Simply a summary of what you posted on Page 1, old bean. At least you called his partisanship “simplistic”.
Perhaps a misinterpretation, which you would do well to clarify, but hardly a lie.
I’m having a Douglas Adams moment. Izzy. when you pick up a pencil, and press the sharp end against paper, does it make a mark? Did it suprise you?
I’m just staggered that you can paint almost everything that is expressed here as opinion and still contribute to topics. What’s the point? Especially in contributing to the kind of “debates” december starts, which are opinionated in the extreme. Is there a point where a position can be divorced from it’s proponent and evaluated on an objective level? When? How would you recommend people go about it?
I’m even more staggered by the apparent intellectual dishonesty which allows you to characterize your opinions as “so obvious and fundamental” while characterizing opposing opinions as results of “living in an alternative reality”. If “in the end it is opinion” then what gives you the right to add the positive qualifiers to yours and negative qualifiers to others? Personal bias? Nothing wrong with personal bias, we all have it. Should we all make note of this bias so we can adjust the weight given to your statements accordingly in the future? The converse would be true as well, any bias shown by your fellow posters could be noted by you and their statements adjusted accordingly in the future.
Enjoy,
Steven
I have no idea what this means. You are too clever for me.
Some people find his type of exchange interesting.
Opinions are very respectable. No need to convince yourself that your opinions are anything but that.
There are certainly degrees. But I don’t think it is completely possible to accomplish, or to know (certainly, prove) that it has been accomplished.
(BTW, it would appear to me that you are blending two issues, i.e. opinion and bias. These are distinct matters. Even if bias were completely non-existent, people might make different judgements about matters - have different opinions - due to differences in their thought processes. Bias is an additional complicating factor in that judgement).
Those characterizations are themselves opinion, as previously noted. It is not intellectually dishonest to believe that your opinions are more valid than those of others. To the contrary, if you did not believe this to be the case you would obviously not truly hold these opinions, and your claim that you did hold them would be dishonest.
Free speech? Board rules?
Interesting. Earlier, you suggested that Democrats are free of it.
Of course. In fact, I would go even further than that. I don’t think you should ever accept anything I say on the strength of my having said it. You should judge for yourself the strength of my argument - in your opinion. This would make the issue of my bias completely irrelevant.
No need for this, as above.
BTW, you may wish to look up an old thread which discussed similar matters (& assorted tangential matters): Debating debating!
Elvis, are you often in the habit of deliberately misrepresenting people’s statements? Gosh, isn’t december accused of that? Pots and kettles, I guess. For your clarification, here’s my exact quote from Page 1:
How this could possibly be construed as me accusing anyone of “Hating Republicans” defies logical explanation. I think the quote above is very clear in stating he takes heat primarily “for starting the most threads,” and there is not even the slightest accusation that anyone “hates” anyone else. But yet you claim that I was “maintaining so strenuously for so long that we all really just hate conservatives.” That’s a lie (or it’s evidence of paranoid delusions.) Where is the claim anyone “hates Republicans?” How it is “maintained for so long” when there’s no other quote anywhere even mentioning political outlook? Do you just choose words at random out of a thesaurus?
I have posted several times in this thread and nobody with a reasonable grasp of the English language could possibly read what I’ve written and honestly believe I’m slinging partisan mud in this thread. If you’ve confused me with Sam Stone or someone else I will accept your apology once it’s offered.
It’s a lie, and you should take it back.
Nonsense, if you’re going to debate with someone, at least express their side accurately in your posts. I took issue with the statement that Democrats have MORE personal bias than Republicans. I don’t deny the existance of ANY personal bias on either side. Therein lies the difference in our styles apparently. I am not a Democrat, but I’m willing to give them as much credit as I give Republicans(although I am not a Republican either). I do my best to represent my opponent’s points fairly, leaving off negative modifiers.
I, despite your beliefs, think there is nothing special about my beliefs that elevates them above others. I see no dishonesty in this. We arrived at different conclusions by experiencing different stimulus and taking different cognitive approaches. Facts, objective facts, can make one position less valuable than another, but this is usually because one side did not consider that fact, or considered it through a bias which made it less important than it should be. I do not rank opinions up or down based upon a factor as simple as who holds them. To me this is akin to dismissing someone’s ideas based upon their skin color or political party affiliation. Me versus You, Us versus Them, these are not good reasons, to my way of thinking, for adding positive or negative qualifiers to position statements.
The reference you didn’t get is from Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Specifically book two, The Resturant at the End of the Universe. It was one of those backhanded compliments, the person you were being contrasted with is, in fact, the ruler of the universe(several universes actually). I recommend the series if you’ve never read it.
Enjoy,
Steven
Nonsense is right. The position you are now claiming for yourself is my position. You said:
To which I responded:
Clearly you were objecting to the suggestion of bias on the part of Democrats, with no comparison to Republicans. It was I who asserted that both Democrats and Republicans were biased in the same way. You then expressed outrage at the notion that:
a statement you are now (apparently) claiming to agree with.
You appear to be rewriting your position here.
What in the world are you talking about? Who ever suggested that you can decide that an opinion is worthy because of the very fact that you hold it? That is circular. However the very fact that you hold of that opinion means that you hold that opinion to be superior to all contradictory opinions. That is true by definition. I don’t see why you are having difficulty grasping such a simple concept.
I think we’re arguing at cross purposes because the statement is being interpreted differently. I used december’s statement, and I believe it to be complete enough, but let’s extend it beyond the possibility of misinterpretation and see if we still seem to live in different realities. The statement was intended, in my usage, and I contend in december’s usage as well, to invoke a symmetrical interpretation. The full statement is the following: Democrats in general, and on this board in specific, would be more apt to deny bigotry by another Democrat than a Republican would be to deny bigotry by another Republican.
The position december put forth is that Republicans are less tolerant of bigotry within their own party, and therefore more morally consistent, than Democrats. I posit this is the correct interpretation of december’s position. If it’s not, then he has no debate and it’s a pot-kettle situation. If you still believe this clarified statement to be obviously true, then we are at an impasse because I would demand proof and I seriously doubt there is a way to prove it.
As of your latest post, I think we’re simply starting from different postulates. If you are saying Democrats in general are more tolerant of bigotry by fellow Democrats than Republicans are of bigotry by Democrats, then I’d probably agree with this with some caveats. The first caveat is that clear cases would be denounced by the majority on both sides regardless of which side it occurred on. There is clearly a subset of bigotry/bigoted actions, which are so flagrant that both sides will rise to denounce them. The breaking point is cases which are open to interpretation. This is when the bias comes into play. Republicans tend to interpret questionable cases of bigotry by Democrats through their bias and end up with what they believe as conclusive evidence of bigotry. Democrats tend to interpret questionable cases of bigotry by Democrats through their bias and end up with what they believe as conclusive evidence proving no bigotry.
The converse would be true as well. Democrats tend to interpret questionable cases of bigotry by Republicans through their bias and end up with what they believe as conclusive evidence of bigotry. Republicans tend to interpret questionable cases of bigotry by Republicans through their bias and end up with what they believe as conclusive evidence proving no bigotry.
Was this your interpretation of the statement? “Democrats in general, and on this board in specific, would be more apt to deny bigotry by another Democrat than a Republican would [be to deny bigotry by a Democrat].” A statement I would agree with, given the caveats above. If so then we’re looking at different postulates because the interpretation I had, and the one I contend december intended was “Democrats in general, and on this board in specific, would be more apt to deny bigotry by another Democrat than a Republican would [be to deny bigotry by another Republican]”. A statement I reject.
As to the holding of opinions based upon their superiority, I disagree that this is a universal truth. It doesn’t allow for the holding of an opinion while evaluating another opinion, which may well turn out to be superior. Or acknowledging that your opinion may be biased, but it’s comfortable and you’re willing to live with holding an opinion with known flaws. This should be acknowledged during correspondence however, lest someone think you’re unaware of it’s flaws and attempt to engage you in debate on the issue.
Enjoy,
Steven
Well I completely disagree with this expanded sentence. In fact I took care to say so explicitly when I said:
So the question for you is: what were you thinking when you read that sentence, and how can you now claim to have thought we were talking about Democrats being more biased than Republicans?
I posit that it may or may not be what he personally believes, but it is certainly not what he put forth as the debate. I don’t recall such a claim being made, and I don’t recall the issue of Republican bias even being brought up. The onus is on you to produce some actual evidence that this was indeed december’s claim in that debate, or admit that you’ve excoriated december (and wasted my time) by assigning to december a position that you’ve dreamed up yourself. (Not to mention that you should have made this clearer a whole lot earlier in this thread).
As to holding of your own opinions, I’ve said what I have to say.
[quote]
Originally posted by IzzyR
Well I completely disagree with this expanded sentence.[Democrats in general, and on this board in specific, would be more apt to deny bigotry by another Democrat than a Republican would be to deny bigotry by another Republican.] In fact I took care to say so explicitly when I said:
So the question for you is: what were you thinking when you read that sentence, and how can you now claim to have thought we were talking about Democrats being more biased than Republicans?
[quote]
No. The excerpt above was in reference to the statement “Some Democrats are so committed to the idea that their party is the “good guys” that they will deny the obvious.” This statement is not in contention. I agree with it, and it’s converse where the subject is Republicans. Quoting an earlier passage about a different assertion and saying it applied to the assertion currently in question and suggesting I’m somehow dense for not understanding that is disingenous at best. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, let’s talk about the assertion actually being challenged.
Remember the two possible interpretations of the sentence currently in question. [ol][li]Would Democrats be more apt to deny an instance of bigotry by one of their own than Republicans would [be to deny bigotry by a Democrat]?[/li][li]Would Democrats be more apt to deny an instance of bigotry by one of their own than Republicans would [be to deny bigotry by a Republican]?[/ol][/li]I interpreted december’s position as number 2. You claim to have interpreted it as number 1. Fine, I assert my interpretation is the correct one based upon other statements and the tone december used through the “Homophobic Democrats” threads. FYI I have also posted a question in the latest thread asking anyone who is still following it to give their feedback on which was the proper interpretation. Will you at least accept the possibility that number 2 is a valid interpretation of his statement, perhaps not what he meant, but one of the things the statement could have meant?
Enjoy,
Steven
Crap! And I even previewed! I think this is my second coding SNAFU on the SDMB in as many years. /cry
Enjoy,
Steven
Not at all. Fact is that the second assertion brought up in response to the first assertion, and must be interpreted accordingly. And I had made myself clear by that point that I was not distinguishing between Republicans and Democrats.
Furthermore, your second assertion was not an assertion about december alone. You said (Emphasis added):
Now I had never said that Democrats on this board would be more apt to deny bigotry by another Democrat than a Republican would [by another Republican]. Quite the reverse, as noted. So you really need to show somewhere that I said this new formulation to get off the hook.
I have to issue a retraction here. Frankly, when you posted the statement in this thread, I was not aware that this referred to an actual specific statement by december - I thought you were summing up the gist of his position (this, due at least in part to the fact that you also attributed this to me, as noted previously). Looking at the statement in isolation, I interpreted it as previously stated. Having seen you point out that this referred to an actual statement by december, I looked it up in the original thread, and see that it was made in specific response to the assertion by DavidB that all groups will have such biased people. In that context, the more reasonable interpretation is the one that you have put forth. You are correct in saying that the meaning was that Democrats are more biased in this regard than Republicans, and I humbly apologize for having repeatedly asserted otherwise.
(I do continue to deny having myself suggested or implied anything of the sort)
Re: The bullshit double standard and any accusations of support for #2 above.
In my defense, I never attributed, or claimed you showed any support for position #2 above until after you posted this.
This quote contained the infamous words which have been understood differently by the two of us until right now. You showed support for the quoted proposition december had advocated, which led to me concluding you supported position #2. I now, given the revelation of how you percieved the statement I quoted, see that you were seeing this as an equivelant of the position “Some Democrats are so committed to the idea that their party is the “good guys” that they will deny the obvious.” and addressing it as such. As I mentioned earlier, I also hold this to be true and don’t contest it aside from being annoyed at it’s partisan slant, but that’s fair game.
I saw the two different assertions and with different meanings as made clear in the thread. I continued to carry over the meaning which was made clear there, while you took a different road thinking it was a summation instead of a direct quote. Here, out of the proper context, it was less clear and we’ve now sniped at each other for a few days over a simple misunderstanding.
Good form in the retraction, most of the respect I had lost for you over the past few days is hereby restored, just in case you cared. [sub]You didn’t get all of it because I had to do most of the legwork of figuring out that we were talking about different assertions and working towards a resolution.[/sub] 
Enjoy,
Steven