From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Sun Aug 31 2003 - 12:33:37 MDT
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robbie Lindauer
> Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2003 12:21 PM
>
> On Sunday, August 31, 2003, at 08:18 AM, Greg Burch wrote:
>
> > Gimme a break! I'm sorry, I know you're going to say I'm "controlling
> > the
> > dialogue," but I can tell we're so far apart that any dialogue would
> > require
> > more effort than I'm willing to devote to the task.
>
> Right, because you'd have to get involved in a detailed analysis of a
> very difficult to defend position.
No -- because I'm sick to death of hearing the same things over and over and
over again and, much more importantly, this just isn't the place to argue
about whether the Bush administration's foreign policy is right or whether
they are "Nazis." That's not hard to undertand, is it? I'm sure you've got
lots of opportunities to make your point in fora that are devoted to
politics. Why here?
> But I am aware that controlling dialogue with value-laden terms is an
> effective rhetorical method used consistently by the right wing to
> control the context of dialogues.
Please -- neither side of the left/right dichotomy has any kind of monopoly
on the use of value-laden terms. Some of my friends sat through "struggle
sessions" in the Cultural Revolution in China. Don't you think there was
"dialogue control" with "value-laden terms" going on there?
> This is why such conversations tend
> to drift quickly into how unoriginal, contentious, uninformed, unhappy,
> half-hearted, uncivil, extreme, offensive, alarming, silly, rhetorical,
> left-leaning and liberal anyone who doesn't believe everything they
> hear on Fox News or Ayn Rand said is.
Please see the recent criticism of Fox at my blog. The list of things I
disagree with Ayn Rand about is pretty long, too. The problem is that
discussion of subjects like the one in this thread tends to push people into
characterizing their opponents as 2-dimensional icons. I did it. You did
it. It sucks. We've got better things to do here.
> I'm happy to abort too if we can agree on the factual points I made in
> my original post to which you found it important enough to respond:
We most certainly CAN'T agree, which is why this discussion is pointless
here. Imagine the volume of text it would take for each of us to set out
our positions in detail on these matters. Imagine the effort it would take
to refrain from name-calling, and the consequences for the list when we fail
to do so. Now compare that to more productive discussions we could have
here that we're unlikely to have elsewhere. The volumes of text and the
name-calling can be found lots of places; discussion of human augmentation
can't.
GB
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