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Posted by Michael Bulatovich on December 1, 2007, 10:20 pm
> Michael Bulatovich wrote:
>>> Michael Bulatovich wrote:
>>>>> Kris Krieger wrote:
>>>>>>>> How long is this thread gonna go sheesh.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> It really is funny listening to Don argue. He loves to argue how
>>>>>>>> stupid "what ifs" are, and how bringing up the extremes is not
>>>>>>>> answering the question. That is until it suits his purposes.
>>>>>>> What's so extreme about:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> carrying personal nukes,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> abolishing all cities,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> and slaughtering all (what was it again?) (everyone in the herd?
>>>>>>> conformists?) ( I can't remember the slur.)?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sounds like you haven't been to Don-U-slavia. (I've decided to tweak
>>>>>>> the name as this more aptly describes it.) No one has higher
>>>>>>> education
>>>>>>> because everyone is home-schooled and then put to work at 12, and no
>>>>>>> one needs psychotropic prescriptions, and everyone minds there own
>>>>>>> business until he thinks they aren't living up to their patriotic
>>>>>>> duty.
>>>>>> It's my impression that Don, like most people, says extreme things
>>>>>> when he's frustrated.
>>>>> I suspect that too:
>>>>> Instead of some saying, "Hey! I resent that! And this is why:...", and
>>>>> owning up to their own inner emotions, they'll append them onto the
>>>>> subjects like a sticky note and say stuff like, "oxymoron!".
>>>> Be that as it may, in the context of a discussion, saying what you
>>>> mean, meaning what you say, conceding when you're mistaken, and
>>>> generally recognizing the difference between fact and opinion, are
>>>> essential prerequisites of credibility. IMHO 'discussions' with persons
>>>> without credibility is useful only as a kind of sparring- a contest of
>>>> rhetorical skills- but not really otherwise. Discussions with such
>>>> persons who do not even possess significant rhetorical skills will
>>>> often just degenerate quickly into something like, "All blue should be
>>>> abolished, and anyone who doesn't realize that is a plain poo poo
>>>> head!"
> >>
>>> In some discussions with Don with some things, I simply feel like I'm
>>> debating Christianity with a Christian missionary, hence my previous new
>>> thread.
>>>
>>>> Saying something stupid (whether frustrated or not), and then defending
>>>> that position just because it's yours (for whatever emotional reasons),
>>>> is not a discussion IMHO. It's stupidity followed by rationalization.
>>>> Threatening people who disagree with you is bullying, and I can't stand
>>>> it. Never could.
> >>
>>> Ah yes, the contortions of face-saving...
>>> One would think that someone in his fifties would more or less be beyond
>>> that-- assuming you're insinuating Don.
>>> Maybe it's face-saving and maybe he really believes it. Either way...
>>
>> Many of the regulars are telling me, "you can't take him seriously", or
>> "he doesn't mean what he says", "he get's frustrated sometimes and says
>> extreme things", etc, but my reading of recent history tells me I have to
>> take people at their words, unless they themselves recant, or could pass
>> for 'not responsible' in a court of law.
>
> Fair enough, although to be similarly fair, our whole culture, or at least
> many areas within our media channels-- the net, television, radio, film--
> throw those kinds of thing around all the time.
Tell me about it.
> I've mentioned that phenomenon on here before years ago, if Don recalls,
> but he continued to exercise that freedom... although, freedom of course
> is a double-edged sword indeed... maybe even a lot more edges than just 2.
>
> I was thinking that another potential problem with snarl-words,
> negative-labeling, "threats-as-metaphors" and so forth is that it might
> actually serve to progressively undermine the users' own rational thought
> processes-- shoot themselves in the foot-- by, in part, creating a kind of
> mental smokescreen around what exactly is going on and why and how, etc..
> (At this moment, I recall the recent thread on the topic of 'evil' and
> 'evil-doer'.)
> IOW, on one hand, you have ad hominem attacking and the like, and on the
> other, by their constant usage, their subsequent effects upon the
> individuals' thinking and perceptions over time.
>
> It may very well be that some have gotten so used to this kind of
> discourse, that it's corroded some of their thinking facilities... rather
> like a few drinks too many.
I know what you mean. Many have posed the same questions regarding the
antisemitism of the nazis. Early on, one could easily reduce it to plain
vanilla demagogery, in order to gain power by scapegoating a group of
outsiders, but then eventually the 'race' obsessions began to jeopardize the
very power gains made by their means. Was genocide the focal intent all
along, or did the issue come to dominate their thinking the more they
convinced themselves of its importance? They did go from "crazy like a fox"
to "plain crazy" pretty quickly...
>> If I'm *not* to take hime seriously then I'm to toy with him in some kind
>> of code like Virginia Vagina, or whatever that guy's name was a while
>> back.
>
> I'm chuckling right now, but see your point.
>
> (Actually I'd read some of that thread in question and vaguely wished that
> more hetero women were more straightforward and humourous with that
> subject. Some women make me think they'd rather die than get laid or talk
> about sex. ;)
>
>> I'm not really interested in that type of thing at all.
>
> Sex? ;>
Talking in code.
>
>> Ockham's razor says to asume the simplest explanation. There are many
>> people who do mean the types of things he says. They're fairly common
>> from what I can tell from the media. Why do I assume that he's not one of
>> them? If he looks like a duck, walks like a duck,....
>
> In fact, one can get into real legal trouble with uttering some kinds of
> things, at least in many contexts, and/but there are very fine lines to
> navigate very carefully in those regards. There's freedom-of-speech and
> then there's real intent-- and yet more reason, if you ask me, to consider
> very carefully the usage of negative labeling, threats as metaphors, and
> so forth.
>
>>>> As a kid, if I saw some bully picking on someone else, often before I
>>>> could stop myself, I'd end up 'having words' with the bully. As an
>>>> adult, I've taken down a couple of big ones over the years, usually on
>>>> election for that purpose by groups to which I belonged.
> >
>>> Bully for you.
>>
>> Maybe name can equal destiny. I've wondered whether my bully-thing comes
>> from having an icon of my namesake over my bed as a kid...
>
> An icon? In what sense?
> Anyway, I was referring to the "good for you" expression, rather than your
> name. :)
Yeah, I know. Other kids might have had a Bobby Orr poster, but I had an
orthodox icon (literally) hanging on the wall over my bed as a kid. It was
of the Archangel (AKA Saint) Michael. He's often depicted with a sword
(sometimes of flame), sometime also a balance beam(scales), with one of his
feet on the neck or head of the devil, usually represented as a dragon or
serpent, but sometimes in the more usual anthropomorphized form.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_(archangel)
What kind of role model is that for a kid? When I look back at my life so
far, it would appear to have had an influence.....
--
MichaelB
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