Ok, in the spirit of pitting the sin, not the sinner, I’m opening this thread for people who want to give unfiltered feedback to **Bricker **concerning his latest GD thread.
Bricker: Your recent GD thread Prostitution is immoral and therefore should be outlawed is not an effective way of debating. Just look at the responses you got in that thread. Did you accomplish what you were hoping to accomplish? What might work well as a single post to develop a counter-argument isn’t necessarily a good way to kick off a debate.
Now, let’s not pretend that you suddenly felt compelled, at 5AM in Virgina, to post about the particular issue of the immorality of prostitution. We all know that the thread in question had its genesis in the pit thread, The Bush Administration Trashes Civil Liberties of Americans, in which many people were arguing that the wiretaps were immoral.
So, I think it would be more effective to just start a thread about morality and the law, if that’s what you want to debate. And it seems like almost everyone invovled thinks so, too. Also, given the warning that you got in this thread, it might simply be the wiser thing to do.
And while we’re at it, how about addressing the question I asked twice in that thread: Should “cheating on your spouse” be illegal? It seems to fit exactly your criteria, as outlined in the OP, for something that is immoral.
I agree. Bricker, I have great respect for you despite our different political preferences. Debating in this way is out of character for you. Are you feeling okay?
With all due respect… and I don’t say that lightly; I have a great deal of respect for you…
The simple fact is that the prostitution story ran in the Washington Post this past week. It felt it was an excellent look at the issue, given the emphasis in the story on support of the proposal by both the right and the left. So the OP was timely.
If you don’t like the proposition, don’t debate it, or argue against it.
If you don’t care to do that, don’t participate in the thread.
If you believe the thread is addressing another issue, all I can tell you is that the thread stands on its own, and I absolutely, truly, in real life believe that prostitution should be illegal. I’m sure a dilgent search would reveal other times on these boards that I’ve said as much.
I disagree with Bricker on a bunch of issues, but respect his legal acumen and generally believe that his contributions make this board a better and more interesting place.
But he does have a tendency, especially lately, to go for the “gotcha” style of argumentation, offering up one hypothetical just so he can spring some sort of trap about a different but related situation. The Virginia/Hawaii thread that John Mace linked to is a perfect example, and one in which the hypothetical ignores a bunch of considerations that might apply to the actual situation.
Also, as Left Hand of Dorkness points out in the prostitution thread, if making your argument about a topic necessitates a deliberate attempt to conceal what your real topic or argument is, then perhaps your case isn’t as strong as you believe it to be.
And Bricker, it’s not a question of whether you “absolutely, truly, in real life believe that prostitution should be illegal.” It’s the way you frame your debate. Why bother to start one at all if your default position is that you “don’t think there can be any discussion” on the issue, that there can’t be “any dispute”?
It amused me that a thread in GD spelt out in the OP how it could not possibly be debated.
Allegory is nice, Bricker, but when used as the sole form of argument it can make others feel tricked - provoking others to speak emotionally instead of rationally may be useful in your line of work, but it really isn’t that helpful in a debating arena.
I love tomndebb’s approach to the whole prostitution thread:
Wow, that’s some strenuous moderating there.
In effect saying, “If Bricker later comes into this thread and admits to being a troll, then we’ll do something about it.”
Good exercise of your judgment there. :rolleyes:
FWIW, i think that Bricker did start that thread with the genuine intent of giving his opinion on the particular issue of prostitution. In my opinion, the most dishonest aspect of his contribution is his decision, in post #103, to avoid any discussion of the more general issue on the grounds that he could be perceived as dishonest in starting this thread. If that issue is relevant—and plenty of people in that thread seem to feel that you need to explain yourself further on the issue—then have the courage to address it.
Bricker, come on. Everything in the prostitution thread points to you creating it as yet another “making an example” exercise: trying to prove points in other discussions by playing a parody role in another thread. Even your supposedly sincere responses in that thread have the character of being tongue in cheek. I wasn’t even part of the wiretapping thread and it seems bleedingly obvious from the OP itself that the thread was not actually about prostitution but something else. I had to read down the comments to find which thread it was about. This is the same thing as the Hawaii threads, and frankly, is dancing pretty close to what december regularly did (starting threads whose true purpose was only revealed later on or was never quite revealed until others called them on it).
In his OP, Bricker asserts that prostitution is immoral, and thus should be prohibited by law. It’s a stance that I was never aware he had ever taken before, and, at first blush, I thought he was full of shit.
So I did a quick search, and in this post, Bricker, in a discussion about the legality of prostitution, comes out and says: “My remaining discomfort is founded upon a religiously-based moral objection… and I acknowledge, regretfully, that this is not a proper basis for criminal law in the United States.”
So, on second blush, I still think he’s full of shit.
So, another quick search, relying on my memory about his views on homosexuality and gambling, shows that Bricker does not feel that these things should be illegal, despite the fact that they are arguably, immoral.
So, on third blush, I think he’s full of shit.
I’m waiting for Bricker to provide me a fourth blush…
Well, I think native-born Virginians who can trace their in-state ancestry back to 1788 should be barred from becoming prostitutes or from patronizing them, and that ethnic Hawaiians should not engage in wiretapping, except of native-born Virginians suspected of engaging in or patronizing prostitution. Unless they can prove a right do do so under substantive due process.
Whoof! Cleaned up replies to all extant Bricker threads in one paragraph!
Who cares what his motives are? He’s framed the debate fairly, and he’s argued it using rhetoric that passes without comment all the fucking time on this board. If you’re incapable of debating the issue and can’t rebut your own rhetoric when it’s used against you, then your positions are founded on insubstiantial ground and instead of complaining about the suspicious motives of your opponents you should be taking a hard look at your own positions.
Metacom, even if everything you said was true, you should still just point that out in the relevant thread instead of starting a joke one in GD to illustrate the point for more yuks.
Then you stand by these quotes in your thread as well?
“It’s immoral, and thus should be prohibited by law.”
“If it’s immoral, it SHOULD be illegal. That’s all there is to it.”
“All immoral activity should be illegal, to the extent it’s practical to do so.”
“It’s just immoral. Everyone - or, more accurately, most people - feel that way. What else is needed?”
“It’s simply immoral. It flies in the face of common American values of morality. Most Americans agree it’s immoral.”
“it’s simply morals that should guide public policy.”
So the next time a topic comes up, and it is found that the majority of people find find a certain thing immoral, we can check back on this thread and know where you stand? As long as the majority of American’s feel something is immoral, you will automatically support making it illegal?
Actually, in the prostitution debate i do think that he framed the original debate fairly, if a little stupidly.
It’s his actions since that are poor form. His refusal, for example, to connect this issue to his broader stance on the grouds that he’s afraid of being disciplined by the mods. Also, his debating tactics regarding what morality is, for example:
In my opinion, that doesn’t pass muster as a fair or reasonable debating tactic in GD. YMMV.
No, it’s irresponsible, because the real debate is whether or not that was the tactic being used in the other thread. In fact, it wasn’t: the people in the wiretapping thread made argument for why it was immoral, they didn’t just blanketly assert it.
Congratulations Bricker, you’ve either debunked a total strawman of a debating-tactic in your little satire thread or shown yourself to be utterly ignorant of ethics. Either way, not such a great day.
All right, first of all, I have zero respect for Bricker; I think he’s an apologist for the current Admin, for the simple reason that they happen to coincide with his religious views, which are Catholic Orthodox, as it were. The only exception to this is his stance on the death penalty, which is also in agreement with Rome, but disagrees with Bush’s, how shall we put it, insouciance on the issue. He cloaks his religion in legal opinions, and this apparently is enough to get a bunch of Dopers to treat him with kid gloves. Foolishly, but whatever.
The thread in question is, however, an employment of Socratic debating techniques. Unless you’re prepared to call Socrates a troll, or perhaps to say that Socrates was trolling in the way he framed his debates, unless you’re prepared to say that, you can’t say that about the way Bricker framed his debate in the thread in question. It’s perfectly legit.
I am going to come out and say right here, unequivocally, that there is no basis for Bricker being penalized in any way by the mods for that thread. Also, that he was well within his rights to start it and to frame the debate the way he did.
