you appear to have completely accepted the mostly benign
point of view as fact, and discounted the other as total hyperbole.
An overstatement, but let's pretend it isn't. Let's look at the articles and check the signs and symptoms.
From the first two paragraphs of the original report:
...an incredible story...
...showed how homosexuals are recruiting children in the public schools of Massachusetts...
...This shocking story...
...trying to convert straight teenagers into homosexuals...
And this lovely one from the end:
One wonders if it was like American GIs who first approached the concentration camps.
When I see somebody wielding that kind of tabloid-style sensationalism, my first reaction is that there is an agenda being pursued, and that there is probably more going on than meets the eye. I often react the same way to the wilder exposes of the environmental movement, among others.
There were also serious lapses, the most serious being that the citations of inflammatory material did not mention the critical issue of whether the dialogue in question was initiated by a workshop leader or an attendee. When such information is omitted from a story you have to consider the possibility that it is being held back because discussing it would dilute the point that the author wants to work.
That sort of emotion-loaded writing, in pursuit of any agenda, is something for which I have no respect. It is almost always, in my experience, accompanied by distortions, inaccuracies, and deliberate simplifications. Any time I see such writing - and I seldom see it, because I do not frequent the places where it is seen - I look for a second point of view, if I don't dismiss the piece out of hand.
The article X cited, on the other hand, was quite professionally done and far more intelligent: the author was completely up front about her affiliations, her purposes, and the gaps in her information. She didn't pretend not to have an agenda, but put it up front so that readers could take it into consideration while forming their opinions.
It seemed, all in all, to be a far more credible piece of work than the rant to which it responded. Score one for the defense, I'd say, except that few who read the prosecutor's speech will ever bother to read the defense.
Personally, my response to Vince would go something like this... I don't doubt you heard what you heard on the radio, but I would have to see more evidence to believe it actually happened.
Maybe, maybe not. I got a good giggle out of wondering what would happen if X or I were to pop over to a contentious argument on feelies and expect the assembled crowd to accept as evidence a story that we thought we'd heard on the radio a few years back. What do you think the reaction would be? Nothing nearly so polite as what you wrote, I'm sure.
SI is SI, and one thing we all learn on SI is that it's not a place where you can stick your neck out and expect not to be chopped. Pulling out a story like that without a citation to support it is argument's equivalent to a boxer leading with his chin, or an ice hockey player carrying the puck across the opposing blue line with his head down. You do it, you get stung. Rules of the game. We've all had it happen once or twice, and it's not fatal. My personal feeling is that Vince is showing himself to be a wee bit thin-skinned; I've noticed him dishing out his share of abuse, now he gets a little back. Tant pis. You know what they say about the heat and the kitchen.
Do note that all of the challenges were directed at material which Vince brought into the discussion, not at Vince personally. The same can't be said about some of the discussions on this thread, where participants seem quite determined to win entry to the "juvenile excess" category of the Guinness book. |
