The Reason Why Jamal's Defenders Do Not "Debate" The Issue

(Pic of the late Hunter S. Thompson living out my New Years Day fantasy)

I hope everyone has had a good Mumia/MOVE free holiday.

As for myself, I had some good times with family, read some books, and tried to otherwise ignore the cold by piling plenty of logs onto the fire. There was more I would have liked to do, but you take what you can get and be happy with it. This holiday season is yet another reminder that I am no longer under the thumb of MOVE and that is reason enough to celebrate.

For a bit of fun I went to Tribe.net where a creature named "Steve Argue" resides. There is a steady debate about Mumia’s case going on there, and since such threads of discussion are so rare these days I thought it only proper that I join in the fray.

What I find most amusing about this little cyber-adventure of mine is the irony of it. There was a time in the not to distant past where I would have been the one typing viciously away, burning the midnight oil, all in a desperate bid to convert the infidels over to the gospel of Mumia. Now, I am on the other side of things, although not desperate and much more confident. The truth has a way of affecting you in that kind. And while I guess the "fry-Mumia" as they are disdainfully referred to by Argue and company, cannot embrace me because of my anti-death penalty stance, I am more than happy to refute the falsehoods espoused on behalf of Jamal over the years.

As it is, the flickering hope of a "free Mumia" dissipates with every court decision, but that does not halt the true believers and the cynical ideologues who exploit them from retreating totally from the field of rhetorical battle. After all, there still is some money to be made of Jamal and his carefully cultivated image, why let a little thing like the truth get in the way of a bit of good old fashioned capitalism?

I am assuming that some would argue that internet squabbles produce much more light than heat as the saying goes and that anyone not already convinced of Jamal’s guilt is too far disconnected from reality to be reached. Perhaps that is the case. It is truly difficult to be sure what kind of effect, if any, this kind of "debate" has on people’s ideas.

I know for me, one of the things that helped to break me down about the Mumia case was having to defend him. As the arguments progressed I was compelled by circumstance to look deeper into the case. Something, that if you are a Jamal supporter, and you want to stick to your guns, you might want to avoid doing.

As it says on Freud’s tombstone "the voice of reason is small, but persistent". I have found this to be generally true, and have seen on a number of occasions those who hold most fervently to fantastical and irrational ideas abandon them in what seems like a blink of an eye.

So I tread onward with this little thread at tribe.net and am running into all of the old tricks of the "Free Mumia" charade. The ad-hominem attacks, general ignorance about the case, race baiting, long and unbearable non-sequitors, and an overall allergy to the truth about the case on the part of the pro-Jamal posters.

What I have found is hardly surprising. It is the same pile of excrement just dressed up in new piles with some Glade sprayed over it to hide the stench.

No facts, means you have nothing to debate, and when you have nothing to debate you start making things up.

I encourage everyone to take a moment and just read some of the posts written by Steve Argue or some of his ilk. But I caution you not to do so after a meal or else you may end up adorning your keyboard with the contents of your stomach. That is how bad it gets.