12-13-2003, 10:22 PM
"But yes Jester I remember you and you wouldnt understand this - I doubt you have ever made even a pretense of a foundation for your insults."
Yes, I know I have quite the reputation for spamming insults and ignoring the issues. It's a bad habit of mine. Wait, no, that's Omega. Who am I, again? Oh, right, Jester. Where do you remember me from, exactly? Here? Maybe RBD? I'm not exactly one for tiptoeing around peoples' feelings, but I think I'm far from the baseless insults type. Unless you can refresh my memory to the contrary, which would be appreciated.
Pete presented a perfectly reasonable argument from his assumptions, which were not at all hidden. You then made an argument by analogy (a really terrible way to argue in any case), without even mentioning the topic at hand.
If your analogy was good, then there would be no problem. It would be a bizarre way to argue, but not without merit. But no, your analogies were both confusing and misleading. Neither of the people mentioned are directly responsible for the events you are asking we attribute to them, something that cannot be said of the war in Iraq perpetrated by Bush, et al. Or, put bluntly, your analogies aren't analogous.
As examples of false dichotomies, your examples are fine. The problem is that Pete did not present one. An unjustified war is grounds for a war crimes trial. That's just plain, old fashioned international law. So there's your dichotomy, as real as anything: Either the war was justified, or those who perpetrated it should be tried as having started an unjust war. That's not a false dichotomy, that's just a regular one.
If your wish was just to present Pete's case as a false dichotomy, which it isn't, there are far less confusing ways to do it than presenting two cases of false dichotomies (which are not analogous to the war in Iraq, and so must simply stand as examples, not analogies) and then calling his question (which was rhetorical) absurd. Your argument was abstract to the point of incomprehensibility. That it doesn't seem correct either doesn't help.
So, yes. Make more sense, please.
Jester
Yes, I know I have quite the reputation for spamming insults and ignoring the issues. It's a bad habit of mine. Wait, no, that's Omega. Who am I, again? Oh, right, Jester. Where do you remember me from, exactly? Here? Maybe RBD? I'm not exactly one for tiptoeing around peoples' feelings, but I think I'm far from the baseless insults type. Unless you can refresh my memory to the contrary, which would be appreciated.
Pete presented a perfectly reasonable argument from his assumptions, which were not at all hidden. You then made an argument by analogy (a really terrible way to argue in any case), without even mentioning the topic at hand.
If your analogy was good, then there would be no problem. It would be a bizarre way to argue, but not without merit. But no, your analogies were both confusing and misleading. Neither of the people mentioned are directly responsible for the events you are asking we attribute to them, something that cannot be said of the war in Iraq perpetrated by Bush, et al. Or, put bluntly, your analogies aren't analogous.
As examples of false dichotomies, your examples are fine. The problem is that Pete did not present one. An unjustified war is grounds for a war crimes trial. That's just plain, old fashioned international law. So there's your dichotomy, as real as anything: Either the war was justified, or those who perpetrated it should be tried as having started an unjust war. That's not a false dichotomy, that's just a regular one.
If your wish was just to present Pete's case as a false dichotomy, which it isn't, there are far less confusing ways to do it than presenting two cases of false dichotomies (which are not analogous to the war in Iraq, and so must simply stand as examples, not analogies) and then calling his question (which was rhetorical) absurd. Your argument was abstract to the point of incomprehensibility. That it doesn't seem correct either doesn't help.
So, yes. Make more sense, please.
Jester