What matters is that the President review the bill which Congress passes and indicate his approval or disapproval of it in some permanent, recordable sort of way which other people can later objectively verify to determine if bill “X” was or was not thus approved into law.
But if that's not good enough for you, well, I may as well stick with the first argument, which at least had the benefit of being moderately amusing.
It certainly could be. But as long as local school districts are tethered to the states that ultimately regulate and control them, they will only have so much latitude in which to "compete" with one another, and in practice the apparently large supply of teachers compete with one another for the relatively scarce supply of jobs so intensely that the school districts would be foolish not to take advantage of that.
No it doesn't. As you know, I'm not much of a fan of changing the subject.
The proposition on the table here is not "Was Lincoln [or the USA] morally justified in using prolonged military force to prevent the secession of the south?" It isn't about Lincoln at all. The proposition on the table is "Next to George Washington, Bobby Lee was our greatest American." So please, let's keep the focus of your inquiry where it began -- the moral worthiness, or lack thereof, of Robert E. Lee and in particular his actions from 1861 to 1865 (and to a lesser but not insignificant extent, his subsequent career as a revisionist historian).
Whatever his other moral qualities, Lee fought for the creation of a nation that would have rendered slavery part of its fundamental law. Such a man is not worthy of so august an honor as that which you purported to assign to him.
Lee may be admirable as a tactician and for his skills as a professional soldier (he opted out of taking political office in the CSA) and leader of men. He possessed remarkable charisma, which resonates through the ages, and a fine mind with a good sense for history. Had some improbable political settlement of the slavery issue been found, he would likely have been an ornament to the U.S. military and served proudly. But that's not how it happened. How it happened is a civil war broke out, one with good guys and bad guys, and Lee chose to side with the bad guys.
Similar things could be said about Erwin Rommel (other than the choice to fight for the other side part). Just as there is not any such thing as a "good Nazi," there was not any such thing as a "good Confederate." The best one could say of Rommel was that he was "not quite as bad as the rest of the Nazis" but that is damning Rommel with faint praise and I'm not certain it would have been accurate anyway. One might claim that Lee was "not really all that concerned about slavery or politics," or "went along with slavery because he thought it was part of a larger package in which the good outweighed the bad," and those claims might or might not hold up to analysis. But that is also not the claim on the table. To cast Lee as a hero and to hold up his memory an object of veneration is a significant moral error.
To me, Lee is a tragic waste. So much potential, so much ability, so much intelligence, so much energy, which could and should have made America greater, sooner. Instead, he allowed a misguided sense of honor and ideology (getting back to the original post) to pervert all of that human power into prosecuting a morally indefensible cause.
I don't understand the ethic that because person A is morally imperfect, the equivalent or greater moral imperfections of personnel should be overlooked or forgiven.
Washington fought for freedom. Lee fought for slavery. That is the overriding factor in this moral calculus.
While I find it difficult to look at any war and be truly gladdened that it occurred, I find it similarly difficult to be saddened that a country—my country! How can a part of me not rise up in love at the thought that my country sacrificed so much for such an end?—stood firm and prevented the creation of a neighboring state with the founding premise that the white man is inherently superior and chattel slavery of Africans is the natural, and right order of things.
This surely must be the most David Foster Wallace-esque sentence I've read in a week. I'm guilty of the same sort of parenthetical indulgences.
Not having read Foote in his entirety I am ill-equipped to comment on the theme of increasing cynicism about honor and the acceptance of Grant's blunt and bloody tactics as a means to an end. I am reminded, however, of a passage in Macchiavelli's infamous Chapter 17 of The Prince:
I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed. Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only.
This difference in focus between micro-morality and macro-morality also strikes me as at least harmonizing with the tension between deontological and utilitarian ethics; without finding an appropriate balance between both, even the pursuit of good morality leads to results that can only be condemned. From what you describe, surely there is resonance between Macchiavelli's praise for the brutal Cesare Borgia and Foote casting Grant the Butcher as the hero, because they both ended conflicts when more "moral" attempts to do so had previously failed and merely prolonged chaos and violence.
I'm not sure where all this anger is coming from in your many posts, Aziz. If I misunderstood or misstated your position above, it was not my intent to do that and if that was the result, and you have my apology for that. [EDIT] Sorry, That wasn't strong enough. I did misunderstand and misstate your position. Arguing that being accused of bigotry is not all that bad is not the same thing as arguing that being accused of bigotry is not as bad as being the victim of bigotry. You have my apology for that.
While I think this thread is mostly played out and I for one am ready to move on to other things, I'm nevertheless interested in what you have to say and I hope you will consider my responses to your various points productively.
I do not think that "tone" is the most important thing in an argument. I say that substance is the most important thing. I do maintain that it is not productive to merely react emotionally to an argument you dislike. One ought to bring something substantive to the table if one chooses to respond to something with which one disagrees. If disputes are to bring us closer to the truth, they must engage on their merits.
One need not insult one's interlocutor in order to firmly and clearly argue against that person's contentions. An insult is typically counterproductive to the discussion's productivity and its persuasive power. There is a difference between "groveling for acceptance" and "refraining from insult." One need not downplay or soft-pedal one's argument while providing substance to it -- indeed, an argument with evidentiary and logical substance is the most powerful kind that can be offered.
5. Vagueness and ambiguity (what is a "long form" birth certificate?)
6. Article IV, Section 4 -- "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" which would seem to suggest that voters can vote for whom they choose without unreasonable barriers imposed by the state against the exercise of their franchise.
7. Article II, Section 1 -- Eligibility clause; the law places an unreasonable barrier against a natural-born citizen from standing for election.
8. 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause -- all eligible citizens should be equally able to stand for election.
Productive argument imposes duties on both sides of a dispute.
My original post was a call for people to listen to the substance of what someone else offers in an argument, and to fashion their responses to address that substance. It was a reaction to people not reading arguments from a position of charity or with an eye to understanding what was actually being offered, and responding to what they incorrectly felt was being argued with vacuous invective.
The other extreme is hinted at by Aziz Ishak's comment, which is that "I should be able to say whatever I want, however I want it, and it is your duty to sift through my inarticulate mess of a proposition and interpret me in the best and most persuasive possible light." That isn't as far as Aziz actually goes in his statement, but it's where the road he's going down ends.
This is not correct, either. The proponent seeking to accomplish something must clearly articulate what is being proposed. Successful persuasion of others requires translation of one's raw ideas into expressions which the target audience will find persuasive. This is not censorship or even self-censorship. It's advocacy. Of course, if you don't care about being persuasive, then feel free to disregard the manner in which you express yourself. But otherwise, have a care for not only saying what is right, but also for how you say it.
Aziz Ishak's actual statement is that being called a racist or a bigot just plain isn't so bad. He's right from a logical perspective, but as we've seen over the past two days, logic is not the only level upon which people operate. There is a very high degree of moral opprobrium attached with attitudes of racism and bigotry in our culture. For the most part, our (relatively recent) cultural condemnation of bigotry has been a good thing.
So I think it's appropriate that, for instance, Tim defend himself against claims that he is a bigot, or more precisely, that his post advocated bigoted ideas. That's a nasty rock to have thrown at you and not responding in some way to it can create the impression that you willingly accept the moral opprobrium associated with racism. (If you want to see what real anti-Muslim bigotry looks like, take a look at some comments offered in response to one of my recent posts.)
It's also the case that one person throwing that rock tends to end the discussion. It's not hard to find instances of people who simply shut down and stop listening when they perceive racism. I can point to examples in this very discussion thread of people who simply will not listen to something that they perceive to be bigoted. Logically there is no reason to categorically terminate an argument because a disputant has offered a major premise that addresses issues of race, religion, national identity, and so on, the logical response to such a thing is to refute that premise. As we have seen, it's seductively easy for people to respond emotionally rather than logically to arguments that touch on these sensitive areas.
If you call me a "racist", you are using an appeal to emotion not to win the argument but rather to end it. So, I should strive to articulate myself in a fashion that does not render me vulnerable to accusations of racism, and you should not use a hair-trigger accusation of racism to avoid substantively responding to my argument. If we are to have a productive argument, both duties apply.
So say what you choose to say. I hope, though, that you will choose the path of productive argumentation instead of either the path of hysterical emotion or the path of provocative callousness.
If you insist on adding that label to a discussion, can I at least persuade you that merely calling an argument bigoted, no matter how accurate that label might be, fails to actually refute the proposition? Compare:
Pro: Muslims eat roasted babies. Salim is a Muslim, therefore, he too eats roasted babies.
Res: You're a racist!
with
Pro: Muslims eat roasted babies. Salim is a Muslim, therefore, he too eats roasted babies.
Res: Muslims don't eat babies, and you're a racist for saying that!
Can you please do at least that much? (Even then, what people will hear is "You're a racist" and not "Muslims don't eat babies," but at least your own statements will contain something that logically advances the argument.)
There is fourth meaning, however, which you probably ought to avoid, despite the fact that it was a generally accepted use of the English language at one time.
If the logical leap from P to Q is incorrect, then your response should be to refute the major premise:
Pro: Muslims eat roasted babies. Salim is a Muslim, therefore, he too eats roasted babies.
Res: But it is not correct that Muslims eat roasted babies. Islam abhors cannibalism as an atrocity. You can't draw that conclusion about Salim based on his religion. If Salim is a Muslim and he truly does eat babies, then he is deviating from the teachings of his religion, not following them.
That's not good enough for you? You have to go the extra step and say "...and you're a bigot for suggesting what you did"? Then you have to go the extra step beyond that an say "...and the website where twelve other people post is guilty of bigotry by association with you?" What does that add to the discussion?
Oh, I don't know. Canada has had a fragmented, minority government there for quite some time, with the PM teetering on the brink of disaster every time he turns around and one of its largest provinces consistently threatening to break away and provoke a civil war over the continued viability of its national union in conflict with cultural and linguistic separatism, and concession of functional political autonomy to the ethnic and linguistically separate residents of the near-breakaway province of Nunavit. What's more, the religious conservatives seem to be gaining power. Not to mention that scary socialized medicine they've got up there. Really, it's been nothing but problems since they found that oil.
You're correct, Rufus F. but you don't go far enough.
If a disputant has a totally wrong and misguided belief, telling him "You suck! Your ideas are crap! Screw you!" is most predictably going to elicit a response of "Nuh-uh!" and make her dig in her emotional heels to defend her totally wrong and misguided belief, further entrenching her in her erroneous thinking instead of guiding her back to something resembling common sense.
Oh, do let's grow up, folks. Whining about being exposed to an opinion different than yours is the sort of thing that transforms productive and constructive disagreement into echo chambers. I like this blog precisely because it isn't an echo chamber. Sanitization of opinion as a tool to build and retain viewers is the reason Fox News is the way it is and I don't want to see that happen here.
So, you think Tim is wrong? Bully for you. Explain why. Address his arguments on their merits. Calling him a bigot isn't sufficient to engage the issue. Invective is not argument.
Because Islam is a worldview that advocates the overthrow of the American gummint...
Islam does not advocate overthrow of the American government. How could it? Its holy books and tenets were written by people who were ignorant of the existence of the American continents and at a time nearly a millennium before the United States existed.
Islam does advocate that its followers work towards achieving the entire world submit to Allah. This can be interpreted a lot of different ways; one of them is that it advocates the creation of a global Caliphate, but another one is that it encourages its members to evangelize and encourage every individual person in the world to convert to Islam. There is a real equivalency with Christianity here -- there are Christians who think that the Bible calls for the creation of an overtly Christian government which should conquer the world and claim it for Jesus, and there are those who think that they have a Christian duty to evangelize and redeem every soul on the planet through conversion.
And then there are the vast majority of both Christians and Muslims who pretty much mind their own business about other peoples' religious beliefs, and do not concern themselves all that much with politics.
There may be modern Muslim clerics who call for the overthrow of the U.S. government. Those individuals probably should be excluded from our territory and a call to overthrow the government is incompatible with taking the oath of naturalization, so I don't see a problem with not offering citizenship to such individuals.
...it’s well within our rights, at the very least, to stop the flow of third world Muslims to America...
Isn't this underinclusive? If your premise is correct, that simply adhering to Islam religion makes the Muslim immigrant an existential danger to the U.S. government, why do you confine your proposed limitation to Muslims from the third world? Wouldn't a Muslim who was born and raised in the UK be just as dangerous as one born and raised in Yemen?
Or is the real issue that the person in question is from the third world and therefore very likely uneducated and unskilled? In that sense, they sound a whole lot like them unskilled, uneducated Mez-cans come over here to suck off the gummint tit and steal all our jawbs. Now, if that's the real issue, keep your eye out for a habañero pepper tossed into the simmering immigration debate, coming soon to a blog near you and let's not confuse things by bringing religion into the mix.
Bob, it's not the disagreement that gets the Ordinaries and particularly E.D. upset. I rather think they like the disagreement, keeps things interesting. It's the invective and insults that are woven into it which set them off. Forgive my presumption here, but you might have written the first paragraph of your message this way:
Tim, I liked your piece and think you’re an excellent writer. Sadly, many of the girly thugs here at the League get their panties in a twist when anyone violates the tenets of political correctness. I’m thinking that sometime in Middle school they were required to drink the commie-Kool aide and did so with relish.I believe your opinions will be unpopular with most of the League's masthead bloggers and probably that unadmitted but obviously left-leading Likko character too.
I have issues with the last paragraph but they are disputes about the substance of what you say. My point here is that it looks as though you went out of your way to express yourself in a disagreeable, insulting, and provocative fashion.
On “Secret Trials, Secret Laws”
I thought I did:
What matters is that the President review the bill which Congress passes and indicate his approval or disapproval of it in some permanent, recordable sort of way which other people can later objectively verify to determine if bill “X” was or was not thus approved into law.
But if that's not good enough for you, well, I may as well stick with the first argument, which at least had the benefit of being moderately amusing.
On “Introductions and Disclaimers”
I'm not really sure if New Zealand even exists. But a hearty welcome to the (possibly-fictitious) James K nonetheless.
By the way, where have you been hiding these days, Reynolds? I'm seeing a lot of books in the stores; has someone picked up the miniseries option?
On “Beyond Unions”
It certainly could be. But as long as local school districts are tethered to the states that ultimately regulate and control them, they will only have so much latitude in which to "compete" with one another, and in practice the apparently large supply of teachers compete with one another for the relatively scarce supply of jobs so intensely that the school districts would be foolish not to take advantage of that.
"
Tim has re-posted this question on his own blog, where others, as well as I, have responded to it. It's an incisive question, to be sure.
On “The Essay, Reborn”
Well, essays are what we do here, no?
On “Foote’s Civil War, Volume II: Tragedy and Just Causes”
No it doesn't. As you know, I'm not much of a fan of changing the subject.
The proposition on the table here is not "Was Lincoln [or the USA] morally justified in using prolonged military force to prevent the secession of the south?" It isn't about Lincoln at all. The proposition on the table is "Next to George Washington, Bobby Lee was our greatest American." So please, let's keep the focus of your inquiry where it began -- the moral worthiness, or lack thereof, of Robert E. Lee and in particular his actions from 1861 to 1865 (and to a lesser but not insignificant extent, his subsequent career as a revisionist historian).
Whatever his other moral qualities, Lee fought for the creation of a nation that would have rendered slavery part of its fundamental law. Such a man is not worthy of so august an honor as that which you purported to assign to him.
Lee may be admirable as a tactician and for his skills as a professional soldier (he opted out of taking political office in the CSA) and leader of men. He possessed remarkable charisma, which resonates through the ages, and a fine mind with a good sense for history. Had some improbable political settlement of the slavery issue been found, he would likely have been an ornament to the U.S. military and served proudly. But that's not how it happened. How it happened is a civil war broke out, one with good guys and bad guys, and Lee chose to side with the bad guys.
Similar things could be said about Erwin Rommel (other than the choice to fight for the other side part). Just as there is not any such thing as a "good Nazi," there was not any such thing as a "good Confederate." The best one could say of Rommel was that he was "not quite as bad as the rest of the Nazis" but that is damning Rommel with faint praise and I'm not certain it would have been accurate anyway. One might claim that Lee was "not really all that concerned about slavery or politics," or "went along with slavery because he thought it was part of a larger package in which the good outweighed the bad," and those claims might or might not hold up to analysis. But that is also not the claim on the table. To cast Lee as a hero and to hold up his memory an object of veneration is a significant moral error.
To me, Lee is a tragic waste. So much potential, so much ability, so much intelligence, so much energy, which could and should have made America greater, sooner. Instead, he allowed a misguided sense of honor and ideology (getting back to the original post) to pervert all of that human power into prosecuting a morally indefensible cause.
"
That should be "person B," not "personnel." Damn, damn, damn this auto-correct function!
"
I don't understand the ethic that because person A is morally imperfect, the equivalent or greater moral imperfections of personnel should be overlooked or forgiven.
Washington fought for freedom. Lee fought for slavery. That is the overriding factor in this moral calculus.
"
Congratulations on:
This surely must be the most David Foster Wallace-esque sentence I've read in a week. I'm guilty of the same sort of parenthetical indulgences.
Not having read Foote in his entirety I am ill-equipped to comment on the theme of increasing cynicism about honor and the acceptance of Grant's blunt and bloody tactics as a means to an end. I am reminded, however, of a passage in Macchiavelli's infamous Chapter 17 of The Prince:
This difference in focus between micro-morality and macro-morality also strikes me as at least harmonizing with the tension between deontological and utilitarian ethics; without finding an appropriate balance between both, even the pursuit of good morality leads to results that can only be condemned. From what you describe, surely there is resonance between Macchiavelli's praise for the brutal Cesare Borgia and Foote casting Grant the Butcher as the hero, because they both ended conflicts when more "moral" attempts to do so had previously failed and merely prolonged chaos and violence.
On “Contra Tu Quoque, Or, Avoiding The Fourth Response”
I'm not sure where all this anger is coming from in your many posts, Aziz. If I misunderstood or misstated your position above, it was not my intent to do that and if that was the result, and you have my apology for that. [EDIT] Sorry, That wasn't strong enough. I did misunderstand and misstate your position. Arguing that being accused of bigotry is not all that bad is not the same thing as arguing that being accused of bigotry is not as bad as being the victim of bigotry. You have my apology for that.
While I think this thread is mostly played out and I for one am ready to move on to other things, I'm nevertheless interested in what you have to say and I hope you will consider my responses to your various points productively.
I do not think that "tone" is the most important thing in an argument. I say that substance is the most important thing. I do maintain that it is not productive to merely react emotionally to an argument you dislike. One ought to bring something substantive to the table if one chooses to respond to something with which one disagrees. If disputes are to bring us closer to the truth, they must engage on their merits.
One need not insult one's interlocutor in order to firmly and clearly argue against that person's contentions. An insult is typically counterproductive to the discussion's productivity and its persuasive power. There is a difference between "groveling for acceptance" and "refraining from insult." One need not downplay or soft-pedal one's argument while providing substance to it -- indeed, an argument with evidentiary and logical substance is the most powerful kind that can be offered.
"
I won't be taking this bait, thank you very much.
On “Pop Quiz”
Responding to the original question, I'll add:
5. Vagueness and ambiguity (what is a "long form" birth certificate?)
6. Article IV, Section 4 -- "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" which would seem to suggest that voters can vote for whom they choose without unreasonable barriers imposed by the state against the exercise of their franchise.
7. Article II, Section 1 -- Eligibility clause; the law places an unreasonable barrier against a natural-born citizen from standing for election.
8. 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause -- all eligible citizens should be equally able to stand for election.
I'm not sure I see the P&I clause argument.
On “Contra Tu Quoque, Or, Avoiding The Fourth Response”
Productive argument imposes duties on both sides of a dispute.
My original post was a call for people to listen to the substance of what someone else offers in an argument, and to fashion their responses to address that substance. It was a reaction to people not reading arguments from a position of charity or with an eye to understanding what was actually being offered, and responding to what they incorrectly felt was being argued with vacuous invective.
The other extreme is hinted at by Aziz Ishak's comment, which is that "I should be able to say whatever I want, however I want it, and it is your duty to sift through my inarticulate mess of a proposition and interpret me in the best and most persuasive possible light." That isn't as far as Aziz actually goes in his statement, but it's where the road he's going down ends.
This is not correct, either. The proponent seeking to accomplish something must clearly articulate what is being proposed. Successful persuasion of others requires translation of one's raw ideas into expressions which the target audience will find persuasive. This is not censorship or even self-censorship. It's advocacy. Of course, if you don't care about being persuasive, then feel free to disregard the manner in which you express yourself. But otherwise, have a care for not only saying what is right, but also for how you say it.
Aziz Ishak's actual statement is that being called a racist or a bigot just plain isn't so bad. He's right from a logical perspective, but as we've seen over the past two days, logic is not the only level upon which people operate. There is a very high degree of moral opprobrium attached with attitudes of racism and bigotry in our culture. For the most part, our (relatively recent) cultural condemnation of bigotry has been a good thing.
So I think it's appropriate that, for instance, Tim defend himself against claims that he is a bigot, or more precisely, that his post advocated bigoted ideas. That's a nasty rock to have thrown at you and not responding in some way to it can create the impression that you willingly accept the moral opprobrium associated with racism. (If you want to see what real anti-Muslim bigotry looks like, take a look at some comments offered in response to one of my recent posts.)
It's also the case that one person throwing that rock tends to end the discussion. It's not hard to find instances of people who simply shut down and stop listening when they perceive racism. I can point to examples in this very discussion thread of people who simply will not listen to something that they perceive to be bigoted. Logically there is no reason to categorically terminate an argument because a disputant has offered a major premise that addresses issues of race, religion, national identity, and so on, the logical response to such a thing is to refute that premise. As we have seen, it's seductively easy for people to respond emotionally rather than logically to arguments that touch on these sensitive areas.
If you call me a "racist", you are using an appeal to emotion not to win the argument but rather to end it. So, I should strive to articulate myself in a fashion that does not render me vulnerable to accusations of racism, and you should not use a hair-trigger accusation of racism to avoid substantively responding to my argument. If we are to have a productive argument, both duties apply.
So say what you choose to say. I hope, though, that you will choose the path of productive argumentation instead of either the path of hysterical emotion or the path of provocative callousness.
"
...And that, folks, is why this issue concerns me so much.
"
If you insist on adding that label to a discussion, can I at least persuade you that merely calling an argument bigoted, no matter how accurate that label might be, fails to actually refute the proposition? Compare:
with
Can you please do at least that much? (Even then, what people will hear is "You're a racist" and not "Muslims don't eat babies," but at least your own statements will contain something that logically advances the argument.)
"
And, can you call a spade a spade? Yes, but you should be careful.
This is a spade.
So is this.
And this.
You can call those things spades.
There is fourth meaning, however, which you probably ought to avoid, despite the fact that it was a generally accepted use of the English language at one time.
"
If the logical leap from P to Q is incorrect, then your response should be to refute the major premise:
That's not good enough for you? You have to go the extra step and say "...and you're a bigot for suggesting what you did"? Then you have to go the extra step beyond that an say "...and the website where twelve other people post is guilty of bigotry by association with you?" What does that add to the discussion?
On “Muslims and the need for reform or, at least, better PR”
Oh, I don't know. Canada has had a fragmented, minority government there for quite some time, with the PM teetering on the brink of disaster every time he turns around and one of its largest provinces consistently threatening to break away and provoke a civil war over the continued viability of its national union in conflict with cultural and linguistic separatism, and concession of functional political autonomy to the ethnic and linguistically separate residents of the near-breakaway province of Nunavit. What's more, the religious conservatives seem to be gaining power. Not to mention that scary socialized medicine they've got up there. Really, it's been nothing but problems since they found that oil.
On “Muslims Don’t Need Better PR, Americans Need More Tolerance”
... it’s simply bizarre to see Americans brought up on notions like ‘innocent until proven guilty’...
I don't think most Americans actually believe that. Not the average voter anyway, and even more unfortunately, not the average juror.
On “Contra Tu Quoque, Or, Avoiding The Fourth Response”
You're correct, Rufus F. but you don't go far enough.
If a disputant has a totally wrong and misguided belief, telling him "You suck! Your ideas are crap! Screw you!" is most predictably going to elicit a response of "Nuh-uh!" and make her dig in her emotional heels to defend her totally wrong and misguided belief, further entrenching her in her erroneous thinking instead of guiding her back to something resembling common sense.
"
You are so correct that I'm having a happy little symbolic logic orgasm over here.
TMI?
"
No, ~P, therefore, ~Q.
Put another way, stop being a bunch of dicks. Otherwise, this site's going to start sucking.
On “Muslims and the need for reform or, at least, better PR”
Oh, do let's grow up, folks. Whining about being exposed to an opinion different than yours is the sort of thing that transforms productive and constructive disagreement into echo chambers. I like this blog precisely because it isn't an echo chamber. Sanitization of opinion as a tool to build and retain viewers is the reason Fox News is the way it is and I don't want to see that happen here.
So, you think Tim is wrong? Bully for you. Explain why. Address his arguments on their merits. Calling him a bigot isn't sufficient to engage the issue. Invective is not argument.
"
Islam does not advocate overthrow of the American government. How could it? Its holy books and tenets were written by people who were ignorant of the existence of the American continents and at a time nearly a millennium before the United States existed.
Islam does advocate that its followers work towards achieving the entire world submit to Allah. This can be interpreted a lot of different ways; one of them is that it advocates the creation of a global Caliphate, but another one is that it encourages its members to evangelize and encourage every individual person in the world to convert to Islam. There is a real equivalency with Christianity here -- there are Christians who think that the Bible calls for the creation of an overtly Christian government which should conquer the world and claim it for Jesus, and there are those who think that they have a Christian duty to evangelize and redeem every soul on the planet through conversion.
And then there are the vast majority of both Christians and Muslims who pretty much mind their own business about other peoples' religious beliefs, and do not concern themselves all that much with politics.
There may be modern Muslim clerics who call for the overthrow of the U.S. government. Those individuals probably should be excluded from our territory and a call to overthrow the government is incompatible with taking the oath of naturalization, so I don't see a problem with not offering citizenship to such individuals.
Isn't this underinclusive? If your premise is correct, that simply adhering to Islam religion makes the Muslim immigrant an existential danger to the U.S. government, why do you confine your proposed limitation to Muslims from the third world? Wouldn't a Muslim who was born and raised in the UK be just as dangerous as one born and raised in Yemen?
Or is the real issue that the person in question is from the third world and therefore very likely uneducated and unskilled? In that sense, they sound a whole lot like them unskilled, uneducated Mez-cans come over here to suck off the gummint tit and steal all our jawbs. Now, if that's the real issue, keep your eye out for a habañero pepper tossed into the simmering immigration debate, coming soon to a blog near you and let's not confuse things by bringing religion into the mix.
"
Bob, it's not the disagreement that gets the Ordinaries and particularly E.D. upset. I rather think they like the disagreement, keeps things interesting. It's the invective and insults that are woven into it which set them off. Forgive my presumption here, but you might have written the first paragraph of your message this way:
I have issues with the last paragraph but they are disputes about the substance of what you say. My point here is that it looks as though you went out of your way to express yourself in a disagreeable, insulting, and provocative fashion.