Ad hominem paranoia
[back] Name Calling, Ad Hominem (a logical fallacy)

"A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on."--William Burroughs
"The real meaning of the word paranoia is--- a man or person who has the ability to link events that seemingly are not connected."---John Coleman
The First Watergate Law of American Politics states: "No matter how paranoid you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine."---William Blum

[The main ad hominem/Name Calling attacks are by using terms quack/crank or paranoid/mad.  This has even been written up in the Soviet book on brainwashing.  This has been recently seen in The victimisation of Lisa Blakemore-Brown.  The The British Psychological Society were trying to declare her paranoid. Also it is one of the defences of the sanity of the mind called ego denial, to declare people paranoid who are expressing unwanted ideas.  In effect they may go mad if they suddenly took on those beliefs. ]

Paranoid/Paranoia: Media Buzzwords To Silence The Politically Incorrect BY ALAN CANTWELL JR., M.D.

See: ego denial

Quotes
"An immediate attack upon the sanity of the attacker before any possible hearing can take place is the very best defense. It should become well-known that "only the insane attack psychiatrists." The by-word should be built into the society that paranoia is a condition "in which the individual believes he is being attacked by Communists." It will be found that this defense is effective."--- THE SOVIET ART OF BRAINWASHING. A synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics

Denial is the psychological process by which human beings protect themselves from things which threaten them by blocking knowledge of those things from their awareness. It is a defense which distorts reality; it keeps us from feeling the pain and uncomfortable truth about things we do not want to face. If we cannot feel or see the consequences of our actions, then everything is fine and we can continue to live without making any changes. Denial def

Government Thought-Control of Scientists and Professionals:  This is a two-pronged, "divide-and-conquer" strategy carried out through two teams of covert propaganda agents, which I call the "Pseudo-Skeptics" and the "Pseudo-Paranormalists". The Pseudo-Skeptics pose as members and leaders of the intelligentsia, while the Pseudo-Paranormalists pose as members and leaders of the public's grass-roots "alternative" community. The message of the Pseudo-Skeptics also coincides with the government's "official, public" position on science, while the message of the Pseudo-Paranormalists is intended to represent irrationality, mixed with things like the worst kind of religious superstition and paranoia—to make the government's position seem more rational by comparison—and things the government wishes to discourage though ridicule heaped upon them by the Dupe-Intelligentsia (unwitting or useful educated idiots)
.......What we are presented with as "skeptical opinion", in those magazines on the book stands—such as The Skeptic, The Skeptical Inquirer, or Skeptical Opinion—is more like covert government propaganda than anything remotely resembling true skepticism in the historical tradition, when it comes to the socalled "forbidden topic" of UFOs.
.......What the government's reign of thought-terror has done, is reduce the ranks of true skeptics to a small few, who have little or nothing to do with groups or their magazines. I can be confident that these magazines will not respond directly to my accusations, in obedience to a covert policy to never mention or cite anyone who is not a part of the "official" two-pronged thought-control loop. This avoidance is another badge of their conscious fraud.  [pdf] Occult Science Dictatorship: The Official State Science Religion and How to Get Excommunicated by William Lyne

Examples
"One of my favorite guidelines on Wikipedia is to assume good faith. I have not lodged accusations against your motives and would appreciate it if you could return the favor. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with user created content, not a mere collection of links. I hope you agree that pages like vaccine are better when contributors add well-referenced, NPOV prose instead of simply adding links. It would be a poor page if it were simply dominated by outside links with instructions to "go read, it's all there!" You are right about whale.to - the most important reason to reject it is because it is associated with paranoia. I don't believe that those with concerns about vaccination are necessarily paranoid and I don't think that they should be represented by a site which devolves into paranoia and name-calling." Wiki Medical editor 18:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)