I happened to be perusing the Facebook Stop Free Keene (SFK) group today. I hadn’t been by in a while so I stopped in to see if there was anything new going on. I discovered quite an interesting statement while there:
For the unfamiliar, Mr. Erickson is one of the administrators of the SFK group, though he is not the founder. He is also the most frequent contributor and (primary? sole?) administrator of the SFK website. I am not a member of SFK or Free Keene (FK). SFK systematically drags the entire Free State Project (FSP) into their sights, and this is plainly advertised as the purpose of their group. I have weighed in on occasion because some SFK leaders and members have accused the FSP, and sometimes FSP participants, of various things that simply aren’t true. I’ve also commented about hateful and violent comments made by SFK members aimed at Free Staters. For that, it appears I have become not only a target-by-association, but now personally a target.
In the comment above, Joshua Erickson accuses me of four things:
- being two-faced,
- being dishonest,
- always being on “their” side of the conversation (presumably FK’s), and
- being unable to go two minutes without making some histrionic accusation of violence against “us” (presumably SFK).
He doesn’t want to ally with me, which, itself, is not particularly offensive. The problem is his reasoning. He doesn’t just say he doesn’t like me or doesn’t trust me. He goes out of his way to make those four accusations, which are the totality of his reasoning. He doesn’t give any evidence or examples to support any of his claims. The first two require evidence for support. The last two are easily falsifiable and I’ll do so now.
He says I’m always on “their” side of the conversation, which I presume means Free Keene’s. That ignores, for example, my statement in a Letter to the Editor of the Keene Sentinel saying, “Both sides unashamedly provide endless ammunition to each other to perpetuate the skirmish” (emphasis added). In other words, I equally blamed Free Keene for perpetuating the conflict. This statement also ignores a recent exchange about an inappropriate video posting in which I said to Free Keene member Garret Ean, “you’re being extremely disrespectful and insensitive for defending your posting of the video and refusing to honor the request of the family to do what you can to remove it.” Free Keene founder Ian Freeman was also in favor of leaving the video up. I was not on the Free Keene side of that issue, either. Statement #3 is clearly false.
What about #4? It should be obvious that I don’t make accusations of violence against SFK at least every two minutes. So I don’t have to do much to prove that the statement is false on its face. But if we strip away the hyperbole, what is Mr. Erickson really getting at? He’s at least implying that I’ve accused SFK of violence at some point. But actually, I’ve never accused SFK of violence. In my own blog post about the fountain incident, I clearly stated, “it sounds like neither the perpetrator nor the victim (who may also have acted violently) were active participants in either group.” That’s the one instance of actual violence I’ve discussed that is even remotely related to SFK. Even with the hyperbole stripped away, statement #4 is clearly false.
Now there have, indeed, been SFK members who have advocated or threatened violence (eg. “… Making them eat through a feeding tube … I’ll be glad to accommodate.”). I’ve pointed out those violent statements on occasion. If that’s what he meant to accuse me of, then I am guilty of speaking out against that violent rhetoric (see the already-mentioned blog post). To SFK’s credit, they have tried to correct such cases. The comment above came from a person who Mr. Erickson personally added to the SFK group. When I contacted Mr. Erickson about it he indicated he spoke to the person who wrote those words and made a point of stressing that SFK doesn’t condone or endorse violence. I hope he’s more honest about his opposition to violence than he is in his statements about me. Alternately, consider the implications if he really meant to say he doesn’t want to ally with me because I speak out against the actual violent rhetoric of some SFK members…
What about the first two? He says I’m two-faced and dishonest. Since he didn’t provide some standard, it’s hard to know exactly what would qualify. If “dishonest” means someone who has ever said something untrue, he is obviously guilty. The question I have is, has he ever actually observed me saying or doing something dishonest? It’s easy to accuse someone of dishonesty, and I won’t claim to have have been completely honest for my entire life. But what has he actually seen that leads him to the conclusion that I’m dishonest? Likewise with being two-faced. What I do know is that Mr. Erickson has provided exactly zero evidence to support statements 1 and 2.
What he has done is displayed his own dishonesty in his speech here. I’m not simply saying Mr. Erickson is dishonest, I’ve demonstrated it clearly with his words against the facts above. I don’t know if Mr. Erickson is ashamed of being dishonest about me, but he should be. Resorting to ad hominem is bad enough. Lying about someone’s character is just despicable. While I won’t go so far as to say, “I’ve never been dishonest in any way, shape or form,” I will challenge Mr. Erickson to back up his claim. Any of it. Even one tiny little bit of it. I wonder if he can show me that he has been anything other than completely and totally dishonest here. I don’t think he can, but if he does, I welcome the correction. I’m not perfect, but it’s not my intent to be two-faced or dishonest and I don’t think he can show how I have been so.
Of course, this could be all a big misunderstanding. It’s theoretically possible he was totally unaware that everything he said was actually false. Or he could potentially show me how I’ve been dishonest or two-faced at some point. Maybe, upon reading this correction, he will support his unsupported statements, and/or correct those that are obviously false. If he has the strength of character to do those things, I stand ready to forgive his false statements with his public correction of them. Otherwise, it appears Mr. Erickson is simply lying to discredit me and deceive anyone who will listen to him.
V-