say the post this morning, after looking skyward and muttering "thank you" to no one in particular, I planned my response with the intention of provoking such responses. I knew that if I shamed them about removing the post as they've done so many others, in advance, then he couldn't remove it without making himself look very, very bad. And I knew that the alternative - admitting he got snookered - was so improbably as to be beyond Dembski's universal probability boundary. The only option it would leave him is to bluster and preen and come up with idiotic excuses for it - and so he has. A bravissimo performance, if I do say so myself.
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and quoted a very real former Marine Sergeant's sentiments instead. If anyone has a problem with that they can KMA. Google that.
HOO RAH! Semper Fi!
Is DaveScot trying to get laid by a marine?
If I did not know better, I would say DaveScot is a deliberate attempt to parody the insane reasoning and factual distortions put out by several ID proponents. Critical thought is apparently only applied to issues that challenge his religious beliefs.
OK, you've made my day. I laughed so hard I've got a headache. You really need to post more of this stuff from Uncommon Buffoonery -- at least a couple of times a week. Every time I think about it I start to laugh uncontrollably. Does anyone else have images of the Three Stooges going on as you read this?
I'm pretty sure the 2nd picture is faked as well. The men have been superimposed over the background and a little white glow has been added to make the men seem more angelic.
If you want to see more Uncommon Nonsense just click here.
What is Professor Volokh's term for this? ACLU Derangement Syndrome?
DaveScot's ridiclueless "response" (which, did anyone notice, replaces two comments by critics pointing out the falseness of the post's claims) includes the gem:
Here is the vintage 2003 version of the hoax, copied from About.com's page on the hoax:
And now here is DaveScot's doctored version after being called on the hoax:
Even if Sgt. Springer really does exist and really does have some sort of misguided hatred for the ACLU, DaveScot hasn't bothered to provide a genuine "quotation" (though I guess he could have called up his friend Dave and said "Hey Dave, say 'Screw the ACLU for me'"), merely expanding the one from the original hoax; what's more, he hasn't bothered to change the lead-in, such that Fessender-cum-Springer is responding to "charges" that even DaveScot now knows were never levelled!
Furthermore, here's the vintage 2003 version of the hoax, describing the ACLU's (fictitious) involvement:
That was on Uncommon Descent earlier today, but now here is DaveScot's doctored version:
DaveScot has changed only a few words, but Lucius Traveler is not in fact "a rumored spokesman for the ACLU," but a nonexistent person. DaveScot's "revisions" continue to peddle exactly the same nonsense, changing only a few proper nouns and adding a little anti-France bigotry to boot.
DaveScot's got all the editing skills that led to the speciation of the "cdesign proponentists."
You have to wonder if DaveScot is getting a talking to by Dembski about not making him out to be a fool (he can do it all on his own).
This episode is one of a gargantuan magnitude of plain stupidity and ignorance and I would suspect that even Billy boy is feeling the pressure.
D'oh!
/me slaps self on forehead
When I left my earlier comment, I didn't realize that DaveScot is David Springer! He's written himself into the hoax in place of the nonexistent Fessender!
I've begun to appreciate that DaveScot is all the proof of ID that we need.
First, he proves that God exists and he has a hell (sorry) of a sense of humor.
Second, DaveScot must have been created by a loving God (who loves a good joke) because under any reasonable scenario of evolution he would have been killed off a long time ago.
"Madison did, in fact, take the position that military chaplaincies violated the establishment clause, a position that even the staunchest separationist does not take today (nor do I, I might add)."
I do. Seems pretty blatant to me. But then I'll freely admit I'm a lot more hardline about separation than Ed.
I'm not 100% sure any of the pictures are doctored. Though if they were, that seems idiotic, because there are real marines that really do pray, so it's not like you'd NEED to fake it.
The first picture is definitely faked. The other two look real to me, but as you said, I'm sure most marines do pray. That's hardly even worth noting. And of course, the ACLU doesn't try to stop them, for crying out loud.
Picture #1 seems to be a cut, resize, rotate and paste special. The depth cues are bad and the focus is uniform. That being said - I've yet to spot two 100% identical marines.
This is all too great. I wonder who started the chain mail. Sounds like something a pro-ACLU person would send as a hoax. and it worked. 3 years later, no less.
It looks sort of like it could be faked, certainly. But as Rich says, I can't pick out any tell-tale identical marines, and absent conclusive proof, I don't think we should go that far. What it depicts is not implausible.
And as you say, it's hardly important whether it is or not really. Marines pray. The ACLU is not only happy with that, but if anyone tried to stop them praying, it would defend their right to pray (in fact, I bet if we did some research, we could even come up with some cases in which they did just exactly that). Just as it would defend a Marine's right not to be forced to pray or attend a prayer service.
I have to wonder how much extra traffic and publicity DaveScot gets each time he gets discussed in this and the other Sb blogs. I am really torn between enjoying seeing him taken down and laughed at and not wanting to give him any more publicity or any more traffic to his blog. The crap he spews on a daily basis just does not deserve the attention in my view. He is just a whack job wind bag and pretty ignorable as such. That's my view at any rate.
--JK--
I wonder if DaveScot really was a marine, or if that is just another one of his lies? There is not one iota of doubt that DaveScot enjoys eating babies. Anyone that thinks the he wouldn't tell us if he could get away with it needs their head examined. He simply knows the American public wouldn't tolerate it and he would be so harmed he might never recover as a whacko blogger.
"Even if Sgt. Springer really does exist and really does have some sort of misguided hatred for the ACLU, DaveScot hasn't bothered to provide a genuine "quotation" (though I guess he could have called up his friend Dave and said "Hey Dave, say 'Screw the ACLU for me'"),"
It's far better than that. Dave Springer is DaveScot's real name. He just quoted himself.
Hmmm, between the ego (and consequent need to preen about how smart he is), and incompetent, sychophantic henchmen, does Dembski count as an Evil Overlord wannabe?
Ladies and gentlemen....you're all missing the real point of that thread, which is of course that students can't read a prayer at a graduation ceremony without being challenged by the ACLU. Not that DaveScot was stupid enough to fall for a haggard old Internet scam and then compounded that stupidity exponentially by trying to rationalize it.
With that, the thread was closed to further (possibly embarassing) comments.
Funny,
Of course, I suspect that who ever made that final comment failed to mention that the ACLU was acting on the behalf of another student in the same class who didn't want to be forced to listen to a prayer.
john -
That comment was made by DaveScot himself (its bolded and he signs off with a 'ds'). And of course he failed to mention that, as doing so would be inconvenient for him.
This is the sort of thing that happens when your ego simply won't allow you to admit when you've been hoodwinked. You proceed to make things even worse, which is exactly what he did. Dembski is the same way, as after all, it was him that gave the attaboy.
I'm sure he'd rather have just deleted the whole post as 'off-topic' as per usual, but Ed forstalled that. The best he could manage is a lame attept at rationalization, then closing all comments.
I love DaveScot's last comment:
Now that everyone is happy that this article isn't a fabrication the comments are closed.
So they admit the article is a fabrication, then they try to say "That wasn't the point" (just like pig-ignorant lefties do when you refute one of their key talking-points), then DS insists we're all happy it ISN'T a fabrication, then further comments are shut out. This isn't just cowardice, it's cowardice on a grade-school level. Who do these right-wing brats think they're fooling?