User talk:Evensen1982

Non-Neutral POV Edits
To user "Evensen": It is ironic that that you raised the NPOV flag in the James Wesley Rawles wiki article, since YOU were the one that TWICE blatantly attempted to inject a non-Neuutral POV edit to the article that had NO REFERENCES OR CITATIONS--just your own negative opinion.

Sequentially, here is what happened.

1.) You added the following unsubstantiated statements to the article

"However, Rawles' fictional writings reflect a strictly conservative interpretation of Christianity, including murdering suspects without trial, and great fear and demonizing of whatever is not Christian and/or American. He strongly opposed the United Nations and its peace-keeping forces in his novel Patriots: Surviving the coming collapse."

2.) I deleted your biased edit.

3.) Then you wrote the following to my User talk page:

Hello, u [sic] have undone my recent addition to above mentioned article regarding anti-UN/Pro-American Pro-Christian writings of this author. Feel free to discuss this in the article's talk page, however dont [sic] undo them please without further discussion. Thanks Evensen1982 (talk) 15:48, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

4.) In response, I wrote the following detailed explanation of why I deemed that your edit violated the NPOV rule:

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Your contribution to the article included many "absolutes" and "loaded" words that violate Wiki neutral point of view (NPOV) standards. These observations appear to be YOUR interpretations or impressions drawn upon reading a piece of FICTION. You made the illogical leap of applying those interpretations to Mr. Rawles himself, rather than more accurately applying them to his FICTIONAL characters. That is why I deleted it. Pardon the following dissection of what you wrote, but it is necessary to illustrate my point. You wrote:

"However, Rawles' fictional writings reflect a strictly conservative interpretation of Christianity,"

Conservative, by who's standards? European, or American? He is an American Christian, and his views of Christianity, by American standards are relatively mainstream. (Although, based on his other writings Rawles does seem to be a stickler for ALL five points of Calvinism.)

> including murdering suspects without trial,

It has been a long time since I read this novel, but IIRC, that was one incident in one chapter, in one character's over-reaction to finding dismembered body parts were being transported by cannibals. Without revealing that contextual background, you make it sound as if Rawles is personally in favor of summary execution of criminals.

>... and great fear and demonizing of whatever is not Christian and/or American.

Fear? That is a very loaded word! Demonizing? That is even more loaded. (How can you conclude that? We are talking about a piece of FICTION. And why not characterize it as a dislike or distrust?)

At least one of the characters, Blanca Doyle, is not an American (she is Honduran, IIRC), yet she is portrayed very favorably.

>He strongly opposed the United Nations and its peace-keeping forces in his novel Patriots: Surviving the coming collapse.

No, not "He" (Rawles). It was some of his FICTIONAL CHARACTERS who opposed a FICTIONAL FUTURE TOTALITARIAN RE-MANIFESTATION of what is presently the far more peace-loving real-world UN. There is quite a difference. Trasel (talk) 19:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

...

5.) So now YOU have raised the NPOV flag on this article? That is a priceless bit of irony. Just because you disagree with the politics and/or world view of the subject of a wiki biography doesn't give you the license to first go in, tossing N-NPOV grenades, and then, failing that, to then put into question the neutrality of the article. Please feel free to IMPROVE the article, by adding to it any VERIFIABLE countervaling information, with proper references.

If you have any specific objections to any particular statement in the article that seems non-neutral, then please be articulate those objections in a way that they can be corrected with VERIFIABLE references.

Thanks for your assistance in improving this article. Trasel (talk) 17:40, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

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What is this, a trial?? I added text to this article as it was way biased - I realized that some of it was unsourceable and interpretation, hence I added the NPOV tag. Mr Rawles is indeed a talented author. However in spite of his support and respect from other conservative christians this article should mention that both his Weblog and fictional works have elements of extremism in them- including support and heroic presentation of counter-government insurgencies, terrorism and extreme PRO-US and not the least anti-Muslim/anti-arab statements.

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No, this is not a trial. It is a civil discourse about someone (namely, YOU) adding uncivil comments in a wiki biography. So far as I can see, you are leading a one-man crusade against a NON-issue. If anything, it was YOU that attempted to put James Rawles on trial, with your unfounded claims.

Let me address each of your other "Talk" points, in turn:

>I added text to this article as it was way biased - I realized that some of it was unsourceable and interpretation,

Excuse me, but it was YOU that added unsourced interpretation. Virtually all of the existing article was properly sourced and free of interpretive bias. Let's step back a bit and look at what is going on here: We are discussing a brief Wiki biography with only 35 lines of narrative. Yet it has 37 references. That makes it FAR from being "unsourceable" and the "interpretation" that you claim.

>...hence I added the NPOV tag. Mr Rawles is indeed a talented author. However in spite of his support and respect from other conservative christians this article should mention that both his Weblog and fictional works have elements of extremism in them-...

Elements of extremism? If he is an extremist, then why has he been called "The survivalist voice of reason."?

If he were an extremist, then why would he have so many readers from across the political spectrum? (All the way from far left to far right?)

If he were an extremist and so fixated on pro-US perspectves ("PRO-US") as you claim, then why would he have so many blog readers so equally distributed all over the world? Look at this map of where his blog readers live: http://clustrmaps.com/counter/maps.php?url=http://www.SurvivalBlog.com  Now zoom in on Europe, South America, or East Asia, for example.

If he were such an "extreme" Christian, then why is one of his overseas correspondents an orthodox Jew that lives in Israel? And why would he have so many orthodox Jews that are readers, and why would they so clearly be at peace with him? (As a data point, do a search on "Shalom" at his blog site.) I found at least 10 letters posted with that word used, in closing.

And if he were such an "extreme" Christian, then why is one of the main "good guy" characters in his novel a Jew? And why are two others Catholics? And one of them an agnostic? (Lon Porter.) All of these are key protagonists and all are shown in favorable light.

If Rawles were an extremist, then why are some of the "good guy" characters in the novel black? (Tony and Tessha). And another is Chinese? (Dan Fong--my hero in the novel, BTW.) And why do two of the characters in the novel undergo a change of heart in which they consciously, publicly, and apologetically STOP being racists? (The Keene brothers.)

And, BTW, you might have missed this at one of the static pages at his blog site: "Racism Ignores Reason. People should be judged as individuals. Anyone that make blanket statements about other races is ignorant that there are both good and bad individuals in all groups. I have accepted The Great Commission with sincerity."Go forth into all nations" means exactly that: all nations. OBTW, I feel grateful that SurvivalBlog is now read in more than 100 countries. I have been given a bully pulpit, and I intend to use it for good and edifying purposes." (See: http://www.survivalblog.com/precepts.html )

>...including, support and heroic presentation of counter-government insurgencies, terrorism...

Please show me where in his blog Rawles even vaguely supports terrorism. You are spouting pure slander!

>...and extreme PRO-US and not the least anti-Muslim/anti-arab statements.

Rawles hardly MENTIONS the Arab issue in his blog, although a few of his readers have done so, in their letters. I just did a search on the word "Muslim" at his blog, and I found the following: Out of more than 4,300 blog posts that have been archived since January of 2006, a whopping 7 (SEVEN) posts included the word Muslim! And of those 7, posts (I opened each to examine them): 1 out of the 7 was anti-Muslim (a quote from columnist Ann Coulter), 2 out of the 7 cited news articles terrorist attacks in the US and mentioned that the perpetrators either were Muslim or might have been Muslim, 3 out of the 7 were completely neutral, and 1 one out of the 7 was pro-Muslim. That hardly sounds like a hotbed of anti-Muslim or anti-Arab statements to me!

It has been a while since I have read his novel, but I don't recall ANYTHING in the book that was anti-Islamic or anti-Semitic. In fact, the fictional invading "bad guys" were not Arabs, but rather Europeans and Russians that were presumably would be either fellow Christians, or agnostic/secular.

Now here you are, Mr. Evensen, attempting to castigate Mr. Rawles for being biased, but your claims are obviously unsubstantiated. And if your goal was indeed NEUTRALITY, then why are you using so many LOADED words, both in your article edits (which you posted TWICE) and in your "Talk" narrative? Here are a few examples: "strictly conservative" "murdering", "great fear", "demonizing"  "strongly opposed", "extreme", "right-wing extremist", "way biased", "anti-arab", "support and heroic presentation of counter-government insurgencies, terrorism..." Don't hold back, Mr. Evensen. Tell us how you REALLY feel!

Mr. Evensen, I find your clumsy mud-slinging is nothing short of character assassination. You are claiming that Rawles is some sort of hater, when that could not be farther from the truth. If you want to find a Survivalist hater to critcize, then go look at the Kurt Saxon page. Trasel (talk) 00:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

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I hereby formally request that other wiki editors comment on the neutrality of the James Wesly Rawles article, and reach consensus. I'd also appreciate anyone doing an unbiased edit for neutrality. Thank you. Trasel (talk) 12:26, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Sock Puppetry
Mr. Evensen: You are now apparently using a separate account  "62.16.226.158"  as a Sock Puppet, to make some of your edits and reversions. That is a violation of the Wikipedia rules. I have spent a lot of time trying to be civil and reasonable with you, and have provided lengthy and well-reasoned rationale for reverting your edits. You have ignored this and obviously won't respond to reason. If you persist, both of your primary account and your sock puppet account will be brought to the attention of wikipedia's moderators. Trasel (talk) 12:28, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

The Above Warning
Please disregard the above warning, it has been added by a user who appears to have misunderstood anonymous editing and the rules regarding sock puppetry. Happy editing. Guycalledryan (talk) 14:17, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Welcome
Welcome!

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