Excellent point, Steve. Barry (mis)uses his "shoot the messenger" shtick as an all-purpose rebuttal and excuse to dismiss a response, when in fact it rarely applies. To "shoot the messenger" implies that the message is valid and that there's no legitimate objection to it (originally, the phrase meant that the messenger himself was not responsible for the content of the message, which is not the case with Barry's "messages," but leave that aside).
When the message is delivered in such a way as to deliberately and gratuitously insult the recipient(s), the messenger deserves to be shot. Likewise if the veracity of the message is patently not true, or its negativity significantly and misleadingly exaggerated. And finally, if the messenger has a history of delivering false or exaggerated messages, as Barry does, he does not get the benefit of the doubt; he needs to be able to document the truthfulness of the current message if he wants to escape being shot. Plus which, of course, Barry routinely shoots the messenger when the message is not to his liking. Just say something even vaguely positive about anything TM-related, and presto, you're a brainwashed "cult apologist," according to Barry. That goes double if you're offering your message as a rebuttal to Barry's. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote : Okay, I'm coming in late on this. Rick, thank you for your comments. Well, there we have a comment from an experienced teacher, who most likely had more face time with MMY, and cannot corroborate Barry's accounts, at least first hand, and has not said anything about a second hand account. I will likely have more to opine about it, but I see Barry now doubling down on more accusations, that evidently only he was a witness to. Now, when you challenge Barry about this, he plays the "shoot the messenger" card, when likely, to the rest of world, it is called qualifying the witness. Attempting to establish if the witness has a history of objectivity regarding the subject he is claiming to be an expert about, or is even capable of offering an objective opinion.
