No one has produced an example of one; therefore it doesn't exist. This means the opposite exists. Right?

This is my favorite fallacy-full quote from the Mists of Ramanna, the last good bye paragraph of the book, the can-I-shamelessly-commit-the-fallacy-of-negative-proof act of anti-scholarship.

During the whole course of the book you've had this strawman Mon Paradigm pounded into you interrogation style:

Jailer: Who is your enemy?

Prisoner: The Mon paradigm is my enemy.

By the last paragraph of the book you completely identify with your captor.

You've developed a real rabid hatred of that damned Mon Paradigm.

You're ready for the triumph of Pagan!

1. "But -- to ask the question one more time -- can we live without the Mon paradigm [strawman]?"

2. "The answer is we can and we must."

3. "For the historical reality is that the Mon paradigm [strawman] is a myth [how ironically true!]."

4. "Sona and Uttara had nothing to do with the origins of Theravadan Buddhism in Burma, and perhaps even in the rest of Southeast Asia;"

5. "there was no Mon kingdom in Lower Burma called Ramannadesa that preceded Pagan;"

6. "there was no conquest of Thaton by Aniruddha in 1057;"

7. "and as a consequence Lower Burma did not 'civilize' Upper Burma."

8. "It was the other way around: Pagan settled, developed, and 'civilized' Lower Burma." [tricky, but you need positive proof!]

9. "It was Pagan's economic, political, and cultural development of the interior and its agrarian sector that enabled the subsequent rise of coastal, trade-centered Ramannadesa." [OK. Show me the evidence.]

10. "Like it or not -- and not withstanding my Mon father [irrelevant] -- the making of 'classical' Burma has little or nothing to do with the Mon of Lower Burma."

11. "We must come to terms with this old and erroneous sentiment no matter how undesirable this dualistic interpretation of early Burma may seem in today's political world of binary constructs." [What?]

12. "Lest we perpetuate for another generation a myth that has been allowed to continue far too long." [You started it in 2003!]

Thaton was recorded in U Kala's version of the Burmese Chronicle around 1700.

You want me to believe that U Kala had the Mon paradigm too? In 1720?

Do you state any positive evidence at all that Pagan civilized the Mons?

I'm still looking for it. I may find it yet.

Make positive falsifiable tentative hypotheses like Lieberman does. Test them.

I dare you.

There are good ideas and useful information in the book also, but we are eternally, unceasingly, tiringly forced to view it through your Mon paradigm.

There is too much faulty logic. Downright sloppiness.

Do you think we, your readers, are stupid?

Do you think that "Burma Studies" is so chummy-chummy and cozy-friendly, someone won't eventually point out your glaring logical flaws and downright sloppiness?

Wake up.

[to be continued...]