Thanks, Harborwolf. Incidentally, I second FinnAgain’s suggestion. A Cochrane study of Homoeopathic Oscillococcinum concluded that the data are insufficient but promising, and that further research is warranted.
Possibly. Except for the fact that in saying, “No, Australia was there, not Canada,” implies (at least to me) that Canada was not even there.
:rolleyes:
Of course, it’s just not possible that the implication is that Canada was not there in the sense that Australia was.
Wrong again. “Australia was there,” fighting beside the U.S. troops, “not Canada.” You are inferring something that was not even vaguely implied.
Liberal, assuming you missed my earlier post, here is it again. Hope this helps:
That’s the crux of the argument. I think Coulter meant battalions and McKeown in response was ALSO talking about battalions, which makes Coulter wrong and McKeown right within that context.
Addendum: McKeown may have known Canada sent troops as part of a peace-keeping effort later but that was irrelevant to Ann Coulter’s claim.
For someone fond of literal accuracy when it suits him, your use of hyperbole (“hysteria”: 1: a psychoneurosis marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions
2 : behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess) leaves much to be desired, as it is even less accurate about me than Coulter was about Canada’s involvement in Vietnam.
So, was the U.S. involved in the Falklands War or not, by your standards? I’m trying to establish a frame of reference. If it turns out that in your view that “any involvement in any capacity by any member of the military” is the same as “sending troops”, then the overall argument is simply too tenuous and digressive to pursue. It would be like referencing factoids about cellular biochemistry in a discussion on dog training.
Canada had a handful of troops seconduded to the USA military when the USA invaded Iraq, so where does that take us? Never mind. Don’t answer that.
It is, as I have said a couple of times, metaphysically possible. But so are so many other interpretations. But that’s the nature of implications, as I just said above. The inference does not always match the implication. Naturally, we all tend toward that interpretation which best suits our purposes.
That’s the sort of evidence that I would find compelling, but I don’t see it. He made six statements during the interview — all categorical denials. He made a statement after the interview, which was nothing more than a final shot. Can you give a good reason why a man of his journalistic integrity would fail at every single opportunity to correct the record and report the facts?
In what sense do you use the word “metaphysics”? As per Merriam-Webster:
(1) : a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology (2) : ONTOLOGY 2 b : abstract philosophical studies : a study of what is outside objective experience
Is a difference between Canada’s involvement and Australia’s involvement a violation of the fundamental nature of reality, or would such a difference be simply outside objective experience? Feel free to suggest some other definition with which we can agree.
I mean, if individual interpretation is going to be a stumbling block in this thread, let’s take steps to reduce it.
How about because he had every reason to believe that an adult audience of even minimal intelligence would understand from context exactly what he was referring to?
I beg your pardon, “metaphysically”.
Because the facts that you’re obsessively clinging to are totally irrelevant to the argument.
Coulter was arguing that the Canadian government supported the United States in the Vietnam war, when it manifestly did not. Interjecting comments about peacekeeping presence after the war would be a non sequitur. If Ms. Coulter was thinking about Canada’s role in Vietnam after “Vietnam” (in the sense of the twenty year period of war,) then it should be left up to her to make that non sequitur – it isn’t the role of an interviewer to offer every possible interpretation of a fragment of the subject’s argument, when the intended meaning is clear if it is kept in context with the sentence it was originally uttered in.
Suppose Bill Moyers is interviewing Michael Jackson, and Mr. Jackson explains why he’s unconcerned about the possibility of being incarcerated thusly:
Mr. Moyers responds with:
Should Mr. Moyers, in the interest of journalistic integrity, dedicate valuable air-time to a tangential exposition on the variety of ways that human beings, can fly, before informing Michael that the whole pixie-dust thing is a non-starter? Or would it maybe be more sensible to just react to the point that he was actually making, and leave it to him to elaborate if he really meant that he was counting on the assistance of a dedicated fan with a hot-air balloon for his wonderful escape?
Metaphysical in the sense of a metaphysical modality (or possibility), as discussed here:
(See the section titled, “Metaphysical and other modalities”)
It is basically the difference between saying that it is possible that something happen for all we know (epistemic possibility) and saying that it is possible for something to happen logically (metaphysical possibility). We cannot draw any epistemic conclusion because we don’t know what was in their heads. We can draw metaphysical conclusions only — what it is possible for them to have been thinking. And there are so many possibilities in that regard. (More for McKeown than for Coulter, I think.)
I’m sorry, but that is completely false. Even without sending batallions, it sent quite a lot of support. Please see these reports from McKeown’s employer, CBC:
Especially the section called, “Supplying the war machine”
This is, of course, complete bullshit. It is perfectly reasonable to draw inferences about what they were thinking based on the context of their comments. In fact, you are drawing inferences about what McKeown was thinking too. You are insisting that he did not intend his comments to be implicitly qualified. Everyone else in this thread thinks that it’s blazingly obvious that he did intend his comments to be implicitly qualified in the same fashion that Coulter’s statement was implicitly qualified. You have no evidence whatsoever for your interpretation of what he said beyond that it would be the default interpretation of the literal meaning of his words if they were completely contextless. But since every contextual element in the entire exchange supports the interpretation everyone else sees, it just obstinacy on your part that keeps you rejecting it.
First of all, it isn’t everyone else. John Mace agreed with me. Second, even if it were, it would mean nothing. Third, McKeown had every element necessary to qualify his point if he wished — the knowledge, the opportunity, the venue. He even had a post-interview, last-word, stage all to himself on which to clarify what he meant. He never did.
I don’t get this.
If you posit that Ann was talking about sending battalions the first time she mentioned it (and I believe you have indeed posited such), and he refutes her, don’t you think he’s refuting the battalions?
If she tries again to make her point about sending battalions, and he refutes her again, don’t you think he’s still refuting battalions?
If she tries a third time, by telling him, “I think you’re wrong,” isn’t she still talking about the battalions? When he denies that he’s wrong, isn’t he still talking about the battalions?
No matter how many times they have the back in forth, “You’re wrong,” “No, you’re wrong,” isn’t the issue still about battalions? Why would he suddenly be talking about anything else but battalions when that’s all that Ann is talking about? Why do you think the denials suddenly become categorical when the issue has been battalions the whole time?
I understand what you mean, and that would be quite a compelling argument indeed were it not the case that I also posited that they were talking past one another. He probably did know what she meant, but remarkably, he chose to make a game of it, rather than pin her down with something like, “You mean when our tiny contingent attended your ceasefire ceremony?”
Seperate issue, Lib.
Try this: “The United States supported Saddam Hussein’s pogrom against the Kurds. After all, they sent troops to Halabja.”
“The United States categorically did not support Hussein’s attempted genocide of Iraqi Kurds.”