Behaviour of Members

[Robert Charles-Dunne]

I carefully studied the existing questions to and answers from Mr. Caddy and Mr. Baldwin before I asked any questions, and the questions I then asked had not been answered, could not be answered from the existing record, and the majority still have not been answered. Curiously, those unanswered questions go directly to severe conflicts in the record, which both Mr. Caddy and Mr. Baldwin have the means and knowledge to reconcile. They just won't, that's all. Why? Oh, well: only because of the incorrigible and irredeemable personal flaws of the questioner. At least to hear them, and you, tell it.

This is the Great Straw Man: asking someone who has unique percipient knowledge relevant questions going to material fact is not calling someone "a xxxx" just because it's clear that there are falsehoods in the record, and questions are being asked about those falsehoods and the source of those falsehoods. In the instant case, all Mr. Caddy had to do is say what you already have claimed as his elected or unelected mouthpiece: "Hunt lied." The question would have been answered. He did not. He would not.

Ashton Gray

Ashton:

I think the questions you posed were germane and on point, but I do agree with Pat Speer that the manner in which they were asked was almost designed to cause umbrage to those to whom they were posed. I was unsurprised that Mr. Caddy declined to answer, but was rather taken aback by the retaliatory moves he made to have you turfed from the Forum. However, that's really neither here nor there.....

I believe we may face three distinct possibilities:

1) It struck me at the time that Mr. Caddy may have felt constrained from responding with "Hunt lied" for reasons of attorney-client privilege. Now that Hunt is dead, perhaps Mr. Caddy no longer feels honour-bound to observe such a formality, assuming that Hunt was his client.

2) However, if Mr. Caddy were in fact retained to represent the Plumber cadre by CIA - as you are not alone in suspecting - then he may well be constrained from replying for the duration of his time on Earth, or until his [hypothesized] client [CIA] ceases to exist.

3) Then again, Mr. Caddy may just be an honourable man who has no intention of breaching attorney-client privilege, even if released from that secrecy oath by Hunt's demise.

If that is the case, we shall never know whether he was/is motivated by 2) or 3).

If Mr. Caddy has been released from his privilege oath by Hunt's death, I would greatly welcome his contributions in determining who retained him, and why there is so great a disconnect between the various stories told about this.

Personally, I take your posts with the great dollop of humour which I suspect you intend, and sincerely hope that you continue posting your thoughts, irrespective of whether you are right or wrong about this or that hypothesis in any given case. I do find it odd that those who claim to welcome fresh perspectives and new "outside the box" thoughts in this ancient case are unwilling to entertain just that when you present it. Important new discoveries will not be made by simply retracing the same old ground on the same old paths.

Edited February 8, 2007 by Robert Charles-Dunne

[Guest Gary Loughran]

Personally, I take your posts with the great dollop of humour which I suspect you intend, and sincerely hope that you continue posting your thoughts, irrespective of whether you are right or wrong about this or that hypothesis in any given case. I do find it odd that those who claim to welcome fresh perspectives and new "outside the box" thoughts in this ancient case are unwilling to entertain just that when you present it. Important new discoveries will not be made by simply retracing the same old ground on the same old paths.

Add sarcasm and a dash of hyperbole to the great dollop of humour, then the above, most eerily, is precisely my perspective on Ashton's posts.

[Cliff Varnell]

Personally, I take your posts with the great dollop of humour which I suspect you intend, and sincerely hope that you continue posting your thoughts, irrespective of whether you are right or wrong about this or that hypothesis in any given case. I do find it odd that those who claim to welcome fresh perspectives and new "outside the box" thoughts in this ancient case are unwilling to entertain just that when you present it. Important new discoveries will not be made by simply retracing the same old ground on the same old paths.

Add sarcasm and a dash of hyperbole to the great dollop of humour, then the above, most eerily, is precisely my perspective on Ashton's posts.

If only Ashton could refrain from smearing anyone who dares disagree with

him as a "disinformation magpie" and "agenda hornet" (just to cite two examples

that he's directed at me), then we could all enjoy his input...

[Douglas Caddy]

I carefully studied the existing questions to and answers from Mr. Caddy and Mr. Baldwin before I asked any questions, and the questions I then asked had not been answered, could not be answered from the existing record, and the majority still have not been answered. Curiously, those unanswered questions go directly to severe conflicts in the record, which both Mr. Caddy and Mr. Baldwin have the means and knowledge to reconcile. They just won't, that's all. Why? Oh, well: only because of the incorrigible and irredeemable personal flaws of the questioner. At least to hear them, and you, tell it.

This is the Great Straw Man: asking someone who has unique percipient knowledge relevant questions going to material fact is not calling someone "a xxxx" just because it's clear that there are falsehoods in the record, and questions are being asked about those falsehoods and the source of those falsehoods. In the instant case, all Mr. Caddy had to do is say what you already have claimed as his elected or unelected mouthpiece: "Hunt lied." The question would have been answered. He did not. He would not.

Ashton Gray

Ashton:

I think the questions you posed were germane and on point, but I do agree with Pat Speer that the manner in which they were asked was almost designed to cause umbrage to those to whom they were posed. I was unsurprised that Mr. Caddy declined to answer, but was rather taken aback by the retaliatory moves he made to have you turfed from the Forum. However, that's really neither here nor there.....

I believe we may face three distinct possibilities:

1) It struck me at the time that Mr. Caddy may have felt constrained from responding with "Hunt lied" for reasons of attorney-client privilege. Now that Hunt is dead, perhaps Mr. Caddy no longer feels honour-bound to observe such a formality, assuming that Hunt was his client.

2) However, if Mr. Caddy were in fact retained to represent the Plumber cadre by CIA - as you are not alone in suspecting - then he may well be constrained from replying for the duration of his time on Earth, or until his [hypothesized] client [CIA] ceases to exist.

3) Then again, Mr. Caddy may just be an honourable man who has no intention of breaching attorney-client privilege, even if released from that secrecy oath by Hunt's demise.

If that is the case, we shall never know whether he was/is motivated by 2) or 3).

If Mr. Caddy has been released from his privilege oath by Hunt's death, I would greatly welcome his contributions in determining who retained him, and why there is so great a disconnect between the various stories told about this.

Personally, I take your posts with the great dollop of humour which I suspect you intend, and sincerely hope that you continue posting your thoughts, irrespective of whether you are right or wrong about this or that hypothesis in any given case. I do find it odd that those who claim to welcome fresh perspectives and new "outside the box" thoughts in this ancient case are unwilling to entertain just that when you present it. Important new discoveries will not be made by simply retracing the same old ground on the same old paths.

The Advocate magazine two years ago published a manuscript by me that recounted in great depth my role as an attorney in Watergate. An excerpt of its opening paragraphs, along with a link to the manuscript, appear below:

Did gay bashing by the prosecutors cause the Watergate cover-up?

Attorney Douglas Caddy's exclusive interview with The Advocate detailed the connection between homophobia and the Watergate cover-up. Now read his full account, in his own words, with supporting documents.

By Douglas Caddy, original attorney for the Watergate Seven

An Advocate.com exclusive posted, August 1, 2005

http://www.advocate.com/special_feature_ektid19186.asp

______________________________

Below is a link to the article in The Advocate by Mike Hudson, followed by the article itself, which introduced my manuscript:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...16/ai_n15396922

Our "deep throat": Gay lawyer Douglas Caddy was the original lawyer for the Watergate burglars - and was, he says, targeted by the government for dirty tricks. Did the scandal grow in part from homophobia?

By Mike Hudson

At the end of May the world learned the solution to the biggest mystery of the Watergate scandal: Deep Throat, the anonymous tipster who leaked information to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, was Mark Felt--the number 2 guy at the FBI.

The news prompted attorney Douglas Caddy, who is gay, to make his own revelations. The first lawyer to represent the Watergate burglars, Caddy believes the homophobia that led to his own harsh treatment by investigators may have escalated the cover-up that ended up driving Richard Nixon from office in August 1974.

Even to political junkies, Caddy's name might not ring a bell. But he is portrayed in the classic 1976 film All the President's Men. Early on, Woodward, played by Robert Redford, walks into a courtroom for the arraignment of the five men accused of burglarizing the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in D.C.'s Watergate office complex and sits behind a mysterious well-dressed lawyer. The lawyer is anxious to avoid the reporter's repeated questions about how the burglars had obtained legal counsel without making any telephone calls since their arrest.

Called Markham in the movie, in real life that lawyer was Caddy--counsel for the five men arrested during the Watergate break-in and for two better-known Watergate players: E. Howard Hunt, the ex-CIA man who supervised the break-in, and G. Gordon Liddy.

"It was just as dramatic in real life as it was in the movie," Caddy tolls The Advocate with a nostalgic sigh during a phone interview from his home in Texas. "I had a hunch, a feeling of how big this could be. And I wasn't all that excited about being in the middle of it."

It was June 17, 1972, and Caddy was a relatively naive 34-year-old corporate lawyer. Now a 67-year-old attorney in private practice in Houston, with five books under his belt, Caddy feels wiser for the experience but hasn't recovered from the bitter taste it left.

In the film, Caddy/Markham marks the first appearance of the dark forces aligning against Woodward, the heroic reporter who, with his reporting partner Carl Bernstein, helped break open the conspiracy surrounding the break-in. But in real life, Caddy says, the situation was much more complex. The forces working against Woodward and Bernstein turned even more heavily against him because he was an openly gay man.

Caddy's role in the saga began with an unlikely phone call around 3 A.M. that night from Hunt, the former CIA operative who was working from a White House office in the adjacent Old Executive Office Building. Hunt and Caddy had developed a professional relationship after meeting at a public relations firm and struck up a friendship over their shared political views. Caddy had been an early national director of Young Americans for Freedom, a young conservatives group founded in part by William F. Buckley, and had recently done volunteer work for the Committee to Reelect the President, or CREEP. He'd also done some of Hunt's legal work, such as drawing up wills or other routine matters.

That night--just hours after D.C. police arrested five men for breaking into the DNC offices--Hunt told Caddy he needed to talk. The pair met at Caddy's house, and the full scope of Hunt's troubles became clear. Soon after, Liddy, one of the masterminds of the break-in, retained Caddy as his lawyer on Hunt's advice. It was also through Hunt that Caddy served briefly as counsel for the five arrested burglars.

Having no experience in criminal law, Caddy enlisted the help of a criminal attorney to speak for the accused burglars. Because of this, he didn't argue before the court for any of the seven.

But the question Woodward wanted answered, both in the film and in real life, turned out to be the same question government investigators soon wanted answered:

Who got the burglars their legal counsel? The answer would have implicated Hunt--and by extension, the White House--in the break-in.

But Caddy wouldn't talk.

Eleven days after the burglary, U.S. district court judge John Sirica, who handled the case, slapped Caddy with a subpoena, compelling him to testify to a grand jury against Hunt and Liddy. Caddy refused, claiming attorney-client privilege, and was later found in contempt of court. "Never in the history of the American legal system has attorney-client privilege been disregarded so flagrantly," Caddy says. He adds with certainty, "The abuse of me was gay bashing." (In the end his right to refuse to testify against his clients was upheld by an appeals court.)

"The judge and the prosecutors had different agendas, but they thought they could push me around," Caddy says, referring to Sirica, whom he says was seeking the national spotlight, and assistant U.S. attorney Earl Silbert, whom he says was attempting to protect the Nixon administration. "They thought that since I was a gay man, I could be manipulated and that I wouldn't fight, but they were wrong." (Sirica died in 1992; Silbert remains in private practice today.)

With the heat on Caddy, the seven Watergate conspirators soon cut ties with him a decision that may have escalated the cover-up. The seven came to be represented by lawyer William O. Bittman, who would eventually confess to handling hush-money bribes given to the break-in suspects from sources tied to Nixon's reelection campaign. Caddy says he had steadfastly turned down offers of hush money for his clients, an assertion supported by testimony in at least one Watergate-related trial.

History proved Caddy's the wiser decision, since tracking the money from CREEP to the burglars was one of the main triggers that brought the Administration's dirty tricks and domestic espionage schemes to light. Caddy also suggests that Sirica's harsh treatment encouraged Hunt and Liddy to proceed with the cover-up, fearing they--like Caddy--would not get a fair hearing. He cites Hunt's memoir, which notes, "If Sirica was treating Caddy ... so summarily, and Caddy was completely uninvolved in Watergate--then those of us who were involved could expect neither fairness nor understanding from him."

Caddy believes he was targeted for dirty tricks of a different sort because he was gay. While he was always careful about his dealings within the very closeted gay population in Washington--a place where double mirrors and undercover agents were the norm at gay bars--Caddy believes the FBI and Washington police attempted to set him up with a gay lure. That assertion appears to be borne out by an 1977 Advocate interview with Earl Robert "Butch" Merritt Jr., a gay FBI informant. D.C. police "asked if [Merritt] knew one of the Watergate attorneys," the article reported. Merritt did not name Caddy but recounted that police "said [the lawyer] was gay [and] asked if I could get to know him ... 'to find out all you can about his private life.'" Merritt declined the assignment several times, he told The Advocate. Merritt's story is also reported in Jim Hougan's 1984 Watergate book, Secret Agenda.

The FBI denies the charge, saying in a letter to Caddy that a lack of documents in its files shows the agency had never investigated him.

Caddy also claims he testified in the first month of the case about attempts to provide hush money to his clients--testimony that was, he says, deliberately deleted from court records in order to hide the connections between the burglars and the president's men.

Would the history of Watergate--a story broken by reporters told by Deep Throat to "follow the money--have been significantly changed had Caddy remained the burglars' attorney? "It's hard to say what would have happened if I remained as counsel, but I had already turned [hush money] down," he says. "There's a chance it would never have gotten to the point it did."

The age of the case makes it hard to verify the details of Caddy's account. Calls to Woodward were not returned, while the FBI and the Department of Justice both declined to comment on the actions of prior administrations.

Caddy's experiences changed his entire outlook on government. He spent years reviewing court cases for a legal research firm and saw corruption in "9% to 10%" of them. He claims corruption of the judicial system has reached a new high with the appointment of Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzalez and the hunt for terror suspects in full swing. "As the saying goes, I wouldn't say I left the conservative party, I'd say it left me," Caddy says. "There are elements of this government that are neo-fascist, and I feel comfortable saying that."

He hopes future generations can benefit from his writings by opening their eyes to the complexity of the forces at play in the government. And of course, he hopes to inspire others to stand up for themselves if they are victims of heavy-handed tactics.

"There's a lot of this going on to this day," he says.

Caddy's smoking gun

In the preparation of this article, Watergate attorney Douglas Caddy provided The Advocate dozens of pages of documentation, including court orders, letters from Hunt and Liddy, and other records and recollections. The magazine is now preparing to make Caddy's papers available via our online edition, www.advocate.com. After August 1 click on ISSUE LINKS to find Caddy's complete archive.

[Ashton Gray]

Personally, I take your posts with the great dollop of humour which I suspect you intend, and sincerely hope that you continue posting your thoughts, irrespective of whether you are right or wrong about this or that hypothesis in any given case. I do find it odd that those who claim to welcome fresh perspectives and new "outside the box" thoughts in this ancient case are unwilling to entertain just that when you present it. Important new discoveries will not be made by simply retracing the same old ground on the same old paths.

Add sarcasm and a dash of hyperbole to the great dollop of humour, then the above, most eerily, is precisely my perspective on Ashton's posts.

If only Ashton could refrain from smearing anyone who dares disagree with

him as a "disinformation magpie" and "agenda hornet" (just to cite two examples

that he's directed at me), then we could all enjoy his input...

Now, Cliff, my bird and insect analogies are always terms of endearment, not smearing. I reserve my scatological analogies for smearing, and you have remained entirely unscathed. I would expect at least a little gratitude.

Ashton

[Cliff Varnell]

Personally, I take your posts with the great dollop of humour which I suspect you intend, and sincerely hope that you continue posting your thoughts, irrespective of whether you are right or wrong about this or that hypothesis in any given case. I do find it odd that those who claim to welcome fresh perspectives and new "outside the box" thoughts in this ancient case are unwilling to entertain just that when you present it. Important new discoveries will not be made by simply retracing the same old ground on the same old paths.

Add sarcasm and a dash of hyperbole to the great dollop of humour, then the above, most eerily, is precisely my perspective on Ashton's posts.

If only Ashton could refrain from smearing anyone who dares disagree with

him as a "disinformation magpie" and "agenda hornet" (just to cite two examples

that he's directed at me), then we could all enjoy his input...

Now, Cliff, my bird and insect analogies are always terms of endearment, not smearing. I reserve my scatological analogies for smearing, and you have remained entirely unscathed. I would expect at least a little gratitude.

Ashton

Ah...that being the case, it's the magpies and hornets who may feel slighted by your analogies...

[Ashton Gray]

I think the questions you posed were germane and on point, but I do agree with Pat Speer that the manner in which they were asked was almost designed to cause umbrage to those to whom they were posed. I was unsurprised that Mr. Caddy declined to answer, but was rather taken aback by the retaliatory moves he made to have you turfed from the Forum. However, that's really neither here nor there.....

Robert, I accept from you, without the slightest rancor or offense, your assessment in the spirit it is given.

I'll also state again for the record that I have 52 outstanding questions to Mr. Caddy in the thread Who Was Douglas Caddy Representing, and When?, none of which were constructed with any intent to cause umbrage or to offend. They are straight questions going to relevant material facts in testimony and evidence that I laboriously supplied for reference. In the very first post of that thread I said:

Despite some allegations that have been made in this forum, I don't ask the questions to hound or needle. I have no personal axe to grind with Mr. Caddy; I don't know him. What I know is what's in the record, and the record is bedlam. The record is at war with itself—which is oddity at high water, since the record is made by people who all purport to tell the same thing. Mr. Caddy is one of the narrators, and is the only one of them participating here who can answer the questions.

If he finds me simply too persona non grata to countenance, then I ask that some other member of the forum step forward and present the obvious and logical questions that arise from the embattled accounts. Who presents the questions is of no relevance at all. To make personalities the issue is to obfuscate the issues.

Since then, nothing but personalities (well, mine, at least) has been made the issue, and the questions remain unanswered.

If someone would care to go into that thread, and make constructive suggestions for ways to make specific questions there more palatable to Mr. Caddy, I would be entirely amenable—as long as the questions are not watered down to the point of not getting at the facts at issue at all.

I have made every gesture of good faith I know possible to get the relevant questions answered, including proffering them in this very thread to the senior moderator of this forum for him to ask of Caddy, and offering voluntarily to leave the forum permanently, as long as the questions actually get answered for the good of all. I don't know what further steps I can take.

I believe we may face three distinct possibilities:

1) It struck me at the time that Mr. Caddy may have felt constrained from responding with "Hunt lied" for reasons of attorney-client privilege. Now that Hunt is dead, perhaps Mr. Caddy no longer feels honour-bound to observe such a formality, assuming that Hunt was his client.

2) However, if Mr. Caddy were in fact retained to represent the Plumber cadre by CIA - as you are not alone in suspecting - then he may well be constrained from replying for the duration of his time on Earth, or until his [hypothesized] client [CIA] ceases to exist.

3) Then again, Mr. Caddy may just be an honourable man who has no intention of breaching attorney-client privilege, even if released from that secrecy oath by Hunt's demise.

If that is the case, we shall never know whether he was/is motivated by 2) or 3).

Well, there is a fourth possibility that I see, one that several of my questions in the above captioned thread go to (based on evidence that I cite there), and that is that Douglas Caddy never was the attorney of record for the leakiest Plumbers in history at all, which would render null any and all questions of "attorney client privilege"—unless, of course, reflecting to your number 2 above, there is standing privilege between him and CIA.

Perhaps, though, he finally will simply say that Hunt lied on the Mrs. Barker call issue. (That hope dimmed when I saw he has replied to your message in his time-honored method of reference to a two-year-old article in the Advocate, the relevance of which, to what you wrote, I cannot fathom. Maybe you will have better luck than I. Godspeed.)

If Mr. Caddy has been released from his privilege oath by Hunt's death, I would greatly welcome his contributions in determining who retained him, and why there is so great a disconnect between the various stories told about this.

Yes, well, this disconnect is precisely why I have been rather dogged in attempting to determine whether he ever actually was retained at all. I cannot get this seminal question answered, or the questions I asked going directly to this pivotal point. Most accept it as a foregone conclusion. I don't. This seems to account for at least part of my unwashable sin.

Personally, I take your posts with the great dollop of humour which I suspect you intend...

I can't express how refreshing it is to be understood. Some people simply are humorless, at least on some subjects, and no amount of humor seems to cure it.

...and sincerely hope that you continue posting your thoughts, irrespective of whether you are right or wrong about this or that hypothesis in any given case.

Well, I hope to, and prefer to, because I believe there is much more to explore. My goal on the question of being right or wrong is to be right 51% of the time—and I still manage to disappoint myself as often as not. If each of us chasing these elusive right answers in a hail storm of maliciously supplied wrong answers can only manage to be right on the important points, I still hold out hope that we'll get somewhere.

Thank you for your interest, and for your fair-handed dealing with these issues.

Ashton

[Ashton Gray]

Double post.

Edited February 9, 2007 by Ashton Gray

[Ashton Gray]

Personally, I take your posts with the great dollop of humour which I suspect you intend, and sincerely hope that you continue posting your thoughts, irrespective of whether you are right or wrong about this or that hypothesis in any given case. I do find it odd that those who claim to welcome fresh perspectives and new "outside the box" thoughts in this ancient case are unwilling to entertain just that when you present it. Important new discoveries will not be made by simply retracing the same old ground on the same old paths.

Add sarcasm and a dash of hyperbole to the great dollop of humour, then the above, most eerily, is precisely my perspective on Ashton's posts.

My family members also will attest that I over-salt the soup.

Ashton

[Pat Speer]

Caddy's role in the saga began with an unlikely phone call around 3 A.M. that night from Hunt, the former CIA operative who was working from a White House office in the adjacent Old Executive Office Building. Hunt and Caddy had developed a professional relationship after meeting at a public relations firm and struck up a friendship over their shared political views. Caddy had been an early national director of Young Americans for Freedom, a young conservatives group founded in part by William F. Buckley, and had recently done volunteer work for the Committee to Reelect the President, or CREEP. He'd also done some of Hunt's legal work, such as drawing up wills or other routine matters.

That night--just hours after D.C. police arrested five men for breaking into the DNC offices--Hunt told Caddy he needed to talk. The pair met at Caddy's house, and the full scope of Hunt's troubles became clear. Soon after, Liddy, one of the masterminds of the break-in, retained Caddy as his lawyer on Hunt's advice. It was also through Hunt that Caddy served briefly as counsel for the five arrested burglars.

Having no experience in criminal law, Caddy enlisted the help of a criminal attorney to speak for the accused burglars. Because of this, he didn't argue before the court for any of the seven.

But the question Woodward wanted answered, both in the film and in real life, turned out to be the same question government investigators soon wanted answered:

Who got the burglars their legal counsel? The answer would have implicated Hunt--and by extension, the White House--in the break-in.

But Caddy wouldn't talk.

By reposting this, it's clear Mr. Caddy is stating that this is all there is to the story. There were no late night phone calls from the CIA or Barker's wife, just EHH.

[Myra Bronstein]

John, if you feel it would help I will offer my services as a moderator. I feel as most of the disputes occur in three catagories, Moon landings, 911 and JFK photo evidence any Mod should refrain from either, offering personal beliefs, or starting threads on these topics. If yuo wish to discuss this matter further I will send you my home phone number in a P/M.

Steve.

I'd like to add a 4th category that seemingly always gets out of hand and will test the true colors of any future moderator and that is any theory that attempts to debate Israeli or Mossad involvement.These discussions always turn into who's a racsist,bigot,or an anti semite.In the short time i've been a member here,i have to say,i've never been more disgusted than i was after witnessing the way Michael Piper Collins was treated when he offered to answer questions about his book in the Author section.He hasnt been back since and i dont blame him.But you see, the mission was accomplished,have zero debate about the contents of his book,Final Judgement...This scenerio with Collins is one i'm more familiar with because my main interest is the JFK assassination but these type of attacks are not limited to the JFK assassination.The ordeal and circumstance that led to Collins no longer participating on this forum is ,imo, a black mark on open debate.

Just for the record Collins Piper left of his own free will unable apparently to cope with the rigour of open debate.

Just for the record,i happen to think the Piper/Final Judgement topic in the history book section epitomizes many aspects of poor behaviour.Ultimately, the name callers won out, no Piper no debate....you say open debate ,i say open attack....

We are experiencing parallel realities. Collins Piper was belligerent and hostile and hyper-defensive the second he joined the thread you mentioned. He started arguing with himself, basically. After a few salvos from him in the general direction of everyone on the planet, esp those on the forum, a few members got disgusted and finally swatted back at him.

He came into the thread with a major attitude, anticipating arguments, and it became his self-fulfilling prophesy. I never communicated with him, and I was planning to read his book until I read that thread. No way now I'd believe anything that guy writes.

He was the abusive one, not the forum members.

[Myra Bronstein]

I do believe that aggression and violence is a more prominent aspect of your culture than other advanced industrialized countries.

I Have lived in the New York area for a quarter century, and the only physical violence I ever witnessed was an altercation between two ladies on Madison Avenue. When the ladies began swinging their handbags at each other I could not resist cheering along with the gathering crowd.

The first time I went to New York I travelled around the city with a former resident. He explained that you would be safe as long as you kept your car doors locked and if you only walked in certain areas of the city. That proved correct but it was worrying to occasionally come across a car that had broken down in a rough neighbourhood.

The second time I visited New York I stayed with my publisher on the outskirts of the city. He of course lived in a very expensive neighbourhood. However, he took me for a drive and within minutes we were in an area where he said his family never ventured on foot. What surprised me was that these people did not travel into his area. He replied that his neighbourhood was well policed and that “these people” would be arrested if they ever entered his neighbourhood.

I got the same story when I was in Dallas. The taxi-driver that picked me up from the airport told me some horrendous stories about some of the things he had seen over the years (he was an immigrant from Thailand). However, he patted the gun on his holster and said that had protected him so far.

Then there was the taxi driver from San Francisco. He told me about the problems of taking passengers to their homes. There were certain areas of the city where he would just not go. He said he was sorry about this as unfortunately those “law abiding” people who lived in these parts of the city had great difficulty getting taxis to take them home.

All these stories illustrate the same point. The United States is a deeply divided country. This is a consequence of having the most unequal distribution of wealth and income in the advanced world. It is no surprise that the US also has the highest murder-rate and locks up a higher percentage of its citizens than any other developed country.

Well since John raised the subject and now we're all sitting around the virtual campfire sharing our anecdotes--I've traveled extensively, including two trips to England. The only place I encountered systemic rudeness and haughtiness (aside from the Bahamas) was England. The worst experience I've ever had with a company was with British Airways. The only time I've ever been thrown out of a restaurant (because they didn't like the way my companion was sitting on the chair, and she did not have her shoes on the chair, nor did she argue with them) was in England. By contrast, the French were downright cuddly. Oh, and I worked for a British company for three years and the top five managers--all Brits (one Scottish) were the worst, most duplicitous unscrupulous, people I've ever worked with or for. And of course there is my experience on this forum...

I'm not generalizing any more than John, who assures us that he's not talking about all Americans. And I'd never have volunteered my solidly negative experiences to an audience that includes Brits if it wasn't already an ongoing, and persistent, topic.

[Myra Bronstein]

I live in the US and I don't see the US you think you see. Having also traveled extensively, I see many of the same problems in other areas of the world, including the UK.

I would agree that there is sometimes a sense of fear in the BIG CITIES of the US, but this is also true of Paris, London, Hong Kong and many other big cities.

I'm proably a bit more familiar with the US than you are, and I think you are looking at it through your own biases.

Of course I am guilty of making subjective comments. That is what we do all the time. You are also guilty of being subjective, or as you put it, “looking at it through your own biases”. Anecdotal stories are interesting but they can only be used to illustrate the point you are making. When it comes down to it, my experience of New York or your experience of London, is fairly irrelevant to the argument that America is a more violent place that other industrialized countries.

As I pointed out, there is a considerable amount of statistical data to support this claim. For example, you have had for many years the highest murder-rate in the advanced world. You also imprison the highest percentage of your population than any other country. The state also carries out more acts of extreme violence on its citizens. The United States, alone amongst the Western World, retains the death penalty.

Have you got some alternative statistics to support the claim that other countries have a worst record for violence than the United States?

I think two separate issues are being conflated 1) the inherent aggressiveness of a particular country or culture and 2) violence generated by social inequities. The latter isn’t really relevant as to why the rude behavior is on this (and perhaps other) forum stems primarily from Americans members. This is not to say they could be a connection between two e.g. more aggressive societies are less likely to resolve their social ills or less equitable societies are likely to be more aggressive.

One area in which Britons and other nationalities (Europeans and Latin Americans) demonstrate considerably higher levels of violence and aggression is spectator sports especially soccer (football) fandom. The vast majority English and Brazilian etc fans aren’t violent of course but I’ve never heard of fans of one teem attacking another in the US. On the other hand it’s not uncommon for students from large universities in the US to go on drunken rampages when their schools win a championship.

“Have you got some alternative statistics to support the claim that other countries have a worst record for violence than the United States?”

Straw man John, he never made such a claim.

Excellent example Len. American sports fans do not, as a rule, behave the way English soccer fans (yobs & hooligans) do. I would think statistics would support that claim.

[Myra Bronstein]

I'm not sure how this moved from the behavior of members to the behavior of Americans, but...

I've always found the Americans with whom I have had to deal generally friendly, helpful and good-natured (with the exception of immigration officers at the airport who would, I think, have been happier and felt more at home in Stasi uniforms). Londoners, on the other hand... When I was teaching in Iran during the Revolution, one of the teenage girls I taught went to London. She got a taxi from the airport. When he discovered she was Iranian, the driver order her out of his cab... I've generally found Londoners to be a pretty miserable bunch. It's probably due to overcrowding, pollution, the weather, a succession of conservative governments and the performance of national sporting teams. We Spaniards are much more relaxed, good-humored and laid back...

I have pretty solidly negative memories of the English I've met in England too, as I mentioned in another thread. (Loved the taxi driver's though. They were my favorite people to chat with! )

[Myra Bronstein]

PS - Just where is Ireland anyway?

Ask the Brits. They should know 'cause they're still over there in the North being imperial, in spite of John's assurances that those days are behind England.