I could get into this subject, as I know the people involved, trained and worked with Aaron and his mother. What I am going to say is beside this point.
The character of ESMB has been different as of late. This thread is a nice microcosm of what I've seen. The thread title and topic is distorted from fair-game as known and adopted and denied by the church, into an anti-anti-anti-scientology thread. I think that if you were to bear with me and just look at this and you would see. Doesn't matter how it got this way, but it sure enough is there. It happened with the first response posting. I don't care at this moment that there is freedom to say whatever you want. Some of the old timers here just tell me to shut up and go away, and I will. I have been biting my lip, really since the first week of August. I'm, for a lack of a better term, fairly exterior to this. I just know what I'm looking at.
I greatly appreciate your observation. I had been kind of holding back on Alanzo's "Anti Scientology Fair Game" thread because I'm getting tired of that agenda driven drivel and I really don't want my last memories of ESMB to be of Alanzo's crap.
That thread title is based on a false premise or assertion. If anything it should be worded as a question like "
Is there Anti Scientology Fair Game?" This speaks to the underlying motivation which seems to consistently attempt to portray critics of Scientology as being like the Sea Org and Miscavige. I say the Sea Org and Miscavige specifically because Alanzo seems to want to hold onto some innocent romanticized version of Scientology Mission life without the pernicious influence of the Sea Org almost as if LRH had nothing to do with the creation of the Sea Org or making Miscavige his protege.
That is a "Do you still beat your wife?" thread. We are supposed to accept the notion that there is such a thing as Fair Game being inflicted on Scientology and Scientologists or other people by exes and proceed without question. This thread makes the astute observation that Fair Game is a very specific program created by Hubbard intended to destroy perceived enemies of Hubbard which is conducted by a large corporation with billions in assets and almost unlimited resources. Other people might do things that have similarities to Fair Game but that does not make it fair game. Just because some people on The Outer Banks or anywhere else express an intention or desire to harass or troll Marty or anyone else does not make it fair game and it doesn't make fair game a policy or acceptable practice at The Outer Banks or anywhere else in the ex-community. And just for the record it doesn't constitute gaslighting either. That is also a very specific thing and the meaning should not be inflated to mean anything that messes with people using head games.
But Alanzo seems to want people to perceive critics as a monolithic entity that is dramatizing the worst characteristics of the Sea Org and Miscavige. Alanzo tries to use the moral relativism argument to again portray critics as having some misguided herd mentality. They are now a cult and therefore their position is no more nor less valid than Scientology's position. It becomes important to hammer home the concept of an Anti-Scientology Cult. If we follow this logic then the same can be said for Alanzo and he can be portrayed as a founding member of the Anti-Scientology Cult Cult. The circular logic is ridiculous. Another moral relativistic approach is to redefine Scientology as a minor religion or sub-group instead of a cult as though there is no definition for cult. Now they are not good or evil - they just are.
All this business about us being in tribes and tribal bias is another way of saying we don't know what we know. Our experience is irrelevant and open to reinterpretation. What is really important is that we recognize that we are part of a group as Alanzo needs us to be in a group that can be defined by Alanzo and our position denigrated and mischaracterized by Alanzo so he can have his two Scientology universes intact - the fun innocent non-Sea Org Scientology and the deranged Miscavige Sea Org Scientology.
Here's the deal. The ex-community and Scientology critics don't have to follow rules anymore. We don't need no stinkin badges ...or certs. Leah and Mike and Karen and Ron and Aaron and anyone else can do whatever they want. They can spoof Scientology and their plants or even nutters that behave like plants and if that looks like fair game or black Dianetics so what? The Jokers and Degraders policy doesn't work out here. Alanzo doesn't redefine ESMB - he has only contributed a bunch of serial threads that try to portray critics as a cult and he posts on other threads to press the same point. Like all people who try to turn ESMB to their own agenda they get defined and clarified and often bring out the best of ESMB in the process. If ESMB were to continue I think Alanzo would find himself increasingly ignored because he doesn't discuss, he preaches and I don't think anyone comes here looking for another guru. Ironically Alanzo needs us to think that Karen and Mike and Tony and others are our gurus while trying to assume the role of guru and he needs us to think of them as gurus so he can attack them as being gurus. Maybe he thinks this is clever but for a lot of lurkers out there I think it is illustrative of what Scientology does to people or what kind of people are attracted to Scientology. In either case if he is trying to defend or salvage some sanitized version of Scientology I think it is an epic fail.
This has been a curious oddity to watch play out but once you figure it out it gets tiresome. Veda gets a commendation to his ESMB ethics folder for creating such a precision guided counter foil thread to Alanzo's propaganda thread. It's much easier to discuss these things in threads that don't get bogged down in the initial false premise.