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From: janw@inmet.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
Message-ID: <7800809@inmet.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-Nov-85 11:55:00 EST
Article-I.D.: inmet.7800809
Posted: Fri Nov 29 11:55:00 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Dec-85 20:48:30 EST
References: <7559@ucla-cs.UUCP>
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Nf-ID: #R:ucla-cs:-755900:inmet:7800809:000:1569
Nf-From: inmet!janw    Nov 29 11:55:00 1985


>[Jim Balter and Nat Howard arguing about "intellectual honesty"]
Jim : Your argument with Nat, is, of course, none of my business(:-)),
but one part arrested my attention. It was your very impressive list
of sources which you read on Nicaragua. A veritable MOUNTAIN of
material. This puts some of your past *misstatements of fact*
in a quite *new* perspective. As:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>The fact is that it is the U.S. ... that rejects the Contadora process.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Now that is a BASIC non-fact, like Nicaragua bordering China.
I responded to it mildly before, because I thought you were
ignorant of the situation. Of course you shouldn't have said
emphatically =The fact is= ; but all you owed us was an apology
and a retraction. Now that I know HOW MUCH you know, -
*what am I to think* ? 

Now someone with your *prosecutorial* cast of mind would
have launched an investigation: how much did J. B. know,
and when did he know it ?

I'd rather jump to the kindest (and really  the  most  probable)
explanation:
There must be a MOUNTAIN of a BIAS to screen from you that  moun-
tain of material. To let you notice only the facts you like. So,
in addition to apology and retraction which you  owe  others,  it
seems  you  owe yourself a revision of your working methods. And,
until it's complete, to disqualify yourself  from  judgements  on
"intellectual honesty". (I always skip them, anyway, in your oth-
erwise interesting notes).

		Jan Wasilewsky