Well, I’m not Kimmy, but a couple of things do occur to me. One, Kimmy isn’t really saying that it’s unfair to ask the question; rather, he seems to be arguing that it’s stupid, which is something else entirely. And two, I think fairness is a bit more controversial than you’re allowing for. Go take a look in GD, or Washington DC, for examples of how people generally can not agree on what’s fair. Or read Machiavelli or Rawls or something.
Right, and I believe this is the point at which Kimmy requested that you go ahead and provide a clear definition.
Without commenting on whether or not this is a reasonable argument to be having in the first place, I do think that you’re not giving the challenge enough credit on its merits. “Fair” is no different than “right,” really; you certainly hear people talking all the time about how “It’s only right” same as they say “It’s only fair,” but you wouldn’t claim that what’s right is obvious and everyone knows it, would you?
Even folks who are in contention on whether something is fair can articulate *why *they think what they think. It’s not some rarified philosophical concept. Every negotiation more or less comes down to what is fair. If no one understood the concept no cars would ever get sold, no civil cases ever resolved, no divorces finalized, no salaries negotiated, no contracts signed, etc. It’s just not that hard to understand.
Then why are there negotiations in the first place? Why does a dispute have to go in front of a court of equity? Why is there even a system of highly-paid jerkoffs in robes to tell us what is fair? Because the shit isn’t that simple. It is, in fact,an epitome of a “rarified philosophical concept.”
He hasn’t said anything one way or the other about that, and I don’t believe he actually cares.
These are not disagreements over the definition of the word, but whether a given position meets the definition. It’s also beyoind specious to pretend that there’s any meaningful confusion about such a general, common usage as the way I used it.
Moreover, I didn’t say the athlete shhould be asked (much less “made”) to define anything, so Kimmy’s alleged “double-standard” doesn’t exist.
Which was a disingenuous, horseshit question not deserving of an answer. I’m not going to waste time defining ordinary words for him. Online dictionaries are freely available.
I gave his question all the credit it deserved. I even defined how I was using the word “fairness,” as disingenuous as that question was. Nothing I said was confusing, or ambiguous or unclear. The entire line of questioning is asinine and sophist. It’s too disingenuous to even rise to the level of pedantry.
“You know, just once I’d like to hear a player say, ‘Yeah, we were in the game–until Jesus made me fumble. He hates our team.’” – Comedian Jeff Stilson
If a sovereign God exists, it is impossible for Him, Her, or It to help someone cheat, as He, She, or It has ultimate authority over all events and is subject to no other authority. It’s like me arranging the events in a story so that the protagonist wins a baseball game. I’m arranging things so that that happens, but, being god of this universe, I have ever right to.
I didn’t say the reporter should do anything. I just said it would be a fair question. The fact that it would upset the offenderati does not mean it would not be a fair question.
Why don’t you become a Sports Journalist and ask one of these guys? It’s not hard to get your own blog and start calling yourself a journalist nowadays, after all.
Because I don’t actually give a fuck. Opining, in reply to a direct question, that it would be fair to ask an athelete exactly HOW he thinks magic external forces affected a ball game does not equate to a burning, activist passion. It’s not keeping me up nights.
Sufffice it to say, it’s dumber than dirt when athletes claim that invisible magic spirits help them win ball games, it would be reasonable and FAIR to ask them to extrapolate (regardless of whether the religionist offenderati would cry about it), and it would be amusing to watch one of those numbskulls try to actually some follow up questions if they were couched specifically in terms of how the magic spirits affected the physics of the game.
How would it be reasonable to ask a question like that, knowing the consequences I’ve outlined above? Is it fair to say a reporter should sacrifice his job on the alter of Atheist Angst? How would asking that question improve his life or his employer’s interest in any meaningful way?