Barney Sticks to His Story

[Mark]

The Objective Standard online published another extension of their article defending Carl Barney’s past involvement in Scientology – an open letter from Carl Barney himself, reviewed here:

Barney Sticks to His Story

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theobjectivestandard·com/2019/07/regarding-carl-barney-and-scientology

Mark

 

 

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mark,

Without any intention of diminishing your efforts, Mr. Biddle and Mr. Barney need to look at the reality of communications when they discuss the things you write about them. They don't have a clue about how to fight someone your size. For example, they think refusing to say your name is the way to contain information about you while they go about trying to decimate you with generalities. All that does is pique the interest of readers.

As to your size (I'm speaking of public size), you are small. You are a single person running a single website and you interact with a few other sites. In other words, your cultural footprint is tiny. Your message, which you disclose to the world on your own website, is spread to the great out there mostly through free Google searches and discussions on a few relatively low traffic websites.

Yet, Mr. Barney complained in his letter that he was being injured by what you write. That you are tanking his reputation with many people, that you caused others to ask him for money, that you prompted a falling out with his mother-in-law, and so on.

(Apropos, does anyone ever need an excuse to fight with their mother-in-law?  )

I wonder if he ever noticed what an avalanche of people--ones with far more reach than you--write and say about President Trump.  

That negative coverage didn't stop Trump from achieving the highest in his life. A tiny fraction of a fraction of that amount of negative coverage shouldn't stop Mr. Barney, either, if he's a man.

Given his resources and spheres of influence, the way he framed the damage he says you inflicted on him, he just elevated you to David in a David and Goliath story. I'm speaking metaphorically, of course.

And guess what? People in general (including the press) loves them some David and Goliath stories. That story based on the clash of those two archetypes has been a bestseller in the human species since recorded history. Everybody is fascinated by an underdog who defeats a humongous opponent--the smaller the underdog, the better.

I didn't feel the public pull of that ancient story in this affair until the third addition by Mr. Biddle with the letter from Mr. Barney.

Now the frame fell in place with all the elements for this thing to spread to a much larger audience if you so wish. A discernible underdog story form has congealed.

It goes like this. You have stones of fact in your sling. They have great stamping of foot and bellows of "How dare you?" as their main armor and weaponry. Let the fight begin.

All anyone needs to do is tell that story in their own words and off it goes a'spreading. And they will tell that tale, at least many people in and around O-Land will, even those at a distance, whether encouraged to or not. It's just human nature.

Since a good story makes people want to know more, the people who like it will read up on the affair. I wonder if there is a good place where they can? ARI Watch, maybe?  

As the story so spreads, the public awareness of Mr. Barney's history with Scientology and his gaming-the-system-like processes for getting money will grow and grow... The chip on his shoulder throws more even more wood on that fire.

I don't know what you want to do with this as it spreads, but spread it will. And it will whether you want it to or not. That also means Mr. Biddle and Mr. Barney can't stop it anymore.

Not bad for a small dude with a sling.

 

Michael

[Jon Letendre]

Well, part three is quite a read. I thought for sure Michael was throwing in at least the trouble with Barney’s mother-in-law for extra comic effect, but no, it’s all there. Barney really is saying it is Mark’s fault that his girl’s crazy mom demanded she quit him immediately upon her reading Mark’s work on Barney’s past with the church.

And he really is saying that it is somehow Mark’s fault that people are trying to extort millions from him since learning from Mark that he has many millions. By this logic I had better stop saying Bill Gates is a billionaire because someone might extort millions from him somehow, and that will make it my fault, if they learned he was wealthy from me.

Buffoon.

[Jon Letendre]

I repeat, in about 1989-90 I was hearing rumors from ARI people, I was President of my campus’ ARI-supported Objectivist Club, saying Peikoff was routinely wearing a bulletproof vest because he was getting death threats.

[Mark]

Jon,

Your Bill Gates analogy is a good concrete way to show how ridiculous  Barney is being.  I shall steal it.

The rumor you heard about the bulletproof vest may have been based on what Yaron Brook was doing at the time.  Search Who’s Who on ARI Watch for “bulletproof” and you’ll find a firsthand account, not a rumor, by the late Steve Reed (OL’s Greybeard).

MSK,

Yes, Barney “dove into the tar pit” noticing his critics in public.  As you say, in his circle I am a nobody.

The explanation, I believe, is the extraordinary self-righteous self-deception of these Obleftivists.  (Perigo isn’t my cup of tea but he hit a home run with that neologism.)  Barney really believes he is innocent.  To quote ARI Watch:

Iago, rubbing his hands with glee at his own iniquity, is strictly a work of Shakespeare’s imagination.  In real life evil is always self-righteous.  You cannot tell the heroes from the villains by the emotional noises they make.

Barney’s letter contains lots of legalese – perpetrated, malicious, defamation, harmed, damage, reputation – and it’s easily construed as the precursor to a lawsuit, designed to shut up critics even if he doesn’t go through with it.  I wrote the New York Times headline parody to make fun of the idea.  David and Goliath describes the situation pretty well.

Of course if he did sue I would (1) make sure the New York Times knows about it, (2) counter-sue for calling me a liar and a merchant of hate good grief, (3) create a website detailing every step of the battle.  But all this is a daydream.  He’s no fool, anyway not fool enough to raise on a busted flush.

Does anyone believe Craig Biddle’s story that Barney wrote him this letter and he convinced Barney to let him publish it?

Mark

 

[Jon Letendre]

“ I shall steal it.”

Good!

”Does anyone believe?”

I believe Biddle when he says that he and The Objective Standard have benefitted greatly from “Carl’s generousity.”

That was ackowledged  explicitly in previous versions of part I or II, but it is gone now or I can’t find it.

Its so funny when Barney says how grateful he is that there are still people like Biddle willing to stand up and [take his money and write anything.]

[Mark]

A couple of new comments appeared beneath the TOS article,  reviewed at

Barney as Roark ?