Now We Know Where The Evil Ones Get Their Weapons

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Do you agree or disagree that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terror attacks?
OVER-ALL-46%
DEM- 32%
GOP- 65%
IND- 39%

Point made, Blatham, I stand corrected... and frankly, astounded. Where do these ignoramuses live I wonder. I know a lot of Americans who don't pay attention to politics... but this is beyond ridiculous.

beyond ridiculous and how we get into messes like we now find ourselves in....difference between you and the guy you've been defending here O'Bill... you're willing to absorb a fact..... congratulations.

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

Point made, Blatham, I stand corrected... and frankly, astounded. Where do these ignoramuses live I wonder. I know a lot of Americans who don't pay attention to politics... but this is beyond ridiculous.

Pretty much.

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I think that's the point....there are a great deal of Americans who do not pay attention to politics who were drawn into that sphere by 9/11. The Bush administration capitalized on the ignorance of the many to propogate the myths necessary to launch his war.

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Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

beyond ridiculous and how we get into messes like we now find ourselves in....difference between you and the guy you've been defending here O'Bill... you're willing to absorb a fact..... congratulations.

You assume too much. I required no such misconception to support the war. I am defending no guy... but rather an ideal. I hate bullies and I love A2K. Both positions lead me to do my part to discourage thought diminishing idiocy wherever I see it. Had Blatham had based his argument on calling me Corporal Chickenhawk, or some other fun for four year-olds idiocy; I wouldn't have just learned how collectively ignorant my country is in general. Ever notice there's like 10 views for every post? That's because not everyone who comes here to learn likes to run their mouth as much as us. They too will learn more from Blatham's style, than the name-calling nonsense.

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

Bi-Polar Bear wrote:
beyond ridiculous and how we get into messes like we now find ourselves in....difference between you and the guy you've been defending here O'Bill... you're willing to absorb a fact..... congratulations.
You assume too much. I required no such misconception to support the war. I am defending no guy... but rather an ideal. I hate bullies and I love A2K. Both positions lead me to do my part to discourage thought diminishing idiocy wherever I see it. Had Blatham had based his argument on calling me Corporal Chickenhawk, or some other fun for four year-olds idiocy; I wouldn't have just learned how collectively ignorant my country is in general. Ever notice there's like 10 views for every post? That's because not everyone who comes here to learn likes to run their mouth as much as us. They too will learn more from Blatham's style, than the name-calling nonsense.

you're preaching to the choir bud, no one hates a bully worse than I do, and I do not believe blacksmithn is bullying but merely responding to someone who constantly attempts to bully intellectually and regards himself as a strong man in that regard. Bet way to handle a bully is by sticking a pin in him/her at every opportunity IMO.

and in the first place my post was about you being a big enough guy to say excuse me looks like you were right, something he who I won't name would NEVER have the character to admit.

Take a sincere prop would ya? :wink:

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

Do you agree or disagree that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 terror attacks?
OVER-ALL-46%
DEM- 32%
GOP- 65%
IND- 39%

Point made, Blatham, I stand corrected... and frankly, astounded. Where do these ignoramuses live I wonder. I know a lot of Americans who don't pay attention to politics... but this is beyond ridiculous.

There's an example of why I like you. And BP and blacksmithn are correct...the intellectual integrity which allows you to admit you had some significant facts wrong isn't something we have seen or are likely to see from Brandon.

"Where do these ignoramuses live I wonder", you asked. The question really ought to be, "What information sources do they attend to?" Answering that one gets you straight to the sources of propaganda (that's the correct word here) and the techniques used.

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Bi-Polar Bear wrote:

Take a sincere prop would ya? :wink:

Prop taken, but I'd like to think my candor didn't surprise anyone. Cool

As for thinking incessant ad hominem is the appropriate remedy to counter intellectual bullying, I think you need to rethink that, more than a little.

Aw, shucks Blatham. Embarrassed

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The point being that intellectual bullies are best handled in that fashion: derision. It gets to them bad.

You aren't going to change their mind or make them drop their faux-superior attitudes, so why not use them for all that they could offer to the board - entertainment.

Back to the topic,

Quote:

Point made, Blatham, I stand corrected... and frankly, astounded. Where do these ignoramuses live I wonder. I know a lot of Americans who don't pay attention to politics... but this is beyond ridiculous.

Naturally, Bush's crew and a whole host of right-wingers have been trying to make people believe this since 9/12. He (Bush's speechwriter) is very careful not to come out and lie about it, but he uses Conflation and other tactics constantly to try and suggest it to people.

These people didn't come up with this idea on their own, Bill....

Cycloptichorn

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cyclo gets it...

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

The point being that intellectual bullies are best handled in that fashion: derision. It gets to them bad.

It is a direct violation of the TOS, shows a total lack of respect for Craven and the Mods and lowers the overall integrity of A2K to a 4 year old's level. Defending the use of sustained Ad Hominem is tantamount to idiocy. Does anyone want to see debate on A2K reduced to an Ad Hominem exchange by fools? There are plenty of other boards to fill that niche. I can ill imagine a more idiotic approach to combating "intellectual bullies". The inherent hypocrisy is staggering. Were this tactic valid; the appropriate response to Blatham would be to ignore his content and accuse him of being a tree-hugging Canadian coward. Brilliant.

I can understand the use of this tactic by 4 year olds and idiots; the rest of you have no excuse.

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Gee, if only your "get tough" policy were applied equally across the board... Unfortunately, I am aware of no such position staked out towards the right of the spectrum.

In any case, I'll lampoon their intellectual puffery, overblown hypocrisy and outright cowardice whenever and wherever I can.

But I'm sure Master Sergeant Let-Your-Son-Enlist-In-My-Stead appreciates your unbridled support.

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kelticwizard wrote:

...Brandon tries to portray himself as some kind of virtuous fellow who seeks truth through honest argument, but I know that not to be the case. On several occasions, I have tried to point out to Brandon that there were inspectors on the ground getting to the bottom of the WMD question right up to the time Bush invaded. I also freely admitted that in previous rounds of inspections, Saddam had interfered with the inspectors, sending "guides" along to stand next to the questioner while he questions scientists on the WMD issue, for example. I also admitted that the only reason Saddam laid bare his country this time and let the inspections proceed with NO interference whatsoever was that Bush had a whole bunch of troops in Kuwait waiting to cross over the Iraq border if Saddam interfered with the inspectors this time.

Know what I got from Brandon and McGentrix? A long list of cases where Saddam had interfered with the inspectors in previous rounds of inspections. Which I admitted, but which was also entirely irrelevant. Saddam was finally letting the inspectors do their work unhindered, in fact the inspectors could do things in Iraq which they could not even do if they were in the US, such as inspect private houses and properties.

Yet, Brandon and McGentrix kept bringing up previous inspections in an attempt to derail the conversation.

Previous rounds of inspections are irrelevant, in the same sense that what a criminal suspect tells the cops what might be in his house when the cops do not have a warrant is rather irrelevant once the cops have the warrant and they are going through every nook and cranny of the house unhindered, while the owner is forced to wait outside.

Yet previous, hindered rounds of inspections were just about all that Brandon and McGentrix would bring up.

Brandon is supposed to have two degrees in physics, yet he pretended to be unable to figure out that what happened during previous, hindered rounds of inspections was irrelevant once an unhindered round had finally commenced.

So that is one reason I do not find Blacksmithn's treatment of the self-styled "seeker of the truth", Brandon, at all alarming.

You seem to misunderstand completely. The point of referring to the period of time during which Iraq's obstruction of inspectors was overt, is to suggest that even if after 12 years he seems to be displaying some level of cooperation, there are several possible explanations, among them that he has simply hidden the WMD and/or development programs better. Furthermore, even in the final round of inspections, Iraq offered no convincing evidence that WMD and/or development programs had been destroyed, such a films of the destruction, or the remnants of the WMD and/or laboratories. Considering the stakes, i.e. the posession of doomsday weapons by an evil, imperialistic dictator, this level of uncertainty as to the actual status of the weapons and/or development programs was unacceptable. Your attitude that those who disagree with you politically cannot, for that reason alone, be sincere, is very childish.

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apparently few of us are as brilliant as Bill and Brandon.... I know because they told me so :wink:

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blacksmithn wrote:

Gee, if only your "get tough" policy were applied equally across the board... Unfortunately, I am aware of no such position staked out towards the right of the spectrum.

In any case, I'll lampoon their intellectual puffery, overblown hypocrisy and outright cowardice whenever and wherever I can.

But I'm sure Master Sergeant Let-Your-Son-Enlist-In-My-Stead appreciates your unbridled support.

That's only because you haven't looked. I counter attacked LSM for the exact same type of idiocy. I've went to bat for left-wingers and right-wingers alike, because it is the behavior I deplore. If you have any intellectual integrity, you don't display it by behaving like a four year old. If hypocrisy exists between left/right offenders of this policy, it is squarely in your favor as right wingers who behave like you are banned for considerably less, routinely. Your current behavior is a discredit to A2K and my respect for your defenders diminishes with every defense. Promoting fallacious tactics is an affront to logic itself.

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What Bill is arguing here has merit. To the degree that personal attacks replace careful and reflective discussion, to that degree our board slides down into something not very useful for any of us. Further, his claim that this violates the TOS has the advantage of being correct. I think craven and the mods would much rather that we self-policed ourselves and have little interest in filling that role themselves.

On the other hand, either Brandon or foxfyre or tico or a few others, reading what I've just written in that last paragraph, would be likely to get a bit angry as I've spent a fair bit of time personally attacking each of them and sometimes in a sustained manner such as blacksmithn just went after Brandon.

And I understand exactly why blacksmithn responded the way he did. There's little if any significant difference in how I write to the fellow now, after much experience. A few pages back, Old Europe pointed out to Brandon why folks so commonly respond to him in this manner...because he isn't here to "discuss or to debate, but rather just to 'win'". Brandon's response to that astute observation was to (of course) write something that would stand in opposition to the observation and "win" against it.

Bill, just a bit earlier, behaved in a quite different manner when I pointed out some polling statistics. Bill doesn't have this overwhelming emotional need (or whatever the hell kind of need it is) to "be right" or to need no further information because the answers to things are already in his possession. When you already know enough, learning ceases and the mind shuts down to anything but that which supports your fixed ideas. Debate or discussion with someone who has such a mindset gets very purposeless very quickly.

On top of that, add in the factor of near a quarter million people having been blown to bloody bits (and how many with arms and eyes gones but still 'living') in the last five years in a war begun by people who have never risked war themselves and cheered on by people like Brandon who apparently conceive of this as a video game. The moral repugnance I experience at seeing such on-going amorality and insensitivity to suffering is getting close to something explosive.

But still, to the degree that those who wish to learn and actually share points of view rather than do the partisan-warfare thing fall into this mode of discourse, to that degree we hurt the site ourselves.

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Wow, who could've foreseen that response? In any case, yes, I'm sure you're a champion of evenhandedness.

But that's neither here nor there. Lampooning a hypocritical windbag is hardly the horrifying demise of debate that is painted here. Nevertheless, in deference to your delicate sensibilities, I'll endeavor to restrain myself.

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A few minutes ago I received a PM from someone following another thread anonymously. That happens here all the time. These people can learn lots of things from measured to responses to Brandon and vice versa. What would they learn from the proceeding 10 pages? In a vacuum they would learn Brandon's take and that his main opponent behaves like a 4 year old. My point is; you need not reach the person you are debating in order for there to be a point in providing reasoned response. And, if anyone here thinks right-wingers are the only ones who exhibit hyper-partisan stubbornness; you are profoundly mistaken.

Thanks for helping to take partisan leanings out of the prospective, Blatham.

That would be very much appreciated Blacksmith and show a good side of your character.

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O'Bill wrote:

It is a direct violation of the TOS, shows a total lack of respect for Craven and the Mods and lowers the overall integrity of A2K to a 4 year old's level. Defending the use of sustained Ad Hominem is tantamount to idiocy.

Bill, did it not occur to you that Blacksmithn's labels for Brandon have more than a little intentionally silly flavor to them?

Here is a partial list of some of these ruthless "ad hominems" administered over the course of ten pages:

Corporal Quakes-With-Fear
Major Crawls-Into-A-Hole
Colonel Head-For-The-Hills
Sergeant Hides-Behind-Others
First Lieutenant Let-Someone-Else-Face-The-Dangers-My-Mouth-Got-Them-Into
General-Frozen-In-Panic

Now can you actually imagine two people on the street truly angry at each other using words like these? No, the terms used would be much uglier. In fact, these terms sound a little like an eight year old, or the dialog of TV sitcom. They clearly aren't designed to be taken entirely seriously.

C'mon, "Colonel Head-ForThe Hills"? Compare that to the language used on Abuzz in it's last days, which really was ugly, similar to street talk, and designed to both drive certain posters away and to drive the forum into a morass of vicious epithets. Which worked, but not before A2K arrived to take Abuzz' place for most of us.

True, Blacksmithn carried the thing out for a long time, and we wouldn't look forward to seeing this sort of thing repeated over and over. Nonetheless, the intentional silliness of the terms used leave little doubt that the intent was pure satire, not anything which can be taken as true personal insult.

Is that clear, Mr. Wears-Milk-Curdled-By-A-Cow's-Asshole-On-His-Head? Laughing

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
The point being that intellectual bullies are best handled in that fashion: derision. It gets to them bad.
It is a direct violation of the TOS, shows a total lack of respect for Craven and the Mods and lowers the overall integrity of A2K to a 4 year old's level. Defending the use of sustained Ad Hominem is tantamount to idiocy. Does anyone want to see debate on A2K reduced to an Ad Hominem exchange by fools? There are plenty of other boards to fill that niche. I can ill imagine a more idiotic approach to combating "intellectual bullies". The inherent hypocrisy is staggering. Were this tactic valid; the appropriate response to Blatham would be to ignore his content and accuse him of being a tree-hugging Canadian coward. Brilliant.

I can understand the use of this tactic by 4 year olds and idiots; the rest of you have no excuse.

Well, perhaps we should get a few things straight -

I'm not interested in making A2K better. I am not interested in changing the opinions of anonymous readers of the threads. I post for one reason and one reason only, and that is the fact that I enjoy doing so and believe that the arguments here help sharpen my rhetoric.

Those who are worth arguing against - in my opinion, of course - are treated with respect. Those who aren't, aren't. I'm sure you have a different opinion about the way things should be done, and that's nice; I don't have a problem with your opinion. But don't expect it to change my posting style in the slightest.

This is hardly the first time that this issue has come up, and I will reiterate what I've said in the past: I will continue to post what I feel like posting, when I feel like it. If it gets me banned, I have noone to blame but myself and frankly it will add several free hours to my week that could no doubt be spent more productively.

Blatham said this well as well:

Quote:

On top of that, add in the factor of near a quarter million people having been blown to bloody bits (and how many with arms and eyes gones but still 'living') in the last five years in a war begun by people who have never risked war themselves and cheered on by people like Brandon who apparently conceive of this as a video game. The moral repugnance I experience at seeing such on-going amorality and insensitivity to suffering is getting close to something explosive.

I agree with him. It boils my blood to see people write in such glowing terms about how further murders and bombs dropped will end suffering. Bunch of damn fools. They deserve whatever derision I decide to hand out. They are of course free to ignore whatever they like, just as I am.

The only people whose feelings are hurt on A2K are those who choose to invest so much emotionally into an internet chat room that they lose perspective on real life....

Cycloptichorn

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KW, you are evidently blinded by partisanship. 10 pages of sustained personal attack can best be described as 10 pages of sustained personal attack. Were someone to unleash on a "peacenik" in similar fashion, I doubt you'd be pointing out the scraps of humor along the way.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I'm sure you have a different opinion about the way things should be done, and that's nice; I don't have a problem with your opinion.

No, I don't really have a different opinion. I'm quite content with the existing terms of the TOS. I think they exist to make everyone's experience here more enjoyable and I think it's shame when people are too partisan, too self important, or just too damned arrogant to respect that. As for banning; I seldom miss the disrespectful A-Holes who get banned for not having the common decency to respect the rules of the site Craven and others have worked so hard to create. You sound like a smug, ungrateful child and I think it a pity that someone with your obvious intelligence would choose to project such a persona.

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Now We Know Where The Evil Ones Get Their Weapons

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