I will say that I find the Hunt for Hypocrisy to be one of the dumber board pursuits, and this includes discussion of pan-fried semen. If you show that someone is a hypocrite, well, you’ve shown that they have a character flaw. You haven’t shown anything about the quality of the arguments they’ve raised.
Some people spend a tremendous amount of time trying to prove that their opponents in a debate are hypocrites. That time is, in my opinion, entirely wasted.
Nah, I’ll stick with the former one.
In some ways I part company with Bricker, in other ways with septimus. Set voter ID aside (we’ll have to, as I am highly dubious about defenses of it x10). Part of the problem Bricker used to face is that he couldn’t grasp that “Legal” != “Ethical/Moral”. But I think he’s got that now, though frankly he should have mastered it sooner.
Many of us mortals without a legal background get pissed off at discussions that push an ideological agenda via legal analysis and apparatus. So Bricker: a lot of the ire directed against you is the confluence of two things, not one. And part of the reason, IMHO, is that there’s a pretty decent conservative intellectual apparatus in the law. Less so (relatively) elsewhere. Moreover, some of the best jurists (eg Posner) are conservative.
I lack a good legal background, but I part company with septimus: I think his stance smacks of anti-intellectualism. (To which he might tell me to piss-off: I would respond, “Fair enough”.) I think Bricker is an addition to this board, but generally speaking I’d prefer to keep him in line with mockery rather than denouncements or anger.
TL;DR. Hypothesis: Overlap of legalism and conservatism pisses some people off, which doesn’t really reflect well on them in the end.
It’s just an hypothesis though. Some of this is temperament: adaher used to piss me off, but he has demonstrated his sense of humor so he no longer does. My bad, I guess. I also question the honesty of those who habitually misrepresent the positions of others, or that of linked articles. I’m sympathetic to mistakes and I even tolerate bull headedness over misrepresentation connected with intent or indifference.
Um, yes you have. You prove someone is being a hypocrite, you prove they don’t even actually believe what they are saying. You prove they are being dishonest and aren’t actually debating in good faith, which means rebutting is impossible.
They need to make what they actually believe be their argument, so you can properly rebut it.
Has septimus claimed that the tactic he just used is unfair and inaccurate, but that he will continue to use it anyways? Do we have reason to believe he is being deliberately dishonest? That’s why I joined in the pitting here.
And does he, like Bricker, constantly make posts about how he is fair in debate, but other aren’t? Posters hold him to a higher standard because he holds himself up to a higher standard. And he does live up to it often enough that we expect him to live up to it.
Honestly, Bricker, I think you should be flattered.
Great. SO they’re a poopyhead. Is their argument based on true facts? Also, they eat boogers. Does their argument flow logically from those facts?
I also disagree with you here. The example I like to use is Karl Rove. I don’t think Karl Rove has an actual principled bone in his body. He’ll argue any position if he thinks there is tactical and political advantage to it. But he’s also very intelligent and well informed. If he came on here and started arguing pro-voter-ID, the mere fact that he’s a turdblossom and a partisan shill would not mean that his arguments were invalid. His arguments stand or fail on their own merit, and they would likely be at least superficially rational and reasonable arguments which would likely be difficult to refute.
A person can honestly believe in moral standards, and then fall short of their own morality.
I honestly believe my tone on this message board often falls short of what it should be. My first draft tends to be my most colorful, then I try to cut out the smarm and the insults in later drafts. Sometimes I fail, and an insult gets through, you dumb motherfucker.
So, I’m often a hypocrite about this. But that doesn’t mean I’m dishonest, and it doesn’t mean my principles are wrong. I simply fall short of my own standards.
Only a person of astonishing personal perception, intelligence, and acuity can fathom the depths of Bricker’s complex and nuanced thinking. Happily, I’m not very busy at the moment, and can oblige.
First off, **Bricker **hangs with Republicans and conservatives, which means he is used to being the smartest person in the room. I have little doubt that in such company, his complex logical and semantic gymnastics are met with approval, they thump his shoulders and cheer his clear, crisp reasoning.
Then he gets here and no such open-minded acceptance prevails. What conclusion can he draw other than liberals and lefties are stupid and biased? He already knows his notions survive examination by very smart people, so his ideas are soundly reasoned. Must be us, no other explanation.
Also, he is stuck in a bygone era and its definitions. Used to be, the liberal was a creature so enamored of even-handedness and open-mindedness, he couldn’t wait to tell you that, on the other hand, he might be wrong. He didn’t so much assert a position as imply it, suggest it as one of a wide array of options.
(Feh! The radicals hack the path and clear the campsite, the progressives build the cabins and the campfires, the liberals show up once the hot showers are installed…)
So, that’s what he expects, an even-handed debate between someone who knows they are right and someone who thinks they very well might be, can’t be sure. Could be. So, his opposite number here isn’t a liberal but he doesn’t have another word. So, he’s kinda stuck. The liberals he’s used to would fall all over themselves to offer respect and admiration for his arguments. Therefore, they were intelligent and honest, since it is perfectly clear that his positions are not just sensible and reasonable, but excellently so!
He expects approval and praise for his opinions, which are pretty much the same as they’ve always been. Therefore, he is not in the company of legitimate liberals, but some brain-damaged imitation thereof. Stupid enough to assert that we are right, without the soft and gentle padding of uncertainty. Clearly, that is our fault, that is the degradation of the left.
The poor dear. Time for another group hug.
Bumping this in case Bricker does actually want my opinion about Septimus’s statement.
I think Starving Artist stole Bricker’s… well, “admirers” isn’t the right word, but whatever.
Penis Gallery.
I agree. For this reason, I am almost always curious to read your thoughts on various legal issues, and I’ve learned more from you than probably anyone else on the board.
I could do with fewer “neener neener” style posts, though. Not just from you, of course.
Your political opinions are wrong more often than not. 
Off the top of my head I can think of 3 substantive applications of pointing out hypocrisy. (These relate to various situations and different types of hypocrisy.)
[ol]
[li]Many or most of the discussions here boil down to subjective differences of opinion, and in that situation, the force of the opinions themselves carries some weight. For the most part, it shouldn’t, especially as this board has a skew to it, but there are some times when this is appropriate, as in when discussing societal attitudes about things that are necessarily determined by societal preferences and judgment. For example, should the government be run in such-and-such manner or in another manner, should society value Concern A over Concern B, and similar – these things ultimately boil down to a judgment call by society as a whole. And even where this is not the case, a convergence of opinions in a given thread on these boards creates an illusion of strength for that position and the minority opinion has the illusion of being an outlier – which holders of the majority opinion are frequently fond of pointing out or alluding to – and each opinion on one side or the other contributes or detracts from this consensus. In this context, pointing out that the principles being advocated by one’s opponents (whether on or off the MB) are not general principles genuinely held but completely situational and adopted out of expedience for the situation at hand has relevance.[/li][li]There are many issues on which there’s a conflict between the ideal and practical reality. More than that, there are many instances where the entire issue is essentially a conflict between the ideal and practical reality. (Who would object to anarchy in principle? The entire necessity of government is a purely practical one. And similar for communism and any number of other ideologies and causes.) In this context, pointing out that the advocates for certain principles and causes have themselves failed to uphold their own principles goes to the heart of the basis of opposition to these principles and causes, in that it dramatizes how unrealistic of an expectation it is that society could function that way, when even the advocates themselves can’t consistently live up to it.[/li][li]In many instances – e.g. RO threads in the Pit – posters are fond of pointing to the foibles or alleged foibles of members of opposing political parties or ideologies with the implication, stated or unstated, that these typify the holders of such views. (This is frequently the entire relevance of such threads, which are about people who are otherwise too obscure to be of interest.) By pointing out that these alleged shortcomings are common across a broad spectrum of people and ideologies, the context is substantively changed.[/li][/ol]
The above is all about substantive matters. In addition, for those of us who post for amusement, there are also points of interest in it in this regard as well.
Fact is that a lot of people like to pose as high minded thinkers and detached intellectuals, and from their exalted positions up on high they issue their sermons, with lots of long words and impressive-sounding concepts, and preach about the mental failings and moral or ethical shortcomings of other people who lack their sterling qualities. Pointing out that these people’s lofty opinions are driven by self-interest, and/or that they themselves have the same failings that they excoriate in others is a source of free entertainment for the masses.
One thing I’ve noticed on this MB is that opposition to hypocrisy hunting seems to be a mostly liberal phenomenon, and there are any number of resident liberals who lose no opportunity to try to stamp it out as a board pursuit. IMO this is largely the result of the first point noted above. This board leans left, and there are a lot of liberal posters who are quite comfortable with that state of affairs. This guarantees them that they will always have the majority at their backs, agreeing with them and lending weight to their opinions, and it’s a source of frustration for them to have this comfortable situation interrupted by people pointing out that this has a lot less to it than meets the eye. No, these people would prefer to have hypocrisy hunting taken off the table, so they can use their ever-varying situational principles in peace and rely on the ostensible consensus to drive it home.
But in addition, there are also some who are driven by my final observation. Among the number of hypocrisy hunt objectors there are also some who are themselves nothing but phonies, who object to having their pompous personas pricked, as having their hypocrisy pointed out will tend to do. Of course, no one would admit to this, so they need to rest their objections on other grounds. But it’s there.
Fotheringay-Phipps, what a superb post.
BRicker does ti a lot more than most of the liberals on this board. Other that Der Trihs, I don’t see very many criticisms of liberals by liberals. They tend to be content to let the liberal bullshit sit there while counting the flies on the conservative bullshit.
I engaged Bricker a bit on the Voter ID thread and he seemed to condemn a lot of the other voter suppression tactics but for some reason, he has a blind spot where he cannot recognize voter ID laws as a tactic to suppress the vote.
You should really start a new thread if your aim is to Pit yourself.
I kid. Why? Because I love.
Does any of it apply to you, or is just about the board liberals?
Very seldom do I advance a political position that claims the support of the majority of the board.
Shit, hoss, I’m a radical lefty, I’ve had unpopular opinions most all my life, didn’t slow me down any!