A post submitted by CGI member, oldcurmudgeon!

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Some Thoughts On Plagiarism, and the Human Tendency to Judge the Message by the Messenger.

A short time back here on RMN there was a rather intense discussion surrounding the information being posted over on the website “Real Raw News”. There were folks who thought it legitimate and truthful and those who thought it was a bunch of hooey – and there were a few of us who just flat out don’t know what to make of it.

But something else came from that discussion that troubles me deeply, and that is this tendency that we all have to judge the message by looking at the messenger rather than the message itself. In that discussion there was a lot about the fellow who posts all the articles (it is his website I guess) on Real Raw News, and how he is not to be trusted. His name is Michael Baxter. There was evidence presented that suggested that he was some kind of shill, or conman, who had a history of creating goofy websites, etc., but then some of that information seemed to come from some pretty shaky sources as well. The point being – and one reader did say this bluntly – “Who cares?” The information is the issue, not the dude posting it.

Now we come to another issue a few days later – and this is very revealing to me. Natural Wisdom posted a couple of messages from a website “Rose Rambles” where she outright plagiarized Michael Baxter’s posts from his website Real Raw News. I mean, she repeated what he had written several days earlier WORD FOR WORD! Yet she DID NOT GIVE HIM ANY CREDIT AT ALL. I went to her site and looked it over very carefully – she did not mention either him or Real Raw News anywhere. Now our own Natural Wisdom can be forgiven in the matter, since he simply took her postings and linked to them. Unless he had also read what Baxter had written, he would have no way of knowing that this data was plagiarized.

But here is the really, really interesting part of all of this – when this information was posted as being from this “Rose Ramblings” it got lots and lots of attention, and our own sweet and loved Crystal River even commented “crazy – must see” in reference to the post about Newsom blaming Adrenochrome for all his problems. Why is it that when the information comes from a source that we think is a nut-job it must be false, but when we get the EXACT same information from a source that we feel comfortable with, we “feel” differently about it?

I am examining my own attitude here – this isn’t a judgment, but rather a warning to all of us. We need to be very careful when accepting and rejecting information, and we need to pay attention to the information as well as its source. I mean, after all even a pathological liar can tell the truth – true they probably don’t realize that they are doing so, but in the end it is the message that has to stand or fall on its own merits.

Now, a couple words about this “Rose Rambles” person – plagiarism is a pathetic sickness, it is like a combination of egomania and self hatred, and it has no place in the world of real truth, and those that seek it. This lady should be ashamed of herself; all she had to do was give proper credit where it was due.

oldcurmudgeon