Copyright Dealies

As we continue to gather material for our next installment of the Kult Police State series, I came across this gem from Wilson’s Southern Slavery scandal that deserves your attention.

You’ll recall that we’ve considered this email, written by Dougzilla during the Slavery controversy, from one angle. Let me show you another angle to the email that highlights both his arrogance and hypocrisy. To refresh your memory, here’s the email that he posted to the Moscow Vision 20/20 electronic bulletin board:

From: “Douglas”
To: “Vision2020”
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 4:07 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Proposed debate

Visionaries,

In my newspaper column a week or so ago, I concluded by inviting Drs. Quinlan and Ramsey to debate. Not hearing anything back from them, I emailed them privately last week to reiterate the offer. After making that second offer I have not heard back either.

I must now take an interesting (and perhaps courageous) step. At the top of their paper is the most interesting copyright notice I have ever seen. After the normal copyright dealies, it says, “Please do not cite, quote, summarize, or otherwise reproduce without permission of the authors.” Not being a professional historian myself, I am unfamiliar with this kind of restriction. I was somewhat surprised that they did not also include “or refer to the existence of” as one of the restrictions.

Here is the courageous step. I am now going to quote from their paper, and I did not get permission. On the second page, the writers say that it “is imperative, therefore, that real historical scrutiny be focused on this unusual performance.” I agree! Well, here is a golden opportunity for professional historians to focus some more real historical scrutiny on my little putt-putt scholarship.

This being the case, why the silence? Perhaps there is an explanation to be found in Ambrose Bierce’s incomparable Devil’s Dictionary.

Valor, n. A soldierly compound of vanity, duty and the gambler’s hope.

“Why have you halted?” roared the commander of a division at Chickamauga, who had ordered a charge; “move forward, sir, at once.”

“General,” said the commander of the delinquent brigade, “I am persuaded that any further display of valor by my troops will bring them into collision with the enemy.”

Cordially,

Douglas Wilson

P.S. Chickamauga was a battle in the War of the Roses, although professional historians take a different view.

To set the context, Wilson had offered to debate the absurd thesis of his preposterous book Southern Slavery As It Was with two historians from the University of Idaho who published a scholarly rebuttal to his plagiarized effort. And I’m sure that Wilson believed his cutting insults and his arrogant chest-beating brought honor to the Son of God as he sought to defend the indefensible. But you can’t miss this line in the middle of Dougzilla’s huffing and puffing:

At the top of their paper is the most interesting copyright notice I have ever seen. After the normal copyright dealies, it says, “Please do not cite, quote, summarize, or otherwise reproduce without permission of the authors.” Not being a professional historian myself, I am unfamiliar with this kind of restriction.

I call these sentences to your attention because a local citizen named Tom Hansen (who hosts the Not on the Palouse website) wasted no time posting the mother of all replies to the Fearless Leader:

From: “Thomas Hansen”
To: “Vision2020”
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 3:51 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Proposed debate

That seems a bit odd that you are unfamiliar with such a copyright notice, Mr. Wilson. Especially since that same notice is posted in your pamphlet. The copyright notice in your pamphlet goes even further. I would quote your copyright notice here, but I would need your permission.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

And unlike Douglas Wilson, Tom Hansen wasn’t lying because here’s the fully documented proof of his assertion:



Did you catch that? Wilson claimed, “Not being a professional historian myself, I am unfamiliar with this kind of restriction,” even though he pasted one of those “copyright dealies” right smack dab in the front of the book that he edited. Of course the irony is that he and Wilkins copyrighted a book that they had plagiarized wholesale from two other men’s work.

But the point is not that Wilson really was familiar with those copyright dealies when he claimed he was not, and the point isn’t that he’s not a professional historian, because he’s not any kind of historian; he’s a popular storyteller who possesses no moral boundaries. The point is that Douglas Wilson is shameless beyond measure and he will stoop to any level to make sure the whole world knows it.

Thank you.