Those with questions or comments may direct them to me at dismuke@dismuke.org   Please understand that, because of my schedule, I may not be able to respond to all emails.

My posting to humanities.philosophy.objectivism  describing my initial encounter with Bearster and #AynRand.  This - not anything by the Speichers - was the posting that started the h.p.o. thread about Bearster's behavior and #AynRand

Bearster's response on h.p.o to my posting.  In this posting, he acknowledges that he bans newbies and visitors to #AynRand on grounds that a "person is a bit rationalistic, or that his sense of life is awry."  He also accuses me of being "evil" and of wanting to incite people to burn down his house. 

A subsequent posting by Bearster on h.p.o defending his ban of Stephen Speicher on grounds that Speicher used the word "just."  He also provides additional elaboration on how he treats new channel visitors.

This posting contains the channel log of Stephen Speicher's visit to #AynRand (using the nickname "ngc3242") for which he was banned.  

Sean Saulsbury's log of his IRC conversation with Bearster.   Bearster upholds and defends a ban against Saulsbury despite the fact that he is unable to remember why Saulsbury was ever banned in the first place.   The link to the log provided in the hpo thread is no longer active.  The link provided here goes to the log's new location. 

A posting by h.p.o regular Richard Lawrence describing his encounter with Bearster in #AynRand. 
 
 

A number of individuals put up postings in the  h.p.o thread poking fun of Bearster's behavior and the way he conducted his channel.  I will leave it to the reader to determine whether Bearster's behavior deserved to become the object of ridicule or not.  Since Bearster has suggested that these postings represent a "smear campaign" against him, I am posting them here for all to read and judge accordingly. 
 

A parody of Bearster and his channel that I posted to hpo.  In his Objectivisim Online posting, Bearster has described this as follows: "One of your cronies wrote a fictional piece containing my name, set in some kind of retail store which he thought people would believe was mine."   The fact of the matter is that it is made perfectly clear in the very first lines of the posting that it is intended as a parody.  Furthermore, those who have  read the postings linked to above should be able to very clearly see that much of the parody was taken verbatim from the postings of Bearster and others.

Stephen Speicher's UPI Press Release Parody of Bearster.   A bit of context is needed in order to understand this posting.  In January 2000, a tolerationist website called the Daily Objectivist put up an article awarding Betsy Speicher "Hero of the Day" for her efforts to help an Objectivist immigrant from being deported.  Betsy had no knowledge in advance that the article was going to appear.  Most reasonable people understand that, just because a website praises someone, it does not follow that the person being praised necessarily endorses the website.  Bearster put up this posting to h.p.o suggesting that Betsy had become a tolerationist. This is the basic context of Speicher's parody suggesting that Bearster had become a tolerationist.   A number of elements in Speicher's parody refer to various issues raised in other h.p.o postings and may not be easily understood by those who do not have the context of being familiar with them