Hmm, so there are legal opinions, and there are personal opinions. So, when you’re reading an internet message board, and someone gives an opinion, and the person makes no claim to being a judge, you just automatically assume they are giving a legal opinion, and not a personal opinion?
When your butt-buddy Scalia writes a legal opinion, does he have to specify at the beginning that he is giving a legal opinion, and not a personal opinion? Or do you just assume that he is giving a legal opinion because of, you know, the *context *and medium in which the opinion is offered?
How is a debate, in the Great Debates forum, a “casual conversation?” People were arguing a position. People reading the thread see, “He has a First Amendment right to wear any medals he wants,” and they think, hmm, sounds about right, I know he has a right to burn the flag, so this seems likely to be true, too.
Why should I be expected to surrender, in a Great Debate, the fact that weakens the opposite side’s argument? If they want to argue that a criminal conviction shouldn’t happen, that’s fine: let them say SHOULDN’T. If they want to argue that the First Amendment should protect that faux Marine, fine: let them say SHOULD. Why in the world should they get to argue, without contradiction, that a criminal case against marine boy violates the Constitution. Let them qualify their words. I’m not going to sit back on my hands and let those definitive but wrong statements go unchallenged. To hell with that. You want to make statements in GD, bring facts, bring specificity. You want to have a casual conversation about your personal experience with the Constitution, there’s IMHO and MPSIMS just waiting for you.
If I’ve been guilty of this offense, then I can hardly complain if I’m called on it, can I? So feel free. The next time you see me slip in an IS instead of a SHOULD, you are hereby authorized to call me out, with links, derisive names, finger-pointing, and other shaming as you see fit.
NOBODY. WAS. FUCKING. CONFUSED. YOU. FUCKING. RETARD.
It was already fucking clear in the thread itself that it was illegal. That was the entire point of the fucking discussion. It *is *illegal, but do you think it *should *be?
Jesus FUCKING Christ. When EVERYBODY ELSE gets it, it might be time to possibly CONSIDER that YOU may be the person with the problem.
Isn’t this kind of the point…that you jumped into a MPSIMS thread in the first place with your “great debate”? And then, to your credit, admitted it was a mistake? Not to start in with the tu quoques, but this whole Pitting likely wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t made that very mistake yourself.
As has already been pointed out more than once, and conceded by you more than once, the thread was in IMHO at the time.
I don’t know what you hope to gain by continuing to twist words around and misquote people to make yourself sound more reasonable. Nobody said “He has a First Amendment right to wear any medals he wants” and you putting that in quotes above is misleading. The comment was that he was wiping his ass with the Constitution. That is a far different thing. And this diversion tactic has already been pointed out with a number of cites. It’s almost like you aren’t aware that people can go back and read the posts in question.
Way to avoid the question too. When Scalia writes an opinion, do you insist that he specify at the beginning that he is giving a legal opinion? Or can you just assume so from the context?
But when someone offers an opinion that applies the LAW to a set of FACTS, like, say, whether a poseur wearing Marine medals is guilty of a crime, THEN I assume it’s a legal opinion. Because it is.
Yeah, if the writing says, “Justice Scalia delivers the opinion of the court…” or “Justice Scalia dissenting…” then I assume he’s writing a legal opinion that actually carries weight.
And if he’s over at my place for burgers on the patio, and says…
… actually, no matter what he said, I’m sure I’d treat with with dignity and respect. So scratch that.
Yes. I am now defending the conduct as though the thread had been in GD all along.
If you want a concession that my behavior was out of line for IMHO or MPSIMS, I have already given it, and I’ll give it again: it was assholish to leap on that comment in IMHO and attack it like that. IMHO is the thread for opinions, and it’s absolutely wrong to treat it as I did.
If this entire debate is continuing because I acted wrongly for IMHO, we can all stop now. I did.
I’m contending that what’s right for GD isn’t right for IMHO or MPSIMS, and I did NOT act wrongly for GD purposes.
I’m well aware of it.
When someone says “Wow, that’s a fucked up law. ‘Let’s honor those who fought and died protecting the Constitution by wiping our asses with it!’” they are expressing, implicitly, the opinion that the law is violative of the Constitution. And this is reinforced when, asked about where in the Constitution the right to wear unearned medals may be found, that same poster replies: “I have one of those shiny Constitutions with the First Amendment intact.”
Sure. In response to a question about where the Constitution protects the right to wear unearned medals:
That is a claim that the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, has a shiny First Amendment that protects the right to wear unearned medals, and therefore any law to the contrary is invalid as violative of that guarantee.
But that was not the post you responded to. You didn’t say anything about that when Rhythmdvl said it, you continued to participate in the thread for another 50 posts and your asshole hijack was in response to a post by me, not Rhythmdvl.
Oh, and BTW, your argument makes you look like a retard. Notice the first sentence of the post quoted by you: “Wow, that’s a fucked up law.” See what Rhythmdvl did there? He acknowledged what the law was. So obviously his “wipe your ass with the Constitution” comment could not be interpreted by any intelligent person as stating “the law is X.” He is admitting the law, and giving his opinion of it. Unless you expect us to believe he acknowledged what the law was in one sentence, and then forgot what he had just said and tried to tell us it was not the law in the second.
Nice weasel attempt, but that’s **not **what I asked for. You need someone saying that they think it is currently legal, not that they think the current law is bullshit.
For somebody who’s got such a huge stick up his ass about interpreting things perfectly literally, you certainly are ready to twist anything and everything as soon as it suits your own agenda.
No, I don’t. I am not disavowing all use of inference. I am sayinmg that when you make an ambiguous argument, you’ll get called on it.
So I certainly grant the point that no one literally said, “I think what this poseur did is legal in the U.S.” Not that it proves a thing, because someone did say, in response to a question about what part of the Constitution protected this conduct, “I have one of those shiny Constitutions with the First Amendment intact.” That was a claim that the Constitution’s First Amendment protected the conduct, and that the law, which did exist, was unconstiutional.
If you have been reading everything that has gone on in this thread and taken from it the idea that I am somehow demanding literal quotations from people, your time has been truly wasted. I am demanding unambiguous argument. In fact, I’m not even demanding it; I’m simply destroying ambiguous argument when it is offered.
I am now defending the conduct as though the thread had been in GD all along.
If you want a concession that my behavior was out of line for IMHO or MPSIMS, I have already given it, and I’ll give it again: it was assholish to leap on that comment in IMHO and attack it like that. IMHO is the thread for opinions, and it’s absolutely wrong to treat it as I did.
If this entire debate is continuing because I acted wrongly for IMHO, we can all stop now. I did.
I’m contending that what’s right for GD isn’t right for IMHO or MPSIMS, and I did NOT act wrongly for GD purposes.
Does the foregoing text look even slightly familiar? (Hint: see post 170.)
Does “ambiguity” really need to be “destroyed”? Can’t it usually be resolved by a simple question? Rather a puny target for such intellectual firepower, don’t you think?
And lest I be misunderstood, my assessment of your gift is sincere and snarkless, and my criticism of its misuse is also. From those to whom much is given…