Your list of cites is a rather pathetic form of proof. Not one actually directly supported your claim; there was no cite of a scientific study that showed that Americans are “Driven by selfishness and hate.”
Of course, I provided a list of cites of Canadian sins. I could provide a thousand more if you like. I note this week the Globe And Mail reported that pollution by Canadian industry may be up as far as 50%, which would make us the worst polluter in the industrialized world, per capita. Is Canada driven by selfishness and hate? If not, what’s your reason for saying it isn’t? Canada consumes an utterly ludicrous amount of the world’s energy and resources, given its population; racial injustice is rampant; the country is openly capitalist and thre’s a big, big gap between rich and poor. I can find 999 more cites if you really want.
Of course, I could find a thousand such cites about any country. Finding headlines doesn’t constitute proof of much of anything.
Well, I’m back, but it’s late, and I’m tired, and I’m tired of this discussion. Instead of giving reasons for my opinions, which I don’t feel like doing, I’ll just amend my opinion to; “Some Citizens of the United States may or may not be Capitalists, and they may or may not be greedy; in fact, they may or may not be Citizens of the United States.”
FFS, you are being kind of ridiculous. Why kind of scientific proof do you expect about something that is clearly a matter of, not unreasonable, opinion.
Well I’m not going to include a definition of what it means when someone says “America” when specifically talking about foreign policy just for all the thin skinned weiners who take everything personally.
See, you can’t have a ‘not-unreasonable’ opinion unless it’s based upon, ya know, reason.
If you don’t do the scientific/statistical work, your opinion is baseless, and thus, unreasonable. In other words, you’re allowed to your own opinions, but not your own facts. And if the facts are in contradiction to your opinion, then you are wrong.
No, you’d include language that was accurate so that you weren’t being an ignorant and false-to-facts rhetorician.
Using “America” when you really mean "certain foreign policies of certain administrations. " is lazy, sloppy, and does not have a sufficient resonance with reality.
It is especially sloppy when making statements about “America” that are broad, sweeping, and cary specific value judgements and which can only properly refer to the government.
Language should be used to get at truth.
Not obscure it.
While saying that, keep in mind that the deliberately obtuse manner in which you are debating is not exactly helpful to your cause. When the intent is clear, the language has served it’s purpose. To go back and argue semantics just so you can have a reason to try and feel high and mighty in an arguement generally means that your debating skkills, and more than liekly your point are weak and aren’t addign anything to the discussion.
And no, calling you obtuse does not in any way, shape, or form imply that I think all American citizens are obtuse. This is solely focused on you.
Deliberately accurate.
Not obtuse at all.
Defining your terms is never obtuse.
But you can believe that if you want.
By what strange alchemy?
If the language is obfuscatory or innacurate the intent is occluded.
Unless one was a mind reader :rolleyes:
Check what I was saying from my first posts.
Go back indeed.
Guess even when the language and the intent are clear you can still make mistakes, eh?
Oh, so that’s why I was doing it?
Your mind reading skills really are top notch, I’m impressed.
(Psssst. I was doing it because when you use language improperly you help nobody at all and we should all endevour to be accurate with our use of language.)
So, clarifying the issue, your positions, and what exactly can be said without over-generalizing weakens one’s position?
If you say so chief.
No, saying that “America is driven by…” makes a statemet about what, oh, America is driven by.
Moreoever folks have been speaking in generalizations.
That you seem to be unable to understand the necessity of having accurate generalizations is really not my problem.
But I guess only someone as obtuse as I am would expect the words we use to mean something :rolleyes:
P.S. Nobody ever made a statement about one person that I attempted to extend to the nation.
How does it feel to write all that and then be delieberately obtuse in order to make a bogus point?
Just curious is all.
Yeah, I don’t get it. FinnAgain’s posts seemed well articulated to me. Instead of apologising for, at the very least, a poorly worded post, Muffin has been acting like he won the argument.
CarnalK, bear in mind that it wasn’t ME who claimed that it was a conclusion supported by facts. It was Muffin who claimed her/his/its conclusion was “supported” by cites. This was an absurd claim. It’s patently ridiculous to introduce anecdotal evidence as proof of the motivations of three hundred million individuals.
I’m not sure how much more obvious this could be, but introducing thirty cites of headlines of Things Americans Do I Don’t Agree With, and claiming this “supports the conclusion” that Americans are motivated by greed and hatred is just really, really stupid. If I were to find thirty headlines of crimes committed by black people and then cite them as proof that black people are driven by criminal intent, I’d be laughed off the SDMB; Dopers would be lining up to slap me around with “Data isn’t the plural of anecdote, you moron.” If I were to find thirty cites of aboriginal Canadians sniffing glue and passing out drunk on public property around greater Winnipeg I could do that with ease. I could even provide documented evidence this behaviour is more prevant in Indians than in, say, Japanese-Canadians, or people of Caribbean descent. But were I to present this as proof that Indians are worthless drunks, I would rightly be considered a mental deficient.
But Muffin is trying to foist exactly this sort of “cite” as “support” of a “conclusion.” Well, that’s ridiculous. If Muffin doesn’t like Americans and is of the opinion they suck, let her/him just say so, but don’t pretend it’s a supportable “conclusion” when the standard of evidence would allow me to prove that every country that has ever existed is almost anything I wanted to claim.