SA, I’ve spent some more time reading these threads, and I must tell you I’m stumped. You are, as you obviously know, extremely intelligent and articulate. However, you have made no effort–well, certainly no effective effort–to actually educate yourself on the issues you discuss so enthusiastically. You communicate brilliantly, but you process information like a seven-year-old: you make absolutely no effort at analysis: you absorb what you agree with, you reject what you don’t. Period.
I’m not saying that if you made more of an effort you’d be a liberal. Not at all. I’m saying that you can’t even explain why you believe what you believe: all you can do is repeat little bits of information that you’ve retained, because you liked the way they sounded. Some weird kind of parroty savant thingy. You don’t process or analyze: you simply sort and memorize. Quite literally, a dittohead.
I hope you realize how disingenuous this makes you look…no, wait, you couldn’t or you wouldn’t have said it.
You asked me why I often refuse cite demands while occasionally asking them of someone else. I told you. Simple as that. If it’s so divorced from reality, why didn’t you take the time and trouble to point out how? Such is not an attempt you normally have trouble with.
Hmmm…let’s see holds finger to chin, casts eyes upward and to the left, thinks…oh, yeah…it’s coming back to me. I can almost see it, just like Merriam-Webster says it is…wait a minute…here it comes!
Main Entry: pro·ba·tive
Pronunciation: \ˈprō-bə-tiv\
Function: adjective
Date: 15th century
1 : serving to test or try : exploratory
**2 : serving to prove : substantiating **
[bolding mine]
And you’re an educator, huh?
Not at all. But when I say kids in the fifties didn’t have 25% STD rates, and someone else points out that Manhattan had high rates 50 years before, or that STDs existed in the fifties…or any of a number of other things that have absolutely no bearing on what I actually said, then yeah, I’m gonna view that as obfuscatory.
I know what you mean, and I agree. I’ve often found myself thinking liberals and conservatives just speak different languages altogether. Conservatives tend not to value the things that are important to liberals, and liberals tend tend not to value the things that are important to conservatives.
I often find myself wishing we could each have our own countries.
First of all, I’ve never been a dittohead, although I did listen to/watch Rush sporadically for a couple of years before the Chelsea Clinton gag put me off him. But I’ve been told by my family and a few acquaintances - partly because people have always seemed to think I had an announcer’s voice but mainly because of my politics and way of expressing them - that I should have a radio show of my own…that I could blow Rush out of the water! (And as it happens, my sister and grown neice (both Dem/lib) told me the same thing just tonight.) So perhaps I’m more of a dittohead-maker than follower. You, of course, can make of that what you will.
The reason I don’t take greater pains to explain myself is quite simple: IT WOULD DO NO GOOD WHATSOEVER!!! Hell, I have a hard enough time just trying to keep the conversation focussed on what I’ve actually said as it is, much less trying to deal with the all the ca-ca that would invariably result from my explaining myself in greater detail. There’s also the fact that virtually no one here cares a whit why I think the things I do, they just want ammo for mischaracterization, obfuscation, and faux-hilarity.
So I’ve taken the position that I’ll just flatly state the things I think and let people make of them what they will. My thinking in that regard is that if they are open-minded and willing to take a look at the things I say, it could cause them to investigate and come to their own conclusions free of board interference. (And needless to say, it is my belief that if they do take a good, hard look at what I’ve said without board interference, they may well come to the same conclusion I have :D) On the other hand, if I get into all that here, a massive shitstorm would erupt that would result in nothing but endless verbiage and convince no one of anything.
Dude. That’s just not how it works. You claim that everything you believe is so obviously true that anyone with common sense would believe the same things, but then you refuse to back them up.
SA, everyone reading this thread knows that your last post says nothing more than you won’t back up your assertions because you’re a coward. You won’t back them up because you can’t. I know you’re a coward, you know you’re a coward. I’d have a lot more respect for you–I daresay most of us would–if you’d just admit it.
Your animus toward me is longstanding and real. This silly post of yours is nothing more than a wimpy, transparent effort to minimize me because you lack substantive rebuttal.
And on preview, not even a nice try, lissener. In light of your recent posts I would have expected more out of you than schoolboy taunts.
And now I’m off ducks roundhouse from Hector to read my new book, Don’t Mind If I Do, by George Hamilton - a guy awash in glamour, fun, women and self-made wealth. You know, the everyday acoutrement of capitalism and life in a free society.
Again, SA, seriously. There are certain things that I’m a coward about. I try to confront myself about these issues when I become aware of them. But reading all your posts in these two threads have led me to the honest conclusion that you’re afraid of what might happen to your worldview if you actually examine. I honestly believe that, not a namecalling thing at all. In all honesty.
Our “wildly radical” ways of dressing harmed no one.
As with every generation, some of us “behaved” and some of us didn’t and we can argue forever about which was which.
Thank God we found ourselves at odds with the rest of society. I never would have understood how much that I contributed to my own lack of freedom by accepting the gender roles assigned to me. And thank God for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I can’t imagine a return to the Jim Crow South.
We had many rallying points. But it wasn’t just the Boomers that protested the war in Vietnam. Our protests were justified. And we protested against the liberal President in office as loudly as we did the Republican.
I do recall that in the 1950s the word peace was not a dirty word that had to be defended. That is one attitude that deserves revival.
“Mindless opposition,” SA? Does that include the vets who joined the protests?
You may call me mindless if you choose to. Just be aware that I’m not blind to what you are saying. It does apply to me too, you know.
Perhaps, as per the PDF I linked earlier, you believe you are a reasonable and polite person, and few bother to call you on your bigoted bullshit? I find that equally likely.
Okay, (just returned from getting a book-reading snack and yes, made the mistake of checking in) I believe you. I’ll withdraw my accusation that you were trying to taunt me into answering.
Still, all I can do is tell you that you’re wrong. My beliefs, as I’ve said, are based on many years of life experience and observation. I am not unsure of them in the slightest. The fact that you seem to think I am is hard to understand given my posting history around here.
So before I go, let me ask you who you would say is more secure in their beliefs? A guy who, when met with accusations of convictional cowardice says ‘fine, think what you want’…or a guy who acquiesces and tries to convince you he’s not a coward?
luci…I didn’t start it, chum. And what is this Viagra of which you speak?
Svin…I’ve said all along I have no problem with probative cites.
Zoe…generalizations are not only common around here but pretty much necessary to grease the wheels of conversation. Please don’t take personally what I mean in a general sense. There are always exceptions, plus like I said, if all liberals were like you the country would be much better off. I don’t see the kind of anti-conservative rhetoric coming out of you that leads posters such as me to say things in the way we do.
But can you honestly understand why that doesn’t cut it?
If you weren’t further educated than your own experience and education, for example, what would your observational skills tell you about the relationship between the sun and the earth? Or about the shape of the earth? Do you see how making an observation is the first step in understanding a thing; not the *final *step?
That’s quite literally how “confirmation bias” works–observation is completely capable of supporting an inaccuracy. You insist on reinventing every single wheel you’ll ever need; understanding the world based only on YOUR OWN observation and experience. Do you honestly think you are capable of observing and experiencing everything that it’s possible to know? Do you honestly believe you’re the first human being on the planet who is capable of being 100% right, all the time, on every single conclusion you draw from your own observations and experiences?
Seriously, SA. Educate yourself. You’re too smart not to.
Not necessarily. (Damn it, I wish you guys would let me get outta here. :D)
From your cite, it appears to me that the French controlled South Vietnam at the time, a Vietnamese under that control appointed Diem (with Ike’s approval, which is quite different than saying the U.S. installed him, as tomndebb said) - and thus Diem came to power as part of French-controlled South Vietnam, even though the French themselves disapproved of him. So it’s not unreasonable to state that the French installed him as they were the governing power at the time and presumably could have put in someone else if they wanted to badly enough.
Still, this is a minor point that tomndebb only brought up in an effort to harm my credibility on the other points I raised.
Do you not understand that my own experience includes the education that tells me about the relationship between the sun and the earth? The education that comes from school, from reading magazines and newspapers, from watching broadcast and cable television, from talking to and absorbing information from people from different locations and social strata over the last fifty years?
That’s my whole point really. I rely on the education that this experience has given me. You guys are the ones behaving as if I don’t see something I don’t believe it…or that the only things I do believe are what I have seen firsthand…and that is just silly.
Of course not.
But remember when I said I may not know everything, but what I do know, I know? It may seem to you that I think I know everything, but actually I only post on subjects I’m familiar with. (You wouldn’t happen to have any useful advice on the best way to handle power management for my laptop, would you? ;))
So perhaps I’m more of a dittohead-maker than follower. You, of course, can make of that what you will.