50+ years of quantifiable evidence versus fanciful baloney

Despite his assurances that he would not return, the perplexing 'TVI Express' critic (and'Sherlock Holmes' fan), Kasey Chang, has returned. The ridiculous, but nonetheless dangerous, argument he has now posted, again leads me to suspect that he is not what he would have us believe. Typically, Mr. Chang addresses me directly, politely asking inane questions which are founded on his own unsubstantiated preconceptions of the organization most-commonly-referred to as 'Amway', and the origins of 'MLM business opportunity' cultism - a vast subject which Mr. Chang has previously confessed to know virtually nothing about:

 

'Do you see now that there is something even MORE evil than Amway? It is the NON-RETAIL MLM such as SpeakAsia and TVI Express. They have nothing to sell (despite their own claims). NOTHING is retailed to the public, so you cannot be legitimate even if you WANT to be: just sell stuff. 

Ironically, Mr. Chang (who has also posted a false and defamatory statement that I am 'obsessed with Amway') then aligns himself with a popular, American psychologist/biologist/author/broadcaster, and critic of pseudo-science and religion, Michael Shermer:

'I recommend applying "10 rules on how to detect baloney" by Michael Shermer. It is a very good guide on detecting ridiculous arguments.'

Typically, Mr. Chang assumes that we must have no knowledge of Michael Shermer.

Michael Shermer is, in fact, someone who (during his youth, and despite his extensive scientific training) wasted a considerable quantity of cash on various crackpot pseudo-scientific 'therapies.' However, after examining the quantifiable evidence (and confronting the reality that even he could be duped), Michael Shermer went on to become one of America's leading skeptics  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shermer .

With an almost total disregard for Michael Shermer's common-sense 'rules on how to detect baloney,' Mr. Chang again implies that since 'Amway' can be transformed into a lawful and ethical enterprise (with fully-informed participants retailing products to the public for a profit), it cannot be an inherently unlawful and evil enterprise (with ill-informed adherents being systematically deceived into pursuing the crackpot pseudo-economic theory of : regular consumption + endless-chain recruitment of further consumer/recruiters = endless profits - no matter what suffering this delusional belief entails ).

However, Mr. Chang doesn't attempt to refute the quantifiable evidence that (despite the 'Amway' organization's own propaganda) during the previous 50+ years, virtually no products, or services, have been regularly retailed to the public for a profit by any of the tens of millions of ill-informed, and insolvent, individuals around the world, who have been churned through the economically-suicidal 'Amway' closed-market.  What Mr. Chang denies, are my common-sense, logical conclusions that this huge body of quantifiable evidence (which the 'Amway' organization has sought to suppress) proves beyond all reasonable doubt that 'Amway's' effectively-unsaleable wampum is an absurd red-herring designed to shield fraud and fool casual observers (like Mr. Chang), and that 'Amway' has always been a major organized crime group, or criminogenic totalitarian cult; which (due to chronic US regulatory failure) has been allowed to act as the pernicious prototype for hundreds of copy-cat 'MLM' cults now comprising a pernicious global phenomenon which, whilst it remains generally misunderstood, remains an ongoing threat to democracy and the rule of law.

With a level of naivety which beggars belief, Mr. Chang apparently seriously expects your free-thinking readers, to follow his example, set aside 50+ years of quantifiable evidence and blindly believe the fanciful baloney that, because 'Amway' has products and services, the organization can simply oblige its adherents, henceforth regularly to retail this effectively-unsaleable wampum to the public for a profit. Tellingly, Mr. Chang does not suggest how this allegedly reformable global-fraud would be policed, or that the billionaire bosses of 'Amway' should be charged with racketeering and forced to surrender 50+ years of ill-gotten gains.

David Brear (copyright 2011)