gunter wrote:No, Steve. This thing is rolling over from investigation to persecution.
Wrong - it has moved from the "prove it's a fraud" phase into the "identify motive and agenda" phase. There are still answers regarding their intent to deceive and defraud people that need to be determined. They realize that the public is unaware of their ultimate intentions (whether it was to eventually create a movie, book, play or whatever) - but those answers remain a mystery. Running away and hiding like the Pickerings have done, or attacking the messengers and continuing the charade as Richard has done - is not going to fly.
I am also significantly disturbed by your defense of people who are proven fraudsters, and your attack of a person who brought you the truth of this story. If it weren't for the people who brought you the truth, you'd still be in the dark concerning who Source A is. You should be thanking Andy, not attacking him. Oh...wait...maybe I understand. You're jealous because you've never been able to do what Andy (or Shawnna back then) did - fully uncover the truth about a con artist.
I have no great love for the Pickerboyz or Bob Morningstar or Mike Salla. But they also have the right to speak on their own terms and at a time of their own choosing.
Do they also have the right to cover-up their true, nefarious motives? You sit back in your armchair and wait for someone else to bring you the truth, and then you lash out at them as though you have some moral high ground. From where I stand, you should be grouped on the same moral low ground as the "Pickerboyz" or Salla.
The dispute should remain in the universe of words in my opinion. No physical confrontation is required. You beat liars with argument, not fists.
Not liars who try to hide once the stone is overturned. They will try to crawl under new rocks. I disagree with Tom trying to dissuade Andy from going. If I lived closer, I'd be going alongside Andy - it's called investigative journalism and to borrow from a term Steve recently used, sometimes you have to get "boots on the ground" to find those hard answers. And in this case, since they're trying to make sure no one knows what their true motives were, it becomes all that much more important to make them say "no comment" in person, and to interview other people who know them to try to understand their motives behind doing what they did in the Theilmann case.
This isn't a form of violence, it's an important form of investigative journalism and I applaud Andy for having the gumption and the gonads to put his money where his mouth is and hit the streets to get to the truth. This speaks highly of Andy's character and his desire for truth and justice.
The ongoing RU investigation has done just that- and it has been both devastating and entertaining.
Devastating to fraudsters and con-artists, and entertaining for the armchair quarterbacks too lazy to do their own research and who can't see the forest for the trees and the implications of these findings. The truth of Source A and what it means for the field of Ufology is important, not "entertaining." I get pretty sick and tired of seeing people belittling Ufology by constantly referring to it as "entertaining." You are clearly against the important cause that we're striving for here at RU - that is to bring validity to a field that for too long has been exploited as "entertainment." You, sir, are clearly part of the problem.
As much as I feel these Sauce A characters are a gaggle of disgusting creeps I still don't have a stomach for crushing them under a boot like so many roaches.
That's because you lack Andy's level of courage, and you lack the character of most members here at RU who understand that most of the time the truth about a con artists MOTIVE is far more important than the truth about their identity. The fact that you don't care what their motives were means that you don't care about putting an end to the sort of scams con-artists like these perpetuate.
Sometimes we take life too seriously. The Marshall speaks the truth in this matter: "I think this sounds like a wasted and even toxic trip. (Don't forget anger is one of the "five poisons".)" The first rule of coherent discourse is detachment. Difficult, but possible.
He would be correct if the trip were driven by anger, but it's not. It's driven by a strong desire to see the truth regarding motives revealed. However, despite all of your contradictory statements in this thread, you did have a lucid moment on the blog when you commented with the following:
"The first order of business in laying this hoax to rest, it seems to me, would be a sincere apology for planting it in the first place."Huh....very well said Kim. Why let your jealousy cloud your judgment - you do know that it's not Andy's current actions you despise, it's the fact that Andy can conduct a level of investigative journalism that you never could.
-Ry
