From: "Juel"
Subject: David Irving

I just read your ad hominem (speling?) attack on David Irving and it leads me to believe that you care not the least bit for the truth but are politically motivated.

I’ve hardly ever said anything at all about David Irving. The only thing I can come up with that Juel might be referring to is when I wrote: “People like Irving abuse the principle of informed skepticism and critical inquiry in order to push a political agenda...” Is this an ad hominem attack? I doubt it, but if it is an ad hominem attack to say that Irving is pushing a political agenda, isn’t that exactly what Juel here is doing? I don’t think that it’s possible for my comments about Irving to qualify as ad hominem attacks without Juel’s comment also thereby qualifying as well.

This is ironic — just as ironic as the fact that he spelled “ad hominem” correctly but in stating that he wasn’t sure, he misspelled “speling.” Normally I wouldn’t say anything about something like that, but it’s the irony of this error that concerns me because ironies like this abound in Juel’s writings. If it were deliberate, it might be clever; I doubt it’s deliberate, though.

 

If you were a student of WW2 and had read as much on the subject as I and many others have you would see that David Irving is not at all politically motivated but gets his facts from the hstorical documents that exist.

Actually, I have read a tremendous amount on World War 2. I’ve reviewed several books on it, too, which Juel would know if he had looked. Juel is arrogant to assume otherwise, which is ironic given what he accuses me of. At no point in time does Juel offer a single bit of evidence that would demonstrate that I am “not the least bit” concerned with the truth and am, instead “politically motivated.” Why do you suppose that is?

 

You are not fooling anyone but yourself with that haughty and arrogant attitude. You are transparently a fraud. Why don’t you read his books instead?? I know why; you care not a whit for truth, just personal and political aggrandizment.

Here’s another example of irony: Juel shouldn’t accuse a person of being a “fraud” without being able to back that up — which, I notice, he doesn’t bother to do. On the other hand, David Irving has been shown to have been guilty of misrepresentation of history in his work and that sounds like fraud to me.

I told Juel that if he had any substantive critiques of anything I have written — something that he could demonstrate is erroneous, for example — I’d be happy to take his perspective into consideration. If, on the other hand, all he’s interested in is ranting, raving, and making a pretense at having something serious to say I’m afraid I have better things to do.

Find out tomorrow if he took any of this to heart in our next exchange...

 

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