Quoting dal (dal@???):


> would you please cease using negatively charged buzzwords, like
> "conspiracy theories"

It's not necessarily derogation to use that and similar phrases: It's
description. To quote Richard Hostadter's ground-breaking 1964 article:

Nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated
in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas
are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content.

Nothing prevents such theorising from being utimately found to be
well-founded, at least in theory. It's just an odd and recurring style
of thinking and expression that appeals to some people in every era,
because it reduces complex reality to a simple, orderly, centrally
administered plan.

Probably unlike you, I'm an American, and so I've been living around a
minority population of paranoid conspiracy people all my life. I don't
dislike them necessarily. I just find them odd and distinctive.

> while your counterpart is talking about existing legitimate (good or
> bad but legitimate) business interests and motivations which are _not_
> hidden at all.

...and drawing non-sequitur conclusions from that.


> Also, in my humble opinion, the following is a rude ad-hominem
> pseudo-argument:

Again, it's simple observation. Steve, demonstrably, grossly
misunderstands the operation of civil litigation. That doesn't make him
a bad person. _Most_ people grossly misunderstand legal matters --
albeit most have the common sense to not make unsupportable claims on
that subject on worldwide mailing lists.

Oh, and that's not a humble opinion. ;->

Please see also:
http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/lexicon.html#moenslaw-debate2

(It is not the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem to assert that something
someone said was grossly mistaken. You should probably look up what the
term actually means.)


Oh, and:

> Rick,

Hmm, if we're going to be on a first-name basis, it would be more
appropriate for you to include your own name, and not just take personal
potshots at others from behind cover of an Internet pseudonym.