Farewell and best of luck

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We always take these matters seriously. As moderator's we have to find a fine line between freedom of speech and putting a halt to things. When Tomo reported the posts in question, I somehow read the wrong posts. I clicked on the link which took me to the thread, but I saw the wrong posts. I reviewed the ones I saw, and while questionable I did not feel they were sympathetic to the Nazi cause. I told this to Tomo, and closed the case.

Through this thread here, we became aware of different posts (the ones Tomo was actually referring to) and Joe kindly took care of them by editing the posts, and we are investigating it further.

We will never allow Nazi apologists here. Anyone who knows this forum's history knows we take care of it swiftly.
 
They are not interested in 'solid information'. If they were they would not be Holocaust deniers, flat earthers, moon landing deniers, believers in chem-trails, etc., etc. They want you to argue with them because it gives them a platform for their views outside the echo chambers in which they usually operate.

I'm not doing that with the interest of changing their bigoted minds. The reason why I post countervailing, accurate information is that there are plenty of readers who never post. Any of those lurkers who is on the fence should be able to immediately access the facts debunking the BS.

The reason I keep it brief and don't get quagmired is precisely for the reason you list, of starving them of attention. But at the same time, I will not let their claims stand; hence, short answers with links for those readers who are curious.

This is my personal view and of course others are free to react however they see fit. Anyone deciding to take such people on will certainly enjoy my support.

I don't criticize how others, like-minded, address these cretins, so long as I know their heart's in the right place.
 
Hello, people,
Moderators have decided to take another look at the issues I've found to be championing of the twisted ideology, and I was contacted by Joe and Chris about that and the actions currently taken. I appreciate their actions, and I'm back to the forum now.
I also greatly appreciate the feedback of other forum members, that have no problem over-rating my feeble knowledge by factor of 10 :)
Thank you again, I do look forward to the future discussions,
Tomislav

Hell yes!
 
Hello, people,
Moderators have decided to take another look at the issues I've found to be championing of the twisted ideology, and I was contacted by Joe and Chris about that and the actions currently taken. I appreciate their actions, and I'm back to the forum now.
I also greatly appreciate the feedback of other forum members, that have no problem over-rating my feeble knowledge by factor of 10 :)
Thank you again, I do look forward to the future discussions,
Tomislav
Welcome back,:wav:

We have a problem, can't give more than one bacon :)
 
I used to think that, but then you become the victim of what the Americans call a 'Gish-Gallop'. Once upon a time I would engage such people and refute their arguments, now I simply ignore them. They are seeking a reaction as a means to further promote their theories
That's the problem, they are trying to promote their views -- they aren't theories (or even hypotheses), since there's ample evidence that shows their viewpoint is nonsense.

Generally, Holocaust deniers comprise two basic groups of people
  1. The Knowing Liars: They know that what they are saying is nonsense, they understand that society would disapprove of it if they understand what they were doing. They actually like Nazism, and see little problem with the whole genocidal aspect of it -- they just can't get any support behind it because of that whole Holocaust matter, so they seek to whitewash it out by poking any holes in the whole matter (i.e. inspiring doubt by raising questions about exact numbers, errors, and irregularities), so they can bring Nazism back!
  2. The Gullible/Misguided Dupes: These are the useful idiots of the first. They actually believe them because they interpret the various claims as being valid, and believe they're trying to expose a massive miscarriage of historical injustice. Of these people, some of them realize the truth and leave, and some remain because the've invested so much in it, and/or have come to view the agenda as acceptable, at which point they becoming knowing liars.
Both see their actions as being justifiable for their own reasons, and if their positions aren't countered, they will continue to spread their views, and without an opposing voice (ours), everybody will only hear them, and the first rule of propaganda is repetition. While a forum could simply ban them and put a quick halt to them, it only gets them out of our hair, but they will often continue elsewhere: Censoring them on a larger scale doesn't really work for the following reasons
  1. It Doesn't Change their Minds: I didn't realize right-wing extremism was as prevalent (I wasn't oblivious to it, but saw it as a small issue) because up until between 5-10 years ago, they were basically so effectively silenced though a combination of shame and ostracism, that we simply shut them up (they also got more creative in the way they talked about the matter). The problem is that certain events occurred (due to the no-politics rule, I can't elaborate anymore), which made such extremists feel okay in expressing their views somewhat more openly in public and online. As we've seen, all it takes is a loud-mouth with power to upset the balance.
  2. Extremists are Made, Not Born: With the exception of people born into families of extremists, most people that end up in extremist causes like this often are drawn in. Generally the extremists often target angry, disaffected youth since the young are often impressionable (and gullible). From there, they get to work on them, inculcating an ideology that offers people to blame for all their problems (something that's intoxicating for a person who has potentially seen nothing but grief and hardship), and with Neo-Nazism, there's also the belief that they're of a superior breed destined to rule the world: Effectively nothing's ever their fault (instilling a mentality that blame can be externalized, which provides continuous absolution), and an attitude that feeds the ego (effectively indoctrinating a narcissistic state). Censorship simply establishes a siege mentality that benefits their leadership and makes it harder to pry them away.
  3. Threats to Free-Speech: Censorship has historically been a powerful tool of individuals that do not always have the public interest at heart. They rarely say that they want to censor the internet so they can keep the public in the dark like mushrooms. They either create pretexts to do so, or they use legitimate threats to start out with; then from there, expand to matters that are less legitimate. While very few people don't feel the occasional urge to silence groups of people we don't like, we aren't the ones who are going to get to decide what gets silenced and, while Neo-Nazi's are clearly dangerous, there are groups that would get censored that might actually serve the public good (such as journalists and whistleblowers).
Lately, we've become accustomed to the belief that you can't counter lies with truth, that censorship is the only option, and I think that, in most cases, we've been sold a bad bag of goods.

When it comes to a rather noxious piece of disinformation I've heard online was that a now deceased Senator, who had previously served as a naval aviator, and became a POW aboard the USS Forrestal, was responsible for the July 29, 1967 fire. The claim was that he always wanted to do a wet-start, and that triggered the firing of a Zuni rocket from an F-4 located behind him. The argument was that it was covered up because his daddy was an Admiral.

After getting sick and tired of hearing it being repeated, I spoke up: I pointed out that I read about the Forrestal fire before, and a wet-start wouldn't have caused it under the circumstances described. The OP had an image of the carrier deck, and I told them to look at the image, and noted there was no F-4 behind the aircraft and, before anybody points out that it could be air-brushed out, or could be a fake: The carrier is only 252-257 feet wide, the size of the aircraft aren't doctored, and there's just not enough room. You could do a google search for seemingly any picture of airplanes of that era on a carrier deck and you'd find the same scaling and anything, and there's just no room for an F-4 to fit behind the A-4. . . . (and everybody here knows the rest).

It silenced everybody -- I got quite a number of thumbs up.

I hope I didn't run afoul of the forum rules: My goal was to largely explain the types of people involved in holocaust denial, why countering them is important, and why censorship could be counter-productive (it didn't really make them go away, it just shut 'em up), why they were generally counter-productive, and an example of countering lies with facts that I actually did to illustrate an example.
 
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When it comes to a rather noxious piece of disinformation I've heard online was that a now deceased Senator, who had previously served as a naval aviator, and became a POW aboard the USS Forrestal, was responsible for the July 29, 1967 fire. The claim was that he always wanted to do a wet-start, and that triggered the firing of a Zuni rocket from an F-4 located behind him. The argument was that it was covered up because his daddy was an Admiral.

After getting sick and tired of hearing it being repeated, I spoke up: I pointed out that I read about the Forrestal fire before, and a wet-start wouldn't have caused it under the circumstances described. The OP had an image of the carrier deck, and I told them to look at the image, and noted there was no F-4 behind the aircraft and, before anybody points out that it could be air-brushed out, or could be a fake: The carrier is only 252-257 feet wide, the size of the aircraft aren't doctored, and there's just not enough room. You could do a google search for seemingly any picture of airplanes of that era on a carrier deck and you'd find the same scaling and anything, and there's just no room for an F-4 to fit behind the A-4. . . . (and everybody here knows the rest).

https://www.jag.navy.mil/library/investigations/USS FORRESTAL FIRE 12 AUG 69 PT 1.pdf

1621140689729.png
 
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When it comes to a rather noxious piece of disinformation I've heard online was that a now deceased Senator, who had previously served as a naval aviator, and became a POW aboard the USS Forrestal, was responsible for the July 29, 1967 fire. The claim was that he always wanted to do a wet-start, and that triggered the firing of a Zuni rocket from an F-4 located behind him. The argument was that it was covered up because his daddy was an Admiral.

After getting sick and tired of hearing it being repeated, I spoke up: I pointed out that I read about the Forrestal fire before, and a wet-start wouldn't have caused it under the circumstances described. The OP had an image of the carrier deck, and I told them to look at the image, and noted there was no F-4 behind the aircraft and, before anybody points out that it could be air-brushed out, or could be a fake: The carrier is only 252-257 feet wide, the size of the aircraft aren't doctored, and there's just not enough room. You could do a google search for seemingly any picture of airplanes of that era on a carrier deck and you'd find the same scaling and anything, and there's just no room for an F-4 to fit behind the A-4. . . . (and everybody here knows the rest).
I've dealt with this on several occasions. First off a wet start on an A-4 wouldn't produce a huge fireball unless a whole bunch of fuel was dumped in the combustion chamber. You normally do a wet start after an unsuccessful first start. After proving this to some individuals, one person spoke up and said McCain was "torching" his fellow flyer as a joke by lighting up his after burner. The problem here is the A-4 don't have an AB! The pathetic end to this was a few of these people worked for the government to include the FAA!
 
After proving this to some individuals, one person spoke up and said McCain was "torching" his fellow flyer as a joke by lighting up his after burner. The problem here is the A-4 don't have an AB! The pathetic end to this was a few of these people worked for the government to include the FAA!
They should know that sort of thing, right?
 

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