marshall wrote:
Okay. He might actually argue for things like abolishing work but I didn't really interpret his back-and-forth with ruveyn in that context. In any case it's pretty pointless for either of us to keep arguing when the root of the disagreement is over semantics and definitional framing of an issue rather than anything of real intellectual substance. Arguing over a preferred definition of freedom is as pointless as arguing over a preferred definition of theft. It's all linguistic framing which doesn't necessarily have any bearing on reality.
Eh.... some linguistic framings are better than others.
So, some linguistic framings are linguistic sleight of hand and distort more than enlighten, and others allow for a more sensible conversation based upon shared understanding. Is that latter point somewhat fair? I mean, it seems to me that when Christian apologists say "Have you lied? Well, because you have, you're a liar" this is actually sleight of hand, and it deserves to be called out.
But.... I don't really want to continue that discussion at the moment.
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It's funny because ruveyn is thoughtful when discussing non-political topics but when he goes on PPR he mostly just comes to repeatedly bludgeon people over the head with his opinions.
I've heard that as well.
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Sorry for being an ass earlier in the thread. I was in a bad mood at the time and some of your responses to the far lefties here reminded me of the way another poster I had a bit of a personality clash with frequently talked down his nose at lefties without really backing up his criticisms with anything more than intellectual arrogance. I now realize it probably wasn't your intent to sound that way and thomas81 is one of the more extreme lefties on here that I don't always agree with so perhaps his rhetoric is as irritating to you as the rhetoric of the more extreme libertarians is to me. I'll admit to some bias there as I tend to be more sympathetic to complaints of the far left even if I don't necessarily agree with all their ideas or their proposed "solutions" to the world's ills.
You're talking about TM, right? I tend to see a lot of things he's said as really just being arbitrary elitism. He also used the "Well, if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" argument more than any rational person could ever justify. Kind of like a classist apologetic. I've disliked things he's said as well.
Yeah... biases will exist. I'm probably a bit harder on the extremists of the left. It's not that I think a person is bad if they are on the left and have an extreme opinion, only that extremists are often crazy. I'd like to try to maintain good relations and mutual respect with anybody on this forum who shows genuine intelligence in their posts.(And I'm sure that theists will accuse many of my reactions to various apologists to be unfair, but I have acted how I have for good reasons.)
It's just water under the bridge, Marshall, as often I genuinely respect the intelligence of your comments. I'm sorry if I got too frustrated though, I just wasn't aware of where the problem was coming from, and I do put some degree of concern on intellectual fairness. Nobody fully succeeds, but I don't want to be the mindless apologist for a particular perspective.
01 Dec 2012, 10:32 pm
