Okay, enough of being nice and civil in order to give Gribbit a chance to do the right thing and just admit he was wrong about the ACLU, the Equal Access Act and the Good News Club case. I think this post makes it crystal clear that this guy is just an irrational loony who wouldn't know the truth if it crawled up his pantleg, perched on his ass and yodeled the Ave Maria. Just compare these two statements found in the very same post. Comment #1:
Due to previous encounters with these specific two, they were automatically banned without my reading their stupidity. Why? Because they result to the liar card no matter what is said. Personal attacks and offensive language - that's their common thread...
Keep resorting to personal attacks in order to bate me out. Because to be honest, you are showing your own immaturity by doing so.
And comment #2:
If you wish to join them on that list, act like them. Otherwise, follow the rules and be civil. And by all means don't take my references of Moonbat, moron, imbecile, idiot, or stupid personally. I call all lefties that, and taking offense at such low level name calling, which I think is accurately descriptive of those who suffer from the mental disease of liberalism, is petty.
Wow. If you insult him, you're showing your immaturity; but if he insults you and you object to that, you're showing your pettiness. And it gets even better - if you insult him, he'll be happy to threaten violence:
However, should you want to settle this face to face, I'm game. Register for Blogging Man 2007, I'll be there. We can take a walk out into the desert and have it out. And Corporal Irrational, you can have your broken jaw if you like. But I assume no responsibility for your injuries. I don't fear you. I choose not to lower myself to your moronic level.
At this point, one would have to wonder how on earth this cretin actually thinks he could lower himself; he's pretty much hit the bottom level one can hit. This pseudo-macho behavior would be laughable if engaged in by a 14 year old on a playground. That it is engaged in by an adult with the chutzpah to call other people immature - well that's just about as ridiculous as one can get.
Anyway, since he specifically told me, "Ed, you are welcome to comment here any time you wish", I left a comment. That comment made 3 points:
A. I'm not a "lefty". I'm a libertarian, which means that conservatives think I'm a liberal and liberals think I'm a conservative, primarily because neither side can conceive of having a perspective outside of that simple little dichotomy.
B. I specifically said that I don't think you lied in your post. But the fact of the matter remains that much of the information even in your clarification post was false, yet it remains there without being corrected and without any indication that the information was false. That would at least suggest to a reasonable observer that, while you may not have lied, you don't place much of a priority on stating the facts accurately.
C. There is nothing in this discussion that could be "resolved face to face". Factual disputes are not settled with violence. Even if you broke someone's jaw, it wouldn't make the claims in your post any less false.
And he replied, continuing to insist that he was not wrong - but making no attempt at all to justify that conclusion:
And as for your insistence that my information is inaccurate, the way I read my sources, it isn't. So I am refusing to alter or change anything that I've written.
The way you read your sources? It's trivially easy to find out whether the Good News Club case involved the Equal Access Act; all you have to do is read the ruling. Here, I'll give you a link to it again. In fact, all you have to do is read the summary of facts about the case and compare them to the text of the Equal Access Act (I'll even link to that text to make it easy for you). The Equal Access Act could not have applied in Good News Club because that act only applies to secondary schools and to student organizations. Good News Club dealt with an elementary school and an outside organization using school facilities. This is really, really simple, Gribbit - you were wrong. It doesn't matter how you "read your sources", you were wrong. Anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty would admit that and stop making that claim. The fact that you refuse to do so speaks volumes.
Finally, he says:
Next, please, please, PLEASE. Don't hand me a load of crap that you aren't a lefty. You are. Face it you are. Anyone who embraces the ACLU in the manner which you have chosen is a Communist Dupe. Do don't try to deny it.
Now that's just funny. Me, a communist dupe? Not only am I not a communist, I'm a libertarian - that's pretty much as far from a communist as one can get. You just cannot help but laugh at such simplemindedness. Because Gribbit divides the entire world up into two groups - good, god-fearing conservatives and godless, immoral, communist liberals - and has only one criteria for distinguishing them (whether they accept all of his claims about the ACLU, even the false ones), I must be a communist. But that, of course, is ridiculous.
It's wrong even on its most basic premise - just because I point out that something you falsely attribute to the ACLU is wrong does not mean I "embrace" the ACLU. I applaud them when they do the right thing and I criticize them when they don't. I've been strongly critical of their proposed policy to prohibit their board members from expressing their disagreement publicly. When their Florida chapter put someone on their board who supports anti-blasphemy laws, I blasted them for it. But what you claimed about them was wrong and I proved it to be wrong. Does one have to accept any false claim as true as long as it makes the ACLU look bad in order to avoid being a "communist dupe"?
All of this proves several things beyond a shadow of a doubt. Gribbit clearly doesn't give a damn about the truth; as long as it aids his agenda, a falsehood is just as good as the truth. He also clearly doesn't care about consistency or coherency - he'll blast you for doing what he proudly engages in himself. In other words, he's pretty much your standard, bottom-dwelling, AOL chatroom right winger - too ignorant, deluded and glazed over with fanaticism to even recognize how ridiculous he is.
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"All of this proves several things beyond a shadow of a doubt. Gribbit clearly doesn't give a damn about the truth; as long as it aids his agenda, a falsehood is just as good as the truth. He also clearly doesn't care about consistency or coherency - he'll blast you for doing what he proudly engages in himself. In other words, he's pretty much your standard, bottom-dwelling, AOL chatroom right winger - too ignorant, deluded and glazed over with fanaticism to even recognize how ridiculous he is."
I suspected this from the very beginning.
There's plenty to be critical of the ACLU about. I'm a member, and I'm hella upset about Anthony Retard Romero. But Communist Dupe? Shut the fuck up and go back to your John Birch meeting or the Art Bell show, whichever you were distracted from.
Yeah, I agree with Steve. Romero has to go. His tenure at the ACLU has been a disaster in almost every way. Bring back Nadine Strossen.
Gribbit's running a poll on whether he lied or not, its on the far left bottom of the page Ed linked to at the top of this thread. Out of 30 voters, its 80% he lied, 20% he didn't, pretty consistent with ratio of relgious right wingnuts in this country. I'd say its appears to be a representative sample :)
Hey Ed, long time reader, first post. In fact, reading Gribbit's bullshit is what motivated me to go through another web sign-up to add my voice to yours. People lie, and after a while you accept that. All one can do is call them on it and hope they fess up. Gribbit is obviously not mature enough to do that. Don't get discouraged man, just keep calling them on it. Doing a good job.
I'm not a "lefty". I'm a libertarian, which means that conservatives think I'm a liberal and liberals think I'm a conservative, primarily because neither side can conceive of having a perspective outside of that simple little dichotomy.
Gee, I'm a liberal and I don't think libertarians are "conservative" as that term is commonly used. In fact, I know more conservatives who call themselves libertarians, because this apparently gives them a gloss of intellectualism they think, than I know liberals who think libertarian is "conservative" in the sense meant here.
But your statement above may simply be the resulot of you being unable to see past a false dichotomy.
Nonetheless, I love the blog.
Did he really say he wants to meet me in the Nevada desert to settle this? What year is it, 1885? I think he's been watching a little too much Clint Eastwood lately.
Now I'm 99.998% sure Gribbit is a parody, because no one I've ever met behaves like this unless he was putting on an act.
sixteenwords wrote:
Oh, I know that my statement wasn't true across the board. Intelligent liberals and conservatives who aren't stuck in that simple dichotomy that automatically places everyone inside one of those two groups certainly recognize that libertarians don't belong in either of them. The ones who filter everything through "us" vs "them" filters are the ones I was speaking about.
Gribbit's ludicrous claim that he does not lie was more that I could resist. I've documented several of his lies, so as to have a handy reference to his mendacity.
So... you are keeping thing civil huh. You are just as bad as everyone else Ed. You too don't have an clue as to what is true or not. You have a convoluted understanding of that what you consider the truth.
Meat for brains.. Saturday... 1800
"All of this proves several things beyond a shadow of a doubt. Gribbit clearly doesn't give a damn about the truth; as long as it aids his agenda, a falsehood is just as good as the truth."
It's good to know that it's still permissible to ignore the Ten Commandments when you're doing so in the name of Jesus. Makes me wonder how much money I can get away with stealing from church collection plates if I donate it all to a reverend.
Victory! (?)
http://www.gribbitonline.com/?p=37
LOL. Hey, if people are using comments to show that his claims are wrong, then comments have to go. If someone calls on the phone and tells him that he's wrong about something, I wonder if he'll stop using the phone? I'll never understand this aversion to truth.
He's taken down the "did Gribbit lie?" poll, as well. Happily, I grabbed a screen shot before he did so.
I'm not fluent in Gribittish, and I'm having trouble parsing phrases like "result to the liar card," "bate me out," and "do don't try to deny it."
On second thought, maybe I will won't bother trying.
Capt Rational,
You should ABSOLUTELY take him up on a fight in the Nevada desert. Sounds like a great place to leave the guy waiting around.
"Remember... Saturday 1800"
Look out meatbrain! He's gonna ban you from the Innerweb! In five months. If you don't renew your domain. He'll totally get you!
That's strange... Some anonymous party left a comment on my blog requesting that I meet him in Cleveland on Saturday at 1800 so that he may break my jaw. At first I thought it was just one of the usual suspects playing a little prank, but could it really be him?
Which one is Gribbit on?
Meatbrain - post the IP of the offender on your blog, let me have some fun.
Gribbit see's me as:
"14 Guest Unknown / 14th June 2006 @ 22:33"
On his website.
Mwuahahahahahah.
Translation: The only way to prove me wrong is to get me to admit that I was wrong. Since I have no intention of doing that, obviously I cannot be wrong.
Dimbulb-think at its finest.
I'm just guessing that Gribbit identifies with Biff (or Griff or "Mad Dog") when watching Back to the Future movies.
But doesn't he remember what happens whenever he has a fight with Marty?
Oh well, maybe he'll just "..make like a tree, and get the hell outta here"
Wow, this guy's "Mr. T" act makes Mr. T look positively refined. Pity da fool.
Minor ethical point: an erroneus statement of fact is not necessarily a lie. However, when the error is pointed out to the author, references and all, and the author fails to retract or correct the erroneous statement, or repeats it unchanged, said statement becomes a lie. Think of it as a perverse form of transubstantiation. Gribbit may not have been a liar at first, but he is now.
Gribbit wrote:
I kept things civil as long as humanly possible. After a while, it becomes clear that you're, quite literally, irrational. Once you demonstrate that you have no interest in displaying any intellectual honesty at all, the gloves are off.
By all means, support this charge. See, here's the difference between you and me: when I made the statement that your claims were wrong, I documented why in rather excruciating detail. You see, this is a straightforward empirical question, which means it can be answered simply by looking at the evidence and applying reason to it. How does one tell whether the ACLU "refused to apply the Equal Access Act" in the Good News Club case? Well, one could start by reading the decision itself. In fact, you don't even have to read the whole thing, as court rulings begin with a synopsis that has the basis of the decision right up front. If the decision was based on statutory law like the EAA, it would state so right up front. But in fact, the EAA is not mentioned anywhere in the decision except in a single footnote, and that footnote deals with an argument made by the school district, not the plaintiffs. One could also go and read the Act itself, where one would find that it can't possibly apply in that case because it applies only to secondary schools and only to student-led groups. So you see, it's easy to say "you're wrong too"; it's quite another thing to actually support the accusation.
So you see, your mistake was an easy one to avoid. All it takes is a little reading. 5 minutes on google and you could have recognized the mistake and corrected it, or avoided it altogether. Now, what makes this whole situation doubly amusing is that even after being shown that your claim was wrong, not only did you refuse to correct it, you did so while smugly sneering at "non-readers" who "can't do their own research" - which is a bit like Ann Coulter telling someone they need to put on a little weight, or be nicer to others. In fact, this habit of psychological projection seems to be a major personality trait for you. You accuse others of not bothering to do their research, yet you clearly demonstrate that you didn't do so yourself. You call other people "juvenile" and "immature" for calling you names, while simultaneously calling everyone in sight nasty names. On top of that, you feign outrage that people insult you while also claiming that if they dare to be bothered by your insults they're just showing themselves to be "petty". For crying out loud, Gribbit, on how many levels at once can someone be ridiculously hypocritical?
For crying out loud, Gribbit, on how many levels at once can someone be ridiculously hypocritical?
Stupidity has no limits....
Mike Heath wrote:
Gribbit's running a poll on whether he lied or not, its on the far left bottom
of the page Ed linked to at the top of this thread. Out of 30 voters, its 80%
he lied, 20% he didn't ...
I checked out his site (gribbitonline.com) late Thursday night and found the poll. Out of 32 votes 81% said he lied and 19% said he didn't.
I went back to see the current results this morning and found that the poll has been removed from the site. I'm not surprised that Gribbit removed the poll which turned out to be a huge embarrassment. The thing that amazes me is that he actually put up in the first place. What was he thinking! It seems that he really thinks he successfully defended his article against the evidence provided by Ed. Is he that incapable of rational thought? Or is he just that dishonest?
As a wise man once said, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetance." Once can be both malicious and incompetant, however, so take that as you will.
Earthling48 wrote:
See above; a copy was preserved for posterity.
There is no reason why Gribbit cannot be both simultaneously.