BURNER: Stubborn lack of intellectual honesty.

[beagledave]

From this thread originally…about our favorite topic of abortion

He malkes this claim:

Al of these “Pro-life” people out there realy make me laugh. They will kill abortion doctors and prevent women from going into clinics, but you never hear about them going into orphanages and adopting some of the unwanted children.

(emphasis mine).

pro choice yojimbo points out that this is a follish statement…does BURNER retract? Nope

pro choice december points out that this is a foolish statemen (including 1 example) t…does BURNER retract? Nope

pro life beagledave provides 3 specific examples of why it is a foolish statement…does BURNER retract? Nope.

Time goes by…BURNER keeps posting…still no retraction, beagledave makes a pointed inquiry if BURNER will retract…does BURNER retract? Nope.

A new thread
opens on a different tangent, but still abortion related.
beagledave notices that BURNER is still posting…so makes the request again…
BURNER finally slithers over to the keyboard to compose a “reply”…and thus excretes:

I will retract it as soon as you go out an start adopting children or provide something reason ,other than your own narrow and subjective morals as to why abortion should be illegal. Facts are one thing, moral opinions are another.No one has the right to push their morality onto another person.

To recap:

1. BURNER claims that all pro life folks kill doctors and prevent women from entering clinics. BURNER further claims that no pro life folks adopt babies.

2. 2 pro choice posters and 1 pro life poster point out the foolishness of said statement.

3. Ignoring the truthfullness of the post, BURNER posits that because we are having a difference of opinion on this topic, that he/she will not withdraw his/her specious claim. (He/she also claims that I only provided “my narrow and subjective morals” as part of the discussion…another false claim…but I’ll hold that for another thread).

What a stubborn, intellectually dishonest ass.

[Jack_Batty]

All generalizations are bad.

[j_kat_251]

Those old people. No good at everything.

[Meatros]

beagledave -Sounds like to me Burner has created a strawman out of prolife, in addition to maybe a
composition logical fallacy.

[Jack_Batty]

Sounds to me like Burner made a generalization.

And now you’re saying nothing he says is valid because he won’t outright admit it.

Let he who not generalized cast the first strawman.

[beagledave]

*Originally posted by Jack Batty *
**Sounds to me like Burner made a generalization.

And now you’re saying nothing he says is valid because he won’t outright admit it.

Let he who not generalized cast the first strawman. **

I’m not sure if that comment was directed at me or Meatros…but I’m certainly not saying that “nothing he says is valid, because he won’t own up to his generalizations”

[Meatros]

To clarify, I’m not saying nothing he says is valid I’m saying:

Al of these “Pro-life” people out there realy make me laugh. They will kill abortion doctors and prevent women from going into clinics, but you never hear about them going into orphanages and adopting some of the unwanted children.

Is not valid.

[BURNER]

I read somewhere that the man who throws the first punch is out of ideas and has lost the argument. Thank you for throwing that punch and demonstrateing that you are out of ideas. Just because I disagree with you doesnt mean that I am going to drag you into the pit and throw a tantrum over it. I dont expect anyone to change their views, I only offered my own.If you lack the maturity to endure another person disagreeing with you than maybe you shouldnt enter into a mature debate. Dragging a post from one thread into another and demanding an answer is like a child who spends his entire time at school picking on other children to make up for what he himself lacks. It is good that you came to the pit to rally your friends. Most bullies are too weak minded to succeed on their own anyway.

[Meatros]

*Originally posted by BURNER *
**I read somewhere that the man who throws the first punch is out of ideas and has lost the argument. Thank you for throwing that punch and demonstrateing that you are out of ideas. Just because I disagree with you doesnt mean that I am going to drag you into the pit and throw a tantrum over it. I dont expect anyone to change their views, I only offered my own.If you lack the maturity to endure another person disagreeing with you than maybe you shouldnt enter into a mature debate. Dragging a post from one thread into another and demanding an answer is like a child who spends his entire time at school picking on other children to make up for what he himself lacks. It is good that you came to the pit to rally your friends. Most bullies are too weak minded to succeed on their own anyway. **

Do you honestly think that all prolifers kill doctors and bomb clinics?
I think the problem is your inflamatory rhetoric, not a disagreement of positions.

[zwaldd]

Slight defense of Burner:

If you’re truly ‘pro-life’, and equate abortion with murder, how CAN you stand by and not at least support the practices of blocking clinic entrances and shooting abortion doctors? A vigilante killing to punish a confessed murderer and prevent the deaths of innocent people? Sounds justifiable to me. How, as a pro-lifer, could you condemn such acts? Would you support these murders if the doctor was raping babies instead of killing them?

BTW, I agree that Burner’s comment was false, but some would argue that to support atrocities makes you involved to some extent. Look at the arguments on either side of the middle east debate.

[beagledave]

*Originally posted by BURNER *
**I read somewhere that the man who throws the first punch is out of ideas and has lost the argument.

**
The first punch was accusing me of being someone who kills doctors and prevents women from entering clinics…nice try slim.

**
Just because I disagree with you doesnt mean that I am going to drag you into the pit and throw a tantrum over it.

**

Ahh, this is not about a disagreement over abortion… (yojimbo and december disagree with me about abortion…even they pointed out the problems with your statement)…it’s about being intellectually honest in your accusations directed toward me.

[quote]
**
I dont expect anyone to change their views, I only offered my own.If you lack the maturity to endure another person disagreeing with you than maybe you shouldnt enter into a mature debate.

[/quote**
Bite me asswipe. I’ve been in more abortion related debates (and other topics as well) on these boards than you have by quite a stretcj…Use the handy dandy SEARCH feature for evidence. I took this part of the debate to the pit (after several attempts to resolve it in GD), because its the rules of the SDMB that personal flames are not allowed in GD.

[quote**
It is good that you came to the pit to rally your friends. Most bullies are too weak minded to succeed on their own anyway. **[/QUOTE]

Which friends am I rallying?

So now I’m a bully…eh?

I’ll offer you another chance:

Do you admit that it’s a fallacy to suggest that all pro life folks kill doctors?

Do you admit that it’s a fallacy to suggest that all pro life folks block clinic entrances?

Do you admit that it’s a fallacy that no pro life folks adopt babies?

[beagledave]

*Originally posted by zwaldd *
**
BTW, I agree that Burner’s comment was false, but some would argue that to support atrocities makes you involved to some extent. Look at the arguments on either side of the middle east debate. **

Actually, you’re right.

If I had supported violence against doctors, women, or clinic workers…then I would have some culpability.

I have not done so (nor has any other pro life poster in those threads)…and to assume that I have is the height of arrogance… (it’s like assuming that all environmentalists “support” earth first…or all vegans “support” PETA…or all feminists “support” Andrea Dworken…but then I’ve already made that point)

[AHunter3]

I am rather mililtantly prochoice but I agree that he (Burner) has totalized you as an undifferentiated single-faceted mass organism, and given how poorly our two contingents in this perpetual debate communicate as it is, that’s poor tactics unless the goal is to piss off the prolifer folks or rally your own side into unthinking angry “yeah, so there!” chime-ins.

People often ask why bother with GD because no one is ever going to change their minds or really listen to the other side except to inspect arguments for weaknesses. I’d have to say that isn’t true. I haven’t changed my opinion on the issue one jot, but I have considerably more respect for people holding the prolife perspective and I’ve ceased to think of you as flat 2-D cardboard Randall Terry cutouts, out to restore public sexual morality to the candy-coated 1950s and erase the sexual revolution by any means necessary, pretending to care about the fetus while already planning to restrict access to contraceptives, pretending to consider life sacred while secretly cheering on assassins of abortion doctors, opposing sex ed and supporting censorship of sexually explicit materials, etc etc…

I hope some of you have gained a better understanding of us as well.

[Ben_Hicks]

BURNER

Allow me to clear up a slight misconception.

I read somewhere that the man who throws the first punch is out of ideas and has lost the argument. Thank you for throwing that punch and demonstrateing that you are out of ideas.

While I was lurking I read a great many abortion debates and saw beagledave go the full twelve rounds with a great many pro-lifers who were far more intelligent, well informed and far less hyperbolic than your good self. The simple reason that he has opened up this pit thread is to vent the frustration he feels about having to correct the egregious fallacies perpetuated by such an unworthy opponent as you. I’m confident that, in time, others will follow his example.

[zwaldd]

*Originally posted by beagledave *
**If I had supported violence against doctors, women, or clinic workers…then I would have some culpability.

I have not done so…**

Can you answer my questions then? If you’re truly ‘pro-life’, and equate abortion with murder, how could you condemn such acts? Would you support this violence if the doctor was raping babies instead of killing them if the courts did nothing to stop it? Do you not at least support the act of blocking clinics to prevent innocent children from being murdered?

[Ben_Hicks]

with a great many pro-lifers

D’oh. A great many pro-choicers

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

Burner, another pro-choice zealot checking in to call you on your statements. I wouldn’t dignify them by calling them fallacies: they’re just flat-out falsehoods. Logic don’t begin to enter into it.

One of my most interesting college experiments was interviewing (on camera) both a group of protestors outside an abortion clinic, and the clinic guardians. I conducted two sets of interviews with the protestors, and one set with the guardians.

During the first interview with the protestors, a grandmotherly figure from the Christian Coalition was out there and was clearly the leader of the four protestors. She clearly and eloquently denounced violence and any illegal activity conducted for ostensibly pro-life reasons, and she offered a cogent condemnation of pro-life violence, based on Jesus’s “turn the other cheek” teachings. It was a little disturbing for me: I was so prepared to caricature the protestors, to see them as a group of frothing dangerous idiots, and then she completely threw me off my game by being thoughtful, sincere, and pacifist.

I went back for a follow-up interview a week later, and she wasn’t there. The other three protestors were, and I interviewed them, and hoo doggy! Caricature city. I asked one guy if he believed violence was an acceptable tool in the pro-life arsenal, and he grinned a scary gaptoothed mountain-man grin at me and asked,

“Who would you rather see come home alive at the end of a day: a baby, or a man who makes his living killing babies?”

Stunned, I asked him for clarification. He never would clarify, just smiled conspiratorially at me and repeated his question.

The other two protestors weren’t as scary as him, but they were pretty stupid and uneloquent, nowhere near as reasonable as the grandmotherly woman from the prior week.

Then I interviewed the clinic guardians. They were suspicious and sleepy and grumpy; one of them spouted some irrelevant misquote by Martin Luther King, Jr., and that was the highlight of the interview. They were just out there doing what they thought was right.

I’m pretty fanatically pro-choice, pretty close to the far end of the pro-choice spectrum. That doesn’t mean that I despise pro-lifers. Having talked with several, I recognize that some of them are insane wanna-be murderers, some are insane murderers, and some are wonderful, sincere, intelligent, kind human beings who disagree with me on this issue.

Don’t turn into a caricature yourself, Burner.

Daniel

[Swampwolf]

Here’s a thought…

Al of these “Pro-life” people out there realy make me laugh.

and

They will kill abortion doctors and prevent women from going into clinics…

Just might be separate statements.

As if I were to say “All dogs are great. They lick your face, they guard your house, they help you hunt, they sit on your lap, they cheer you up and they guide the blind.”
Obviously, I’m not saying that all dogs do all these things, and I doubt anyone would interpret my statement like that.

of course,

but you never hear about them going into orphanages and adopting some of the unwanted children.

is also true. I never hear about anything my mind is too closed to listen for, either.

No matter what it is that he meant, he’s still being a prick about it.
No retraction, fine. If it’s what he truly believes, he has every right. Of course, stating absolutes like that, and maintaining them in the face of evidence to the contrary is just plain ignorant.

[Meatros]

*Originally posted by zwaldd *
**Can you answer my questions then? If you’re truly ‘pro-life’, and equate abortion with murder, how could you condemn such acts? Would you support this violence if the doctor was raping babies instead of killing them if the courts did nothing to stop it? Do you not at least support the act of blocking clinics to prevent innocent children from being murdered? **

You are creating a slippery slope or possibly a complex question logical fallacy.

If you are pro-life, I would imagine that would include all life (I could be wrong), if that’s the case then killing the doctor, people at the clinic, etc would still be wrong. Are you asserting that pro-lifers would have no problem with a doctor raping babies?

[beagledave]

*Originally posted by zwaldd *
**Can you answer my questions then? If you’re truly ‘pro-life’, and equate abortion with murder, how could you condemn such acts? Would you support this violence if the doctor was raping babies instead of killing them if the courts did nothing to stop it? Do you not at least support the act of blocking clinics to prevent innocent children from being murdered? **

I’m most interested in reducing the numbers of elective abortions done in this country…obviously a “goal” would be zero…much as a “goal” for folks who oppose spousal abuse, or animal abuse etc… would be “zero”, even if that goal is never reached. (Actually, I think that there is some common ground with some pro choice folks in that regard).

My belief system teaches that violence is seldom if ever a proper response to other violence. I suppose you could ask the same question of those oppose the death penalty (I’m one of them). Are there some pro life folks who take a differnet tack…yes. Much as there are environmentalists willing to burn private property and threaten the lives of loggers because “the ends justify the means”

Anywho…I’ll say it again, it’s the height of hubris to assume that I “support” violence without …gosh…I dunno…having the simple courtesy to ask before making the assumptions and accusations

And it’s the height of true subborn intellectual dishonesty to maintain the accusations even after being told point blank that they are not true.