You know, Kaos, for a supposed Discordian you certainly like pushing your own interpretations and understandings of things as the only possible way something can be. Your understanding of slander is piss-poor in that by your restrictions on it, someone claiming to be a man's mistress cannot be slandering him, only his wife or other mistresses.
Furthermore, you've defined "credible harm" only to mean emotional distress, more or less,
and you seem to have come the the erroneous conclusion that credible harm having been done must be proven, rather than the potential for harm.
I'm sorry, I just really can't get over your complete failure to understand
anything in a way contrary to what you've already decided it means, and your utter hypocrisy in claiming that the clergy of the Lord and Lady have already "lost" the term Wicca to the pretenders, while simultaneously claiming and defending a singular meaning for things that allows you to challenge my words based solely on your desired interpretation - an interpretation that automatically gives you cause to claim that I don't know what I'm saying. You're an
argumentum ad populum (a lot of people use the word this way so it must be the new meaning), special pleading (since my words mean only what you want them to mean), and a straw man (by using an incorrect definition for terms repeatedly to dismiss arguments) all rolled up into one!
Perhaps you should go look at the word "care" in a dictionary,
all the definitions, and notice its uses as a transitive verb. Specifically, this specific definition:
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
to be concerned about or to the extent of <don't care what they say> <doesn't care a damn>
When used as a transitive verb, this is the most common connotation according to at least the Merriam-Webster dictionary. In other words, the word "care", when used in the sense "don't care what they say", is stating that the extent (in this specific case, the widespread) of the erroneous statement is not the matter at hand because it is still erroneous. It's the metaphorical antithesis to the
argumentum ad populum fallacy.
Going back to your legalistic, while erroneous, personal definition of slander, the phrase "don't care" takes on the meaning "it does not matter how long or to how many people the erroneous statement of affiliation has been stated, it does not change the fact that it is still erroneous and still reflects poorly on me". Considering the number of times I have heard criticisms of the fluffy bunnies include harsh statements about how their deities must be schizoid if they allow so much variation in belief and practice, it does reflect poorly on the deities in that outsiders believe that the gods of Wicca are meaningless entities. Does it matter if the deities that the fluffy bunnies worship and speak of, and which the critics lambast, are not the Lord and Lady of the Isles? Not a bit, because the fluffies have created a confusion and dilution of the term and the theology in the minds of outsiders to the point that all Wicca is seen as equivalent, and hence statements made within the realm of pretenders influence an outsider's view of the actual practitioners. To put it in different terms.
Let's say I write a story about the 82nd Airborne that claims that they are all trained on how to best mutilate their enemies to cause them a slow, painful death in the heat of battle, and that they hold orgy-rituals at the end of every skirmish to take in the power of those they have condemned to die painfully. In my mind, I am talking about the real 82nd Airborne. If I erroneously claim that they are part of the Navy, that makes it obvious to an outside observer that I have my facts wrong about the Airborne, but it doesn't magically mean that I believe I am talking about a different 82nd Airborne. It does not release me from responsibility for my words and claims, simply because I am discussing a group (the Navy's 82nd Airborne) that doesn't exist. I have still made a statement that is false and, intent notwithstanding, has the potential to cause substantive harm to the reputation of the group. That my story is fanciful and would not be believed outside of the most marginalized military-occult conspiracy theorists
is not relevant to the fact that I have perpetrated slander against the group and all that it entails.
To be blunt, you seem to be getting your lexical understanding of English solely from your own mind, and your legal understanding from little more than part of a definition on nolo. I can back up my meanings with the categorizations and works of lexicographers, and my legal terminology with years of following cases via legal blogs whose authors are legal professionals. I think one of us has a better backing source, and I'm pretty sure it's me.
Also, maybe the next time you see a
haiku in
white text that contains the terminology
clever ruse and
old ally, you might want to think for a couple ticks and come to the realization that I'm just messing with a buddy.
