First off, I totally agree with the OP: a thing of beauty.
Second, this is a big reason I love the SDMB. I occasionally participate in other message boards, and sometimes continue to do so, but the intellectual honesty here keeps bringing me back. Whenever somebody engages in this kind of poor debating tactic, a dozen other posters can be counted on to jump all over them and demonstrate why their position should be questioned and restated more fairly. The board’s methodology, in short, lends itself to self-correction, unlike the many other boards where this kind of stuff never gets addressed because the participants aren’t disciplined enough to stick to a rigorous thought process.
Oh, and third, Libertarian’s concession above makes my heart grow two sizes. I think you might be a little too hard on yourself; engaging in strawman behavior is an easy trap to fall into, which I sometimes do myself, and you’re nowhere near the worst offender on this score. But even so, self-examination is, IMHO, rarely a bad thing, and if it raises the already-high tone of the board yet another notch, that’ll be better yet.
Kudos all around.
(Wait a minute. Isn’t this the pit?)
Motherfucking assbaby stapleface shitrocking pantsmonkey.
(Ah, yes. Much better.)
Thank you for this thread. I agree completely.