Logical Fallacies, Misinterpretations, and Lies. Part 1 of 4

After discovering a comment left on one of the articles on this very blog I felt that it didn't deserve a comment back, rather an article of its own. The comment itself shows the author didn't read the article but just assumed what it was about but they did link to this website and I read the Who Runs Anonymous? Part 1 of 4 entry for May 20th.

As an avid skeptic I enjoy reading the claims of those made by cults and peddlers of pseudo-science so I am very familiar with logical fallacies and I think it's important for the public to see the ones Scientology likes to use to "prove" (ho ho ho) their case about Anonymous.

http://anonymoushategroup.blogspot.com/2008/05/who-runs-anonymous-part-1-of-4.html

Right off the bat we can see that the first picture of Tory was taken from the Religious Freedom Watch slander site which is dedicated to slandering those who are critical of, or speak out against, Scientology. Notice how they never talk about people like Brian Sapiant who actually do have a campaign to end all religion; it's all Scientology critics. Clearly this site is not objective and is dedicated to the king all of all logical fallacies; The ad hominem attack.

Now the ad hominem attack is built into Scientology tech as a tool for Scientologists to confront and shatter suppression so it is important that we try to see this wherever we can. Rather than addressing the topic; they go straight into attacking or defaming the person making the point as a way to fool people into thinking they have a logical retort when in fact they have nothing to bring to the table. Scientology is not based on scientific concepts; so its only method of having a place in any debate, and keeping it from looking like quackery, is the use of logical fallacies. So we can see we have 2 websites built on a foundation of a logical fallacy; attack the messengers rather than the message.

Of all the major opinion leaders and influencers in Anonymous' "Project Chanology", Professional Anti-Scientologist Tory Magoo is the most proficient in the fine art of demagoguery. We will begin this analysis with a passage from "Prophets of the Apocalypse: White Supremacy and the Theology of Christian Identity".
"Clearly, the tendency to blame those at the receiving end of bias (see image below) for its effects is particularly pronounced among members of extreme hate groups. The effect is to promote in-group favoritism (i.e., a belief in the innate superiority of the group to which one belongs), combined with out-group stigmatisation (i.e., a belief in the innate inferiority of the designated out-groups).

Tautology is an argument that utilizes circular reasoning. Where the premise IS the conclusion. In the above, the "proof" that Tory is the leader of anonymous is that she talks to anonymous. Denying her involvement in anonymous thus proves she is leading them. Someone who speaks to a group they are not a part of and encouraging them is the reason why she denies it; she leads them. No matter how you word it; it's not possible to wrap your head around such a comment without first being a true believer.

Funny how they point to Rick Ross, a man they have been vehemently AGAINST. They call this man a kidnapper, mentally unstable, and a fraud. Funny how someone who is so evil and wrong all the time could be right when it serves their propaganda purposes.

As I was proofreading this I decided to add a logical fallacy I almost missed; confusing association with causation. They claim that, as she is speaking out and associates with members of anonymous, she is the cause of anonymous protests without evidence. Please, if you have documents, credible testimonies, sworn affidavits please let's hear them! Until then we cannot even begin to speculate, let alone make claims, that this is true. This is nothing more than a conspiracy theory. Unlike most conspiracy theories, however, these do not even include even questionable evidence. There's just none.

There's an old saying that is important for any human to understand and remember in order to be safe from frauds and charlatans; Extraordinary claims REQUIRE extraordinary evidence. The allegation that Tory Christman is the leader of a leaderless group is an extraordinary claim that circular logic and ad hominem attacks cannot prove. The post goes on....

It would appear that such psychological dynamics are a necessary ingredient for the development of CULTIC organizations, driven as they are by an exclusive sense of mission that separates their followers from all other groups in society.

Cultic leaders have always been forthcoming when it comes to what they say their role is in such Cultic organizations. They do not deny their adherents leadership and responsibility; Tory does. You also cannot back a theory with another theory. Also; your church has said time and time again we should never listen to Rick Ross because he's a kidnapper, mentally unstable, and a fraud. So is he, or where you lying about this man all along? What's it going to be Scientology? You cannot have the ad hominem cake and eat it too.

She most definitely has a cult following (opens in a new window): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CmKvwvHwCs We suggest you examine the comments on her channel.

You cannot take anonymous comments as proof of a consensus amongst anonymous people because they're *gasp* anonymous! For all we know that could be anyone posting those comments. That's the problem with attacking anonymous as a whole to begin with. Not all of anonymous support or participate Project Chanology; in fact a good portion of anonymous doesn't. It's OK that there's differentiating opinions in this group. Cults usually play on the mentality of an us and a them. What we know is truth, anything different is a lie from them. This is exactly the mentality The Church of Scientology puts on all of us. They are all the same, they are all centralized working against us. Nothing could be further from the truth about anonymous. Nothing could be closer to the truth about the Church of Scientology.

After this we go into videos of Tory speaking as to give the appearance of evidence when in fact we are looking at non-evidence. Now I did notice some points where it's hard for me to decide whether they were just misinterpreting what they saw or if they were deliberatly misrepresenting what Tory was saying.

So we're gonna take it line by line and I'll let you be the judge:

:40 She gives http://www.anonymoushategroup.blogspot.com/ a shout out and then admits to being part of Anonymous.

Tory did not admit to being part of anonymous, she said "we're" when referring to who this particular blog post was walking about. Which lumped Tory in with Anonymous. So when she says "we" she's referring to anonymous AND her as this blog clearly states. She didn't admit to being a part of anonymous, she's acknowledging that you are lumping her together with them. Perhaps the study tech couldn't help this particular Scientologist understand context. Either that or he his purposely taking it out of context to make it a lie. If you are reading this Anonymous poster, please correct this as soon as possible. I fail to see how this proves she's the leader of Anonymous.

1:00-1:50 Referencing the video here, in which we used 2Pac on the soundtrack. She thinks that David Miscaviage made the video and most Anonymous members believe her.

1:58 Claims this blog was created on David Miscaviage's orders

This is a deliberate fabrication. Tory said "The only people who call me bitch is probably Scientology and I'm sure David Miscavage is there saying 'That bitch!'" I cannot understand why anyone would would assume that is what she is saying. I cannot. I am doing everything I can to give them the benefit of the doubt that they might be just misunderstanding, but this is... guys this is just real bad. At least give me something to work with a little. I have yet to meet or talk to anyone who thinks David is editing or creating any video. Though I do not speak for Anonymous I think it's safe for me to say that this is not the opinions of Anonymous or any sane human for that matter. I fail to see how this proves she's the leader of Anonymous.

2:09 Denies that she calls Scientologists names; says this is blog is libelous

The site is libelous. Let's do some word clearing shall we?

li·bel·ous also li·bel·lous


(lb-ls) adj.

1. Involving or constituting a libel; defamatory.

li·bel


(lbl)n.

1.

a. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.

b. The act of presenting such material to the public.

Take some time out of your day to read some of your past articles about Tory including that video you made calling her a bitch and tell me how this is not libelous. Regardless, I fail to see how this proves she's the leader of Anonymous.

2:09 Denies that she calls Scientologists names; says this is blog is libelous

PROOF SHE IS A LIAR--WATCH FIRST 30 SECONDS (says Scientologists are liars, weasels and snakes):

Tory is not talking about Scientologists. Tory is talking about The Church of Scientology particularly upper management. Again if you listen to what she is saying she is even defending the rank and file Scientologists by saying that they do not see what the upper management are doing. The wording of Scientology is tricky and confusing sometimes; however in the context of how she is using it she is clearly talking about the Organization and not individual Scientologists. I fail to see how this proves she's the leader of Anonymous.

2:30 Claims that this website and our videos are the reason why Scientologists are (supposedly) leaving the organization.

Where? I cannot find this part. If it is there and missed it, I still fail to see how this proves she's the leader of Anonymous.

3:06 States that Scientology is a totalitarian organization and a mafia. Attacks her favorite straw man: David Misvaciage

Perhaps we are not familiar with the term straw man. A straw man is a logical fallacy, and it's great that Scientologists are starting to become aware of these and and are using the terms for them, however YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG! A straw man is an argument that is a misrepresentation of someone else's argument; not a term for the person of which they are speaking. Now if David Miscavage was a fictional person or if he isn't the Chariman of the Board, then perhaps he would be a straw man for Tory to knock. Unfortunately David is a real person and he is Chairman of the Board of the RTC which controls The Church of Scientology. Whatever, I fail to see how this proves she's the leader of Anonymous.

3:22 Tells Scientologists that they need to : "WAKE THE FUCK UP"

Can we please stick to the topic at hand? The topic is; Is Tory Christman the leader of Anonymous? The topic is not; This is what offends me. We know you might not be happy with how she speaks about Scientology, but let's not let emotions get in the way of making a rational debate.

3:58 "You are brainwashed idiots" calling Scientologists names.

No, she did not. What she said was if you cannot look at both sides, then (and only then) you are brainwashed idiots. If a Scientologist were to look at what she was saying they would cease to be, in her opinion, brainwashed idiots yet still be a Scientologist. Even if she did and even if she is a liar, I fail to see how this proves she's the leader of Anonymous.

:33 Says that Scientology is not a religion, and that Scientologists have "no compassion."

She is entitled to that opinion as much as you are entitled to the opinion that it is a religion. Also again; she's talking about the Organization of The Church of Scientology having no compassion not Scientologists.

1:54 Claims that Scientology has declared her as Anonymous' Leader.

Yes, that's what this blog is about, or was about before we gave up and just decided to dead agent her. Remember? Now more than ever, I fail to see how this proves she's the leader of Anonymous.

2:12 Denies that she is a part of Anonymous

She isn't. I can see her face and I know her name. Ergo, she isn't anon. I fail to see how this proves she's the leader of Anonymous.

2:32 Claims she doesn't know much computers(yet she has used animated digital effects and, by her own admission, has spammed and trolled anti-Scientology websites for YEARS. )

OK, I see what they're doing wrong here. They think because there's a setting on her webcam program that turns you into an alien that that means she was up all night molding and animating in Maya. This is what we call an assumption. Now, I think the best piece of advice I got when I was growing up was how to spell assume. ASS-U-ME; because when you do it you make an ASS out of U and ME.

I am glad however we're back into making logical fallacies, they are a lot more fun than just misunderstanding and lying. This also paints a classic example of a false dichotomy. This is when the person arbitrarily reduces a set of many possibilities to only two. Either you know nothing about computers or you are a computer expert who can do CGI.

However we do have a misinterpretation of what Tory said she did for Scientology while she was still in. Tory never spammed anyone, Tory made accounts so other Scientologists could spam it for the Church. Everyone has their small top secret role that all comes together to have this diabolical outcome that none of them know about as I defined earlier in this blog.

Trolling people on the internet only requires you to know how to type and how to annoy people, there's no big computer skill you need to do this.

3:00 Conspiracy theory which rambles for 3 minutes and 53 seconds

This is why Tory calls you brainwashed idiots because you refuse to listen even though you have been trained to be a good communicator. It's not all Scientologists, just ones who refuse to think critically.

6:53 "Come to the picket, blah blah blah.." Tory "not" being a leader.

I have told numerous anonymous to bring friends with them to the picket also. Does this mean I am the new leader?

Well I am glad you have taken the time to read this and I hope you correct the errors on your site. I will be glad to hear from you as well if you see incorrect information on this post.

A Court Hearing Nobody Wants

During the May Anonymous demonstrations, a fifteen-year-old boy was singled out by the police and served with a court summons for persisting in holding a plackard that stated "Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult." This story has been picked up by The Guardian, and leads to a curious issue. The article in question is by Anil Dawar, who wrote about Will Smith's forthcoming school which intends to make use of Scholastic Tech, the untested teaching method licensed from the Church of Scientology and "developed" by physics drop-out L Ron Hubbard. This is how the first sentence in that article reads:

"Actor Will Smith is funding his own private school that will teach youngsters
using an educational system devised in part by the Scientology cult."

Clearly the Church of Scientology wishes to choose its battles wisely, and sees more scope in taking a minor to court over exercising his freedom of speech than a national newspaper. The trouble is, should the Crown Prosecution Service feel that a child calling a cult a cult is a matter for the courts, then who will benefit from the trial? The defendent could probably do without the hassle. He's got GCSEs to prepare for. The Church of Scientology probably could do without the embarrassment of standing in court and describing how, against all knowledge of their modus operandi, the term "cult" is abusive and insulting. Those who will benefit, one can assume, are the media. A large and powerful organisation playing to type by pursuing a case against fifteen-year-old that will make McLibel look like the Queensbury Rules will cause heavenly column-inchage for reporters in any country the CoS maintain an org in.

This demonstrates with incredible clarity how lost the Church of Scientology has become. It finds itself in an idealogical combat with a group that was motivated primarily in pursuing a freedom of speech agenda. At a demonstration targeting specifically the Fair Game policy, which suggests that crimes of critics should be discovered or invented, they ensure that freedom of speech is curtailed, and potentially that people may be criminalised for daring to speak out against the criminal organisation in their midst. This can and will and has brought the wrong kind of attention to further the planet-clearing ambitions of Scientology. Why grass roots parishioners have yet to hammer CoS out of existence remains a mystery.


The Telegraph cover this story too. And the Daily Mail. And the Metro. And the BBC.

The Cost of Namefagging

It is true and has been proved that when the Church of Scientology attacks its critics it makes more critics. I, personally, began reading and writing about the Church as a response to their rather desperate Panorama: Exposed film. My resolve quickened as I read about other people, such as Paulette Cooper, who had been treated in a similar way or worse. My commitment solidified as I learnt about the very real victims of the Church.
Anonymous poses a problem to the Church simply by virtue of that anonymity. CoS can't directly attack the critics if they don't know who the critics are. Sadly, rather than this resulting in CoS channelling their energies into engaging with the criticism itself, they become ever more desperate to identify the masked protestors.
But Anonymous is a force of over 9,000. The Church cannot hope to identify all of the members, so lets look at what they have done to individual people they have identified, rightly or wrongly, as being part of Anonymous.
In the run up to the March demonstrations, the Church had the identities of various people, some of whom were active protestors, and some who were just passers by. On these people they served court orders, claiming that those that they had identified were the ever elusive (and non-existent) leaders of Anonymous. Leaving aside that this would be rather a coincidence, and leaving aside the methods that the Church used to identify people (much talk of traced number plates, PIs, etc.) they decided that they could use the namefagged to exert leverage over the group as a whole. Put simply they had someone they could take to court. CoS attempted to place a court order on the named, to prevent them from demonstrating, using legislation that is actually designed for individuals to get rid of stalkers. This attempt failed twice. The judges recognised that members of Anonymous have every right to protest, and every right to do so anonymously. The irony is that this is covered in the First Amendment, the same Amendment that the Church clings to when it claims Anonymous to be a group of ignorant bigots attacking individuals religious beliefs, rather than a well-read bunch of concerned citizens demonstrating against the abuses and crimes of the Church itself.
The second thing they tried to do was to coerce the named into "dropping out" of the movement. In letters from aged lawyers they cited the usually list of allegations; of bomb threats, nuisance phone calles and the now infamous YouTube video of which the Church mysteriously has the master copy. The trouble here, of course, is that this is grossly unethical behaviour for a lawyer. The CoS insinuated that they had evidence against Anonymous members perpetrating these attacks, and that if the letters' recipients did not cease and decist from exercising their rights, CoS would supply this information to the police. That's right; the "most ethical organisation on the planet" were stating that they were withholding evidence from the police in order to sway a civil matter.
What CoS seems to have missed though, is this.
Anonymous consists of a worldwide network of about 10,000 people. Whereas within clusters individuals may know their colleagues names, across the network as a whole, no-one knows who anyone else is. Beyond the friends that I already had that also attend the London demonstrations, and members of the old guard for whom anonymity is a horse longsince bolted, I know no-one's names at all. Despite this, the network is strong and powerful. Despite this. Anonymity has in a sense been forced on us by the policy of the Church. This is a slight simplification, inasmuch as Anonymous as a group have a "best fit" to protest against the Church, but their Anonymity predates the protests. Anonymity has clear benefits in evading fairgaming and other ad hominem attacks, but it comes at a price. On the lowest level, it takes energy and expense to keep up that anonymity. It's something that requires thought. It's something to worry about.
Added to that, we live in a named society. Our identities are our names, so if we remove our names from the picture, it makes it more difficult to do things, at the very least without putting our trust in the data security of other agencies. This becomes an issue if one wants to communicate by mail with companies, politicians, etc. What is more, the leaderless collective becomes a more difficult thing for the press to communicate with - a sea of nameless masked faces. When journalists encounter this wall of Guys they have a perfectly understandable tendancy to head for the nearest unmasked face. Happily this will most often be a member of the Old Guard. And how often have we heard a masked protestor say at the beginning of an interview "I can't speak for everyone here, only myself," avoiding the Anonymous taboo of making yourself a more important part of the organisation.
The Church's current tactic, having seen genuine losses in numbers as a result of the ongoing actions, is to tell staff members that Anonymous is being paid by Big Pharma and the Psychs. Ironically they are sending out to their parishioners a "follow the money" message; the same message that Anonymous is trying to communicate to parishioners about their own organisation. Tory Christman and Jason Beghe have stated that, without namefagging oneself, there needs to be a clearer communication of who Anonymous are, on an individual level, to try and dispell this bit of propoganda. The irony here is that actually namefagging oneself would be the ideal way of doing this, were it not to come at such a price.
But sometimes protestors don't have a choice. Sometimes the Church does the namefagging. In this sea of masks, certain members are picked out and identified, and here is the irony that escapes CoS. There is nothing that the church can do, legally, to those it namefags. It will harrass, perhaps, and write legal cheques it's incapable of cashing, but beyond that, nothing. And to the namefagged, as long as they are the named few in a sea of masks, become stronger and more powerful. They become martyrs to the cause; they become living reminders about the importance of anonymity; they become a solid node in the network; they become something not only that can be identified, but can be identified with, a hook on which the media can hang a story. Like so many retaliative moves designed in part or in whole by a man dead twenty-two years, it serves to strengthen the opposition; it serves to weaken further the Church it was designed to protect.

What Is Anonymous?

The difficulty people have with boiling down simply and easily the nature of Anonymous is writ large throughout much of the media coverage available. It is too often described as a "leaderless group of hackers," which is an understandable assumption. One only need look at the history of, and I shudder to use the phrase, the Anonymous brand to see where this analysis comes from. Its early days on the 2chan boards, its often politically unsound obssessions and illegal activities, and its nebulous form makes the "leaderless group of hackers" label the nearest and easiest thing to plump for, especially when trying to give as concise a description as your editor needs so he can run the pictures of the guys in masks that he wants for page 6.
But can one be trapped by one's origins to such a degree? Are we, for all our millions of years of evolution, still just amoeba? Clearly not.
Two things seem to have occured with regards Anonymous over the past few months. Firstly, following the initial wave of illegal or otherwise dubious activities against the Church of Scientology, Mark Bunker instilled in the collective a firm moral position that has shaped future demonstrations and actions. Secondly, despite Anonymous originating on the Japanese 2chan, and developing on the English 4chan, they had already begun recruiting from non-chan sources. This continued as they made their stand against the Church of Scientology, with many people choosing Anonymous as a means to voice their concerns about the organisation's behaviour. This means that the Anonymous that now exists holds only a slight resemblance to its former self. It is true that the channers are still out there. It is true that some of them aren't best pleased with what has happened to Anonymous. Both of these things are more or less irrelevant though.
I liken the new Anonymous to being a brand identity for anonymity itself. Anonymous, as has been said elsewhere, is an adjective, and in that respect it is not a group or a collective at all. The trouble is, most who encounter it, and some who even support it, consider it to be a noun, and try and deal with it or describe it as such. As an adjective it is far too nebulous an entity to be so tied down to a description. The closest it gets to being a noun is through its emergent qualities; the successful memes that bubble to the surface; the establishment of a (never black and white) stance or viewpoint based on the data that is collected and shared between its members; the self-organised demonstrations, arrived at by additive contribution in much the same way that Wikipedia is.
Such ad hoc groups have been created before. They are dependent on new technologies that allow for social networking with minimal "transactional cost"; they have huge reach for negligible expenditure in money, time or effort. There are sites out there devoted to creating such groups - there are, it is true, individuals who set up those sites, but they do not fill them, they do not choose the path that those sites follow - the owner of the sandpit does not control the castles built therein. What makes Anonymous stand apart from these, and it is only slight, is the centralisation of that anonymity, to make sure that it is core to whatever grows around it.
The other thing that makes Anonymous so powerful is the ability for people to make use of it; the brand identity of Anonymous becomes a recognisable tool that can be put to all sorts of purposes, both good and bad. I note here that in some circles this has led to an adoption of the same kind of escape clause that most religions use - that the good part is for the religion, and the bad part is aberration. Within Anonymous it is Anonymous that has the epic win, and individual participants that fail. I make no judgement of that arrangement, despite making those judgements when writing about religion, because Anonymous is a tool, and tools can be used for good or for bad. Religion, and for that matter Scientology, claims to be more than a tool. Often its crimes are directly related to its own beliefs and policies. Anonymous has no belief or policy, no more than a hammer has belief or policy, no more than "quick" has belief or policy.
My Guy Fawkes mask hangs on a hook just inside my front door. I first wore it at a demo in March. I put it on; I take it off. That is all Anonymous is.

What's the Matter wit' you, Mask?

Let's be frank. There is something distinctly unsettling about seeing several hundred people wearing the same mask. More unsettling still when they have all come together to protest against something that is seen as a sacred cow - that private, personal frontier of religious belief. It is far too easy to see, in the often bizarre placard waving masses of Anonymous, the shadow of the Ku Klux Klan. This becomes an easier parallel still when the origin of Anonymous is examined, the often tasteless, often (seemingly) bigoted outpourings of /b/ chan. It is too easy; it is also a mistake, a wholly unjust leap of logic to make.
Although the masks in a sense predate the demonstrations (the "group", after all, predate the removal from YouTube of that video) their need exists primarily because of the Church's Fair Game policy. CoS has a long history of harrassing critics, both legally and illegally in line with a supposedly withdrawn policy from L Ron Hubbard; that enemies of the church be cheated, lied to and destroyed. Contemporary critics of Anonymous might like to make the simple assumption that the mask is akin to the KKK wimple - that it is there to protect the identity of the wearer as a means to avoid prosecution, but no. The masks are worn to protect against the actions, legal or otherwise, of the Church.
I have been blogging about CoS since the summer of 2007. I forget exactly why I began; in part for personal reasons, in part because of the Panorama documentary, in part because of the inspiration that the old guard critics, Bunker, Christman, Heldal Lund. Aware of the defamation that has been repeatedly attempted against these and other critics I posted anonymously, and continue to post anonymously. But this was never exclusively to protect myself from Fair Game. The other, and in the greater scheme of things more important, reason is that Scientology sets up, in the mind of the believer, the notion that no critic of Scientology is free of crime. Hubbard promoted the ad hominem attack. Never defend, he said, always go after the critic; discover his crimes, fabricate them if necessary.
Again, this sounds like I mask my online self for defense, but, like so much of Scientology, the "what are your crimes" tactic has a manifold purpose. What does it mean to "never defend"? If someone is never invited to defend her belief, then she will never be forced to think critically about her beliefs. Hubbard, by commanding his followers to attack critics rather than enter into dialogues with them, was letting those followers off the hook of critical thought, even of accountability. Although by writing critically about the Church I will automatically be taken for an SP (such is their irrationality) I hope that, devoid of any attachment to a flesh-and-blood person of doubtless criminal past (like LRH himself, who died a fugitive) Scientologist readers will find it marginally more difficult to dismiss my writing without thinking about it first.
CoS should not and are not surprised by the monthly worldwide gathering of masked protestors. Tory Christman said, commenting chiefly on the way in which Anonymous rallied around the Old Guard following the Church's pulling of the Cruise video, that the Church makes its critics. Where it harrasses someone, it recruits as critics anyone who witnesses that harrassment. But CoS not only makes its critics, it shapes them too. It is Church policy that has led not only to the number of people turning up on a monthly basis to demonstrate against them, but led to those people wearing masks. Whereas it may at one point have found credibility in the claim that these masked fellows were wronguns, as soon as the Church began attacking people who participated in the demonstrations (or even were just in the area at the time) it did more to legitimise the use of the masks than anything the anonymous crowds could have come up with. Well done.