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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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 Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:55 am Post subject: |
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He already came out of the closet as a registered republican. I called it, what?, five months ago? Not sure, but a long time ago.
Don't waste your time, TB. |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:26 am Post subject: |
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| Dissenters usually apply dispassionate, logical arguments to voice alternative views or offer constructive criticism. Compare and contrast, for example, U.S. Supreme Court majority vs. dissenting opinions on various and heated matters. |
If you are lucky they offer logical arguments.
If not, well they still disagree, though their arguments are anything but logical. As a friend Gopher, I would say listen to verbal arguments even if not logical so that you don't have to deal with violent arguments. |
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EFLtrainer
Joined: 04 May 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:49 am Post subject: |
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Summer Wine, could you please tell me what is dispassionate about calling anyone with any negative comment about the US antiAmerican?
What is dispassionate about calling me BLTlawyer, etc?
What is dispassionate about insulting people left and right then crying about how gopher is treated and the "hysteria" of myself and others?
Are you aware, per chance, that the first two or three insults lobbed in the war of words with gopher were lobbed by.... gopher? Why? Because I dissected a post of his, the first I ever responded to of his, and happened to use the term "irrelevant" for some of the passages in a rather over-long post.
Tell me, darlin', where is the dispassionate gopher? Nay, he exists not, except when it serves. He is yet young. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:19 am Post subject: |
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| Troll_Bait wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| There is room for dissent, even in America? No? |
Absolutely, and especially in America. |
That's pretty rich, considering that here, you were trying to argue that Michael Moore, the film-maker, and Osama Bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, are almost exactly the same, with only the most minor of differences between them.
You seem to like to pay lip service to people's right to disagree with their governments, until they actually do so, and then you accuse them of being traitors, allies of the enemy, and terrorists. |
It is only "rich" if you have decided to make it your mission to open ten-month-old threads to find evidence to support the case you would like to make.
In any case, I reviewed the thread and stand by what I said there. And I stand by what I say here.
Different contexts and different questions.
As Scaggs points out in another thread, "A disregard of nuance is a dangerous thing. Tends to lead to extremism."
You and your coreligionist, cantankerous friend BLT No-Brainer might do well to meditate on this. 
Last edited by Gopher on Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:28 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:27 am Post subject: |
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| Summer Wine wrote: |
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| Dissenters usually apply dispassionate, logical arguments to voice alternative views or offer constructive criticism. Compare and contrast, for example, U.S. Supreme Court majority vs. dissenting opinions on various and heated matters. |
If you are lucky they offer logical arguments.
If not, well they still disagree, though their arguments are anything but logical. As a friend Gopher, I would say listen to verbal arguments even if not logical so that you don't have to deal with violent arguments. |
Summer Wine: What are you talking about?
I assume most here have read the Sean Penn thread on the 5 October "protests" against W. Bush and Iraq that were supposed to have ended the war and forced the President to resign. 
Here are three letters from a university I picked at random where there were protests. Please tell me which group has the problem with listening and logical arguments, and which group is resorting to violence and indeed "looniness"...?
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| The anti-Bush rally debate Thursday was replaced with physical violence. Some poor sucker who just wanted to have conservative views represented during a protest at a public university ended up on the business end of a fist. Liberals must realize if they want to be seen as a viable force they will actually have to come up with some talking points rather than just chanting F* Bush and assaulting those who think differently than they do. Many conservatives are accused of being closed-minded, but at least we respect the law. |
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Early Thursday afternoon, a few students and I were helping a man named...on the mall in a counter-protest against the demonstration. We were extremely peaceful in holding our two signs out of the way of the gathering. Many of the anti-Bush protesters tried to have peaceful discussions with us about our signs, but one man came over and immediately starting throwing obscenities at our group, got in the face of one student and yelled at him - and then proceeded to physically assault...by violently shoving him.
The protester then tried to flee the scene but, luckily, the police showed up in time to take down the story and proceed with pressing charges. This is a great example of the supposedly peace-loving individuals being extremely hypocritical and showing their irrationality. Freedom of speech is our most fundamental right as free citizens, and it is extremely hypocritical for someone who claims to be championing such rights to attack a person who is merely exercising that very right. |
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As someone who participated in and a few times organized anti-war protests on campus, I have a plea to make to today's anti-Bush protesters on the mall: Stop promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories (like "the WTC crash was caused by a bomb").
From a technical point of view, they are ridiculous: See the Popular Mechanics study that debunks them. Ask yourselves why every civil engineer of any note dismisses them. And pay no attention to the odd physicist or mathematician who claims he can "prove a bomb brought the WTC down." ... Any physicist or mathematician who claims he can rigorously "prove" anything about the World Trade Center should be laughed at; ask any of the physics or math professors.
The Bush administration has engaged in many reprehensible conspiracies, from basing a war - one that killed hundreds of thousands of people, on lies - to hiding torture and secret prisons. Each of these conspiracies (much simpler to organize than a "9/11 conspiracy") is today no secret; anyone who bothers to look can find out about them. Yet the outrage is minuscule. A president who kills thousands of people based on lies, orders the use of torture, imprisons people without trial, allows a city like New Orleans to be devastated through sheer negligence and made trillions of your dollars disappear is protested by only 100 people. Not 30,000, not 1 million, but 100. This is what scares me - not ridiculous conspiracies that just make the protesters (and their vitally important causes) look like a bunch of loons. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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Gopher,
You would be more "right" and forthright , if you pointed out that both sides have their "looniness" and occassional slip into violent protest. The right has its own share of far out and anti-American ideas, however packaged and presented.
Painting dissent as just violent diatribe and no brained chanting is beyond simplistic and completely false. Comes in all stripes and colours and in all political persuasions. Healthy democracies embrace the shout downs as well as the polite, hands up, town hall meetings.
The sentence,
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| Many conservatives are accused of being closed-minded, but at least we respect the law. |
made me chuckle and is so mythological and detached from reality , I find it amazing that people ACTUALLY do think like this. I will have to reflect on this stereotype of the liberal law breaker and the conservative, never J walk patriot. As I said above, mere characterization and both sides have law breakers, wackos, wacos, and conversely, intelligent, logical, well thought out "critics".
DD |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 2:06 pm Post subject: |
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I do not disagree, Ddeubel -- with the spirit of what you say, that is.
Also, I think you meant "forthcoming" rather than "forthright." And I disagree here. I was not concealing anything but rather making a point that does not seem to occur to the anit-Bush mob in its righteousness and hysteria: they, too, are violating all kinds of rights and freedoms; and they are not as "peaceful" or especially as "logical" or "rational" as they portray themselves: indeed, they behave like a lynch mob. It seems, at times at least, that the only missing element is someone shrilly screaming "burn him!"
Call it simplistic and false if you will. However, I present three descriptions of an incident that is representative of what is actually occurring on the ground. Take it or leave it. Although, with your concern for theory and semantics over actual ground conditions, I can probably guess which one of those options you will choose to follow... |
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