[Chris Shelton:] Dear Gerry,
You have permission to publish those emails only so long as you also publish the following quoted response on your blog as my final response in this matter.
Thank you. I will publish your response on my blog, but I will not publish it as your final response in this matter because I have no way of knowing if it is your final response in this matter. It is a response, and I will post it, along with your first paragraph.
You have not actually identified what “this matter” is that you are referring to. For now, I assume that you are referring to your smearing me on Facebook and your interaction with me after I asked you to support or correct the smears.
If it is another matter in which your response is your final response, please let me know.
“It is with great sadness and remorse that I wish to express my apologies for having spoken in haste and without adequate foreknowledge about Gerry Armstrong on Facebook, a public social media site.
Thank you. After many years of parsing the communications of the most mealy-mouthed, dissembling Scientologists and their collaborators, including big bucks attorneys and bullies, I have had to accept that a great number of people cannot or do not parse such communications. This subject is a study in progress for me.
In this sentence, you write you wish to express your apologies for speaking on Facebook in haste and without adequate foreknowledge about me. With a hasty read, it could sound as if you are apologizing for smearing me, or black PRing me, as I have said. After all, the words “sadness,” “remorse,” “apologies” and “Facebook” are there. But, it is not the smearing you are saying you are apologizing for. You are wishing to express apologies for your haste and inadequate knowledge when you published your smears. There is no apology for your smears in your “final response.” Your smears did the damage, not your haste or what you didn’t know about your target.
It is easy to tell from my communications to you or about you that I am not seeking, and have never sought, an apology. I simply wanted you to support or correct your smears. That would not have been an unbeneficial undertaking for you as well as for me, because you would have learned the things about me you now suggest you discovered in the last few days and motivated you to apologize for your haste. Accepting that you have communicated your final response, I have to also accept that you refuse to and will not support or correct your smears.
No matter what you did to correct or support your smears, it would require that you violate your postulate that the response I am responding to here is your final response in this matter. I think it’s clear, however, in your case, that you have easily invalidated exactly that postulate in the very recent past and you could just as easily invalidate it again. It is not often a good move to pronounce publicly that one communication or another is the final response in some matter. It might not be.
Obviously, you take pride in your logic. I would think that to improve your game, so to speak, you would be grateful when a person points out illogics, mealy-mouthings or semantic dishonesties.
“My comment about him vs Rathbun was ill-advised and stated an opinion that was not fully founded on the evidence of the matters regarding Scientology’s history with the IRS and Gerry’s personal involvement in those matters.
Thank you. That’s true. Your comments were comments, and they were ill-advised. You stated opinions that were not fully founded on the evidence of the matters regarding Scientology’s history with the IRS and my personal involvement in those matters.
You suggest that now your opinions (there were several, covering different and broad areas) are now fully founded on the evidence. I think you would help to state your present opinions in the process of supporting or correcting the subject smears.
“I have since had time to reflect on this and study more about the issue and found I did not know everything there is to know about the issue at hand when I was commenting on it.
Thank you. The implication here is that although you did not know everything there is to know about how the Scientologists’ obtained their IRS tax exemption, you now do. Can you now support or correct the subject smears.
“It is not my intention to “take sides” with Marty Rathbun (or anyone, for that matter) over any other ex-Scientologists on this or any other matter because I don’t believe that is constructive behavior.
You did take sides with Rathbun against me. Your taking his side is an essential factor in this matter of you smearing me on Facebook and your treatment of me after I asked you to support or correct your smears.
“Not taking sides” is not necessarily an enlightened postulate or declaration. And “taking sides” can certainly be constructive behavior. Why not take the side of justice? Why not take the side of truth?
What if there was an Exscientologist who was black PRing another Exscientologist? What if you knew that an Exscientologist was serving the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes toward Exscientologists? What if you knew an Exscientologist criminally framed another Exscientologist? Charlie Manson is a clear Exscientologist; you wouldn’t side with Sharon Tate? What if David Miscavige declared Rex Fowler, thereby making him an Exscientologist? How about if Miscavige suddenly called himself an Exscientologist, and kept right on doing the same evil things he’s been doing as a Scientologist? Would you stop siding against him? What on Teegeeack is so holy or good about being an Exscientologist that you would make them a special class where taking sides, as in making moral choices, is never constructive behavior?
It seems to me that your postulate to “not take sides” is illogical, morally stunts the postulator, and limits his opportunities.
“I firmly believe we should all stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the common enemy, which is the official Church of Scientology.
The standing shoulder-to-shoulder is a metaphor. We do not actually stand shoulder-to-shoulder. So what is it really that you firmly believe here?
Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with one psychopath or another against a common enemy was what you did throughout your X years in Scientology. It was Miscavige’s command intention, not yours that aligned all those shoulders. You got in line, and stood for X years shoulder-to-shoulder with every other Scientologist, and charged shoulder-to-shoulder when Miscavige gave the order. Didn’t that work out great!
Now you want wogs to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Marty Rathbun, the one-time common enemy’s head victimizer. And you acted to dissuade Exscientologists from standing shoulder-to-shoulder with me. Use your logic button, Luke.
Your firm belief and a toonie and I can park for an hour somewhere. The faulty implied value in shoulder-to-shoulder standing, is, as an LRH policy wonk you know, one of the classic outpoints.
The logical thing to do is to support or correct your FB comments that smear me, and to grant me the credence to do whatever you do logically.
“No part of my actions were a knowing or willful attempt to forward CofS’s agenda against Gerry.
Oh hogwash. You were simply caught in flagrante delicto.
If you feel you must apologize, please do so for what you did. Not for me, but for logic’s sake. Not your haste leading to your formulation of black propaganda attacking me. I’d apologize for the blackness of the propaganda, the message you sent out on Facebook. Not your speed of particle flow getting it from your mind into people’s consciousnesses.
“I certainly acknowledge that horrible things have been done to Gerry by CofS in the past and it was never my purpose to align myself with those actions.
Knowing that horrible things had been done to me in the past, you had to have known you were adding another horrible thing to them. Knowing that Rathbun had done many of the horrible things to me you knew about, you yet aligned yourself with him against me.
I think that anyone with an interest and a clue can get that Chris Shelton smearing Gerry Armstrong serves the Scientologists’ purposes. Perhaps you risked doing it because of the black PR you had been fed about me over the years. But what do you say your purpose for smearing me was?
“I am not an agent of Scientology nor am I acting in any alignment with their motives.
The problem is that when it was pointed out to you that you were indeed serving the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes, you simply denied it, and consequently did not change it. If you insist that you are not serving the Scientologists’ purposes when you are, you would not change. That is why your protestation should be given little weight and instances when you are serving the Scientologists’ purposes should be shown or explained to you.
A very useful criterion for determining if you are serving the Scientologists’ purposes is the truth. As an exercise in logical thinking, take your FB statements about me and write them into a sworn declaration for filing in a Scientology-related case, let’s say Scientology v. Armstrong:
I Chris Shelton declare:
- I am over 18 years of age and make this declaration of my own personal knowledge and for those matters stated upon information and belief, I believe them to be true and accurate. If called as a witness to testify as to the matters herein, I could and would do so competently.
- I was inside Scientology for X years and held several positions on staff, including A, B, C, D, E, F and G.
- I am an expert in Scientology policy and practices, and have lectured on organizational structure, criminal and antisocial activities, history, etc.
- I am well aware of Gerry Armstrong because of L, M, N, O and P.
- It has come to my attention that Armstrong has made claims about Scientology; the U.S. federal government; their becoming allies; the Scientologists’ undermining of the IRS; the reversal of the US position on Scientology; the cost of auditing; the Scientologists’ collection of the most secret and embarrassing aspects of their lives and of the lives of their relatives and friends; the possession of intelligence from around the world; the effort to attract influential persons, e.g., intelligence specialists, famous actors, business people and politicians; the US’s aid spreading Scientology; the US’s betrayal of its own citizens; the 2010 US Court decision that clears the Scientologists to imprison recalcitrant members and bring them back if they escape; and something about hypocrisy and human rights. Armstrong’s claims are not based on the actual facts.
- Actual facts concerning these claims can be found in the actual eyewitness accounts and information on record from the 1980 – 1993 time period. The best account of these actual facts is the book Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior by Mark (Marty) Rathbun. This book gives the exact reasons why the IRS capitulated.
- Concerning the claims Armstrong has made regarding the matters listed in paragraph 5 above, he is spewing nonsense.
- Concerning the claims Armstrong has made regarding the matters listed in paragraph 5 above, he is full of it, by which I mean that Armstrong is “full of shit” or “full of crap,” i.e. “completely wrong, false, or worthless” (Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms).
- Rathbun was there on the front lines of the IRS handlings and was intimately involved with the whole deal worked out with the IRS, and he gave a very detailed account in his book about that. Anything Rathbun said about this is not refuted by other errors he may or may not have made about earlier conspiracies which he did not have any direct knowledge of.
- Gerry Armstrong was nowhere near any of the IRS dealings, so I would not listen to any of his opinions or conjecture about the IRS deal. This is especially so because Armstrong’s opinions or conjecture openly defy logic and reason. Also all his opinions or conjecture concerning the matters identified in paragraph 5 above openly defy logic and reason.
- I am a logician, and a qualified instructor in logic, reason and critical thinking, and I titled my website “Critical Thinker At Large.”
- Armstrong may well be a reliable source on other points which he was directly involved in and I cannot say one way or the other because I haven’t read a lot from him. But I do know that when it comes to the IRS deal specifically, I will absolutely give “reliable source” status to Rathbun way before I will give it to Armstrong.
- The conclusion that Armstrong is making about the IRS is unfounded. Armstrong’s conclusion that the US Government is somehow in cahoots with Scentology is also unfounded and bizarre. That is the most ridiculous assertion I have heard in months.
- I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.
- Executed in S,T the Uth day of V. 2015.
___________________________
Chris Shelton
If this declaration was filed in Scientology v. Armstrong, or Armstrong v. US and Scientology, in relation to the IRS deal, as you call it, which party’s purposes would it serve? Not mine. My attorney might file it just show how dishonest the author is and how it serves the Scientologists’ malevolent purposes. But this is an enemy declaration.
Let’s say that you don’t execute a declaration swearing to the truth and correctness of your comments on Facebook, but the Scientologists subpoena you for a deposition. Their attorney has you sworn in, shows you a printout of your comments, and asks you if you stand by your comments about me. Surely you wouldn’t argue that it would not serve their purposes for you to say ‘Yes.’ And if that is the case, then your comments always served the Scientologists’ purposes.
I have to scrutinize everything I publish, or for that matter even communicate privately, with the awareness that it very well could be used in some way in some legal proceeding. Even though I deal with complex issues and with people who seek my harm or destruction, I have to be confident enough about the truth and correctness of what I am communicating to be able to state under oath that I stand by it and can support it. This is an awareness that was generated in me in logical response to the Scientologists and their collaborators’ attacks on my credibility in many contexts including many legal proceedings. You might try integrating such an awareness into your handling of truth in your communications.
“I believe my works speak for themselves as adequate evidence of this.
No. If that was the case, David Miscavige’s works would speak for themselves as adequate evidence of his integrity and beneficence. Miscavige’s “good works” – saving people at catastrophes, saving people from the scourge of drugs, cathedral building, etc.—can justifiably be seen as cloaking his lying, bullying and other antisocial actions. If you don’t correct or support your smears, your seemingly good works can justifiably be seen the same way.
“Gerry, I truly hope you can see that I am not and never have been your enemy and have never wished any ill-will towards you.
I have to be honest, No. You were an enemy throughout your Scientology career. In your April 2014 video about fair game, you stated:
By being a Scientologist and giving money and support to the Church, you are funding these fair game operations.
[…]
The blinders need to come off. If you truly support the idea of bringing real freedom to everyone, it starts by granting each person the right to think and speak and write what they choose, in such a way that it doesn’t harm others.1
With your intellect, abilities and time, you supported fair game ops against me that were enemy actions. These ops continue to this day and your FB smears and your subsequent treatment of me constitute enemy actions, which denials do not erase. Change of allegiance, of course, could erase the enemy relationship or condition, but that would require recognition of that condition, which denials of the condition do not permit.
“I am truly sorry that I ever expressed any opinion or statement using your name or disaparaging you in any way and will never do so again.”
That is another odd “apology,” for expressing any opinion or statement using my name, to say nothing of disparaging me. I understand how such “apologies” are used by some people: “I’m sorry I ever mentioned your name.” It’s a variation on: “I’m sorry I ever even heard your name.”
Also you have formed another postulate that is illogical and limiting when you declare that you will never again express any opinion or statement using my name. In certain circumstances, that is an enemy action. You might consider reviewing what you communicate for such postulates that illogically limit your future actions.
I hope you take this to heart, and think critically about what you are doing with your mind.
Yours analytically,
Gerry
Notes