A fair question.
Quite frankly, the answer is yes: I believe that there are people in this world, and some of those people post regularly on this board, that are so far gone into hatred of the Bush administration that they would say, “I would pinch a baby for the cause of hurting the Bush administration.”
Since my post pointed out an error of yours, I thought a confession of error might be forthcoming.
Ah. The response of someone who can’t refute what I said.
Because a troll is all you have become anymore. “Liberals/leftists/anti-Bushies-LOOK AT THIS! Do you agree with this_insert-outrage-of-week-here_! Why aren’t you condemning it! You MUST support it then!!!”
God, I used to think you were above this kind of crap. Apparently not.
That is absolutely a tragedy.
But those babies were not injured/killed to make political photographs. They were killed accidentally, because of acts of war. It’s horrible. Absolutely horrible.
But Israel launched the airstrike that killed that Lebanese child in an effort to protect herself from similar attacks. And Hezbollah launched the strike that injured that Israeli child for reasons that I don’t quite follow, but I am confident it meant more to them than photographs.
So what do you want from me? Of course I am appalled by the fate of those children. Yes, yes - it’s a horrible, ugly thing.
Must I ignore the tiny wrong done to the children in Greenberg’s pictures because a huge wrong is done to some other children elsewhere? I asked: What else do YOU believe I should be upset about, but am not? This doesn’t qualify - I am upset about it.
Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to mere stupidity.
His essential points, most starting in the OP, and continuing throughout this thread, have been:
The theme of the photographic series has been anti-Bush, and deliberately
titled to make this point clear.
The toddlers in the series are crying.
The photographer deliberately did things to cause some or most of the toddlers to cry.
That is a bad thing to do, although not one of the Great Evils of Our World.
Many or most of the posters on this board are anti-Bush in political outlook, some rabidily so.
There will be people who fall into the above category who will claim/have claimed that making toddlers cry is acceptable in photography or similar pursuits(in order to obtain the shot or make the desired point in the photo or film.)
If premises 1-3 & 5-6 are true, then logic compels a conclusion that the people described in premise 6 believe that it is okay to make toddlers cry in order to make an anti-Bush point.
I believe all of these premises are true. Others disagree: People in this thread have hotly denied ##1 & 3, and have been shown to be dishonest or delusional in doing so. ##2 & 5 seem to be an obvious truths. #6 has been demonstrated in this thread. Accordingly, premises 1-3 & 5-6 are true, which compels the conclusion in #7.
The only premise that seems be honestly debatable is #4.
So the attacks on Bricker’s honesty, credibility, and supposed unwillingness to admit error are inappropriate and offensive.
Thank you for answering. I can’t deny that such a person probably exists as would pinch a baby in service of this (I don’t think many people would admit it, though). But I think they would be very extreme cases, essentially outliers, not at all representative of the vast majority. I was a little shocked to see you stoop to the point of seeming to tar all those who oppose the administration with the same brush.
I told you I would provide that when I had answers to my previous question, and here it is. I was confused about what claim you were disputing, as at that time you were simultaneously being called to task for poisoning the well, and for that particular aspect of your assumptions. I did make a mistake, I’m sorry about that. I still think the quote you offered stands as refutation of your point in total as expressed by the title of this thread, but clearly it was evidence of what you were claiming at the time.
No, the response of someone who couldn’t be bothered to answer the inane mumblings of a whorebag.
But since you have fleshed out your accusation to the degree that you have, it’s only fair that I spend a bit of time refuting it.
A troll is “somebody who is posting just to be confrontational or to raise hackles.” I am doing neither, either specifically with this post or in my posting behavior in general. I believed this thread raised two valid points for discussion, and the subsequent discussion has fleshed out a third:
[ol]
[li]Is it appropriate to condemn the photographer for her methods in eliciting tears from her toddler models?[/li][li]Will people make a decision on whether or not to condemn her based in part or whole on her political stance?[/li][li]Are her methods, condemnable or not, standard for the film and/or photography industry?[/li][/ol]
The first two issues were evident from my OP; the third arose during the subsequent discussion. (As I’ve admitted above, the idea that her approach could be “industry standard” simply never occurred to me.)
There’s nothing remotely trollish about this OP or the discussion that followed it. I didn’t ask, as you intimate above, why no one had yet condemned her. I did suggest in my OP that the only reasonable option was to condemn her, and I stand by that – so far. I also suggested that there are people here who would fail to condemn her solely because she was anti-Bush, and it’s been pointed out that I have no evidence for that assertion. I have reluctantly withdrawn it. (Reluctantly, because I still believe it, but I acknowledge that without proof, my simple belief is unpersuasive in debate.)
You evidently fail to grasp any of those nuances. Like a drooling sad sack, you can only point at a thread which evidently far surpasses your meager comprehension and yell, “Troll!” I assume you’ve tendered that accusation based on its comforting monosyllabic simplicity, rather than any real understanding of what it means to troll.
No, you’re quite right. The majority of people out there in the world, and even the majority of active posters here, don’t fit that description… and if my posts came across as painting the majority as otherwise, it wasn’t at all what I was trying to do. I WAS trying to slam the people here who DO fit that profile. Nothing more.
Very honorable. Thank you so much. I was utterly wrong to impute cowardice to you; thank you for clarifying both your error and the circumstances that led to it, which were, I now see, pretty reasonable grounds for making the error.
There is a huge difference between “I don’t think that making the toddler cry by taking away his candy is all that bad… Oh, and I don’t like Bush” and “I think it’s okay to torture kids if it’s in the service of an anti-Bush ad”.
If you’d be so kind as to point out ONE poster on this forum who thinks it’s okay to make babies cry SPECIFICALLY for an anti-Bush point, we’d all appreciate it. 'Cause at this point, your arguments 1-7, above, could also be used (with a bit of party change) to say that there are Republicans who would do the same a child to vilify a Democrat. Are you willing to admit that?
I fervently pray that Random’s comprehension represents the reaction of the readers of this thread that have chosen not to participate.
Thank you, Random. Thank you very much.
I’ll admit it. Of COURSE there are Republicans out there that would do the same to a child to vilify a Democrat. Good grief, why wouldn’t there be?
The problem that I see with his logic (which you may or may not share, I’m not sure) is in this part:
If those same premises are true, then logic compels a conclusion that the people described in premise 6 believe that it is okay to make toddlers cry in order to make an amusing scene in a movie (as I have more or less admitted, referencing City of Lost Children), in order to amuse themselves, in order to make a commercial, or for myriad other reasons. Making a toddler cry is not like making an adult cry. To make an adult cry, you generally have to do something awful to them; but to make a toddler cry, you’ve got to do something extremely mildly unpleasant to them Crying is how toddlers express mild disappointment, and there’s nothing cruel about causing mild disappointment.
It’s the idea that people are willing to forgive the photographer because of the purpose of the photographs that Random doesn’t describe in his chain of logic, but it’s that precise idea that’s bugging people so much.
Daniel
Daniel:
What inference, if any, do you draw from the fervor with which some posters at the beginning of this thread denied there was any anti-Bush theme to the pictures, or that the anti-Bush theme was fabricated after the fact by the photographer to increase interest in the series?
Even your independent supporter had to notice your OP was a monumental straw man, confrontational indeed; and on top of that, the OP had one of the worst articles to link referring this issue.
Good, but then the following makes you look like a fairyland resident then:
Sorry, when even you can see there is a reason why you got heckling and confrontation, trying to say then that people like **Guinastasia ** have no reason for saying that you have a fondness for residing under bridges is silly.
Bullshit. You posted it to get a reaction-also a definition of trolling. You were trolling for specific reactions from specific people.
I stand by what I said. You didn’t post this to get a discussion going of people possibly condoning anything as long as it was “anti-Bush”, or how to get kids in show business to cry. You just wanted another, “Look at the horrible liberals! Look-look like they condone making kids CRY!!! They’re evil!”
Even if you didn’t completely intend it to, that’s how it came off, and I truly think you’re intelligent enough to REALIZE that’s how it would come off. And that’s sad.
And, finally, if that makes me a “whorebag”, so be it.
This, from someone who began his particpation in this thread by insisting that “the idea that her series is just about Bush is silly” and that she did not plan to “bash Bush beforehand or even exclusively like the OP implied.”
If my OP was a “monumental straw man” – please identify precisely what about it was a straw man. What argument did I fashion and then refute to substitute for your actual argument?
No. There is a difference between posting a topic on which people disagree and trolling. If this were not so, then by definition almost every post in GD would be “trolling”. After all, you post a topic in GD that is expected to engender debate - right? Merely posting a topic that people will disagree with is not trolling, and it’s clear that you don’t understand what trolling is if you disagree with that statement.
Trolling is *somebody who is posting *just to be ** confrontational or to raise hackles. It’s posting without a good-faith belief in the underlying merits of your argument.
It’s NOT simply posting something that people will disagree with.
If it were otherwise… why, then, I disagree with you, which must make your post a troll, eh?
Then why post this thread with the inflammatory title of “Make Toddlers Cry - It’s OK, Since It’s For the Anti-Bush Cause!”? Is it the anti-Bush sentiment which bothers you, or the perceived child abuse?
'Cause, seriously, from that title it sure as hell looked like a not-so-subtle bit of Liberal-baiting. A simple pitting of the photographer would’ve sufficed.
Your argument seems to be that some Dems would approve of child abuse in support of their anti-Bush agenda. If, as you state, some Republicans would do the same, why even bring it up? It’s a non-starter to bring in the antiBushistas.
Also, in many other threads you’ve clung to the “Well, there’s no law agin’it” argument- you’ve used it to defend Bush quite often. Well, there’s no law against taking candy from a toddler to make him cry- so why do you have a problem with it?
Not always. Like I said, it’s also sometimes making a post to GET A SPECIFIC REACTION. Or, to build up a total strawman and then sit back and smirk and point and laugh.
Jesus Christ, I feel sorry for your clients, if this is how you acted as a public defender.
I thought that was bizarre, frankly. I read the OP, and then a couple posts, and then the linked article (and looked at the slideshow), and there was no way in hell that her show wasn’t partisan. By the time I read to the end of the thread, however, everyone seemed to have dropped that issue. And the business about her fabricating the theme later seems weird and irrelevant to me, but maybe that’s because I think the theme of the show is irrelevant to deciding whether her actions are unethical.
This is a terrible definition of trolling, and your summation of his post is similarly terrible. Trolling must be dishonest, or it’s not trolling. And I see no evidence of dishonesty in Bricker’s posts, even though I suspect I see some partisan bias.
Daniel
And nobody had any choice about the war. :rolleyes:
Bullshit. Israel had already dropped 80 bombs on Qana; it was systematically destroying the town. It was not doing precision bombing on a Hezbollah rocket launcher. And it was doing so despite the knowledge that, quite simply, not everyone could escape southern Lebanon, whether they wanted to or not. There are rich people in Lebanon, but it’s not Luxembourg. It seems that Qana was as far as many of these people could go. During the brief cease-fire, they were pulling all sorts of people out of all sorts of hidden places and rubble - starving, dehydrated, in perfect shape for the hike out of that part of the country, following the obliterated roads.
Not to mention, Israel was bombing the crap out of Lebanon, near where Hezbollah was, and far away from where Hezbollah was. Israel decided it was going to destabilize and destroy the infrastructure of an entire country, because of the actions of a particular group that lives and is active within one portion of that country.
A cease-fire could have been had many days before either of those kids was killed or injured, if the U.S. had wanted one. But according to Condi, we must aid in the birth pangs of a new Middle East, and if we have to break a few eggs…er, kids…along the way, then that’s the price.
The Bushian ideology - throughout Iraq and now Lebanon - is that it is more important to change things for some theoretical future benefit than to worry about actual harm to actual lives.
We Americans can’t directly affect what Hezbollah does, but we can affect what America and Israel do - America, because we are citizens, and Israel, because our tax dollars prop it up.
I’m relieved to hear that. But you have hung the cries of crying babies on the anti-Bush movement; the cries - or end of all cries - of these children are on the head of Bush and Condi and Cheney and Rummy.
You do not have to “ignore the tiny wrong done to the children in Greenberg’s pictures because a huge wrong is done to some other children elsewhere.” I would not dismiss compassion wherever it might appear. But it is unrealistic to the point of absurdity that you expect us to share your concern and outrage over the plight of the babies in the anti-Bush posters. A pro forma condemnation is as much as you can hope for.