c903

I am surprised, I think, that the majority here have failed to see the specific purpose of my opposition to silent's initial and public condemnation of David Foret and Drury Outdoors and the "rush to judgement" by readers, that immediately occurred and rapidly grew.

Am I the only person here that firmly believes that you do not arrest and convict someone and then go look for the hopeful existence of evidence of the crime for which you have already tried a person for, and found them guilty?

If silent personally had facts to support his claims, or knew where supporting and incriminating information could be found, such as what CharlieP uncovered, why didn't silent indicate such in his opening post? What someone else tells you without providing supporting information, is nothing more than unsubstantiated hearsay. You may personally know or believe things about someone, but if you cannot produce proof of your claim(s), is just an allegation sufficient to convict the accused?

Have you stopped to think that maybe silent's lack of any information beyond hearsay and "I just know," is what the Drury representative intelligently and justly reacted to when [if] silent contacted Drury Outdoors? Would you want to be pulled in by your employer and interrogated every time an unknown person called and accused you of an offense, for which the caller could not provide, or direct to, some degree of substantiating information to justify an investigation?

Based on my personal experience in such matters, I would wager that the representative that silent talked to intended not to ignore the information and was going to pass the information on to the powers to be, but was competent and knew that the final call was not his, and that it was also not his place to assure the caller that Drury would, indeed, investigate the matter.

Is it possible that the representative considered, that whatever he said to silent would be posted on the forum? Therefore, he (representative) realized he only had a few seconds to respond in a manner that would not mislead silent, who (silent) might mislead others, and that an intended investigation would be obstructed before one could be initiated, or that David Foret would first read on the Internet, or be apprised by someone who read it on the Internet, that he was being investigated by Drury.

If silent knew how to process such matters in a professional and competent way, he would have delayed his public condemnation and his suggested boycotting of Drury until 1) the facts on Foret were uncovered and disclosed, 2) that it was confirmed that the David Foret at Drury's was the same David Foret named in the article, and 3) it was verifiable that Drury Outdoors knew that their David Foret was the same David Foret who had prior convictions and they were not going to take appropriate action.

Now, there is much rejoicing because it appears that David Foret might be the same David Foret that has hunting violation convictions, and that the apparent corroboration of certain allegations and the termination of Foret validates everything that was said and done leading to the conclusion. I said, 'certain allegations,' because I have not yet seen any credible information that confirms the other accusations that silent made about Foret. Oh hell, excuse my stupidity! Because it appears that Foret did commit certain illegal acts, he must be guilty of the rest of the allegations …and any in the future.

I always delighted in assisting and/or enabling the apprehension and punishment of lawbreakers, but more so because I gave my best to adhere to the rules of fair play. Maybe, regarding fair play with a person's and a business' reputation, I am in the minority in this place. I tend to forget, fair play is only applicable to wildlife.

Make damn sure of your shot on an animal and that the shot is ethical. If the animal drops following a poor and/or unethical shot, the shooter was lucky and the shot remains a poor and unthical shot. However, feel free to recklessly and unethically fire away at a person and a business. If either or both drop, the poor and unethical shot now becomes a skilled and ethical shot, and the kill was righteous. Give me a break!

I have a question, what if silent's accusations were never confirmed? Would just his saying he knew his information to be factual have been enough for all of you to follow suit in his condemnation of Foret and Drury? Better yet, what if he had been wrong? What if he had had the wrong David Foret? What if he misinterpreted or misreported what the Drury representative told him? Oh, I forgot, ...again, all of that type of supposition is now moot.


MQ1Shooter

Being you have a BS degree in journalism, you should be someone who should have readily recognized the early flaws in this release, aside of any arguments concerning libel. Obviously, you did not, or you are more concerned with being liked than adhering to the "first rule" of journalism

I used to tell journalists; that it was my opinion and experience that many journalists are careless, incompetent, and biased, and that most seemed to have the propensity (sometimes, I believe, intentional,) to screw up and misreport, in just a matter of minutes or hours, what usually took me weeks or months to compile and report in the most accurate and credible manner possible.






Edited by - c903 on 12/11/2002 03:05:20