Tejota:
I’m going to try the new civility that Mandelstron has bequeathed in christlike manner on this thread.
You are referring to the questions elucidator refused to answer, I presume. I had hoped not to debate the debate any further. There’s been kind of a tacit agreement not to do so, but since you bring it up, I’ll address it.
Of course it was a trap. It was however, a legitimate trap.
What I thought (and I don’t want to reopen a can of worms,) was that elucidator was maintaining that there was a very high possibility that Bush had engaged in illegal insider trading with the Harkens transaction. The test of whether something is an illegal insider trade is pretty straightforward and unambiguous. It is also specific. I feel and continue to feel that the case against Bush in this instance is exceedingly weak, and that that would be shown to be true if the allegation was made specific. Elucidator promised to answer my questions which were already posted if I answered his first. I took him at his word, and I answered his questions straightforward and honestly, and in doing so he became aware that my questions would put him in a very tight corner if he answered them. I did not try to hide this fact, or temper my answers so that he would go into the trap unknowingly. I was fair with my answers, and I figured that him giving his word would ethically compel him to answer. I figured wrong.
I see nothing wrong with the trap. It wasn’t dishonest. The trap was that he was making an argument that he learned he wasn’t going to be able to support, and I tried to hold him to his promise to support it.
If asking somebody to support an allegation that they can’t support is a trap that is unworthy or dishonest in your eyes, then so be it. It seems a valid form of debate to me.
Elucidator’s take on this may be different, and that’s fine. Past is past. I’d like to leave it that way, and move on. I bear no ill will, and elucidator’s said the occasional nice thing, and done the occasional action that earns my respect. When he saw that he was wrong once he made an unsolicited apology to me that must have been very hard to do, and that carries a lot of clout for me. It’s odd that we have such different and conflicting ideologies and ways of looking at things that clash explosively, but I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I think he’s a pretty good guy. I don’t understand him, and it’s frustrating. Doubtless he feels the same towards me. Who cares? Why are we talking about this?
I don’t think you can support that. Not all the time do we understand what the other person is saying. Witness Xenophon’s and my arguing back and forth for page after page without realizing we are arguing different things. I’ve never deliberately misatrributed and argument to another, and I challenge you to find such an instance, and present here if you wish to continue in this vein.
Personally, I’d prefer you just grew up and dropped it, but do what you must.
I place an important weight on keeping my promises. I feel that if you back out of it, after you’ve learned that it’s disadvantageous then your word has little weight. That’s how I saw it. That’s how I called it. Doubtless both you and elucidator have a different view of the situation. I don’t see it being resolved. I’m moving on with more fun and constructive debate. This is not particularly nice to me nor to elucidator to continue to pick a scab, and you might reconsider doing so. But, do as you must.
Then you say that I:
[quote]
slander Krugman**
Please show me where.
Well, you just did what you earlier accused me of doing, You’ve just attributed an argument to me that I didn’t make without quoting me. Do you consider that hypocritical, or do you consider it a simple mistake?
You’ll recall that I questioned the authenticity of the document, not the information. Others including Collounsbury felt that I was quite right to do so.
Anyway you’ve made an error and misattributed an argument to me that I didn’t make in the same post that you accuse me of doing so. I guess it’s a form of Gaudere’s law.
The question is what are you going to do about your error?
You’ve done it again. You’ve falsely attributed an argument to me that I didn’t make without quoting me.
I didn’t call them forgeries. I said I didn’t know if they were authentic or not, and questioned their authenticity. Again, I was quite right to do so.
True enough, but you still didn’t quote me. Shame on you. I turned out to have been mistaken in doing so, and when I made it clear that I had done so and retracted my mistake, elucidator was most gracious in victory.
I’m not sure where I see that I’ve done something wrong or worthy of scorn in this. Can you tell me?
This is beginning to make me angry.
It is absolutely false, and I’m sure you’re aware of it. I must have asked at least 20 times “What material nonpublic information do you believe Bush was in posession of?”
I just went back and looked at the thread and counted 15 times where I said something along those lines, and then stopped skimming it. I have never asserted that that was the only possible insider knowledge. I repeatedly asked other people to tell me what they specifically thought Bush knew.
I am hoping that anybody else reading this will chime in and back me on this point.
Tejota. You have again falsely attributed an argument to me that I did not make, and you have again not quoted me while making that attribution. This is the very allegation that you have accused me of.
I hope you will consider apologizing and retracting.
I guess this would be yet another case of a false argument you are attributing to me, without quoting me.
You’re doing quite a lot of it.
Tejota:
I would like to add without acrimony that I notice that you show up, take a few potshots at me, and when I respond to them and dispel them, or question them you simply disapear.
Then you show up a little later and do it again.
I’m going to expect you to respond to this and either support your allegations against me or retract them with an apology. If you don’t, I don’t intend to treat you with civility or respect when you do it again.
OK?
