Tom Clark,

How do we know that Tom Clark is your real name, and why would we care what people call themselves? You talk about 'ad hominem' attacks. You posted only to have a go at BBoy yourself, so enough of the holier than thou stuff.

My real name is Leigh, but for all you know, it might be Tom, Dick or Harry. You have only my word for it, just I only have your word that you are Tom Clark. But, if your name is really Tom Clark, so what? How does that affect what you have to say. If your name is really Tom Clark, again, so what? Do you think that you are being brave and straight foward; that you are are somehow more honest than the rest of us? After all, how does "Tom Clark" make you any less anonymous than others who us screen names. I don't think anyone silly enough to want to do so could track you down and pull your nose or whatever they felt like doing to your oh-so-good self.

Get over yourself, Tom Clark or whatever your name is.

"The same goes for BBoy's spray. While I am singularly unimpressed by Windschuttle's capacity to interpret history – you just cannot do it unless you genuinely want to imagine yourself in the shoes of others"

What does that even mean? I argued that Windschuttle's project of dismantling the orthodox historical view had failed. In defence of that view I said he had made many errors and misused sources selectively. All of this is well documented to anybody who has followed the so-called history wars in periodically like The Monthly and other historical journals.

As for my alleged ad homininem spray? Please. I simply shared my low opinion of Windschuttle's scholarship and how I believe his journey from Marxism to conservatism is characteristic of his tendency to slip into sloppy, caricatured one-sided narrative thinking.

"to blame 'his stewardship' for a slide in the standards of Quadrant is willfully overdoing it. The sacking of Robert Manne over a decade ago was the decisive moment when Quadrant became a partisan journal. (That was when its board installed Paddy Macguinness as editor.)"

A minor point at best. You're entirely correct that McGuinness's reign ended the non-partisan era. But I nonetheless believe Quadrant has descended further into partisan rancour and intellectual irrelevance under Windschuttle, which is entirely compatible with that fact.

You spent 100s of hours and produced an 80 page "book", and you're calling out Keith Windshuttle on one item .. that's it?

I wonder who paid for this trolling of documents, how did you pay the rent during all that?

Was it taxpayer funded?

Keith may be unsubtle, but at least he's thorough, and does not demand his critics all identify themselves when they question his work, he just deals with the facts.

Why do you need Loudmouth to identify himself, was it a bluff?

You challenged Loudmouth, he instantly complied to your demand .. where's your response, "Then I'll answer your question."

Tom, I did not, and hopefully never will, make any ad hominem attacks on anyone, BUT I will have a go at their arguments. As Salman Rushdie wrote, free speech is nothing if it does not include the right to say things which someone might find offensive, which offends their preconceptions. Respect the person, but not necessarily his/her argument: it's the argument, the subject material, the 'thing', res, which should be judged, not the person responsible.

I've knocked around Indigenous affairs, by marriage, residence, friendships, career, voluntary work, for close on fifty years and I hope that I'll always stand up for justice for Indigenous people. But I'll never stick up for fabrication, lies, distortions, or anything but (I hope) the truth. I was born on the Left and I expect to die on the Left and I respect Dr Windshuttle for the thoroughness of his research, regardless of his politics: genuine research so often comes up with surprises, awkwardness, phenomena which confound our preconceptions, but which have to be, not buried, but confronted and 'explained' and that is what Dr Windshuttle has done convincingly.

Just one :)

Sure Joe. One case of illegal removal. Just one? The case of Terry Mason's daughters, held illegally by the Lutherans of Koonibba Mission. Page 66 of The Last Protector.

And just to pre-empt your response, isn't it curious how the question has gone from 'Just name one Aboriginal person who was taken from their parents illegally' to 'Just name one Aboriginal person who was taken from their parents illegally and then found restitution.' As if securing a legal remedy to an illegal act is the only way you can prove that an illegal act occurred.