Columbia Leaders Grilled at Antisemitism Hearing

[Dill]

(05-09-2024, 12:24 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: So predictable.  All of those came after the post I quoted.  This is what is know as "walking it back".  Dill said something stupid.  Dill got called out.  Dill slowly walked said statement back, all the while claiming her never really said what he initially said.  If Luvnit or another conservative poster went through this process you'd have put him through the ringer.  But it's the guy you share a brain with, so you'll defend him to the hilt.

Dino, it's ok to disagree with Dill every once in a while.  They won't come and take away your progressive membership card.

No. Dino represented the debate correctly. And calmly, I might add.  

The "first post [you] quoted" cites three sources which speak of the "myth" or "legend" of the spat upon vet. History professors now teach courses on the myth of the  the absence of evidence for it. Typical dill move--start with the factual record and historians' research.

I asked how the myth that all these historians are talking about got started and suggested: "it seems to have emerged in the 90s."

Your argument is:

1) Dill and the war researchers said "myth" when addressing the widespread belief that many vets were spat on when they deplaned from Vietnam.
2) A myth is something that did not happen! (See dictionary!)
3) That means Dill et al. claimed no vet was EVER spat on not at all even once, and that is the POINT, not all that talk about politically useful narratives.
4) Your Dad has a friend who says he was spat on--so you've got some third-hand testimony years after the fact that at least one vet WAS spit on.
5) So the "myth" cannot be a myth because at least one or a few somehow were spat upon. (See dictionary again.)
6) Ergo Dill is LYING when, following all those researchers, he calls the vets-spat-on legend a "myth," plus he's calling your Dad a "liar"! And you have the "proof."
7) Further, he is just "walking back" the LIE when he specifies the "myth" is the claim that being spat upon was "representative" because it was always really about claiming no one vet EVER etc.

So what is more likely--A) that sources in "the post first quoted" who use the term "myth" were careless non-professionals determined to prove that no vet could possibly have ever been spit on not even one time and you have exposed them and me as "liars," or

B) they were addressing a general belief, used as a political narrative, that many returning vets were spat on--which sent them looking for evidence that they have not yet found. Hence their provisional conclusion that the general belief is a "myth," as in false, not true (see dictionary). But you just want to believe "A" anyway because it suits you to claim I'm a LIAR (I said "myth"!) and it stops a discussion undermining a right wing narrative about Vietnam and protestors? 

I'm going with "B."  What you call "walking back" is just me trying to correct your origanl misunderstanding, which you cannot let go:

My posts are not about "invalidating the experiences of some of the men returning home from Vietnam";
They are about invalidating the MYTH that this was a common and representative experience.

I certainly still do think the bolded is correct, not a "lie," and not refuted by any 3rd hand testimony you introduce. There is at least one law professor who claims he found newspaper evidence from the period. And there was an interesting debate over the evidence in Slate some years back. We could have gone on to debate whether spitting was a common experience or whether it is just another right wing narrative generated before the Gulf War. Many people falsely claimed to be Vietnam veterans after the war, and many veterans falsely claimed combat experience. I'd like to find out how many of those also "remember" being spat upon. etc.

But no. We got a rage post begging the moderators indulgence because I called your father a LIAR and was like Holocaust deniers who discount testimony.
I.e, Typical SSF move--drive up emotion, call your opponent "liar." Then "stand by" your original claim without addressing the refutation or the facts.

So a learning moment about how historical evidence is vetted and the limits of inference from evidence was quashed to protect an ideological narrative. Yet again.