Indeed. They are all similar. The way in which they’re similar has been explained multiple times to you. The absence of nice people from the list has been explained. The reason for each entity’s existence on the list has been explained.
What you’ve done is to repeat various shallow arguments and simplistic misunderstandings without showing that you’ve processed any of the explanations given. Which is, of course, your right, but doesn’t actually lead to any good discussions.
If you show that you understand the way in which those entities are relevantly similar, and you show that you understand why no nice specific entities were on the list, and you understand why each entity was on the list, we can talk. Until then, you can expostulate.
No, on the terms of this thread, the mere fact that I put them all on the same list does not imply a damn thing other than that they are united by the defining characteristic of the list: in this case, being urges one was born with.
Or, the fact that I put them on the list does imply that they have (in my bigoted mind at least) other things in common than what I say I am putting them on the list for, in which case LHoD’s argument in this thread doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Pick one.
I think you did not say what you meant to say, and in fact you probably meant nearly the opposite. All I’ve ever meant by it is “Since we deem some inborn urges unacceptable, we must accept that we have to look elsewhere than merely the fact that an urge is inborn for reasons why we should find it acceptable”
I got a warning for pretty much the same thing and the moderator statement was that no one likes a rules lawyer and that I was splitting the issue too finely. I disagreed with that one (which was not rescinded) and this one as well (which was rescinded). Consistency is wonderful.
Well, no: the reason you put them all on a list was to make an analogy that portrayed me in as offensive a light as possible. I mean, let’s be clear on your purpose here :).
If you’re making a point that calling an urge inborn is no defense against calling an urge immoral, then of course your list includes the subject of the thread (presumably homosexuality) as well as a list of other urges that are inborn and immoral–why would you include inborn and morally neutral urges on such a list?
Again, though, remember I was responding to the Voltaire quote, the subject of whom is “you.” That’s not precisely the impersonal “you,” but it edges pretty close to it. In retrospect I should not have included that subject in the list, but at the time, as a tie-in to the Voltaire quote, it made sense, and I didn’t think at the time how it’d look like I was linking aldi, as opposed to Voltaire’s “you,” to the others on the list.
Good lord no, I’ve no reason to want to do that. I did, however, seek to draw attention to a line of argument that I’ve encountered before. Kinda piggybacking off your thread, but hey.
That’s exactly it - the whole point is to say “That justification is inadequate, because it would also justify {unjustifiable things}”.
I understand precisely. “I would defend the rights of this, that and the other scumbag; how much more should I defend yours, since I don’t view you with any such contempt.”
A point lost, by the way, on the people who said Phil Robertson compared homosexuality to beastility.
In my view, the warning was unwarranted. At most, a moderating note advising that the poster keep clear the distinctions he was making would have been appropriate.
In my opinion.
ETA: I see this point was not lost on the subsequent posters.
Well, no, you don’t understand precisely. Aldiboronti’s rights were never the subject of the thread or the post–he’d said nothing that required defending, nor had he suggested that he had, nor had I. He’d quoted Voltaire talking about “what you say,” and I’d responded by talking about that same “you.” The real person’s rights we were discussing was Robertson, who appeared second on the list, after Voltaire’s “you” appeared.
Sort of. I compared “You” (again, not so much aldiboronti as the generic “you”) to the Klan, inasmuch as both of them deserve defense. Robertson compared homosexuality to bestiality inasmuch as both of them are profoundly immoral.
A “disclaimer” very commonly used in Hebrew (and Yiddish?) would be great to have in the English language. It prevents, and is a conversational/discourse courtesy, exactly what is being discussed here:
In a list or comparison, when one chooses or is forced, for simplicity, to make a list with a a distasteful proximity of names not germane to the purpose of the sentence, the word “l’havdil” can be introduced. Usually quickly slurred “lavdil,” is is from the root word meaning “to separate.” It used like so:
“Germany was the birthplace of many important people: Goethe, Beethoven, my mother, but not, l’havdil, Hitler.”
Robertson may consider them both profoundly immoral, but surely the point is that if you wish to argue that one of them is not immoral, your argument must not be one that, applied consistently, would also show the other one to be not immoral.
Dorkness was not arguing the point of morality of any position, he was arguing that opinions should be protected from government censorship. Dorkness made a comparison about what opinions deserve defending. Those include Robertson’s opinions about behaviors being immoral.
Dorkness is stating that he said “Robertson’s opinions are like the Clan’s or Carrot Top’s - I’ll defend them from government censorship.”
Robertson said something like “Homosexuals are like pedophiles - evil and disgusting.”*
*I have no idea what his actual comments were. I’ve only heard that he said something derogatory about homosexuals, not the actual comments.
I think it’s more problematic in spoken form than written - if someone says (out loud): “You, and [a long list of dicks] have a legal right to express your opinions”, it’s very easy to misconstrue that as making some kind of comparison - and the hearer only has his/her own memory to consult to try to divine the intent.
In written form, however, even if the addressee’s first reaction is ‘hey, did he just call me a dick?’, it’s easier to go back and re-read to check comprehension.
Agreed, but posts that apply best practices don’t require a re-read.
All that said, LHoD’s post was actually pretty well written. It’s just that on this message board certain hot button phrases require the insertion of rhetorical air bags and disclaimers. I’ve done worse. A couple of months ago, I penned an OP in ATMB that noted that Fox News hired shills to post in blog comment pages(!) and would the mods like to speculate on the prevalence of shills on this board? The Fox News component ended up dominating the thread. I should have known better: bad form. There were no board violations, but I guaranteed a hijack.
Disclaimer: this post is not about Fox News. It’s about better and worse forms of expression. I took my own sorry writing as an example.
Definitely–as I’ve said, I can certainly see the problematic interpretation of the post, and had I intended that reading, or if that were the only reasonable reading, I wouldn’t fight the warning. Ideally I’d write posts that lack such readings.
My contention isn’t that I was clear in my intent. My contention is that:
My post was ambiguous, and
I intended the inoffensive interpretation, and
I didn’t see the offensive interpretation until I got warned for it.
I tend to disagree with that. I couldn’t be sure and it’s not impossible that you’re being truthful now, but I tend to think you meant the implication that it had, and were not any sort of innocent victim here.
People in this thread have focused on deconstructing the sentence that you quoted in the OP, but what makes it a bit clearer IMO is the paragraph immediately following the one that you quoted. The fuller quote is as follows:
The two paragraphs should be viewed as a whole, the point of which was that there are all sorts of fools and assholes out there with opinions that you think should be legal but rebutted. There’s nothing in the second paragraph about anyone who is not a fool or asshole, and looks to me you meant this to include everyone in the first paragraph. If this were not so, there was no reason at all to include the “You” in the first paragraph, since the point of this bit was to say that fools and assholes should only be tolerated legally and not otherwise.
That said, if I was a mod I would probably not have warned for this. Too much ambiguity and plausible deniability. A very well done bit of snark.
I support your right to speak freely, because I support everyone’s right to speak freely - let me try to illustrate my sincerity and consistency on this matter by listing some people you might not expect me to regard as having the right to speak freely, and asserting that I do in fact support their right to speak freely.
