Xenophon41:
I will of course comply with your request. I would not have posted to this thread, except for the allegation made earlier that I was being a dick, which I felt merited a response, and was therefore appropriate, and reasonable.
Granted, I should have done so with more respect to the conciliatory tones of the OP, and my apologies for not having had that forethought.
As long as my actions are being brought into the discussion, I will however reserve my right to address them.
I don’t think we’re in opposition at all. My point isn’t that I think less context is good; it was simply that his manner of quoting presented a highly confusing and cluttered message, and thus was hard as hell to read. That’s a pretty common error in message boards.
In the specific case you’ve raised around the Prop 209 thread, if you feel he took something away from the relevant context, well, maybe he did. That’s a separate issue. He didn’t have to go quote-nuts to properly address your point. My comments were simply a response to his request that I expand on my “He quotes poorly” comment.
A more detailed explanation of where I’m coming from
When replies to replies begin to dissect messages line-for-line, the original point and discussion is often lost. In several referenced threads I keep seeing that with Ryan’s messages he overquotes and pretty soon he’s arguing with someone over minor semantic issues, and the real subject’s lost in the dreck. Being a battle-scarred veteran of messages boards, Usenet, and FIDOnet, I can say with some authority that these sorts of hard feelings and disagreements are the inevitable result of over-quoting and message dissection.
The Ryan, in every thread I’ve noted as part of this little controversy, the recurring pattern is that you always have someone really good to say, and then it gets lost in a mess of semantic quibbling, and the hard feelings start. You DID insult Jodi, too, in the Boy Scout thread, but we all fall into that trap from time to time.
By veering the discussion from “I have opinion A on subject X and I think your opinion B is wrong” to “I have a problem with a variety of semantic points in your message,” one always risks the subject veering from Subject X to The Way You Wrote Your Message And/Or Expressed Your Opinion. That is an absolutely surefire way to make things unnecessarily personal. I don’t think The Ryan has any real intent to get into pissing contests (I’ll avoid commentary on this goldfish thing) but his manner of message preparation and posting is conducive to starting them.
Bingo.
Due to the gratuitous and unsavory aspects of my previous post, I will attempt to off a sincere and constructive criticism.
While debating, you can either build up ideas, or tear them down. Tearing down an idea is easier than building them up. If you are going to tear down(which is a valid form of debate,) you need to keep a couple of things in mind.
A good example of this might be The Ryan’s thread in Comments on Cecil’s Columns. A valid point was made, but the master’s reply summed up my argument with admirable brevity. “Don’t argue what I said. Argue what I meant.”
All too often with The Ryan, he is not arguing actual issues. He’s arguing word choices, and side misusages that have little bearing on the substance of the debate.
Be nice. If you are tearing at somebody’s carefully constructed argument/worldview, you should expect some resistance, and phrase your points in the best manner possible. This is especially important when you are correct, as nobody likes to look like a jackass.
Turnabout is fair play. At some point, if you are sincerely debating, You have to put down the quote tool and fight like a man!
IMO, you are not debating if you are only picking at somebody’s arguments. You must have your own thesis which you are willing to defend.
It is disingenous, unfair, and rude to simply sit back and quote, and let somebody else do all the work. You have to contribute as well.
As far as I can tell, everything else in that paragraph was simply an explanation of your statement. I took “they are the same” to be a summary of your position, and the central point. While I did not mention the context in which it appeared, I thought that the context was self-evident and did not have to be repeated.
Suppose I had said:
Would you have objected to that?
And I had trouble understanding why you claimed that you were distuinguishing between them. While in some cases you might see some difference between them, you stated that in this case you believe they are the same. Since we were not arguing those other situations, I think it is accurate to say that [as far as this discussion is concerned] you do not distinguish between them.
I really don’t see how it was a microexamintion. The issue of whether preferential treatment is part of equal protection was a central issue in that thread.
COuld you give an example of a quote like that, and how you would have quoted?
That’s just the problem. I’d love to be able to just refer to the post I was responding to, and trust that the other posters will be able to follow. But that just doesn’t work. Take this exchange from the very thread you cited:
Doreen:
Jodi:
Me:
[quote]
What do you mean, a “pretext”? It seems obvious to me that if a group goes to the trouble of excluding some group, they must believe that that group is inferior. I must be misinterpreting you, because you seem to be saying that their discriminatory attitude towards “x” is a pretext for discriminating against “x”. [/quot]
Jodi:
It’s obvious to me that Jodi simply wasn’t following the discussion. This prompted me to ask her to pay attention, which led to her being snippy, which led to me getting more annoyed, which eventually led to this thread being started. Despite my including the progression in my post, Jodi still managed to not figure out that I was not talking about the BSA. When my overkill doesn’t work, that makes me think that maybe I should use even more overkill.
Hmm. I thought that you menat I was a dick in the “Abortion only in cases of rape or incest?” thread. I wasn’t following him around, and I really only complained about other threads in the “jump on Ryan” thread and Scylla’s “Look at what a wonderful guy I am! I’m maing a pledge to be a reasonable debater!” thread. I think that it was justified in both cases.
The Ryan, I recommend you read ENugent’s explanation about the antecedent of “is” before you read the rest of this post. It may prove helpful.
Done? Okay, now, much the same sort of misunderstanding may have been taking place in your interpretation of my remarks. By insisting on the completely erroneous assertion that “they are the same” summarized my position, you made it impossible to continue to discuss the issue with you in a rational manner.
To break it down: It is not accurate to say that as far as the discussion concerning Proposition 209 is concerned, I do not distinguish between “equal protection” and “special treatment.” In fact, I made the distinction in direct response to your implication that preferences in hiring and admissions were not subject to protection under the law: “They aren’t asking for protection; they’re asking for special treatment.” My response did nothing more than explain why the application of women and minorities for preferential remedies is considered by the ACLU to be a valid request for equal “protection.”
If you were looking for a summary of my position, a more accurate and obvious choice would have been the last sentence in that paragraph: “California and federal laws specifically allow for preferences to be established to remedy underrepresentation of certain classes; to specifically deny such remedies based on race and gender but not other classes, is unequal protection.”
Okay, when I read the statement “in this case they are the same”, I thought the antecedent of “they” was “equal protection” and “special treatment”. Are you saying that the antecedent was “asking for equal protectection” and “asking for special treatment”?
No, your interpretation of the phrase is absolutely correct grammatically, TR.
I had hoped you would read ENugent’s post as an example of paying attention to the meaning of a sentence rather than it’s grammatical sense. The sentence containing “in this case they are the same” was merely a pithy response to your statement regarding protection versus special treatment; taken by itself, the phrase loses its meaning in relation to the discussion.
As an example, I could say “In this case, explaining myself to you is fruitless!”
You could then say “Why xeno, you actually think explanatory language is futile?! Are you nuts? How would we ever communicate our ideas… etc.”
Or you could say, “Too bad; if you can’t explain yourself clearly you shouldn’t expect me to understand what you’re saying.”
The difference between those two approaches is that the first reaction, while a legitimate interpretation of “explanation is fruitless”, completely misses my point (that you’re being obtuse) and brings the discussion to a screeching halt. The second reaction is a legitimate and defensible disagreement with my point which returns the acrimony yet allows the discussion about what was said to proceed.
Strike my first sentence above! I should have said “Yes, your second interpretation is correct.” I failed to read your post thoroughly, and merely noted that you were concentrating on grammar.
In this case, it is I who is being obtuse.* The antecedents of “they” were indeed “asking for equal protectection” and “asking for special treatment.”
*****[sup]By which I mean, in the case of my first sentence of the previous post, I had missed your point and responded foolishly.[/sup]