Stolen honor

[kamadul]

http://news.yahoo.com/exposing-navy-...opstories.html


How the hell do people think they can get away with this?

[Vorpal]

It's a combination of factors, they usually lack an understanding of how small the military community can be, they over estimate their own intelligence and bs abilities, under estimate other people's intelligence, and put their faith in the " it's classified" cover story to close the gaps. And in the case of idiots who claim MOH (or multiples), the must forget that the Internet has been invented (Al Gore FTW) and that anyone could check that in 15 seconds.

[Stickybomb]

There's just too many counter info floating on the net for an average person to successfully separate what's good data and what's not, so with lack of time and better experience they'll just go with what they want to believe.


On some local forum there's a thread where we debate society etc., and some conspiracy nuttrider started to plaster it with HAARP (earthquakes, chemtrails, affecting mood through it), alien-Icke-reptiles, all conspiracy hypothesis he can get his hands on. And to him it's all gold and is offensive and verbally terrible aggressive against those with different opinion, especially to those, who try and put some common sense into him - he mostly cleansed the thread of anyone with a bit of reason. Sometimes they just come back to drop an interesting link and flee. The counter opinion is stupid, and such people are government brainwashed imbeciles. Period.
One of his latest exploits is yapping how fire alone cannot collapse a steel frame building (conveniently ignoring a fact that 257 + lbs travelling at around 600 miles, will do something more than just a fire although 11,000 + gal of fuel won't go to waste) people have linked examples of such buildings collapsed countless times.

It's incredibly amusing and sad, because he's turning more and more visitors into his direction of personal 'religion'. :-)


If I'd really suck as a human being I could totally make some solid buck out of society. Like Hubbard did for example.

Just that I'm not dumb enough to use stolen honour for it. Such people must be really, really sick and belong into mental institution. Still a part of the joke is on those, who believe them. What this site has given me is that I'd immediately ask him for his rank, unit,... and checked the net and send some mails if I'd consider to work with him. I mean sitting in an office would be ok, but going to African failed state is a totally different matter. I mean I am just as silly from time to time and get fooled much too easily, but checking the medal of honour awards is really an easy task with net access.

[OwlMatt]

He did get away with it, though, and for a lot longer than he should have. The Bullshido encyclopedia is full of stories like this. There are a lot of people out there willing to trust their money and their safety to strangers without doing any research. The saddest thing about this story is that he was eventually done in by an internet video that could have been easily found on Google before things got dangerous if anyone had just bothered to check.

[Eddie Hardon]

Sadly, he's not alone. James Shortt, Bob Spour etc....and they have the brass neck to believe their own fantasy and then become ever more invested in it and gull others for lots of money.

[Stickybomb]

Perhaps subject of internet literacy should be addressed more. In schools, educational programmes,...

First lesson: Everyone can write anything on the net or speak anything in person. Be aware all are not facts. Do at least some minimal research before giving $ or jumping head on into ponzi schemes, pyramid structures,...

Second lesson: The basics of a research work.

[kamadul]

I just thought that most people would realize that there are no living people with two Medals of Honor. Why would you ever need to claim more than one? One CMoH isn't enough to stroke your ego?

[slamdunc]

I just thought that most people would realize that there are no living people with two Medals of Honor.

"There's a sucker born every minute"--David Hannum (generally credited to P.T. Barnum).

People want to believe in heroes and patriots, it is our nature. People believed in Bernie Madof, some people believe in ninjers, people believe that the government is meant to provide for them. People buy in to charismatics bullshit. For those of us who take the time to go through the layers, there is reality.

I have really strong feelings about this stolen valor issue, but SCOTUS shot down one of the only laws preventing it. They believe that anyone CAN say anything they want to, as long as they are not attempting to use their deceit to take the property of others.

This joker did exactly that; he played on the ignorance of the intelligent and relieved them of some of their hard-earned money.

[Vieux Normand]

...the ignorance of the intelligent...

Not sure why this verbal juxtaposition caught my eye, but it did.

And now, please ban Vieux Normand for submitting a low-content post.

[Stickybomb]

Ok, I'm going to slide into a seemingly massive offtopic again.



"There's a sucker born every minute"--David Hannum (generally credited to P.T. Barnum).

Haha, Slamdunc, this quote also reminds me of Osho who, when asked how his awesome collection of Rolls - Royces goes with his teachings honestly replied: 'Well, people are basically stupid.'

But it's not just stupidity, it's also desperation. I spent some time as unemployed to the point I was getting that desperate, that I would gladly work for anyone and I was beyond grateful for an opportunity to the point I was ignoring bad omens popping up. Luckily some more rational friends did some google-fu for me and alerted me on what they found. There were more than enough people on the net talking about their experience with this company and combined with what I noticed on the spot it was enough. I left in the middle of in-service training. It was a pyramid structure.

I know I strayed again from the topic, but there you have it. It's really not that surprising how people like Madoff, Skilling, Dicken... keep popping up.

All you need to have is sweet mouth, some plausibility and some skill in knocking on people's emotions and beliefs. I am literally fascinated on how even the most terrible people can achieve such scams. Luckily most are like Dicken, far too sick to really climb and do some real massive damage.


Take Hitler as the worst possible example. He could enchant the masses with his speeches (an excellent book about him just came out), but to understand his true nature, you need to read Mein Kampf. It really shows you how deeply disturbed, confused and small minded person he was. Now are you gonna call such a person stupid? Hardly, he would never jump in the saddle if he was. Utterly insane yes, but not stupid. His verbal magic could pull even some of the most educated, skilled, rational people behind him, even after they gave up on him multiple times. He just needed to run his 'Blahblahblah...' again. Stalin had to use more blunt force to secure his position in the saddle.

The problem is that times of crisis are ripe for something similar to happen again. I mean pestilential populists in charge of whole nations. Not another world war. Not necessarily. If that would happen it would really be for the last time :-).

[Stickybomb]

people believe that the government is meant to provide for them.

Sorry, has the function of government changed? I mean I know that I finding job, getting educated,... is in my hands but...

Keeping law and order, protecting national economy healthy (and thus enabling people to find jobs and have sufficient standard or start their own business), keeping people out of pointless wars,.... Isn't that providing for us to some basic degree? Isn't that why we have governments and aren't those their primary functions?

[slamdunc]

Keeping law and order, protecting national economy healthy (and thus enabling people to find jobs and have sufficient standard or start their own business), keeping people out of pointless wars,.... Isn't that providing for us to some basic degree? Isn't that why we have governments and aren't those their primary functions?

Yes, the government is, after all, responsible for establishing justice. insuring domestic tranquility, and providing for the common defense. As for keeping us out of pointless wars, that would be (probably already is) another thread. I was just taking ritualistic my left-handed swipe at entitlement programs; you gotta keep me in check.

My point was that people believe in a variety of things that I don't and I try to be realistic.

Keeping law and order, protecting national economy healthy (and thus enabling people to find jobs and have sufficient standard or start their own business), keeping people out of pointless wars,.... Isn't that providing for us to some basic degree? Isn't that why we have governments and aren't those their primary functions?

Yes, the government is, after all, responsible for establishing justice. insuring domestic tranquility, and providing for the common defense. As for keeping us out of pointless wars, that would be (probably already is) another thread. I was just taking ritualistic my left-handed swipe at entitlement programs; you gotta keep me in check.

My point was that people believe in a variety of things that I don't and I try to be realistic.

[Stickybomb]

I knew I knew, but somewhere down I'm just a troll who can't help himself sometimes :-).


...and yeah, it seems that more and more governments follow the 'We don't need to do shi+ but pillage and burn, get as much b00ty as possible and let the lower primates squabble over remains' principle.

[Vieux Normand]

Stalin had to use more blunt force to secure his position in the saddle.

Results speak for themselves. Stalin's body-count is higher than Hitler's and he was in power longer. Brute force, therefore, trumps populism.

The problem is that times of crisis are ripe for something similar to happen again. I mean pestilential populists in charge of whole nations.

How is this a problem? /Darwin

Not another world war. Not necessarily. If that would happen it would really be for the last time.

All that wold remain to be seen is whether the survivors are cockroaches of the two-legged or the six-legged variety.

[Stickybomb]

The only reason because Stalin's bodycount is higher (- if it is, it's hard to tell but that would make him no less of one of the worst bloodthirsty tyrants of the past century and history in general) is because he was alive longer. The fact he remained alive longer was that he knew, that one nation cannot conquer the world with an allay or two although being as big as Russia. Brutal sadist therefore beats batshit insane lunatic (really, read Mein Kampf) posing behind the mask of a well-spoken gentleman when necessary.

I think that right wing is fond of the natural selection. That's why local more extreme prone right wingers amuse me to death. The natural selection removed their predecessors. Now they're all whiny about it and some demand or quietly dream of another war and fill their little heads with visions of great deeds they shall accomplish. What they fail to spot is that so much hatred, bigotry and eugenic based attitude is doomed to fail. Therefore sh+t happens = Darwin again.

There actually are some more creatures that are not affected by radiation. Rats for example are amongst those who would inherit earth.

I don't know, I'd rather see that we'd all tune it down a bit, got our economy in order and live to tell the tale :-). Two world wars and two global economic depressions in such a short timespan are a bit enough. Still it seems that no one really learned anything from those lessons.