May I misquote you on that?
Seems like you would have to go out of your way to take quote out of context, possibly several mixed together. Which would invalidate what you were trying to do. Context is important.
An unattributed quote, or a quote attributed to a “well known but unidentified political officeholder” used to elicit an argument about an issue, and then followed by an accurate attribution of the same quote to an unexpected author is not dishonest.
Misattribution is dishonest, and the motive unimportant.
It might not be so unreasonable for someone to find a quotation on the subject of preservation of the wilderness by George the II, or George I to be philosophically reprehensible, simply because the totality of their actions while in office make such protestations odious.
But then, I freely acknowledge I am quite biased against the hereditary rulers of our autocracy.
Tris
What the OP is asking for is a chance to use a dirty trick of entapment. Here is why it’s a Bad Idea:
Ethically it is wrong because it is using an outright lie. Lies diminish the presumed good faith that the person you’re engaged in communication with is telling the truth. In order to justify telling a purposeful lie, there must be an inordinately important excuse for telling that lie (e.g., protecting state secrets, or privileged information from a professional relationship). Making a debating point does not rise to that level of importance. In fact, lying in the context of debating will only ensure a complete lack of good faith in any future dialogue.
Logically, it is using the phallacy of ad hominem argumentation. The OP wants to catch a person being ideologically obtuse about point X to prove they are always ideologically obtuse, even about points Y and Z. But that doesn’t follow. They may actually be right about points Y and Z. Being wrong about X has nothing to do with the cogency of their other positions.
It can lead to other abuses. Adopting this policy of allowing lies to ferret out ideologues can be a cover for those who would lie for other reasons. Then, if they’re ever challenged for their lies, they can simply claim they were using the allowed form of lying to entrap an ideologue.
It is just a Bad Idea.
Peace.
moriah: It’s spelled fallacy. Other than that, I agree with you.
Yet I can almost defend the Snopes TROLL section. How is that?
Well, GD is a forum where things can start out on a knife-edge and get worse. The Pit is a great escape valve, but posting careers have been lost over GD arguments that got out of hand. Allowing lies would make things all the more contentious and much less likely to resolve peacefully. If anyone thinks the mods have a political bias now, those ideas would be ramped up to a very high degree once a mod condones the lies of one poster under the proposed policy and Officially Warns another poster over lies.
At Snopes, the whole idea behind TROLL is to get people to think for themselves. It falls down because a lot of people don’t: With TROLL, Snopes has created its own crop of ULs for the rest of the world to fight over and over again. I wish Snopes would remove TROLL and focus on disseminating actual facts, but the Mikkelsons are obviously more optimistic than I. Or they want to see how far their `pet’ ULs can spread among the Marching Morons.
Mtgman
You’re right, but it could also be the case that it was true when Bush said it. If I were a maniacle but savvy dictator and the US began surrounding my state with an army, the first thing I might do is get rid of what they’re using to justify their attack. I might reason that the US is historically concerned about world opinion, and that, were they to invade and not find what they were looking for, the world would demand that they get out. Of course, that would be a miscalculation on my part, given the post-9/11 US attitude, but still. Knowing I have no chance for victory, the best I can hope to achieve is some kind of vindication.
Could have been. But we know now that it wasn’t. Mtgman’s post is of a different character altogether than yours. Mtgman posits conclusions under various assumptions, and points out the falsity of some of them.
All that you’ve done is to show that you can reach a false conclusion from an obviously false assumption.
And what’s a fucking “maniacle”? Is that some kind of hand-cuff thing?
It would be encouraging blatent trolling- so its a horrible idea.
Although, one good thing about this thread is one of the best examples of unintentional humor provided by the truly spectacular example of a Pot vs Kettle post. I almost fell out of my chair laughing.
– ah, good times. . .
:rolleyes:
But, still the OP is a really bad idea. New Coke bad.
I think this was intended:
ma·ni·a·cal ( P ) Pronunciation Key (m-n-kl) also ma·ni·ac (mn-k)
adj.
-
Suggestive of or afflicted with insanity: a maniacal frenzy.
-
Characterized by excessive enthusiasm or excitement: a maniacal interest in gambling.
I think it’s that lens on a chain that some insane villains wear over one eye.
It’s spelled “Mankel”. They make anvils and forges.
Don’t be silly it’s clearly this:
http://www.visitmonaco.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=41
Don’t you people ever get tired of being wrong?
While I disagree with the mooted plan in the OP I think you are under rating the level of blind partisanship. I think that fake posts are not required because blind unthinking partisanship is almost the universal standard of political discourse. It should largely be accepted as normal that Bricker’s complaint is brought to life in any discussion with more than two participants. Just because it is not presented as mindless blather doesn’t mean that the motivation is any deeper.
Personally I hold both sides of Australian politics in utter contempt (I do mean contempt - from my experience politicians are less honest, more self-serving and less competent than the average working slob). Because of this I routinely criticise the actions of all parties here in Australia. To Labor voters I am a “Howard sympathiser”, to Liberal voters I am a “Whitlam groupie”.
I am often dumbfounded by positions that supporters, of one party or the other, blindly cling to although they are plainly wrong.People espouse moronic views that are coloured by their political affiliation. For example Mark Latham was recently elected the new leader of the Labor party. Within days the press was full of interviews with his very unhappy first wife. To the Labor voters at work this was typical of News Limited to go after the Labor leader. How terrible that he be subjected to this. Now the truth was she approached the media, initially the ABC and as I asked my Labor comrades “Should we go back to the 50s and 60s when the press corp kept quite about domestic matters like drunkenness, wife beating and child molestation.” They could have just taken my option - I read the paper every day but I didn’t bother reading what Latham’s ex had to say nor what the Royals were up to.
I will be less cynical if someone can rustle me up a Republican supporter who agrees with this proposition - “George Bush stole the last election and we should do something to ensure it can’t happen again”.
I’ll bet most Republicans hackles rose at that and yet it seems as obvious as the sun rising in the east to this disinterested observer.
It’s when you get your nails done professionally . . .
Well, the arguments are clear and convincing. It’s a bad idea.
I wish it weren’t. Or, more accurately, I wish there were an easy and unflawed way of accomplishing what I wanted to accomplish.
But this ain’t it. Thanks for the discourse.
- Rick
[hijack]There’s a nails salon in Asheville called “DT Nails.” Perhaps that’s the place where you get a maniacle.[/hijack]
Daniel
It’s best to get your maniacle in a nails saloon — from a professionle.
Why has DtC completely abandoned this thread?
I’m not a Republican, not a Democrat either(in case you cared), but I think your proposed test for unbiased Republican has a few flaws. First, to “steal” a thing implies clear ownership. Bush could only “steal” the election if someone else had already won it. The election had not been decided and the decision overturned. Some districts were still being counted and re-counted. A fairer, IMHO, question would be “Do you believe the courts and other officials manipulated the 2000 election results/process in favor of Bush?” This would cover things like suspicions of the “butterfly ballot” being intentional, or the courts only mandating a couple of counties being re-counted, when the process seemed to indicate a statewide recount should have been done, etc.
The outsider can say with some relative certainty that SOMETHING dodgy happened, but the race was very close and to say that it was “stolen” makes it sound like Gore had already won clear legitimate title to the position and it was taken away by fraud. The fact is that the race wasn’t over and the decision wasn’t final. Was the process monkeyed with? Maybe, perhaps even probably. Should something be done to keep it from happening in the future? Well, stuff was in place to keep if from happening this time and, presuming there was monkeying, people managed to work around them. Not sure there is a way to make it absolutely bulletproof in the future.
Enjoy,
Steven
Well Mtgmaneven allowing for your impartiality you make just the kind of argument I’ve seen from Republicans. The issue becomes one of semantics and the time sequence of various legal battles. I would expect anyone not influenced by partiality to see that when Floridians(?) went out to vote on that day the majority intended to vote for Al Gore. Whether disenfranchised by the cull of the rolls or a voting system they didn’t understand or machine errors or either sides legal tricks they didn’t achieve their desire. Who cares that it can be explained away, because of the actions of both parties you end up with intellegent people saying “Well, stuff was in place to keep if from happening this time and, presuming there was monkeying, people managed to work around them. Not sure there is a way to make it absolutely bulletproof in the future.” It’s bulletproof here - we handcount every vote at every election. The parties provide scrutineers to supervise it all.
Now if I lived and voted there that is what I would agitate for out of the debacle. It isn’t that hard, our country is as big as yours and although the voting system is simpler we generally know most results the next morning. Too many votes, get more counters.