From: Kyle King <kyleking.nul>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 17:47:40 -0600
Fwd Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 08:45:20 -0500
Subject: Re: First Quasi-Satellite Of Venus Discovered -


>From: James Smith <zeus001002.nul>
>To: ufoupdates.nul
>Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 08:34:11 -0800 (PST)
>Subject: Re: First Quasi-Satellite Of Venus Discovered

>>From: Kyle King <kyleking.nul>
>>To: <ufoupdates.nul>
>>Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 16:48:52 -0600
>>Subject: Re: First Quasi-Satellite Of Venus Discovered

>>>From: James Smith <zeus001002.nul>
>>>To: ufoupdates.nul
>>>Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 10:51:31 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
>>>Subject: Re: First Quasi-Satellite Of Venus Discovered

<snip>

>Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, the best policy
>still seems to be to help those around you as best you can and
>to do no harm (unless they really deserve it ;).

Hi James,

As I expected, we agree more than we disagree. In your final
paragraph we find the meeting of the minds.

To repeat...

"... the best policy still seems to be to help those around you
as best you can, and to do no harm..."

This List is a forum for those that do not accept the party
line. We are tasked with... and provided space for... discussing
the UFO question in a free-form and decidedly theoretical
context. Dreamers are not only welcome, but it is darned near a
requirement.

When we discuss, and find argument, the goal is to 'help those
around us as best we can', and this is accomplished by pointing
out the flaws in logic that stem from accepting the status quo
as the benchmark whereby to measure validity, or to show the
error of a flatly incorrect technical interpretation, vis a vis
Dr. Maccabee or Mr. Sparks.

But there's more... there is an emotional context for the
discussion as well.

While Dr. Maccabee can expound on the technical minutiae that
often prove a case, and while Brad Sparks can reflect on the
technical aspects of radar returns and decry the ignored pile of
hard data that is already available, and while Dick Hall can
recite chapter and verse a long list of very compelling cases,
and Stan Friedman can lecture ad infinitum on issues of saucer
crashes in the desert southwest, we all share an emotional
connect with the field.

Mr. Lehmberg is less bashful about it than most, and he has made
it plain that he no longer feels that casual dismissal is
innocent. That you and your comments represent what constitutes
the 'enemy' is not a result of his incivility, but a decided
policy of engagement. He no longer politely accepts the status
quo view, if he ever did. As he might himself comment, I admire
his pluck.

You might see Alfred, Bruce, Brad, Dick and Stan as disparate,
diverse voices. I see instead a unified front. Diverse in
expertise, disparate in writing styles, but all working to the
same purpose... to help those around them and do no harm.

The funny thing is, when dreamers dream, they harm no one. But
when a realist pooh-poohs a dreamer, the dreamer is cast aside
as so much detritus, until perhaps a later date when the dreamer
is vindicated. For the more passionate among us, your comments
literally mean war.

Like Roy Neary, we share a passionate belief in something we
know many do not. We seek to help those around us to see a more
expansive view, and to avoid the harm done... when we remain
silent. Like Roy Neary, many of us likely don't know exactly why
we are so... nor do we care.

When an argument is made, like yours, that bases progress on
practical realities, you are essentially advocating against that
passion as well as the opposing argument.

This is why you receive a response you find emotional. It is.

For decades these fine folks and many others have given much to
(in their minds)help those around them. I look at UFO photos to
find the good ones, and I let loose on the bad ones when I feel
strongly that it is a bad one. But I also keep looking, because
I believe very strongly that we do not know it all, and that our
mysteries are becoming more numerous and not less, and I believe
that most of us would agree that keeping this to ourselves...
not talking about it... would violate your rejoinder to 'do no
harm'.

I hope to help people see through the obvious fakes, the easily
identified, and the repetitively misinterpreted because those
pollute the channel of good evidence. I question and I argue,
not because I think the argument is weak but because only
through testing an argument can its strength be known. But
saying an argument here isn't real or practical is not
constructive, it is deconstructive, and in this forum, that
reads as destructive. Why? Because it doesn't help anyone
understand it, and it does harm to the debate, which is what we
have to work with in this forum.

If you want to help others and do no harm, perhaps you would do
well to take a step outside the box of engineering, cost/benefit
analysis, and idea space management, and question things more.
Perhaps your feeling that things cannot change would be found to
be in error. Perhaps if more and more reasonable practical
people like you dreamed more, what is practical and real might
begin to take on a different hue entirely.

The point of all this is to remind you that these are uncharted
waters... by design... and he that finds that 'here there be
monsters' should not be surprised to find so. He should also not
be surprised when his clearly demarked 'map' is considered
suspect out of hand.

Mr. Lehmberg is motivated by it, Mr. Hall and Mr. Sparks are
discouraged by it, Dr. Maccabee is unmoved by it, and Stan is
nothing if not resigned to it, but they all share a disdain of
it. The it is the assured expert opinion that labels their
efforts as outlandish, or that presumes a reality over which we
have demonstrated an infinite capacity to remain ignorant.

For my part, I think it is time indeed to stand for the 'other'
way of thinking, not because it is ridiculous and maybe wrong,
but because the reality in which I find myself today is all too
ridiculous, and in my view decidedly wrong. Acceptance is no
help, and does plenty of harm.

If we help you as best we can to convince you to make the leap,
to push the envelope, to dream for the sake of the dream, and
the sake of a possibly better future, we will have certainly
done no harm.

If you help as best you can to convince us to remain safely in
the box, to accept a reality we find inadequate at best, the
harm done is not easily measurable, if not altogether
incalculable.

The discussion here is not just talk. There are careers and even
lives at stake over this 'silliness'. You must accept that as
dispassionate as your posts may be intended, they are met with a
passionate retort because the passion is borne of years of
scorn, ridicule and dismissal. This is a burden which you have
not had to bear, comfort zones being what they are.

Please help as best you can, and do no harm.


Best Regards,

Kyle