I hadn’t really read AOA until the post by Mr. Blaxill, but the posts and comments of the last few days there are starting to freak me out too. I don’t think that I am going to surf that site anymore. What civilized discourse was Mark Blaxill talking about?

“I would never condone any sort of abusive behaviour described by Kevin. That is not my intent at all.”

I am sorry, Schwartz, if I conveyed that somehow, because I did not think that was your intent.

I responded on your site to a post and situation which I found very troubling and even worse, resonates with some legal discussion going on where I live right now. I will certainly refrain from posting there again. Feel free to remove it if you wish.

My post here is a matter of opinion (as was my post on your site) not a debate on facts as this thread is pretty much an opinion piece.

I do not condone name calling as I find it quite distasteful (especially the occasions when I caught myself doing it out of anger), and that is what a good deal of this discussion is about. I will not soften my stance on that, even if some may find it irritating.

I hold no association, although I do not typically agree with the scientific conclusions drawn on this site. That doesn’t mean I disagree with everything Kevin publishes as I find I agree with a good number of his opinions even if I sometimes dislike his style of writing.

I am not Autistic. A good friend and colleague of mine has an Austic son and my daughter has an Autistic boy in her classroom. I am learning much more about Autism all the time and barring the (hopefully less frequent) writing gaffs (for which I apologized for when pointed out), I am trying to avoid ignorant terms or ideas. My other positions and opinions on the scientific debate are clearly stated elsewhere where it is relevant.

orig cali biomed xprt,
I would never condone any sort of abusive behaviour described by Kevin. That is not my intent at all. Unfortunately, the only thing I can personally verify is the way people are communicating. What I can safely conclude based on facts that I can personally verify, is that the methods of communication vary widely in both camps, and that both camps have ample examples of abusive communication. I have no reason to doubt what is written here, but I have also seen accusations hurled in the opposite direction.

Kevin,

At first I questionned the bitmap of JB’s site because I had been reading it and did not see that post. However, I did a little investigating, and it certainly seems that he has a propensity to delete posts (several were deleted from that time period that I did see) so I’ve accepted your word on it. To be honest, I am truly baffled by him.

I truly expected Mark to have more class than to end up blogging on the Island Of Misfit Boys but I guess there could be no other outcome for a Princeton degree followed by a Google PhD.

That was really the most telling example of the hostility of the Age of Autism crowd.

1. Olmsted publishing any of this when he is supposed to be a journalist. 2. Olmsted apparently never interviewing anyone in his own posts. 3. Allowing Katie Wright and others to attribute commments to her that she never said, 4. the silence of the SafeMinds people who attended the various meetings and must be familiar with Dr. Chung, 5. the bizarre conspiracy theories that permeate the posts, 6. the sexism of calling Dr. Chung “Joyce” but referring to men by Mr. or Dr., 7. the posting of private emails! 8. I personally find the tone of the comments and posts on that site a bit scary and can’t believe someone like Blaxill would have the temerity to think he can tell other people how to behave. I think the people on that site are panicked and are taking it out on everyone else. I posted once on that site. Never again. They really freak me out.

Supposedly, Kelli Ann Davis was present and heard the statement directly. Why would she falsify what was said? This is not a matter of opinion, or if you agree or disagree with what Mr. Ne’eman said, her statements clearly misrepresent what the man said.

Then to show up here and pontificate about civility and respect??? Falsehoods should be met with disdain whenever they are encountered.

Ah Marky Mark, for shame….

So, with respect to the question of anonymity, we might ask: What would Clausewitz do?

It seems that in at least one instance, Clausewitz sought to influence public opinion without letting his name get in the way:

“Early in August 1831 Clausewitz wrote to his wife that a letter by him—refuting claims that Prussia, in violation of her announced policy of non-intervention, was aiding Russian forces against the Polish insurgents—had appeared in several newspapers…”

“Early in the new year [1831], after he had familiarized himself with the information and views of the foreign ministry, Clausewitz wrote two papers on the international situation. The first, “The Condition of Europe since the Polish Partitions,” was apparently intended for private circulation; the other, “Reduction of the Many Political Questions Occupying Germany to the Basic Question of Our Existence,” Clausewitz hoped to publish. He anonymously submitted his manuscript to the most prestigious newspaper in Germany, the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, which, however, rejected it. A second attempt by Eichhorn to place the piece in the Augsburger Allgemeine also failed. The specific grounds for the rejection are not known, but, as Hans Rothfels suggests, at a time when most educated Germans tended to interpret international affairs as a conflict between the principles of autocracy and liberalism, an analysis based wholly on the concept of raison d’etat would hardly be welcomed.”

“That Clausewitz wished to influence German liberal opinion is evident both from his sending the manuscript to the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, which enjoyed a large readership among the educated middle classes in all German states, and from a comment in his diary: “I sought to make it clear to the good people (Leutchen) that something besides cosmopolitanism should determine our position on the Belgian, Polish and other questions…”

(Peter Paret, An Anonymous Letter by Clausewitz on the Polish Insurrection of 1830-1831. The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Jun., 1970), pp. 184-190; included in Peter Paret, Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power. Princeton University Press, 1992.)