Collounsbury not that I am one to be known to suck up to anyone and in the short time I have been hanging in these environs I might have been noted to throw around a few ad hominems myself, all that being as it may I must say this for the record; given that I feel that you’re being given a rather undeserved run here… well it’s also pretty entertaining seeing you get a little good flogging, but then again schadenfreude is the only proper joy.
Just know that IMO you’re rip roaring fucking hilarious old chap! Don’t let them know-nothing, lowlife, scum sucking, landlocked, herbivore, soft-shelled, feel-goody, communality driven dork-heads compare you to Cecil. He’d be a wet noodle in your league. OK granted you’re an elephant in glass shop in his…but still.
For instance; rarely have I laughed as heartily as when reading your rebuke of the blabbering fools in the ICC thread started by our mutual friend the sand jockey and euro trash basher. Your apotheosis was reached when MEB stepped in and curtailed your expletives, whereupon your acerbic attacks were interspersed with apologies for the same. You both got your point across and you entertained. Granted you did almost, nearly, very close to go too far there. But shit did I laugh and I know others in your fan base that did as well.
But I have to add that sometimes your opinions are utter fucking rot as someone would put it.
No really, I just wanted to say that so you don’t get too soft on us here.
Ad hominem is an integral part of the art of rhetoric and as long as it doesn’t pass into personal attacks, downright insults or slanderous libel, it must be and should be part of a proper debate.
All that being said I have seen that the less verbose and daring shrink from debate at times and I quite quickly grew worried about one thing when starting to post here. In my first weeks I rather actively took part in the quite scathing pitting of two gents of lesser repute; out of which one was subsequently banned and one has since at his own degree been absent, and I came to worry about the greater cause. Who on earth are the ones that are going to be cured of ignorance when all the ignoramuses and horseradish brains have been scared away by our rebukes and/or banned to the far less enlightened alternatives at MSN?
In other words; I do not agree that ad hominems are counter productive in debate and I think that to curtail them would lessen the rhetoric freedom we need in argument. One should however note that sometimes the use of multi-syllable verbiage, expletive, inflective and injective; adjacent to some close to stellar subject matters might be counterproductive towards the didactic cause celebre the SDMB is sworn to.
Sparc
Oh and before I go…
Sgt. J didn’t you get the course literature? It contains a link to Merriam Webster… use it and don’t whine so much!
