A new low...even for liberal anti-war protesters

Actually, once again for the slow readers, I have no cavil with attacking her words or her views.

What I DO criticise is using her words to draw unwarranted conclusions and sliming her with them, or using things like the apparent fact that a few far right nuts have joined her to attempt to smear her by association.

It's not THAT difficult a distinction to draw, I would have thought.

Ticomaya wrote:

Because we're talking about Ms. Sheehan, not Bush. But I see your point. Why, then, did you accuse me of diversion when I posted the view of a mother who lost her son in the military who did not think Sheehan spoke for her. That's precisely on point. A different grieving mother with the same "moral authority" as Sheehan telling her to put a sock in it. If you felt so inclined, you might have pointed out a distinction to be made in that the son of the mother who is the subject of the article I posted did not die in Iraq, but you instead chose to accuse me of diversion and false analogy.(emphasis added)

This is patently a lie, as . . .

I wrote:

Ah, the conservatives do love diversion and false analogies. Miss Healy's son died in a worthy cause in what has properly been seen since the outset as the war on terrorism--in Afghanistan. That is not the case with the son of Miss Sheehan. (emphasis added)

Therefore, the rest of your drivel . . .

Based upon his demonstrably false premise, Tico wrote:

So while my posting that article dealt directly with Sheehan, dlowan diverts focus from Sheehan to Bush ... and you have no problem with that.

Interesting.

. . . is irrelevant.

If you felt so inclined, you might have pointed out a distinction to be made in that the son of the mother who is the subject of the article I posted did not die in Iraq, but you instead chose to accuse me of diversion and false analogy.

I am not diverting. Sheehan's campaign is against Bush's policies - you are condemning her for her campaign. One of the reasons you are condemning her is because of her alleged imaginary friend. It is relevant, I think, given your criticism, that he against whom she is running her campaign has a different imaginary friend who tells him the opposite. Mebbe they cancel each other out, and we oughta keep imaginary friends out of the critiques on this one?

Note that you have capitalized the word "JUST" in your response. That was necessary as it did not appear in your original lie. Very poor work, Tico, you don't even rate a "nice try." All that wasted verbiage, tsk, tsk . . .

dlowan wrote:

I am not diverting. Sheehan's campaign is against Bush's policies - you are condemning her for her campaign. One of the reasons you are condemning her is because of her alleged imaginary friend. It is relevant, I think, given your criticism, that he against whom she is running her campaign has a different imaginary friend who tells him the opposite. Mebbe they cancel each other out, and we oughta keep imaginary friends out of the critiques on this one?

Care to try and prove Bush said God told him to attack Iraq, or al Qaeda? If you are referring to what Bush is reported to have said to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abas, you are relying on a reading of a translation of a translation of a translation. Whatever Bush said to Abbas, Abbas heard them as interpreted through a translator. Then a few weeks later, Abbas repeated the words as he remembered them, in Arabic. Whereupon some unknown person wrote down what he thought he heard Abbas say, at which point some reporter (or somebody else) translated the words back into English, and possible first into Hebrew and then into English. You're willing to hang your hat on that speciousness?

Bush claims god called him to be president.

He's nuts.

The fact that you have recklessly attempted to justify a lie makes it very clear that you are not a person who is to be believed. Reckless, careless, and sloppy.

You were obliged to add a word to your previous statement to make it mean what you realized it must say to eradicate the lie.

You accused me of not taking note of the distinction between the deaths of Miss Sheehan's son and Miss Healy's son, but only of accusing you of diversion.

That was a lie.

Then you compound your lie by altering your original statement as though it meant what it patently did not mean.

Which of course, means that you are a person who is not to be believed.

Tico wrote:

Natalie Healy of Exeter, whose son was killed in Afghanistan on June 28 . . .

Ah, the conservatives do love diversion and false analogies. Miss Healy's son died in a worthy cause in what has properly been seen since the outset as the war on terrorism--in Afghanistan. That is not the case with the son of Miss Sheehan.

I got yer diversion and false analogies right here, Set ...

---

This father's son died in Iraq. You want more, Set. There's more to provide. You just let me know.

Why, then, did you accuse me of diversion when I posted the view of a mother who lost her son in the military who did not think Sheehan spoke for her. That's precisely on point. A different grieving mother with the same "moral authority" as Sheehan telling her to put a sock in it. If you felt so inclined, you might have pointed out a distinction to be made in that the son of the mother who is the subject of the article I posted did not die in Iraq, but you instead chose to accuse me of diversion and false analogy.

Setanta wrote:

The fact that you have recklessly attempted to justify a lie makes it very clear that you are not a person who is to be believed. Reckless, careless, and sloppy.

Wrong. I've not attempted to justify a lie. I've attempted to help you understand your profound failure to understand the meaning of words you read. I understand how you read what I wrote, and you read it incorrectly.

Quote:

You were obliged to add a word to your previous statement to make it mean what you realized it must say to eradicate the lie.

Wrong. I added a word in my explanation of your error so that you might understand clearly why you screwed up.

Quote:

You accused me of not taking note of the distinction between the deaths of Miss Sheehan's son and Miss Healy's son, but only of accusing you of diversion.

Wrong. I did not. You read it wrong. You jumped to an incorrect conclusion that I said you hadn't noted the distinction. Had I spent more time drafting that post, I might have clarified that sentence to remove the potential ambiguity, but for you to jump to the conclusion that I lied is just foolish. For you to insist I lied after having this explained to you shows you are obstinate as well.

Quote:

That was a lie.

That you continue to insist it was a lie leads only to the conclusion that you are incapable of determining what a real lie is. But of course many of us already knew this because you insist Bush lied.

Quote:

Then you compound your lie by altering your original statement as though it meant what it patently did not mean.

I've done no such thing. In fact, you just lied by saying I altered my original statement.

Quote:

Which of course, means that you are a person who is not to be believed.

You won't rescue your diminished credibility in this fashion.


-----

Here is our exchange:

Setanta wrote:

Tico wrote:

Natalie Healy of Exeter, whose son was killed in Afghanistan on June 28 . . .

Ah, the conservatives do love diversion and false analogies. Miss Healy's son died in a worthy cause in what has properly been seen since the outset as the war on terrorism--in Afghanistan. That is not the case with the son of Miss Sheehan.

Did you really think I had read you accuse me of "diversion and false analogy" and not determined the basis of your accusation? What could possibly lead you to that conclusion? You state your basis in the second sentence of your post: Miss Healy's son died in Afghanistan, not Iraq. Do you really think I stopped reading after your first sentence without finding out the basis of your accusation in the very next sentence? (I don't think you do.)

So in my initial response, I said:

Tico wrote:

I got yer diversion and false analogies right here, Set ...

---

This father's son died in Iraq. You want more, Set. There's more to provide. You just let me know.

"This father's son died in Iraq." You had a problem with reading the account of a parent who's child died in Afghanistan, and accused me of "diversion and false analogy," so I provided you with an account of a parent who's son died in Iraq. I then told you there are more parents who's children died in Iraq who believe Cindy Sheehan does not speak for them. So much for your claim of "diversion and false analogies."

And then later ...

Tico wrote:

Why, then, did you accuse me of diversion when I posted the view of a mother who lost her son in the military who did not think Sheehan spoke for her. That's precisely on point. A different grieving mother with the same "moral authority" as Sheehan telling her to put a sock in it. If you felt so inclined, you might have pointed out a distinction to be made in that the son of the mother who is the subject of the article I posted did not die in Iraq, but you instead chose to accuse me of diversion and false analogy.

In the context of asking you why you accused me of "diversion and false analogies" when I posted the view of a mother "who lost her son in the military who did not think Sheehan spoke for her," I typed the sentence you believe to be a lie.

Now, let's consider this.

If it was a lie, it wasn't a very good one, was it? I mean, if I was really going to accuse you of not pointing out the distinction, after having read you identify the distinction which lead you to conclude I was engaging in diversion and false analogy, surely I would know it would be a simple matter of your going back and showing me where you did point out the distinction. What would be the point of such a lie? And what might I possibly hope to gain by telling such a lie?

The answer is there is no point, and there is nothing to gain. Clearly, the purpose of that sentence is to tell you that I had posted the view of a parent who's child died in Afghanistan, and that was on point. It was not diversion, nor was it false analogy, as you had claimed. So, instead of claiming that it was diversion and false analogy, you could have just pointed out you felt there was a distinction to be made between a child who was killed in Afghanistan versus Iraq. [And I don't agree with you, because I don't see that this distiction is valid in the context of Sheehan, since she feels both wars were illegal and innappropriate. Since it's not a distinction for Sheehan, it is not a valid distinction for you.] But instead of pointing out the distinction, and leaving it at that, you went on and accused me of diversion and false analogy, and then lying. Reckless, careless, sloppy, foolish, and obstinate.

Ticomaya don't you realize that he has taken the debate from the topic to you. He has done this to me several times. You really need to just let him stew and think he "won".

Ah, the conservatives do love diversion and false analogies. Miss Healy's son died in a worthy cause in what has properly been seen since the outset as the war on terrorism--in Afghanistan. That is not the case with the son of Miss Sheehan.

Because we're talking about Ms. Sheehan, not Bush. But I see your point. Why, then, did you accuse me of diversion when I posted the view of a mother who lost her son in the military who did not think Sheehan spoke for her. That's precisely on point. A different grieving mother with the same "moral authority" as Sheehan telling her to put a sock in it. If you felt so inclined, you might have pointed out a distinction to be made in that the son of the mother who is the subject of the article I posted did not die in Iraq, but you instead chose to accuse me of diversion and false analogy.

I did not in fact consider that a lie, just a sloppy, gross error on his part, because he was so eager to smear me for an hypocricy which was not in fact supported by the text.

Since then however, all his unsuccessful attempts to change the meaning of what he wrote with long-winded justification constitutes an extended lie.

I'll not clutter the thread with this any longer, and i have lost what little respect i previously had for Tico's contribution.

This entire discussion from the time Miss Sheehan was introduced has been a typical diversion--the topic of the thread is a handful of pathetic protesters at a hospital. No one seems to remember that in their passion to attack one another. Y'all have nice lives . . .

dlowan wrote:

Bush claims god called him to be president.

He's nuts.

Do you think everyone who believes in God is "nuts"? Or just those who hear the still, small voice.

Robertson Attacks Israel!
Have the end times begun?
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005, at 2:02 PM PT


Last week I questioned whether Pat Robertson had the moral standing to quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian hanged for resisting Hitler. Robertson had used Bonhoeffer, who participated in a failed plot to kill Hitler, to justify his own Khomeini-style fatwa against Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela (" ... if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it"). Apart from setting up an unpersuasive parallel between Hitler and Chavez, Robertson has a history of spouting anti-Semitic nonsense about "European bankers" and "the Bavarian Illuminati," ably documented a decade ago by Michael Lind in the New York Review of Books. Surely Bonhoeffer would have wanted nothing to do with anyone who stooped to peddle such trash.

After Lind published his piece, Norman Podhoretz, the former editor of Commentary (published by the American Jewish Committee), saidcondemned Robertson. Is Podhoretz, who supports the withdrawal from Gaza, still willing to shrug off Robertson's "hoary anti-Semitic fantasies"? It's too much to hope that the decades-long alliance between neocons and the Christian right will unravel anytime soon; Robertson and Podhoretz are both well past their prime. But perhaps it's starting to fray.

Ticomaya wrote:

dlowan wrote:

Bush claims god called him to be president.

He's nuts.

Do you think everyone who believes in God is "nuts"? Or just those who hear the still, small voice.

OK, so wait. If Cindy Sheehan says, "I can just hear [my dead son] saying..", or the "angels are supporting us", it's proof that she's ripe for therapy. But if GWB claims God called him to be president, its just a sincere question of faith, and it doesnt mean he's nuts at all. Did I get that right?

The double standards are getting so blatant, it seems you're not even trying to appear rational anymore. Cheap shots is all there's left.

"Winning" is Tico's game here.

Accuracy or truth do not play a role of any significance. Reflection, self-correction and admission of errors in fact or reason are pretty much entirely absent. Logical fallacies, particularly of the ad hominem (slime the messenger) variety, are trotted out as a matter of course every day - and he is proud of them.

The 'channeling' slime here is an absolutely typical example. The use of this term in this instance (Sheehan imagining a conversation with her son after meeting him in Heaven) is less warranted than either George Bush or Tico imagining that they might hear God's voice whispering realtime policy instructions or buck-up platitudes. Likewise, the calls for psychiatric intervention look misplaced by 180 degrees.

The earlier exchange, a few pages back, between nimh and tico ought to embarrass tico but it won't and that's exactly because of the game tico plays.

Truth isn't important. Accuracy isn't important.

What makes tico's game so juvenile and uninteresting is that, by reason of his need to 'win' (and thus his need to frame ideas and discussions in a republican versus democrat schema) he has no real sense of how commonly he shows himself to be a predictable intellectual hack.