But mimicry is no substitute for the real thing and style cannot of itself substitute for substance (or the lack of it).

[edited by moderator]

But in any case, the issue wasn’t with my familiarity with the experience with “combat” in the first place; the issue was and is with JR’s attempting to bethump other commenters on the basis of his lack of experience of “combat terrors in the military”. I do not either a) proffer and insist-that my material must be accepted on the basis of ‘experience’ I only claim but cannot demonstrate (indeed, some might say that JR so often demonstrates exactly the  opposite in regard to his claimed ‘experience’) nor do I b) declare other commenters wrong or uninformed on the basis of such claimed ‘experience’. And in those ways I differ greatly from JR’s usual modus operandi.

And then there’s the “free speech” argument, isn’t there? And as it applies to JR he can make whatever claims and assertions and tell such stories as he wishes and even – since it seems to be enjoyable for him – “lecture”. But he cannot expect that his demanding that we take his stories and claims and assertions at face-value as true or probably-true is part of his constitutional rights.

And readers may realize that this entire modus operandi is actually deployed rather consistently by JR in regard to matters-Abusenik.

If “Adolph was created in catholic schools in catholic Austria” then wasn’t JR and weren’t so many Abuseniks also similarly “created”? Who is to say that Hitler decided he didn’t like any of the Catholic formation and turned elsewhere for his existential grounding and amusements? Just like some Abuseniks who have reported doing precisely the same thing.

Also, we note the Argument from Similar Words: since “catholic” [sic] appears as a descriptor in Adolf’s life-history (he was baptized) and in his schooling and in the country of his birth and then in Bavaria, then the Catholic Church created him.

And the Protestants (at least nominally) who joined the Party and went on to rank and status in the Reich? And the nominal Christians and even Jews who joined the Bolsheviks and then went on to become ranking Soviets – can it seriously be claimed that Catholic Christianity or Protestant Christianity or Judaism “created” them and thus – in another juvenile linkage – “created” Communism as well as Nazism? Is that the gist of today’s “lecture” here?

And what about the fact that when Hitler tried to pull off his Putsch in Munich (in “’catholic’ Bavaria”, I suppose it has to be pointed out) the government fired on his group and arrested him? And what of the Catholic (and Protestant) Christian officials who in the 1920s took steps to stop him? Not a few of whom were then murdered during the Night of the Long Knives.

And this 937AM comment then concludes – as so often – with JR reasserting his “lecture”-level grasp of “reality”.

And the concluding zingy about “death and disneyland” [sic] that nicely captures the nature of the misch at the core of JR’s various cartoonish conceptions.

Then at 955AM JR wants me to shut-up (almost too nice a rhetorical bit about “a backwater Bob Hope” – the alliteration, doncha see?) because I am not “the M.C. here”. I never said that I thought I was (nor ever demanded that readers participate in any such delusion simply on my say-so). And I’ll continue to exercise my “free speech” rights, thank you.

But I would say that it is the knowledge that “the readership can form their own opinions” here that is irritating JR and other Abuseniks: the whole idea of the Stampede is that readers and hearers not form their own opinions but rather be manipulated toward the Abusenik opinions. And – as I have stated before in comments – my deployment of the ‘readers may’ usage is not so much prompted by a need to remind the readers as it is an effort to remind the Abusenik commenters as they roll along with their assorted attempted manipulations.

And perhaps the Abuseniks are thus irritated by the fact that readers may actually be forming their own opinions – which is not a process that the Playbook seeks to foster.

Shepherds (JR here demonstrates his ignorance of shepherding as well as so many other things) do not use the subjunctive when dealing with sheep; they are directive and imperative and demanding towards their sheep. Which is precisely the style we get from the Abuseniks, by the most amazing coincidence.

Thus JR will have to consider not me but himself as qualifying (or not) as a “good shepard” [sic].

Then at 957AM – in a hasty one-liner from either the 3×5 shoebox or a cut-and-paste from somewhere else – JR tries to drag Freudian categories into a blunderbuss blast that would require a very serious amount of explanatory analysis: “satan” and “the evil adolph” [sic] are both i) “two monsters from the Id” and ii) created by “your church” and then iii) that “your church” has made a lot of money by “creating both” of them.

Readers may consider the cartoon or lecture quality of this bit as they will.

Alas, the mimicry doesn’t yet extend to actual substance: we get a bit about “something/one from a WW2 documentary” being similar to “describing the god of the old testament” – but we don’t actually get to see just how ‘LDB’ has come to that observation and it remains – as so very often with him – as merely a one-liner tossed-off and tossed-up on the screen.

Oddly, though, ‘LDB’ either didn’t notice or didn’t want to say explicitly that he draws here a comparison or perhaps even an equivalence between Hitler and “the god of the old testament” (or at least his take on the God of the Old Testament, or at least somebody’s take on the God of the Old Testament).

What are we left with then? Readers with the time and inclination can make of it what they wish.

I can lecture anybody on anything I feel like. It's called free speech.

[edited by moderator]

And Adolph was created in catholic schools in catholic Austria. Supported at first in his career in catholic Bavaria. Der fuhrer was more of a catholic creation than you would like to pretend he was.  But reality is something you'd like to pretend isn't there while you wait for death and disneyland.

[edited by moderator]

As for the comment of the 1st at 149PM: Although the only relationship between the “lucifer” and “Adolph” bits and what I wrote is the fact that Adolf is in the sentence, it remains to be seen how “your church created both lucifer’s and Adolph’s careers”.  Again we see the apparently permanent confusion between a ‘comeback’ and a substantive response. And yet also: the mere ‘comeback’ also contributes to the Playbook diversion from the actual issue at hand.

But while each individual person may indeed have “many sides”, that fact doesn’t in any way work out to having a) multiple writing styles that are b) so comprehensively divergent across several axes of analysis as to suggest several individuals (or minds) in one body. Unless perhaps in a rather florid case of what used to be called MPD (multiple personality disorder) – which I doubt is the case here.

I don’t recall reading where ‘Delphin’ was never in the military, but whatever that case may be it remains an uncongenial fact that serving one draftee hitch (‘counting the days’ to getting out, as I recall it being described) in the Canal Zone at a desk job doesn’t really create a substantial basis for lecturing anybody on the terrors and tribulations of combat service in the military.