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Correcting Spencer’s false statements about me
Robert Spencer tells so many untruths that one could devote a career to countering them. He writes at his website:
… The absurdities multiply. I confess I haven’t been taking this nearly as seriously as [Auster] has. After he had selectively posted some of my emails to him, taking out most of their substance, he announced grandly that he was blocking my emails henceforth—whereupon I sent him one to see if such a block was really in place, and sure enough, he posted it swiftly on his blog. Blocked indeed! Paragon of honest dealing indeed! So I had some mischievous fun sending him some outrageous ones, and I am sure we will be seeing these before too long, also, coming through an email block more porous than a New Orleans levee.Spencer says that I “selectively posted some of my emails to him, taking out most of their substance.” This is untrue. Here’s what happened. Back on July 7, when this began, first came Spencer’s e-mail with the list of his articles mentioning immigration, which I immediately started to write a full length article about. But at the same time more and more e-mails came pouring in from Spencer and his thuggish confidante, Mike Slumber, gleefully saying, Now we have you. As a result of having to respond to this onslught, I could not focus on a careful analysis of the passages and instead posted Spencer’s list of links in its original form, without quotations, followed by a relatively brief response by me explaining why I felt these quotations (which I had never seen before) did not change the basic picture of Spencer’s inconsistency. In the same thread, I posted a total of six of Spencer’s e-mails and about the same number of Slumber’s. Anyone can read them and see how they were not engaging in discussion but insult. Furthermore, all of Spencer’s e-mails that are posted are posted in their entirety. Spencer’s statement that I “took out most of the substance” of his e-mails, implying that I edited them, is false. The ones I posted, were posted in their entirety. As more and more e-mails from the dynamic duo came in, I did not bother reading them or posting them. Several days later, I still haven’t read them, though I’ve glanced at some of them, and they are all re-hashing the same obsessions Spencer has spewed forth so many times, all written in the same abusive, insulting tone. From a quick look-over, there is nothing new or of interest in them. In all, Spencer and Slumber sent me a total of 55 e-mails, 42 of them from Spencer, 13 from Smuggler. I guess Spencer thinks I should have posted all 42 of his e-mails. (Based on Spencer’s past accusations against me, if I’ve miscounted his e-mails by one or two, he’ll probably leap on this as proof that I am liar.) Now let’s turn to the particularly insulting e-mail from Spencer that I quoted in a later entry:
“You are a despicable, deeply dishonest, and highly unbalanced human being.”This came in at 10:59 a.m. July 8, 20 minutes after I posted the entry, “Spencer to get same treatment as any other e-mail abuser,” in which I said I that would henceforth filter Spencer’s e-mails so as to avoid being deluged by his attacks. I don’t have a fancy e-mail block, I simply have the Outlook Express 6 e-mail filter that redirects e-mails from the Inbox to the Deleted Items folder. I saw the e-mail of Spencer’s which was sent in rage at the fact that had I said I was going to treat him like any abusive e-mailer and filter his e-mails. There was nothing of a “test” nature about it. He was obviously in a state of uncontrolled fury at having been treated like exactly the ranting e-mail abuser he is. I, in order to give people an idea what I was dealing with here, and why it was necessary to filter Spencer’s e-mails, posted it. And now, to cover up his embarrassment and lessen the damage that has been done to him as a result of his having sent me such abuse (and many people, people he respects, have criticized him for it ), he absurdly claims that he was just “testing” me. Not only that, but he claims that he sent a whole series of ever more insulting e-mails, just in order to “test” me. He writes: “So I had some mischievous fun sending him some outrageous ones, and I am sure we will be seeing these before too long…” Well, I haven’t read them yet, though at some point I probably will. But isn’t it strange that Spencer, the leading jihad critic in America, spends his time writing and mailing a series of grossly insulting e-mails which he says he doesn’t really mean, in order to “fool” another person into thinking that he, Spencer, really means them! Then, having told us that he deliberately sent a series of outrageous e-mails in order to “test” me, he turns around and claims: “I confess I haven’t been taking this nearly as seriously as [Auster] has,” and “This man spending an astonishing amount of time savaging me.” Finally, on the question of my supposed dishonesty, Spencer fantasizes that I am under some agreement of fair dealing with him, and that when I don’t do things at my website to his liking, that means that I am somehow breaking my agreement with him—with him, a person who is at war with me, seeking to destroy me, so that he leaps on the slightest inconsistency in one of my statements as proof of my risible dishonesty. “Paragon of honest dealing, indeed!” he gleefully cries. In any case, maybe, to satisfy Spencer’s demand, I should post all of his and Slumber’s e-mails. I’ll call it the Spencer-Slumber File. However, when relative sanity returns to him, perhaps Spencer will realize how damaging these e-mails are to him, and ask me not to post them, and then he’ll denounce me if I do.
Email entry |