From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Thu Jun 12 2003 - 12:41:45 MDT
John K Clark wrote,
> "Hubert Mania" <humania@t-online.de>
>
> > I wish, you as a nation might relax a bit and leave the world in
> > peace with your eternal winner attitude.
>
> In other words rollover play dead and wait for the next 911;
I am concerned about the use of "in other words..." on the Extropians list.
What is the purpose of this, and is this purpose valid? It seems that it is
usually used to rephrase an opponent's position before attacking it. This
is very risky because it often results in a straw man. Why is it necessary
to rephrase the opponent's words before attacking them? Why can't the
original and actual words be refuted directly? Is it ever valid to reword
an opponent's statement and then attack your own rewording instead of what
the opponent really said? It seems to me that this is misleading at best
and dishonest at worse. I think it is an emotional jab at the opponent, but
not valid in a rational debate.
Reality check here, John:
Do you literally parse John's words as proposing that America should
rollover, play dead, and wait for next 911? Do you really expect Hubert to
agree with your reading of what he said? If not, do you really think this
is Hubert's hidden agenda that you have exposed?
I am seriously asking what you think you have accomplished here? Did you
think you refuted Hubert's statements, made Hubert's position clearer, made
your position clearer, exposed Hubert's unstated position, or what? Unless
this was just an emotional backlash that was not intended to have any
rational content, your logic escapes me.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISM, CISSP, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC Certified InfoSec Manager, Certified IS Security Pro, NSA-certified InfoSec Assessor, IBM-certified Security Consultant, SANS-cert GSEC <HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>
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