A Proposed Debate

I originally wrote this as a comment response to Carroll Bryant's blog post regarding Amanda. My response ended up being to long. I decided to post it here along with a link and explanation of that link on Carroll Bryant's blog pointing him here.

Here is the comment I left on his blog:

Carroll, you say that you are open to debate. I tried to leave a comment here but apparently it can not be over 4000 characters in length. Instead I posted it on the blog. If you wish to read it and debate what I say I am extending you that offer as you have done in your comments previously. If you would like to read it and respond here, that is fine. We can also debate it there as well. Just as a word of warning, comment moderation is off. We can also debate via email correspondence if you wish. Per my policy, written content of emails are not posted and display without prior consent. The choice is yours.

Here is my intended debate response that would not fit in the comment area.

I’ll give you the benefit of debate here. 

I’m wondering how long it will take you to defer this debate to "I am Jon or Amanda" to. 

I’m not really seeing the proof here. I’d like you to explain it out better. And here’s why. 

You edited your post before it went live saying that evidence proves beyond a shadow of a doubt Amanda is GenX. You say this because of a PayPal receipt (I won’t revisit this to much, I’ve read your take already) and a blog post comment on GenX's blog.  

I understand you wouldn’t have that original email of that PayPal receipt but you do have an email from Jon. You say that Jon and Amanda are married. If they are married they would be using the same ISP. You also have emails from GenX. Why not post the email headers from both Jon and GenX in their entirety? That would contain hard evidence that both emails originated from the same household. 

You also make the case that Amanda is GenX because of a comment on GenX’s blog about her blog being backed up. I read through that blog post and the context of that comment meant that GenX backs up the GenXPose blog, not the “Hippies, Beauty, and Books. Oh My!” blog.  You made a reference about others reading one of your comments out of context. Could this be the same case here? 

In this blog article you mention an article Amanda had posted on her Hippies blog referencing you. I didn’t see a time stamp in the screenshot that you had posted. When I checked out the actual blog the timestamp on that article is from July 25th, 2012. Now she did mention you in that article, I’ll give you that. But the context of the article was not about you. It was written about events that regarded you. Around the same time though, there were tons of article written that mentioned you. You posted to one written at the Rex files, didn’t you? How do you know GenX isn’t one of these others, or even is any of them? 

Next I want to bring up those screen caps you posted that of comments Amanda had made on your blog. They are time stamped for the same day that the article mentioned above was written. An Anon commenter posted the links to her blog posts on your blog. She was responding to that Anon that posted those links. Amanda did change her review policy. But if you remember, and you’ve complained about it before, a lot of bloggers did during the summer of last year. There were a number of incidents with indie authors during the summer of last year. I think when the debacle with you started it was the straw that broke the camels back. Her leaving comments last summer doesn’t equate to her being GenX. I found tons of blog articles about you written by others where you had much worse interactions with other commenters..  

You also post a screen shot of a comment GenX post on your blog. I gave you the benefit of the doubt and read the post from Amanda, the comments Amanda left, and the comment by GenX closely. The writing style of all three actually seem very different to me. The comments Amanda made don’t leave enough writing to examine closely, but the comment that GenX and the blog post by Amanda do. The writing styles and tone are extremely different.  

I also want to bring up the comment by Mepis. I did not read anything that said he will “stop at nothing.” To me, that reads as a precautionary legal measure. In fact, this kind of thing isn’t uncommon. It generally looks good in court, if ever needed, to say that you warned someone before hand. And it looks like Mepis did exactly what he said he as going to do and copy and pasted that message to your email accounts. 

At any rate, I’ve been chewing over this and all I see is flimsy circumstantial evidence at best. I can barely call it that. Many other bloggers acted and reacted in the same fashion during the summer of last year. Picking a single one out doesn't seem like proof.

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t expect much, if anything from these arguments. I know very well your supporters will back you no matter what you say. But you said you were open for debate. I was curious enough to see if you meant that and accept your extended offer. 

I think if you wanted to post real evidence that is beyond arguable than you need to display unedited headers from those emails. Everything that happened last year becomes flooded in the reactions by other bloggers. An email of a PayPal receipt means nothing by itself. I think by Jon's own admission in the comments on GenX's blog he used that donation to get information about that PayPal account that many were wondering about.

I think all of your proof lies on those email headers. Post screen shots of the complete headers so we can see that they are real and the image wasn't tampered with.

Update:

This is Carroll Bryant's official response to my comment posted on his blog offering this debate.

He goes on to respond to others that comment in regard to my comment.

Carroll Bryant thus far has refused to reasonably debate any person regarding his claims. I have found no evidence showing otherwise. Carroll Bryant claims that he started "Through the Looking Glass" in defense of himself yet he only posts libel and character defamation.