META: Dishonest Debate (was RE: The Iraq war was extropian?)

From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Thu Jun 12 2003 - 12:41:45 MDT

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    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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