Dear Dr.  Braveman,

          I am glad you decided to respond. You are always welcome to do so here and if you would like to write an extended response, I will happily publish it on my website as a self-standing article. Considering the nature of your comments above from Dec. 7, 2012, I believe a more extended response is necessary. Your present comments fail to give a response worthy of someone with your abilities and experience. My hope is that you will give my words the scrutiny I gave yours. This way we can both hold each other accountable. I think such a procedure will bring out the best in each one of us and serve the purpose of clarifying the issues, the facts, and the truth for AOTA members and others who read our work on this matter.

         I think that your statement in your Dec. 7, 2012 response that I did not quote those who you were responding to in the OTConnections forum has no relevance here because those statements by others had no bearing on the beliefs you expressed. You were, for the most part, responding to statements by Professor Carson, who admitted to not having remembered anything that he could cite to substantiate his statements.

          Although what he said was in the main correct and supported by the mainstream literature as I have now demonstrated, his failure to cite sources during the debate not only damaged his credibility, but also meant you mostly went unchallenged. In essence, you generally had no other side to the dialogue. There was no other side with a person who could equal your experience with the literature or your facility with language. But now there is. My work represents that other side. I hope you will engage me with the same enthusiasm with which you engaged Professor Carson. Responsible academics in search of the truth understand that constant engagement, being open to different perspectives and a desire for acquiring new knowledge as it becomes available are essential values in broadening one’s expertise on an issue.

          I want to take the time here to give a thoughtful reply to your comments regarding my series of articles because this issue is very serious. You, as a FAOTA and a scholar, have an incredible amount of influence in shaping the direction of the profession, and unfortunately, the decisions of a small number of academics involved in AOTA wind up imposing rules on thousands of practitioners who don’t know the implications of AOTA’s decisions. For example, the social justice requirement imposed by the AOTA Code of Ethics has the effect of law in several states, which poses risks to members in those states who oppose the political agendas pushed by the left-leaning leaders who run AOTA.

          The social justice requirement also influences pedagogy, as professors structure their courses to promote compliance with professional standards. In the long-run this will have the effect of creating institutions and a profession that are hostile to students and members with different political perspectives. This is something that has already happened in social work and teacher training programs, with the same process well underway in counseling psychology. And the last thing many occupational therapy professors need is an excuse to structure their courses in order to promote a left-leaning political concept that has been entrenched in our Code of Ethics.

          Below are four points addressing your comments to my articles. 

          POINT ONE: The Statements in Your Response are Ubiquitously Contradicted by Your Statements in the Social Justice Forums

           In your Dec. 7, 2012 comments to my articles you ask readers to:

          “read the original discussion and draw their own conclusion about my opinions which are far from ‘academic’ in the context of OT Connections.”

          The question we are actually dealing with is, did your statements in the OTConnections forum accurately reflect the truth about social justice, or did they distort the subject? The issue is not academic or not-academic, but accuracy or distortion.

          As to your suggestion that readers review the debate to discover whether your statements were meant to be “academic” in the context of OTConnections, we should be precise in directing readers to the relevant portions of the discussion, as there were technically three social justice forums, and when printed and bound they are well over 200 hundred pages. It is unreasonable to burden readers with the whole debate to find an answer to this issue when that is completely unnecessary.

          First, readers should look to Dr. Braveman’s second post to the forum on Mon. Feb. 21, 2011 1:08 PM. In that post, Dr. Braveman quoted his first article in the AJOT 2009 special social justice edition, an article that was quoting his second article in that same edition. Here is that post in green type, with some of the terms indicating its academic nature in bold:

         Brent Braveman, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA replied on Mon, Feb 21 2011 1:08 PM 

          Here is how I define and understand social justice and why I see it as distinct from the concept of  "distributive" justice and therefore congruent with modern concepts of empowerment. It does not demand "equal" distribution, but "fair" distribution which should be in alignment with American values regardless of political leanings [then here you cite to your article, which begins by referencing your other article]:

          "Braveman and Suarez-Balcazar (2009, p. 13 ) noted that “social justice is a broad term that encompasses several interrelated concepts, such as equality, empowerment, fairness in the relationship between people and the government, equal opportunity, and equal access to resources and goods.” [. . .] Braveman, B., & Bass-Haugen, J. D. (2009). From the Desks of the Guest Editors—Social justice and health disparities:

           [then you put the title of the article] An evolving discourse in occupational therapy research and intervention. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 63, 7–12.

          Brent Braveman, PhD., OTR/L, FAOTA

          If you start your participation in the forum by quoting one of your academic publications which quotes one of your other academic publications, it does sound as if you are trying to be academic. Some would say you were being overly academic as it is very unusual to find a scholar who would quote himself quoting himself. As someone who has spent years on end engaged in serious reading for several hours a day every day, I must confess to never having experienced it.

          Furthermore, your identifying information for your AOTA account signals that you are a “PhD” and a “FAOTA,” information that appears on the top and the bottom of the post. Such identifying information is your choice. You deliberately chose to identify yourself with your academic credentials. This was not necessary as other professors, such as Dr. Rosanne DiZazzo-Miller, participated without using any identifying information signaling their status as academics.

          In your third post to the forum, you asked Professor Carson for sources. In doing so, you pointed out that you did scholarly research on the subject and so you expected that kind of academic rigor from Professor Carson. This is your statement from your third post:

          Mon. Feb. 21, 2011 2:56 PM: “Ron [Carson], Can you tell us where you draw your conclusion that, ‘Social justice, REQUIRES that money be taken from one individual and be handed to another individual . . .’? (e.g. what model, author, scholar, organization or movement are you citing?) Through the process of editing a special issue of AJOT on social justice I did pretty extensive reading…. If we are making definitive statements about what a concept requires, I think we need to cite a specific model or source to substantiate that claim” (“Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice,” http://otconnections.aota.org/forums/t/9285.aspx, Sept 25, 2011) (emphasis added).

          All of that is very academic. You are asking for academic sources from Professor Carson, such as a “model” or “scholar,” in order for Professor Carson to “substantiate” his statements. Furthermore, you point to your own academic research, which involved “pretty extensive reading,” and you reveal, once again, that you were the editor of an academic journal. How is that “far from ‘academic'”? 

          You soon followed with this statement, again directed to Professor Carson:

          Mon. Feb. 21, 2011 7:09 PM: “I would counter the idea that redistribution of wealth or resources is a requirement of social justice. Rather if you do a comprehensive review of the literature on social justice and the related term occupational justice by scholars and researchers the concept focuses on concepts consistent with the World Health Organizations ICF  . . .” (“Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice,” http://otconnections.aota.org/forums/t/9285.aspx, Sept 25, 2011) (emphasis added).

          Your statement is, again, very academic. You are rebutting Professor’s Carson’s claim and you do so by referring to “a comprehensive review of the literature on social justice” by “scholars and researchers.” Substantiating your position by reference to the academic literature done by both academic “researchers” and “scholars” is academic. You then ended that post by including a list of academic articles, which you prefaced with the following statement:

          Mon. Feb. 21, 2011 7:09 PM: “Here is an abbreviated reading list on social justice and occupational justice. The articles in the special issue of AJOT on social justice are not all included here but can be found in the 2009 issue of AJOT cited in the 2 articles where I am lead author, available on line for AOTA members” (“Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice,” http://otconnections.aota.org/forums/t/9285.aspx, Sept 25, 2011) (emphasis added).

          Again, you are stating you are the “lead author” on two academic articles, which are included in the list of academic articles you posted on the forum.

          A few hours later, you responded to Professor Carson by stating:

          Feb. 21, 2011 10:33 PM: “I think you are wrong; I believe if you read the full body of literature on social justice you'll find that that is not a requirement of most proponents of social justice” (“Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice,” http://otconnections.aota.org/forums/t/9285.aspx, Sept 25, 2011) (emphasis added).

          Here you are once again substantiating your position by referencing the “the full body of literature on social justice.” That is being academic.

          Dr. Braveman: These are all of your statements from the first day of responses alone. Look at how often you point out that you were (1) the lead author of two articles, that (2) you were the editor of the academic journal AJOT, (3) reported knowing the literature and (4) demanded that Professor Carson provide citations to academic literature. ALL OF THIS IS FROM DAY ONE. For readers who want to exercise their independent judgment to determine if your opinions in the forum were “far from academic” or, on the other hand, very academic, I suggest they start with the six references quoted above. From there, they will easily find another six. And after reading the second set of six, there will be another set of six patiently waiting to be discovered.

          I could continue to cite examples, but the conclusion should already be clear: Your statement from your Dec. 7, 2012 comments that your opinions in the forum were “far from ‘academic' in the context of OT Connections” is ubiquitously contradicted by your statements in OTConnections. You presented yourself as an academic by conspicuously displaying your academic credentials because you had specialized academic knowledge on the subject due to your academic editorship and your academic research and writing for an academic journal, in which you did extensive reading of the academic literature, and you demanded that Professor Carson meet that standard of academic rigor by citing academic sources to substantiate his claims. Your claim that your participation in the forum was "far from academic" has no basis in reality.

          POINT TWO: Your Stature in the Profession

          You are now recasting the debate in the forum as you being “naïve,” and having been “lulled into a feeling of safety,” and note that in the internet age you have to be “careful about choosing my words” and are not free to express “opinions that might be off the cuff” which are “made informally.” All of this is a radical distortion of how you saw your participation in the forum and of how you actually participated.

          You were not a vulnerable innocent: (1) you explicitly participated by advertising your academic credentials and FAOTA status, (2) you viewed yourself as someone that other members should follow for guidance, (3) you demanded that others meet the standards you achieved through your academic activities by asking them to cite to the academic literature, (4) you chastised Professor Carson when he couldn’t do so, and (5) you explicitly set out to devalue Professor Carson’s opinion. On top of that, (6) you repeatedly made the charge that many who had a point of view that differed from yours were spreading narrow-minded “vitriol” or “twisting the meaning” of social justice or wanted to “harm” or “discredit political opponents.” There was no naive vulnerability to your participation.

          The theme of lost innocence does not fit the facts. Using such a theme as an excuse for not taking responsibility for your participation is not properly respectful to your stature. You are a powerful and influential person in AOTA. Everyone knows that. Why else were you honored with FAOTA status? Why else were you invited to be guest editor of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy? Why else would you feel it appropriate to run for AOTA Vice-President. Your response to my work should be tailored with greater regard for your standing in the profession.

         As it stands, your Dec. 7, 2012 comments burden your readers with the ambiguity of never knowing just when they are to assume that your online comments are meant to be taken seriously, as a reflection of your truly held beliefs. That is not a good circumstance for someone who publicly stated he wanted to be AOTA President. The standard you seem to be creating is that your statements in OTConnections should be taken seriously unless you are later shown to have distorted the subject, in which case readers should conclude that your comments were "off the cuff" and not "carefully worded." That is confusing to everyone. People should know that when a FAOTA speaks, that FAOTA is to be trusted, especially when that FAOTA (1) makes conspicuous his academic credentials, (2) cites himself as an author of academic articles, and (3) incessantly refers to the academic literature he was allegedly familiar with.

         I think you must now defend your participation in the forum by pointing out that I have misrepresented it. Keep in mind that my argument is that many of your statements were outlandish, so outlandish that they resulted in confusing the discussion and misrepresenting the truth about social justice, a misrepresentation so distorted that it merited being deemed intellectual bankruptcy. Either I have misrepresented your participation in the forum, or you have distorted the facts about social justice during the course of the debate on OTConnections, which is why you altered your positions after the fact. If you were a regular member and not a scholar who had written on social justice, altering previous comments would not have been worth commenting on. But considering that you were not such a regular member, but an experienced scholar who had done work in this area, those outlandish comments should have never been made, especially considering the books listed in your bibliography.

          If you cannot defend your participation in the forum as it stands permanently preserved in my transcript, then you should address your inaccurate and misleading statements, and define your position now that you have been introduced to a well-researched presentation from the other side of the dialogue. Others need to know where you stand. You should set the record straight as these articles about your participation in the forum will be permanently available. Your response should be as well.

          POINT THREE: Personal Opinions versus Scholarly Publications

          You say in your Dec. 7, 2012 response that your comments on the OTConnections social justice forums were “personal opinions and were not meant to be supported directly by the articles published in AJOT. The two are apples and bananas written for very different reasons.”  You need to explain how your personal opinions about social justice are different from the opinions you put forth in your scholarly work. Your statement implies that your research on social justice as a scholar does not reflect your personal opinions about social justice. But then how did you form your personal opinions about social justice? Shouldn’t those opinions be informed by the reading you do on the subject?

          Your research should focus on discovering the truth of the matter, and your personal opinions should reflect what you have learned through such study. If that is not the case, you need to explain yourself. I don’t think that you have spoken clearly here. It’s like a cancer researcher saying that his scholarly research shows that smoking causes cancer, but it is his personal opinion that it does not.

          Furthermore, you did not participate in the forum by saying the opinions you were expressing were just your personal beliefs that had nothing to do with your scholarly research or the academic literature. YOU DID THE EXACT OPPOSITE. To now dichotomize the views you expressed in the forum as “personal opinions” that are separate from the views you expressed in your published work in AJOT does not make any sense and is ubiquitously contradicted by your statements in the forum. Such a statement will make even less sense once we examine specifically what comparison I did make between your written work and your participation in the forum.

          So let’s examine clearly, explicitly, logically, and specifically your statement that it is “not a fair and reasonable exercise” to compare your comments in OTConnections, which represent your “personal opinions,” with your published work because the OTConnections statements “were not meant to be supported directly by the articles published in AJOT.” Your failure to be specific here has the effect of misleading those who only read your Dec. 7, 2012 comments and do not read my series of articles.

          Specifically, the ONLY OTConnections comment of yours that is relevant is what I have termed your “no government involvement in social justice” thesis. So to make this explicit, the ONLY comparison at issue is the ONE sentence you wrote in OTConnections regarding the “no government involvement in social justice” thesis. And this one sentence is what I compared to SIX sentences in one of your articles that CONTRADICTED that thesis. The comparison takes less than two pages of what is a roughly 60-page article divided into three volumes.

          Here is your “no government involvement in social justice” thesis from OTConnections:

           • Feb. 22, 2011 9:09 AM: “Social justice does not require the involvement of any level of government and I think it is just sad that the concept is being twisted to suggest it does” (“Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice,” http://otconnections.aota.org/forums/t/9285.aspx, Sept 25, 2011).

          Your thesis posits that (1) there is no government involvement in social justice AT ANY LEVEL and that (2) it makes you SAD that someone would TWIST THE MEANING of the term to suggest that there is. That is a very powerful, unambiguous statement: NO GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT AT ALL, plus YOU ARE SAD IF ANYONE TWISTS THE MEANING OF THE TERM TO SUGGEST THAT THERE IS.

          I then compared this thesis to the six sentences in one of your AJOT articles from 2009 that say THE EXACT OPPOSITE. For example, this is part of the first sentence in your article, which is representative of all the other sentences that I quoted in my Volume One of this series:

          “Social justice is a broad term that encompasses several interrelated concepts, such as equality, empowerment, fairness in the relationship between people and the government, equal opportunity, and equal access to resources and goods” (“Social Justice and Resource Utilization in a Community-based Organization: A Case Illustration of the Role of the Occupational Therapist,” AJOT, Jan/Feb 2009, vol. 63 no. 1, pp. 13-23, p. 13) (emphasis added).

          This is a second sentence from your article:

          “Social justice also encompasses the study of the relationships between society and the government and the accountability of the masses” (see previous citation, p. 13) (emphasis added).

          And, in fact, you made the same point in your own post in the forum which I quoted above in green where you quoted yourself quoting yourself:

          "Braveman and Suarez-Balcazar (2009, p. 13 ) noted that “social justice is a broad term that encompasses several interrelated concepts, such as equality, empowerment, fairness in the relationship between people and the government, equal opportunity, and equal access to resources and goods.” [. . .] Braveman, B., & Bass-Haugen, J. D. (2009). From the Desks of the Guest Editors—Social justice and health disparities: [empasis added]

          Therefore, I am actually dealing with a point you brought into the forum. You yourself quoted the idea of government involvement from your published articles in AJOT.

          That quote above completely CONTRADICTS your claim that your comments on the OTConnections social justice forums were “personal opinions and were not meant to be supported directly by the articles published in AJOT.”  In fact, as it regards the only relevant statement that I compared, the statement regarding your “no government involvement” thesis, you did exactly what you are now denying you did.

         It seems that you forgot this when you claimed in your Dec. 7 comments that you were not meaning to use your published articles to support your opinions in the forum.

          In my article, I could have just as well used your post quoting yourself to prove the contradiction in your statements, without having to have read your published work. But for the sake of thoroughness, I addressed the statements in your main article for AJOT, rather than those in your first article quoted above, because that first article was really just an introduction to the AJOT edition.

          It is easy to say, as you did in your Dec. 7, 2012 comments, that you were writing for “very different reasons” in OTConnections versus your scholarly work. That statement, however, does nothing to explain the exact issue I address: that issue is that these statements are THE EXACT OPPOSITE. And because they are the exact opposite, I went on in Volume One to examine the full context in which you stated the “no government involvement” thesis. I then looked at several paragraphs from the post where you stated your thesis and I explained the context, which was your response to Professor Carson. But, as mentioned, I never had to go through this detailed exercise of showing your contradiction because your post in green above already revealed it.

         With your contradictions now plain, can you please explain how your statements from the OTConnections posts which I analyze and your scholarly work I refer to are “apples and bananas”?

          In fact, you must explain how these specific statements – the “no government involvement in social justice” thesis stated in the forum versus the opposite statements made in your published work  – you must explain how these statements are “apples and bananas” for your argument to make any sense. You cannot just make a pronouncement. You have to give an explanation.

          Is it your personal opinion that social justice does not require the involvement of government at any level, and it makes you sad that people would suggest such a thing, but that it is your scholarly opinion that social justice does in fact require the involvement of the government? Have you bothered to examine the result of logically connecting these statements? The result of connecting these ideas is that you make your “personal self” sad when your “scholar self” writes about social justice. You clearly did not intend to say that. Your faulty logic gets lost with the general claim about “apples and bananas” because it hides the absurdity of the statement when examined in specificity.

          Also, it is very easy to claim that what I wrote was not fair and not accurate, but it is a different matter to actually explain that I was not those things. Anyone can claim unfairness and inaccuracy, and so they should if their ideas have been treated unfairly and inaccurately. But then you have the burden of explaining that that is actually the case. Charging someone with being unfair and inaccurate can just as easily be unfair and inaccurate. That is why the one making these charges must show that that was the case, and not just pronounce it so. That is why I took the time to address your statements in the forum, which I found to be unfair and inaccurate.

          POINT FOUR: The Ultimate Issue is Whether the Statements Examined in These Volumes Represent Your Beliefs

          The ultimate issue here is whether you carefully chose the words in the statements I examined in these three volumes so that they reflected your true beliefs at the time you stated them. Here is a statement, part of which I examined in Part 5, Volume Two:

          Wed. Feb. 23, 2011 11:36 PM “I'll say it again ..... Social justice does not need to be problematic for anyone regardless of their political views or concerns over use of federal resources unless you want to make it so............” (see OTConnections: “Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice,” Feb. 24, 2011 9:32 PM, http://otconnections.aota.org/forums/t/9285.aspx, accessed Sept 25, 2011) (bolded by Dr. Braveman).

          You had actually said the same thing a little earlier:

         Wed. Feb. 23, 2011 9:14:25 PM: “I simply believe based on all my readings that social justice does not need to be problematic for anyone regardless of their political views or concerns over use of federal resources unless you want to make it so............” (see OTConnections: “Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice,” Feb. 24, 2011 9:32 PM, http://otconnections.aota.org/forums/t/9285.aspx, accessed Sept 25, 2011) (bold by Dr. Braveman).

          I took these as serious statements on your part, statements in which you carefully chose the words to convey your thoughts, and that by analyzing them I was analyzing something you thought was true, rather than an unserious comment made off the cuff. The reason for me taking them seriously is that, for one, you are saying something “again,” which indicates that you did mean to say it the first time. And two, you bolded the idea you wanted to convey when you said it the second time. If you want to say now that these statements did not reflect what you wanted to communicate because they were off the cuff remarks where you failed “to craft your responses” carefully, please disavow them publicly. If you do not disavow them, then readers are safe to conclude that it was fair and accurate of me to treat them as expressing your opinion and analyzing them as such. The same goes for all the statements below: if they were off the cuff remarks that you did not mean, please disavow them.

          Here are another set of statements that were a part of those I examined in Part 2, Volume One:

          • Feb. 26, 2011 8:23 AM: “I reject the notion that social justice is a political agenda” (see OTConnections: “Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice,” Feb. 24, 2011 9:32 PM, http://otconnections.aota.org/forums/t/9285.aspx, accessed Sept 25, 2011

          • Feb. 23, 2011 11:36 PM: “Social justice really is not a political issue.....it is unfortunate collateral damage” (see OTConnections: “Motion 2 Ethics Revision- Social Justice,” Feb. 24, 2011 9:32 PM, http://otconnections.aota.org/forums/t/9285.aspx, accessed Sept 25, 2011) (bold by Dr. Braveman).

          Again, I took these as serious statements on your part, reflecting your truly held opinion on the matter. You should disavow them if they were not.

          Here is another statement examined in Part 3, Volume One:

          • Feb. 21, 2011 10:33 PM: “There is just a limited number of ways to say social justice does not demand redistribution of wealth. It just doesn't”

          Here I understand you are saying that social justice does not demand the redistribution of wealth by the government, and that there are really only a few ways you can express the idea. If this does not represent what you believe, then disavow the statement.

          With all the above statements, and with many others I do not recount here, the evidence suggests that you were expressing your truly held beliefs at the time you made them and that is why I analyzed them as such. If they were not, disavow them.

          Conclusion

          I want to thank you for taking the time to post on this site and I once again extend an invitation to publish your own article here in response. I think there are many issues that need closure here and that is still an important contribution you can make. One of them is the culture you created in the forum. It was not me, but you who destroyed the safety of the forum by your disparaging treatment of Professor Carson. That was one of the most salient things that struck me, especially as a student, when I first encountered the forum: that you, a FAOTA and the one trusted to be the editor of the social justice edition of AJOT, were so rude and condescending.

         Furthermore, the nature of your apologies – as when you bring up the issue of a technical writer for your negligence in including John Rawls’s book in your bibliography or when you mentioned your approach to apologies that “I am willing to apologize if offense is taken” –  have the result of deflecting responsibility from your own actions. I suggest that if you are going to apologize, that you apologize by taking full ownership of your actions and not mention the role of others. If you can’t do this, then don’t apologize because it sounds as if you are underhandedly blaming others for your failures.

         These kinds of statements, coupled with your condescending remarks to Professor Carson, destroyed the safety of OTConnections. Perhaps that is why others did not choose to have their voices heard. As one of the intellectual leaders of AOTA, you now have the opportunity to redirect the culture you created by pushing for a productive, welcoming environment. You also have an opportunity to set the record straight regarding your participation in the forum.

          If you decide to take advantage of this opportunity, I think it is necessary, in addition to the issues raised above, to address the following questions:

1.       The first has to do what you referred to as the full body of the literature. Members should know what books and articles comprise what you are calling the full body of the literature. That must consist of more than what was included in your bibliographies. Please list what it was that you consulted for your published articles.

2.       Regarding your bibliography, it is now clear that your inclusion of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice was due to your negligence, but that does not address whether you read his book or not. Can you please state if you read his book and if you did so before you published your AJOT articles?

3.       Readers would have the same question for other key books listed in your bibliography. Can you please state if you read (a) Beverly and McSweeney’s Social Welfare and Social Justice, (b) Iris Young’s Justice and the Politics of Difference, and (c) Ann Wilcock’s An Occupational Perspective of Health, the first edition. Since your articles were co-authored, readers should know if you were the one who read or browsed in these books or if it was your co-author who did so.

4.       It is also important to explain why you didn’t read or consult the second edition of Ann Wilcock’s An Occupational Perspective of Health for your AJOT articles. Why were you not dealing with the most recent literature when it was available?

5.       Before participating in the forum, did you read or browse in the bioethics textbook – Principles of Biomedical Ethics by Beauchamp and Childress – cited by the Code of Ethics in the social justice section?

6.       You wrote in your response of Dec. 7, 2012 that the writing in your scholarly work and your opinions in the forum were written for very different reasons. Please (a) identify those reasons and (b) explain why you would come out with THE OPPPOSITE POSITION on the involvement of government based on these different reasons.

7.       You said you posted the articles from your bibliography “only to make a point.” I’ve noticed you used this phrase before to evade responsibility for other statements. Can you please state (a) what was the point you were trying to make, (b) in response to what issues were you trying to make this point, and (c) explain how that point is relevant to what I have written?

Sincerely,

Alex 

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