Wendy McElroy on PARC


9thdoctor

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I couldn't have written that email for any reason. I couldn't have thought of much of what the person said and couldn't manage to produce the style, and if I'd attempted a parody of seymourblogger, I hope I'd have at least somewhat sounded like seymourblogger!

Oh well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree about whether it sounded like her or not. The reference to Barbara borders on a give away. No need to feel insulted, I was only suggesting that you are capable of producing what I regarded as a competent parody.

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Oh well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree about whether it sounded like her or not. The reference to Barbara borders on a give away.

The hell it does. As if there's never been another person in the whole O'ist-aware world who has expressed that opinion -- and it isn't seymourblogger's expressed opinion. And where did seymourblogger refer to Barbara as "Babs"? Or use the term "psychobabble" -- negativity about which comprises much of the email? Seymourblogger's profession was prime psychobabble by the emailer's standards. Or the term "bafflegab"? And you ignore the previous points I made. Methinks you must have read only a phrase or several here and there in both seymourblogger's stuff and in the email if, to you, that email sounds like seymourblogger. The only way I could see it being by seymourblogger is if she were putting on a contrived persona in order to write a nasty note to Michael, but, to repeat, I don't think that she could have carried off the content. And if someone was trying to imitate her, I think the someone did a lousy job.

No need to feel insulted, I was only suggesting that you are capable of producing what I regarded as a competent parody.

Thanks for the confidence in my competence, but actually I do feel insulted at the thought that I could have produced THAT email. So we'll just have to agree to disagree on what constitutes an insult along with on what sounds like seymourblogger. :D

Ellen

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Oh well, we'll just have to agree to disagree about whether it sounded like her or not. The reference to Barbara borders on a give away.

The hell it does. As if there's never been another person in the whole O'ist-aware world who has expressed that opinion -- and it isn't seymourblogger's expressed opinion. And where did seymourblogger refer to Barbara as "Babs"?

Seymourblogger typically referred to Barbara as a “10th rater” (or some other number), Goddard calls her an “intellectual zero”. Now if the author is seymourblogger, of course she’s using a “contrived persona” and is avoiding the exact terms and phrases she used when she was allowed to post here. I think she’s a lonely, bitter old lady who’s trying to get some entertainment by picking on and goading people in Rand-land, and has been doing a lot of reading lately to find new controversies and insults, hence “Babs”, which I believe is originally Perigo’s epithet.

Anyway, there’s really no point arguing over this. Next time I set out to insult you I promise to do a better job...as the spirit of Oscar Wilde wags its finger in my direction, from out of the incorporeal realm...

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"Caryn Goddard" absorbs me as a possible anagram.

It's an unusual first name spelling, which also contains A -Y - N.

But likely nothing more to it.

(and it's given me a headache to try and solve.)

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"Caryn Goddard" absorbs me as a possible anagram.

I think it's something of the sort and suspect that the author is a guy who used to post every now and then on the Atlantis lists. Strong similarity of style, opinions, and preoccupations. I haven't time to try to find out what the poster I'm thinking of has been up to since I last heard tell of him. So unless something comes to light of itself, I'll relegate this one to the unsolved-cyberworld-mystery bin.

Ellen

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The thought occurred to me of doing a Google search on "Caryn Goddard" - 423 results.

Most are entries for someone named "Caryn Goddard-Thorpe," a musician and from the look of a couple of the entries no way connected with Objectivism.

But guess what? There is a "Caryn Goddard" listed as an RoR member:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Users/4455.shtml

Caryn Goddard

No picture available

Send me a RoR Mail

0 Atlas Points

Num Posts: 0

Num Galleries: 0

Description

The total number of RoR members is currently 4500. The count at the top of the complete members listing says 4372, but if you scroll to the end of the list, you'll find 4500 as the last number.

4455 being near the end, it might seem that "Caryn Goddard" joined recently. However, Troi Torain is listed as member 4459 -- and his activity on O'ist boards was a good while ago. [EDIT: The "Caryn Goddard" membership is recent. See post #58.]

The person whom I suspect of being the email author is also a member of RoR but hasn't posted since September 2008.

Google searching on his name is useless. It's a common name and is shared by a much-talked-about politician. Every word combination I tried along with the name -- including name plus "psychobabble" -- came up with some thousands of entries referencing said politician. So I gave up.

Ellen

Edited by Ellen Stuttle
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Troi Torain is listed as member 4459 -- and his activity on O'ist boards was a good while ago.

Ellen,

This is Star the Hater. He was a pro-Rand shock-jock in the inner-city black community who got in trouble over PC language. (Well... he did go too far, threatening to have a rival's young daughter raped after school or something like that. It was BS in the heat of the moment, but the PC Nazis went ape-doody over it at the time. Funny--even in the hip hop world there are PC control freaks.)

Torrain got in touch with me a couple of weeks ago and sent me a revised copy of Objective Hate. I haven't had time to read it yet, but I intend to. I read the first version and it was hilarious. There was an episode where he was sitting on a city porch with some friends and taunted a little old lady. Nasty stuff. She left with her tail between her legs. But then she returned with an UZi submachine gun and all hell broke loose. :smile:

I like the fact that his message to the black community was to get education, get productive and get going. All couched in colorful language. From the stuff I used to look at by him, he was merciless on young kids about their whining and victim mentality.

Torrains's a cool dude. I like him, but then again, I have always liked the quirky.

I don't see him cozying up to Herman Cain anytime soon, but who knows?

I'll be writing about him some more a little later.

Michael

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Ellen,

This is Star the Hater. He was a pro-Rand shock-jock in the inner-city black community who got in trouble over PC language. (Well... he did go too far, threatening to have a rival's young daughter raped after school or something like that. It was BS in the heat of the moment, but the PC Nazis went ape-doody over it at the time. Funny--even in the hip hop world there are PC control freaks.)

Torrain got in touch with me a couple of weeks ago and sent me a revised copy of Objective Hate.

Yeah, I knew Torain was "Star the Hater," which is why I took that profile's coming after Goddard's to indicate that Caryn Goddard's profile wasn't recent.

On further mulling, the addition wasn't making sense to me. Torain's appearance on O'ist boards was back in 2006, and I thought surely there had to have been lots more new members on RoR meanwhile. Plus the RoR Profile #4459 for Torain lists no posts, and I'd thought that Torain did post on RoR.

So I searched further.

There's an eariler RoR membership #2262 for "Star the Hater":

http://rebirthofreason.com/Users/2262.shtml

Star The Hater

thehater1964@yahoo.com

127 Atlas Points

Show Extended Profile

Number of Posts: 24

View all posts by this user: here

Num Galleries: 0

I also searched "Troi Torain bio" on Google.

Evidently Torain/Star has made a comeback:

See this story from June 29, 2011, about his relaunching his "Start Snitchin' Campaign."

Net result regarding "Caryn Goddard" - the RoR membership is recent.

Ellen

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  • 7 months later...

Fairly interesting thread, I love a good mystery. Oddly enough, I don't think I've ever read a mystery novel, well, aside from Atlas Shrugged which was kind of a mystery/thriller.

"Caryn Goddard" absorbs me as a possible anagram.


I think it's something of the sort and suspect that the author is a guy who used to post every now and then on the Atlantis lists. Strong similarity of style, opinions, and preoccupations. I haven't time to try to find out what the poster I'm thinking of has been up to since I last heard tell of him. So unless something comes to light of itself, I'll relegate this one to the unsolved-cyberworld-mystery bin.

Ellen

Ellen,

If you don't already know this and if you care to reopen this case-file, "Caryn Goddard" has posted fairly recently at RoR.

Here's the link:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1903.shtml#6

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Ellen,

If you don't already know this and if you care to reopen this case-file, "Caryn Goddard" has posted fairly recently at RoR.

Here's the link:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1903.shtml#6

.

I didn't know it. I don't think I've looked at RoR since I searched there to see if "Caryn Goddard" was listed as a member.

The post's contents sure are in keeping with the opinions of the ATL poster.

I found the thread interesting, in what others were saying. "Caryn Goddard" so far has posted only that one post, on December 17, and hasn't replied to Steve Wolfer's remarks.

Ellen

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On the RoR thread linked in #59 and #60, Steve Wolfer linked to a long comment section on Amazon following a few-sentence "review" by James Valliant of a book by Szasz.

I read through that whole exchange between "M. Hardesty" and Valliant wondering if Hardesty would provide any evidence besides her say-so concerning Hospers's (and Reisman's and Hessen's) supposed claims that Rand was a hard determinist through much of the 50s and called advocates of free will "insane." First I ever heard of these supposed reports. Has anyone else heard of them?

Anyway, at nearly the end of the thread is a copy of a response by "Caryn Goddard" to Valliant on Facebook - here.

Ellen

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On the RoR thread linked in #59 and #60, Steve Wolfer linked to a long comment section on Amazon following a few-sentence "review" by James Valliant of a book by Szasz.

I read through that whole exchange between "M. Hardesty" and Valliant wondering if Hardesty would provide any evidence besides her say-so concerning Hospers's (and Reisman's and Hessen's) supposed claims that Rand was a hard determinist through much of the 50s and called advocates of free will "insane." First I ever heard of these supposed reports. Has anyone else heard of them?

Anyway, at nearly the end of the thread is a copy of a response by "Caryn Goddard" to Valliant on Facebook - here.

Ellen

You have to be some kind of a fool to get into an argument with Michael Hardesty.

That doesn't sound at all like Ayn Rand, btw.

--Brant

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Amazing.

As of this post, the Thomas Szasz book, Faith in Freedom: Libertarian Principles and Psychiatric Practices, has only three customer reviews on Amazon. But the Valliant 2-line review has 78 comments.

This reminds me of old times during the PARC kerfuffle.

I believe most--if not all--of the comments are between Hardesty and Valliant, but I didn't look too carefully find out. I already know what that kind of discussion is like.

I tried to find some stuff on Google about Hardesty and came up with the following gem from Michael Prescott. It concerns the very same thread on Valliant's review of the Szasz book.

This comment is on the Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature blog. If anyone is interested in clearing up some doubts about Hardesty, go to Michael's comment and scroll down. He discovered that Michael Hardesty possibly has a girl-friend, or even more possibly now his wife, named Marcy Fleming. She sometimes possibly posts around the Interwebs as "M. Hardesty." Her style is very similar to his, although there are differences--and these confuse people who think Michael Hardesty and M. Hardesty are one in the same.

Among other things, he [Hardesty] believes the Holocaust was a myth invented to justify the existence of the modern state of Israel. A debate between him and Valliant would be approximately as edifying as a scrap between two rabid raccoons.
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Ah... what the hell. Let's do it right. Here is something passing itself off as an explanation by one Anonymous over there.

I want to add another quote in this post, but I'm going to have to figure out how to do it with the new forum software update. So I will make one more post after this one as a work-around.

Marcy Fleming is indeed Michael Hardesty's longtime girlfriend.

They have not married yet but probably will in the future.

Marcy Hardesty was actually married to a Jack Hardesty and she kept his name after he died & she never remarried. Her original name was Malloy.

Oddly enough Mike Hardesty's Mom's maiden name is Malloy too but no relation there either.

Michael

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Daniel Barnes is having none of it:

Anon is as certainly Michael Hardesty as certainly as "Marcy" doesn't exist. While Hardesty has always had many obsessions, his most distinctive one seems to be with the return key.

Always good to have the old serial fantasist back to kick around.


I don't know if this stuff is of any intellectual value to anyone, but it's kinda fun.

:smile:

Michael

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OK, so it's Michael Hardesty.

No Marcy—even though at least one of the ridiculously long comments says "Marcy Hardesty" across the bottom.

I'm glad someone's figured that out.

Hardesty and Valliant are indeed as edifying as two rabid raccoons.

I did note that at one point Valliant took a dig at my article on Ayn Rand Answers, ascribing its entire content to my lack of moral integrity—or something. This is an article I showed to Jennifer Burns in draft, and got some very helpful advice on. But now Dr. Burns apparently thinks that everyone (well, everyone among the "neos") is just being too rough on Mr. Valliant.

Makes as much sense as the rest of the Hardesty/Valliant slugfest.

Robert Campbell

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Hardesty - whoever he/she is - is her own worst enemy. I had no idea who this person was, until a lot of his "comments" (ranging from interesting to nasty to the absurd to hilarious, and then back again) started showing up on Amazon, as reader reviews, on practically every book by or about Rand and/or the Brandens).

Two sets of his/her comments were particularly interesting. he (I'll leave it as "he") comments on a listing for the audio versions of Branden's Basic Principles and then again on the printed transcript version, The Vision of Ayn Rand. At first, I thought that I would reply to some of his more erratic or hostile comments, then I decided not to bother. He continually shoots himself in the foot. For example, after excoriating the Brandens' prefaces and epilogues, he announces that he is going to buy extra copies so he can give them to friends, after he has ripped-out the above mentioned Branden's contributions! Apparently, this is so his friends will not be exposed to the evil Brandens comments! I love it! Can you imagine the responses he will get from the recipients of his mutilated books? Most likely, they will then go out of their way to procure whole copies to see what Hardesty tore out.

In his responses to Valliant, who had briefly commented on Szasz's obscure and disappointing (because Szasz buys, wholesale, all of Murray Rothbard's increasingly vitriolic attacks on Rand after he left their Inner Circle) book, Faith in Freedom, Hardesty starts out adulatory, because he had previously described him as his hero for writing PARC. But as the exchange of comments go on, Hardesty becomes more and more agitated and angry at Valliant's responses (primarily, because his hero is not agreeing with him). Finally, he starts attacking his hero and announces that he has now withdrawn all those complimentary things he has said. Valliant's responses are, for the most part, more like the polite responses one might give to a man who obviously has some rather serious emotional problems.

If you are looking for some comic relief, look up his Amazon comments.

Reminds me of the comment attributed to Napoleon, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself."

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Jerry,

About the exchange between James Valient and Michael Hardesty, I think Valient was correct about Ayn Rand and determinism (either that or the two men differed in what they meant by the word). But Valient was completely wrong about Ayn Rand and World War II, not to mention WWI, Korea, Vietnam. Either he's stupid or he lied when he said he'd read ARI Watch about this. (Also he’s wrong when he says ARI faithfully carries on AR’s ideas.)

In the determinism debate Valient said that multiple copies of one of Rand’s books constituted multiple statements of what's in it as if the more copies the more emphatic the statement, which is silly.

Hardesty may not come out looking like the most sober individual but the foolishness is not all in his corner.

I do, though, have a big problem with Hardesty (and Marcy Fleming): they maintain that Marilyn Monroe was a communist -- hardcore communist -- based on her marrying Arthur Miller, an anonymous phone call to the FBI about Miller, and a communist’s self-serving autobiography. Hardesty and Fleming denounced Monroe in the strongest terms in a news article’s comments, mercifully deleted by the webmaster.

Hardesty and Fleming have been promoting ARI Watch. The business about Monroe makes me hope they’ll stop.

Here’s my part of a private exchange with Hardesty & Fleming regarding Monroe, somewhat reorganized:

The FBI file never says Monroe was a communist or sympathetic to Communism or Communist China.

You’d think those FBI clowns would have something better to do than investigate Monroe because of an anonymous phone call.

Where does the Hearst article say Monroe was a communist?

If I anonymously phone the New York Daily News and tell them Mike Hardesty is a communist and Marcy has drifted into the communist orbit, is that evidence for anything?

How on earth do you know that Monroe married Miller because he was a communist?

The marriage went on the rocks almost immediately. If marrying Miller makes Monroe a communist, does Monroe divorcing him make her an anti-communist?

Monroe in fact read Thomas Paine at one point in her life. Does that make her a communist? Does it make Thomas Paine a communist? Does it make Thomas Edison, who wrote an introduction to Thomas Paine’s collected works, a communist?

The FBI was corrupt even back then. If, contrary to fact, the FBI had said Monroe was a communist, why believe them?

Why believe what Field, a communist sympathizer, wrote? How can you have your cake (the veracity of Field) and eat it (his communist villainy) too?

Even if Field reports correctly, Monroe never presented herself as an "intellectual" -- which is not to say she wasn’t a genius. She never made these views public.

Monroe would have relied on what she heard about China, what the people around her were saying, and all she heard was let many flowers bloom and a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, not about re-education camps, etc.

Suppose in a vague sort of way Monroe once held favorable thoughts about communism. In practice: Did she proselytize for communism? Did she lend her presence to communist meetings? Write articles for communist publications? Donate money to communist causes? Why smear her as a communist if she didn’t act like one?

Miller may or may not have been a communist agent (an anonymous phone call after all) but his communist sympathies were well known. Rand knew that Monroe was once married to the creep. Why didn’t she think the marriage made Monroe a communist sympathizer?

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Mark,

I agree with you on both the determinism issue (where Valliant basically had it right) and entry into World War II, etc. (where Valliant was simply parroting the present ARI line and pretending that it was Rand's view).

I won't be getting into any online exchanges with anyone who thinks Marilyn Monroe was a Communist...

Robert Campbell

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Please fill me in: what does Valliant say about Rand and entry into the various wars? Rand opposed entry into WW2 and Vietnam; I don't know if she had anything to say about Korea.

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Well, see Valliant right below a post from Hardesty that was loaded with vintage anti-war quotations from Rand.

Go to

http://www.amazon.com/review/R3HUGX3UZBX9T4/ref=cm_cr_rev_detmd_pl?ie=UTF8&asin=0765802449&cdForum=Fx6GWBZ9FXUTGD&cdMsgID=Mx3AXLFLRU0QQPX&cdMsgNo=68&cdPage=7&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx1M4TUFA3IMCOO&store=books#Mx3AXLFLRU0QQPX

and scroll down through a lot of stuff about free will to the last 6 paragraphs.

I count it a pretty feeble response.

Robert Campbell

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