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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 4:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
I'm commenting on your comments in a single thread. These comments are commentary on topics relevant to and, in some cases, related directly to me.
Your hypocrisy-laden commentary portrays you as having some non-existent position of pure objectivity.
It is fair game.
If you think you're being harassed, do contact a mod and point that out. |
Your hatred and arrogant cynicism project such a marvelous image of you: you're an extremist. You can't imagine such an objective position, so, in your narrow little mind, it's "hypocrisy-laden." You take my comments as being directed at you personally? That's a trait of paranoia.
So it must suck to be you, "bro": the intolerant moronic simpleton with no room for diverse perspectives in a world of rigid absolutes. People like you waste time by spending their lives crying over spilled milk, refusing to move beyond the past and into the future. Why? Well, what else do you have to talk about?
You try to weasel your way out of my polite request to stop harassing me by claiming that it's "fair game." But you have cited words I've spoken from other threads. That is borderline stalking-like behavior: did you go for comments to support your aggressive purposes? You must have an empty life. In any case, please stop harassing me.
Oh, yeah, one other thing. If you don't like what I've said, do contact a mod and point that out. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:50 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| You try to weasel your way out of my polite request to stop harassing me by claiming that it's "fair game." But you have cited words I've spoken from other threads. That is borderline stalking-like behavior. |
You might still be a little new to the mini-culture that exists in not just the CE Forums but the other parts of the Cafe as well. One reason this board asks us to choose a handle and post under it is to reduce the irresponsiblity inherent in anonymity. No one knows your real name, but if you post often enough you create an aura of personality around that name, and people will react either positively or negatively depending how they felt about things you have said in the past.
There are good and bad things about this. It is true that we often feel "harassed" by specific individuals who feel it their mission to discredit everything we might want to say in the future, even about unrelated topics. I confess I have at times been on both sides of such a syndrome ... in the end it tends to be as much a cause of regret as it is vindication, even when one feels one has "vanquished" the opponent. These things can get a bit bloody, I've been there, so take my word for it.
It is also true that the same dynamic impels us to both be more polite to one another and to speak responsibly, taking at least a little care to present views that can be examined logically and for which at least some modicum amount of support and evidence can be provided. If I say something that comes directly from my heart but which cannot be granted a coherent argument, well, I think we can all allow such a thing, but more particularly if it is couched and presented as exactly that, an opinion and one that is deeply felt. It might still be attacked, but it will be granted more respect and tact than if it were shown and described to all as plain Truth instead ...
In your case, I believe you have argued a position that "objectivity" is something that exists and can be attained. There are some (I count myself as one) who doubt such a theory. Therefore, you have placed yourself at risk of being shown examples where your own goal of being able to view the world divorced from from your feelings and opinions are, shall we say, lacking.
Yeah, you will notice the same people coming around and trying to knock you down from time to time, or even seemingly incessantly. It happens. My advice is to either get used to it, develop skin a little thicker than it was before ... or find another hobby.
As for the mods, it's a big bunch of forums, and I'm guessing the concensus is that paying so much attention to who is feuding with whom is likely to have a deleterious effect on the free exchange of opinions that we all enjoy when we come here.
But, yeah, feel free to contact them, it's what they are there for, and maybe they will explain things a little differently.
Wish you well, here, though, despite that I agree with you not so much as either of us would like. Regardless, I think the contributions you've made lately have put some interest and life into discussions that might not have been there otherwise, so as for me, I'm hoping you don't find another hobby very quickly.
Last edited by The Bobster on Thu Aug 11, 2005 7:50 am; edited 3 times in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 3:54 am Post subject: |
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Appreciate your kind words and good advice, and your style of disagreeing without being disagreeable above is admirable.
Objectivity, or at least the attempt to be objective, begins with a sincere effort to look at the world through someone else's perspective. It's not entirely possible to do this, leaving yourself behind, but it is better than simply listening to someone else's perspective long enough to argue against it, and using rididule (see above) only exacerbates the situation.
{section deleted}
Many people on this forum seem to be stuck in this same mode, that is, the high school debate team mode. Thus the friction.
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Nov 10, 2007 2:33 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:30 am Post subject: ... |
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| Quote: |
| You can't imagine such an objective position, so, in your narrow little mind, it's "hypocrisy-laden." |
Perfect example of what I was talking bout. Thank you.
"I'm more objective than you" is still a subjective statement.
It's a silly, pretentious thing to say.
| Quote: |
So it must suck to be you, "bro": the intolerant moronic simpleton with no room for diverse perspectives in a world of rigid absolutes. People like you waste time by spending their lives crying over spilled milk, refusing to move beyond the past and into the future. Why? Well, what else do you have to talk about? |
And it would seem that your marvelous parlor of diversity doesn't have room for someone showing the President joking about the hunch he sent people to die for. That's manipulative and has an agenda. You, on the other hand, are free to spin this as you like? Hypocrisy.
| Quote: |
| You try to weasel your way out of my polite request to stop harassing me by claiming that it's "fair game." But you have cited words I've spoken from other threads. That is borderline stalking-like behavior: did you go for comments to support your aggressive purposes? You must have an empty life. In any case, please stop harassing me. |
And I'm not harassing you. I reiterate. If you think think you're being harassed, contact a mod. Be sure to include the hyperbole about stalking. The single word "dweeb" came from another thread. You post comments on the board. I'm free to both read them and respond. Here or on any other thread. Deal with it. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:33 am Post subject: |
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You make the case that parents should be licensed before raising children. So consumed by your own extremism and anti-Bush hatred, that you probably foam at the mouth when you talk about him.
Here's a brief review:
I object to this video as an "emotional propaganda piece."
You respond by mischaracterizing me: You say that I said "showing people who've died for Bush's incorrect 'hunch' about NON-EXISTENT WMD's 'alienates'" me; you accuse me of "daring" to talk about propaganda; and you say that I say "it's only propaganda if it's anti-Bush."
Of course, I never said those things, but your abandonment of any hope to objectivity seems to give you great license to twist others' comments as you please...like I said before, you're a simplistic moron, and you don't know any better, so I guess that's just about all there is to know about you.
You also never learned manners. Your mommy and daddy didn't raise you so well, huh?
For example, you call me "flaccid" because I don't support Bush, but yet I feel that anti-Bush propaganda is inappropriate at this time and is simply not constructive. Extremism has always alarmed me, so I seek centrist positions and compromise in politics and you, intolerant of this, accuse me of "worming" my way between two absolute positions.
Then you arrogantly mischaracterize an entire list of things, and deign to say "carry on."
It's clear that there are quite a lot of people who share your narrow-mindedness and simplistic style of analysis, but thankfully, I'm not one of them. People like you are lost unless you have something to disagree with.
So, by all means, carry on...
Last edited by Gopher on Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:58 am; edited 3 times in total |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 4:52 am Post subject: ... |
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What? Why that's just plain HATEFUL!
MANIPULATIVE!
AGENDA! AGENDA!
STOP STALKING ME! |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 5:09 am Post subject: |
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Fact: Bush and everyone else at that dinner were laughing at the ill-advised jokes Bush's speechwriters put together for him.
Fact: They were not laughing at people who died in the Iraqi invasion, and those photos were only superimposed later.
Fact: Putting disparate, non-contemporaneous audio and video together for its emotional effect is manipulative propaganda. It is not news reporting, it isn't historical analysis, it's propanda. Just because it gets you off, doesn't mean it ain't propaganda.
Fact: No matter what I say you're going to twist it and slant it, so there's not point in continuing this. As I've said before: you apparently don't know any better, and I should know better than to attempt to reason with someone who knows they are right.  |
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Nowhere Man
Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:21 am Post subject: ... |
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Oh, so now you want to be harassed, eh?
| Quote: |
| Fact: Bush and everyone else at that dinner were laughing at the ill-advised jokes Bush's speechwriters put together for him. |
If we're to exercise our super-shrewd powers of critical thinking and "real objectivity", I don't think we can make claims as to what these people were laughing at. Could be they thought it was funny. Could be they were kissing ass. Could be they were nervously laughing at how deranged it all was. But I think that's beside the point.
According to my info, Bush is a grown man with more than one Ivy-league degree. Some even call him the leader of the free world. As such, the man should be able to exercise his own critical-thinking abilities about what is in good or bad taste. To lay the blame on speech writers is to offer him an easy out. He speaks the words. He should be responsible for them.
On a more personal note, you have stated your appreciation for the guy's ability to joke about himself. Now, you're pawning off his ability to joke about himself on his speech-writers. This is a contradiction.
| Quote: |
| Quote: |
| Fact: They were not laughing at people who died in the Iraqi invasion, and those photos were only superimposed later. |
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This point has already been addressed. I don't think anyone thinks that the photos were in the original presentation. But is that a point? Could photos have been superimposed in the original presentation? Yes. As others have pointed out, over 600 people had died at the time this joking took place. So what? It's OK to joke about currently fallacious reasons for war as long as you don't bring up the people who've died for this joke?
But I think the main point here is that you even suggest that people viewing this video believe that the photos were a part of the original presentation. This is a manipulative attempt to dumb the video down. It also speaks something of the cloak of objectivity you claim to bear.
| Quote: |
| Fact: Putting disparate, non-contemporaneous audio and video together for its emotional effect is manipulative propaganda. It is not news reporting, it isn't historical analysis, it's propanda. Just because it gets you off, doesn't mean it ain't propaganda. |
Well, the fact remains that 600 people had died at the time this was shot.
If not for this fact, I might consider it manipulative. Your admonitions about reading history backwards suggests that these deaths happened later, that they weren't contemporaneous. That is not the case, and you persist in ignoring that FACT. This smacks of you having an agenda.
Moreover, your reaction to the video wasn't news reporting. It wasn't historical analysis. It was you explaining how you thought it was OK and don't like people who make this kind of stuff. It was apologist.
| Quote: |
| Fact: No matter what I say you're going to twist it and slant it, so there's not point in continuing this. As I've said before: you apparently don't know any better, and I should know better than to attempt to reason with someone who knows they are right. |
You call the above commentary slanted and twisted, but I call it showing the parts that you've ignored. I don't place myself on some pedestal of higher objectivity. As I've said, I think the notion of one being more objective than the other is subjective, silly, and pretentious.
More to the point, the supposition that moderates are more objective because they straddle the right and left is patently false. At any given time, the point between right and left moves. It is quite arbitrary. If the Nazis were the right or Mao's communist's the left, would you be so proudly standing on the fence? Not that Bush is a Nazi, but some seriously evil shit has come to pass over the last 5 years. I'm not cajoling you to hop off the fence on my side. I do think you think you're trying to be objective, but points about love and hate do not define righteousness. By humane standards, I'd say that it is perfectly OK to hate the Nazis. While it is not as extreme as the Nazis, I believe there is damning evidence to hate Bush:
Abu Ghraib
Guantanamo
WMD
Arar
among others...
Good for you if you think that's all OK and it's manipulative to point these things out. It's also manipulative to play them down. And that's what you're doing. When you label things as manipulative, you're also manipulating. Not from some objective high ground. Just a different place. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 8:48 am Post subject: |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| On a more personal note, you have stated your appreciation for the guy's ability to joke about himself. Now, you're pawning off his ability to joke about himself on his speech-writers. This is a contradiction. |
You're lying about what I said. He is responsible for what he says, but presidents have speech writers. Whether or not this gets him off the hook, or whether he was really on the hook, is not the issue. You're looking too hard to split hairs with me. Stop mischaracterizing.
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| This point has already been addressed. I don't think anyone thinks that the photos were in the original presentation. But is that a point? Could photos have been superimposed in the original presentation? Yes. As others have pointed out, over 600 people had died at the time this joking took place. So what? It's OK to joke about currently fallacious reasons for war as long as you don't bring up the people who've died for this joke? |
Your cynical worldview makes you see things this way. You're twisting facts here. Stop lying.
If you think that anyone in the United States, even the president you foam at the mouth over, thinks that it's funny to joke about dead soldiers or civilians, you're on drugs.
This video, of course, juxtaposes audio and video to give us that impression, but it's obviously a ploy by someone who thinks as bitterly as you. Perhaps it's your sick creation and that's why you're so wired about this?
Again, Bush should be criticized for Iraq and all of its consequences. But criticize him honestly, this kind of propaganda is unworthy of us.
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| But I think the main point here is that you even suggest that people viewing this video believe that the photos were a part of the original presentation. This is a manipulative attempt to dumb the video down. It also speaks something of the cloak of objectivity you claim to bear. |
Stop mixing issues and lying. Any attempt to associate two separate things in order to influence public opinion in this manner is manipulative. Pointing this out is only manipulative in the cynical world in which you live. Again, stop lying and twisting facts.
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| Well, the fact remains that 600 people had died at the time this was shot. |
Do you really believe that the laughter of those people at that dinner had any relationship at all to this fact? that they were laughing at this? Seek therapy.
Bush is guilty of, yet again, speaking ill-advised, insensitive words. The others there are guilty of laughing without putting too much thought into the situation, and just going along.
For you to turn this into an exhibit for the Nuremburg Trials is ridiculous. You're simply incapable of examing an issue from all sides. Someone probably talked about postmodern theory to you once, and you liked it, so you decided it was OK to abandon all efforts to be objective and just take a position and argue your case.
But if everything is presented as a case for the prosecution, the way you seem to think, then you're only going to "persuade" those who already think like you, and you're only going to alienate those who don't.
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| I don't place myself on some pedestal of higher objectivity. As I've said, I think the notion of one being more objective than the other is subjective, silly, and pretentious. |
That's your problem, bro. You can't imagine it, so therefore it is silly and pretentious? Maybe you just have a limited imagination. You're offended that I seek to understand all sides? You're intolerant. These are your issues, not mine.
And I don't know where it entered your narrow little mind that I claim to occupy "some pedestal of higher objectivity" -- I certainly never said that, and I never suggested it either. Stop twisting my position and putting words into my mouth.
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| I believe there is damning evidence to hate Bush |
That's another of your deep-seated problems. You're consumed by hatred. You're an extremist. You're not capable of seeing anything but your own point of view, which is, sadly, skewed by the emotion you admit to harbor. Indeed, you're no better than Bush, just on the opposite side of the fence, but, this notwithstanding, you're still just as simplistic and caught up in your own Righteousness as he is.
| Nowhere Man wrote: |
| Good for you if you think that's all OK and it's manipulative to point these things out. It's also manipulative to play them down. And that's what you're doing. When you label things as manipulative, you're also manipulating. Not from some objective high ground. |
Again, stop twisting my words and claiming that I have said things I haven't said. You're a broken record of mischaracterization. Don't you know any other tunes?
I prefer to deal with facts and not emotions. Bush has made many errors, some of them particularly bad. But we need to deal with raw facts and figures and not silly videos that mix noncontemporaneous things together to produce an emotional effect.
If you can't see that, then, again, that's not my problem but yours. If you want to cite those facts -- and I believe that they are very pertinent to an evaluation of the Bush Administration -- don't lie and cite them out of context -- you only undermine your own credibility, which, I'm not sorry to say, only exists, at best, in your circles, where people sit back and nod their heads to your nonsense because they already think like you. If you want others to listen to you, though, you need to speak more credibly.
Again, I am not a Bush supporter and I disagree with most, if not all, of his policies. But I don't hate him (like you). Hard to see you functioning in a democratic system with such a rigid, uncompromising worldview. You say that because I reject this video for what it is -- an underhanded attempt to manipulate public opinion -- that it necessarily follows that I am downplaying Bush's behavior as president...again, you're twisting and assuming and putting words into my mouth. I never downplayed Bush's behavior. However, fair is fair, and this video is unfair.
It is unfair and inaccurate to do what these kind of propaganda pieces do -- to the right or the left. If changes nothing, it helps nothing, it does not contribute to a better understanding of Bush's record and motives. It only takes half-educated people like you and fuels preexisting hatreds.
Again, you seem to argue that objectivity is nonexistent and that it's silly. [delet | | |
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