Congressional Oversight of Executive Disappears (or almost)

Mortkat,

Do you realize how stupid and foolish you appear in these deliberate attempts to insult those who disagree with you?

You may think so but I do not and that is all that is important.

Walter Hinteler for one does not DISAGREE with me. He thunders from a position far above me in the clouds and brings down his thunderbolts of moral obloquy. Or did you miss that exchange? He didn't rebut my post on hunger, he took the easy way out and said he was morally repelled.

He would have done better if he had tried to show where I was mistaken.

I let him have it on another thread when I told him that Germany was a second rate nation with a lagging GDP and hardly any Universities which are considered great among the world's Universities.

I GAVE HIM FACT. He could not rebut so he became a preacher.

No sir, it is not me who is ridiculous, it is people like Walter who cannot debate but can only assume what they call "moral" positions.

Walter
Dont you get tired of trying to present intelligent facts to a bunch of idiots. I know I did.

As I said, George OB1, you are probably the premier poster on these threads in terms of knowledge, logic and temperament. However, your admonition falls on deaf ears when you suggest that I give "respect" to other points of view after we both have seen the meaningless unsourced garbage posted by CI which even you noticed.

Can respect be given to such nonsense? I say no.

george, ci and everyone else...a very merry christmas to you all.

Thanks Bernie -- and I in turn wish a Merry Christmas to all here; expat Canadian intellectual liberals; Westphalian humorists; and all of the interesting menagerie that makes A2K enjoyable for me. For the most part that includes you too Mortkat - just lighten up & let go of the resentments. They do you no good.

resentments? Indignant or angry dislike?

No, George OB1- Resentments? Speak not to me of resentments man. I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.

With apoligies to which famous American Author, George?

Don't know, but I'm curious.

In general in debate or discussion, I have found it wiser and more effective to attack the opposing idea or argument than to disparage the one who offers it. Same goes for maintaining discipline in a large organization -- punish the misdeed, not the man. After all your presumed goal is to influence their future actions or thoughts - or even occasionally to learn from them.

I would not 'strike the sun' under any circumstances, nor would I wish to be be influenced by a leader who entertained such notions.

I don't fully live up to these prescriptions, but I do believe they are wise.

Westphalian humorist, he said.

That was very unwise! :wink:

Well it got your attention ! I hope you are enjoying a very happy Christmas.

Westphalian humorist? Candide is turning over in his grave and he's a fictional character.

Anyway, I hope the New Year brings more peace to this planet. Unless loosing lives is palatable.

(Embryos exluded -- they aren't living and cognitive humans).

How do you know that?

Psssssst...blatham......It might be safe to renew your library card, after all.

Turns out your Umass senior made up the entire thing.

Speaking of idiots...

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/12-05/12-24-05/a01lo719.htm

JW

Thanks kindly for the update.

I started a thread about it - eh, tried to do so. :wink:

(Actually, some noted that, though.)

But Blotham never pays attention to the dreadful events in his own country. He is fascinated by the peccadillos of the persons in Washington D. C. but has never, to my knowledge, commented on the horrendous state of affairs in CANADA.

http://www.comcast.net/news/international/index.jsp?cat=INTERNATIONAL&fn=/2005

TORONTO - A city that prides iteself as one of the safest in North America is bewildered by a surge in violence that has produced a record number of shooting deaths this year, the latest a 15 year old girl on a street filled with shoppers.

end of quote

I didn't know Canadians had enough money to buy guns!!!

The poor girl probably died because she had to go on Canada's famous waiting list. Canada's Medical System, one of the worst in the world, is noted for its bureaucratic inefficiency which keeps even serious cases on interminable waiting lists.

Why doesn't the erudite Blotham turn his attention to that very serious problem?

GeorgeOB1- Captain Ahab said, in response to Starbuck's--Vengeance on a dumb brute- it's blasphemy.

Ahab replied: Speak not to me of blasphemy, man, I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.

And, as for your advice about "disparagement"---

Blatham wrote something about "Americans indulging in masturbatory self-delight and delusionary narcissism" and you advise AGAINST PERSONAL DISPARAGEMENT?

I am a loyal American. I take a comment like that from an ignorant Canadian as a PERSONAL DISPARAGEMENT. If he and some of the other left wingers would tone down their almost vicious denigration of all things in the USA, I would take your advice more seriously.

Mortkat

Let us, in this brief moment, refresh our relationship before I continue on ignoring everything you write.

I think of us rather like that old cliche...two ships in the night. A cruiser and a rowboat. Collisions don't work out in your favor.

But I'm glad I did read this post above. "Americans indulging in masturbatory self-delight and delusionary narcissim" is a fine sentence fragment and it was fun to read it. Frankly less fun, but for all that, still brightly illuminating is your allusion to blashphemy tied, as it you've tied it, to your status as "loyal American".

Your words suggest that you enjoy a spirited sense of nationalist identity. Oddly, nothing else about you suggests joy in any sense of that word which a smiling baby or Mark Twain might recognize, nor even a robustly extruded fece.

Now, you might conjure up for our delectation a picture of, say, the Queen or the Canadian Prime Minister or each and every member of the Canadian population engaged in sex with a brace of farm animals. This would be fine with me. In fact if you did, I might even now and again - let's be generous and say twice per year rather than the present once - read a post of yours.

Thanks for the reference -- I recall it now. It is perhaps instructive to note how this characteristic of Captain Ahab played out in both the degree to which he met his responsibilkities to the crew that depended on him, and in his own personal fate.

Well, Blatham likes such colorful figures of speech and we both know the point he makes here is also a favorite of his. There is some truth in it, - we are after all, partly as a resullt of a long history of freedom and self-government, relatively self-satisfied and indifferent to the affairs of others. However this is not the central explanation for things that I berlieve Blathan sees it to be. We argue about that a lot.



I guess I am a loyal one too, but I am not personally offended. My initial reaction to personal criticism is ususally disbelief (my wife disagrees - she says it is my only reaction). Blatham is a Canadian, but I don't think he is ignorant. I suspect that living next to a giant like the United States has its complications for Mexicans and Canadians, and that probably breeds an intense awareness of certain irritants. I have observed the effects of this in many Canadians, and some can be a bit off-putting on the surface, however, it generally doesn't go very deep. Though they're generally unaware of it, Canadians, in my experience of them, have their own version of American narcisism. No surprise here - similar or analogous conditions breed corresponding behaviors in our common human nature. (In a perverse way, I believe the hated French are more like Americans than any other Europeans - but that is another subject.)

I agree with you that there is something disagreeable in the readiness with which many from other countries criticize American politics, policies, and culture. Much if it evidences an inadequate grounding in history, and some is grossly hypocritical. Some also springs merely from different assumptions, world views and political perspectives. In short it is the stuff of spirited dispute and conversation. (Very likely I appear the same way to them.) The engaging and interesting part is not the differences - they are obvious and self-descriptive i , it is, instead the occasional moments of common understanding that can be reached through all the dispute and, as well the testing of one's own knowledge and thinking.

So I still maintain that you are unwise to take offense, and wrong to react as you do. It doesn't add to the otherwise often excellent arguments you make, or make others more likely to consider them seriously. Moreover it doesn't help you understand the merit in the arguments they make. Finally. it doesn't add to the experience of A2K for you or any of us here. Stop doing it. I think you will be surprised at how quickly and positively others will react to a change in your behavior on this matter.