ZOMBIE FORUMS

I vaguely remember having a dream yesterday about me not being able to dance, then suddenly being jolted awake by a nasty charlie-horse in the calf.

1) Your first instinct, to use PMs was probably the best.

2) Yes, your view is naive. It is simply not the way the world works. I once believed just like you, I got gang raped by the world at large. You need to see the world for what it is before you can change it. Pollyanna doesn't live here any more.

3) Those were my observations of the world, as it presents itself to me. How I react to that evidence is different.

4) Having your party hi-jacked by Buchanan and his religious right whackoids tends to make you a bit cynical. Then having an incompetent like Bush, and his whole anti-constitutional crew, use those same whackoids to violate your most sacred document (Constitution) repeatedly, under the most tenuous of false arguments (and watching the dumbshit American voter fall for it) can drive you there further. Then having your President win the argument against Iraq by lie, cheat, and steal. You tell me that my observations are false, I dare you, I dare anyone here or anywhere else.

5) I will still avoid those noxious tactics, unless I have no choice. I do indeed have my personal honor.

6) Lastly sonny, unless you have walked some serious distance in my shoes, you have no right to judge me. Don't take that as me being condecending, it isn't. However, I have about 30 years, The Viet Nam war, a kid older than you, two ex-wives, and a current girlfriend on you.

Americans just don't understand Irony or subtle humour; This side of the Atlantic, we don't recognise any former of humour that doesn't involve John Cleese.

You were in the Vietnam War?
I admire that. *bows*
And I admire what your brave people are doing in Iraq even if it's on false pretences. I love what you did for the Kurds and Bush's dream of democracy spreading from Iraq; too bad he and Donny couldn't cooperate or be competent or tell the truth.


Oh and for the actual discussion:
For what it's worth I'm a religious nutcase who's relatively tolerant. ;)

For the first part, I just did my time. As for Iraq, we shouldn't even be there but now that we are, we owe the Iraqi people a stable situation. Especially since we fucked up their previously stable government.

Lastly, you can't be a religious nutcase and have tolerance. Rather, in that case, you are not a religious right whackoid.

For the record, I was born and raised a Roman Catholic.

It was a pretty evil government, but then again in that region that's usually the way of things. They were still somewhat worse though, I think, with their secret police, territorial ambitions (you could blame some of this on the outside world, but it was still Saddam's decision to go to war with Iran), massacres, scud rockets and botched attempts at chemical warfare and WMD, but perhaps you disagree?

What I have to comment on is that for a bunch of people who were all so keen to talk about dick girls again you seem to be fantastic at perpetuating drama outside of what it already was.

Not to mention - don't believe everything little thing that someone you don't know from Adam on the internet tells you.

...I've lurked for a while and because of this post registered.

Not all americans don't understand Irony and/or subtle humor, and your trying to perpetuate this stereotype pisses me off, so, in short, I have one thing to say to you:

Go brush your teeth.

Re: rhetoric and vitriol in debates...

Slamlander, you're right that resorting to threats and insults and other rhetorical manipulation of your opponent's (and the audience's) emotions can "win" you a debate, inasmuch as by win you are referring only to gaining control of the situation and resolving the conflict in your favor, and not to actually proving yourself by good reasoning to be correct.

But you could sometimes even more easily resort straight to physical violence (just taking / forcing what you want) if you think you could so easily overpower the other person (i.e. if he's really good with rhetoric too and can manage to stand his ground or even turn the hearts of the audience against you, but you're much bigger and stronger). And we would normally say that such a person has lost the debate, in that they have failed to resolve the conflict in their favor by swaying people's emotions. Just as resorting to rhetoric is a concession of failure to sway people's minds.

Of course, when someone resorts to physical violence and looks like they're going to win in that arena, the loser can often resort to an even more fundamental arena - the social one, calling the cops, or his friends, or whoever, to come to his defense. When conflicts get down entirely to this level, where both sides have strong social support trying to overpower the opponent's ability to fight physically, you have all-out war.

I'm not disagreeing at all with you that, as matters of fact, conflicts are often won at the lower levels; many conflicts are resolved by war, others by men brawling in the streets, and as you say most debates are won by rhetoric and emotional sway. Pure reason is rarely the sole recourse in any conflict. I was just saying that those really are *lower* levels - you're lowering yourself, acting more debase, less human, more like an animal - when you unnecessarily resort to those levels. It's a tacit admission that you were too stupid or lazy to win on a more sophisticated level. We mock people who can't win their own fist fights one-on-one and have to have their gangs of friends come help them. It seems just as right to mock people who have to resort to violence in the first place, or rhetoric before that; someone who can win using pure reason alone is more honorable, respectable and impressive than someone who must resort to those lower levels.

Now it's good for even people who recognize this to be able to fight on the lower levels too, and being capable on those levels allows you to close off those venues to your opponent and restrict the conflict to more sophisticated levels. But I say you should only resort to fighting on those lower level when the fight really matters, and never give up on the higher levels before you absolutely have to. I like to engage in intellectual, rational debates for their own interest, but if it turns to rhetoric, vitriol and insults - look, I don't care to engage on that level, if you (hypothetical generic 'you') can't talk to me rationally I don't want to talk to you. If this is something that we *have* to talk about for some reason, and you can't talk rationally, then I'll take you on rhetorically; but if I can just walk away with minimal rhetorical defense, I will. Same with physical violence - if someone physically attacks me, I can defend myself, but I don't start fights, and few things are important enough to continue fighting over if it's turned to violence.

That's all I'm saying. And you seem to agree - you say you have your honor and dignity and such and prefer not to lower yourself to that level of conflict (despite the fact that such 'dirty tricks' could win it for you), unless winning that conflict is really that important. That's good, and I respect you for that. I'm just trying to clarify that I think we're all on the same page here, and nobody is claiming that rhetoric, violence and war *don't* resolve conflicts - just that we should try to be reasonable first.

[edited for spelling and grammar]

You've been reading too much 'news'. I happen to know better. Let's take it to my LJ or you can email me (slamlander-at-livejournal-dot-com).

Lots of people claim to "know better". It's a common claim.

Back to the topic of Dickgirls, I just downloaded part 2 of one of those fake futa movies, heres to hoping it is half decent!

Particularly on the Internet. Thanks to the Internet, everyone can claim to know better. I get slapped by non-Internet people sometimes for just that reason.

Here's a better hint: Realize that the :P face is supposed to be someone sticking out their tongue at you, which can sometimes be construed as that person attempting to be sarcastic. Second, check your PM's. If one of them says "Nice one", it probably means that the other person was not offended by your comments.

And, because my emotions don't really transfer that well via the internet, I'm not annoyed or anything, just letting you know that I'm not the one who missed something.

... and this somehow makes it invalid?? Are you claiming that your news media is unbiased?!?!?

Nice way to discount an argument without reviewing the evidence. It exactly proves my point, that you can win any argument, by breaking the rules asunder. You just did what you so high-mindedly claimed that you never wish to do. Yet another fallacy is demonstrated and ever so aptly, take the moral high-ground and then lie through your teeth.

That's exactly what Bush did, claim to be fighting for freedom and all the while, taking them away 'for our own good'. You are a proper student of Karl Rove.

Whoa! Walked into a buzzsaw on that one didn't I? Sorry about that, just being snarky. Actually, I applaud anyone who is discrimiating enough to not trust the news if they can't cross-check it. My own take on Bush is that he is lucky he's too dumb to hang. Some of his sociopathic minions, on the other hand . . . well, that's for an entirely more serious forum, one discussing real war, blood and pain, not the fantasy kind.

Now, back to your hermaphrodite discussion topic . . .

"Me thinks the lady doth protest too much."

Your indignation is transparent. Get over yourself. You made a claim that gets repeated all the time on the internet and in real life "Yeah, that's what the media says, but I happen to know better." and I pointed out as much. End of story.

I never said anything about your evidence, about the media being biased or unbiased in any way, or about whatever it was you were trying to say about the media or Iraq or anything else. I'm not even sure what part of the statement about Iraq or Hussein you were reacting to, or in which way. I don't even know what kind of bias you're accusing the media of having -- liberal, conservative, establishment, sensationalist?

And that original statement stands...you're hardly alone in claiming that you "know better". It's not a claim that should impress anyone.

Not really.

Thats it. Can we have all the political bullshit torn bodily out of this thread and jammed into the debate subforum? This is really geting way too tiresome... and thats coming from someone who delights in discord and human suffering.

Here's a better hint: Realize that the :P face is supposed to be someone sticking out their tongue at you, which can sometimes be construed as that person attempting to be sarcastic.[/quote]

:P has always been difficult for me to interpret. People seem to mean it many different ways; some people use it as basically a shrug, which is how I took you to mean it.



What the.... there are private messages on a forum? (This may make me sound like a real noob, but I've mostly avoided phpBB-style forums in the past, intentionally, because I very much dislike this format of message board. But the content of this one was worth putting up with it).

Well, you learn something new every day.



Likewise, not annoyed or anything. I just wasn't sure if you were or not...