I just noticed that he is a member here....He's only made a handful of posts, and most of them are in the defense of either himself, the truth, or reality.
Ever stop and think that perhaps if people didn't start threads calling him out,
or mentioning his name while spouting questionable "info", that he might have
a different opinion of boards like these?
I was about to log off, stayed for a moment so that my wife and I could read his replies, and saw your message Just_a_dude_with_a_gun. My temptation was to give a breezy response on the order of "I know I would," but I realized quickly that it would do Massad Ayoob and the rest of us an injustice.
Of course it must hurt him to be the butt of personal attacks and a springboard for fools and poseurs to leap into momentary prominence, but I think that there's much more at issue--in my mind and, I suspect, his and that of everyone else here who takes their time to challenge such people. In my case it's not because of any desire to gain fame and admiration on the Internet. I don't know how to say this diplomatically so I'll say it straight out and risk the kicks I'll probably get: I really don't care about such things or about what more than a few people in the world think about me. What I do care about (and always have) includes basic fair play, the exchange of good information and rational judgments, and the sense that I'm associating with more-or-less healthy adults.
I've been around the Internet longer than most people, and its predecessors too, and I hate to see it perverted into a platform for damaged people to play out twisted fantasies to the detriment of the medium and its users who are looking for something real. I don't like pornography either. Same reason.
I like Massad Ayoob, but that's not the point. I've learned from him too, but that's not the point either, even though I've received more from him and the staff of Lethal Force Institute than the value of the money I've paid as a student. The point is that he's real: not perfect, not a comic book hero (as someone here recently suggested), but someone who makes a difference in the world and stands unflinchingly comfortable in his own skin. It's troubling to see double-naught-spies and rockstars exercise their egos on such men and it's especially troubling when they seem to influence other people to the detriment of us all.
It's really a serious matter to keep and bear arms, and its infinitely serious to employ them, so it's nothing less than horrible to see people advised to act against their own interests and those of the rest of us. I'm not talking specifically about handloads, light trigger pulls, or any other details of such advice. I most definitely am talking about breezy but vitriolic statements that mislead people away from getting good advice. I've seen messages in which self-annointed Internet experts actually advise such craziness as throwing down someone else's spent cartridge cases and running away in the event of a self-defense shooting, or dragging the body of a dead villain into one's home so as to make a better case, and other lunacies too painful to contemplate.
It really wouldn't bother me at all to see Massad Ayoob confronted with superior information or superior arguments by people who have the goods and the decency to identify themselves. I can't speak for him but I suspect that he wouldn't mind it either, nor do I think other real people would be anything less than grateful to be shown they really are wrong about something important. It's how we learn, all of us. But many people, alas, seem to get their self-esteem by attacking truly accomplished men whose work is important to them and to the rest of us. I'd hoped that my reference and link to the Graham Greene story might be useful in suggesting the motives of those people, The Destructors.
So although I really do like and respect Massad Ayoob, he's not the only point. The point is a more general malaise and it hurts us all. Gresham's Law, about bad money driving good money out of circulation if both are given the same value, is applicable to more than only counterfeit money. Opinions, advice, attitudes, relationships, marriages, loyalties, friendships: the bad and the corrupt always have a corrosive influence. That's what I don't like.
Good night.
If not, then you are *not* among those who were justly criticized and who must bear their "insults" with dignity.
