Color poor andros three different types of confused. Scylla, what does that have to do with Zenster? You see a direct comparison between the two of you?
Thank you all for the comments. Stoid, I intentionally avoided streams of insults. Zenster had no problem insulting me in Great Debates, but I would like to show him why he has made an ass of himself rather than just insult him. The 9/11 tragedy affected the whole world very deeply, but I reached the point where I could not put up with Zenster’s venting anymore. I’m hoping I’ll get better mileage this way.
Well I did mention the thread, if not that particular point! The problem is that after a couple hours of tracking the Zenster posts I remembered from the last 5 weeks, and after examining his voluminous and opinionated writings, my eyes were watering (that’s why it took a couple days to post here). It was not really my intention to provide an exhaustive directory of Zenster’s crap from the last 5 weeks, rather I tried to show why he should cease his demagoguery. As anyone who has read his rantings knows, there is PLENTY more juicy material such as the item you mention, I simply did not have the time to post every instance of silliness.
Scylla, I am not sure what you mean. If you are suggesting, as it seems, that I made up my mind about Zenster and posted this pit thread just because I convinced myself that he was making points he wasn’t, I would like you to look more closely into the situation and read the extremely explicit and unambiguous Zenster extracts in the OP. I do not think this is an issue of misunderstanding another person’s posts and attempting to demonize them. Zenster’s assertions are quite categorical and therefore difficult to msunderstand.
Zenster, we have seen (and his weak, self-referencing post in this thread simply confirms this), is frequently inconsistent–rather funny for someone so categorical, and a clear indication that he lets his emotions make up his mind and do the typing. I repeat again what I said to Zenster in this thread:
Zenster caught my eye just after the WTC tragedy, when I saw that he was posting nonsense about several vaguely related topics. If someone comes out and spews bullshit all over the place, will I tolerate it simply because some of his other points–often contradictory and posted elsewhere–are not bullshit? Of course not, that is very poor reasoning; I will instead focus on the bullshit I wish to dispel and leave it up to the bullshit poster to retract, apologize for, or explain the bullshit, no matter what non-bullshit he has posted and where. Zenster needs to realize that these message boards are not a place for him to make unsupported categorical statements while he airs his opinions. And demagoguery is most certainly not welcome.
So my message to Zenster remains the same: cool it please, do some research and think (not emote) before you post. And consider both retractions and apologies for the offensive and ignorant posts you have made.
Ha, you got that right. I was just thinking about this last night.
Abe:
No, I don’t think you made up your mind about Zenster per se (I love saying “per se.”)
However, I think you’re interpreting his arguments from an assigned perspective that he does not share.
The fact that Zenster’s rhetoric is a little over the top, makes certain points stand out more than they should.
I think our best course of action since WTC is both narrow and defined. It’s an unpleasant role that we must take on, but we must be seen to be ruthless and tireless in our pursuit of those responsible and those that aided them. I also suspect that at some point an extreme measure must be taken that will always be connected as a consequence of 09/11.
We need to be over the top enough in our response that anybody who considers doing such a thing again will be afraid, not for their own lives, but afraid because history will have shown them that if they do, we will root out and destroy all that they stand for regardless of the consequences.
On the other hand, I think justice is tempered by mercy, and that our ruthlessness in one area can be emphasized by our compassion and good will in another.
In destroying the Taliban and Al Quaeda we cannot help but hurt the innocents they hide behind. Because we will cause them pain, we must be sure that we accept the responsibility to help them that we will incur. We need to make their lives better, not worse, and in any event they are as much victims of their regime, as anyone at WTC.
But, I would think it’s a good thing that the Taliban worry that we might set the nuclear fire burning in their deserts and mountains. They should feel that we are that committed.
And, actually, it’s not really our choice anymore. Now that we are retaliating, we must be successful, or things will be worse than they were before, and we’d better get used to terrorism.
Where I think you are misconstruing Zenster is that he seems to be saying that we’d better be prepared to go all the way, and I think he shares your distaste for what might need to be done, but we’d better be clear on how far we’ll go before the fact.
Andros:
I hope that answers you as well, but yes, I think the scenario you reffered to applies to Zenster’s present circumstances to a certain degree.
Scylla, the rhetoric used is the argument. If I want to explore the attitudes of my fellow posters toward extreme measures, I ask questions of them and offer points for discussion. If I say flat out “we should carpet bomb all Texas prison centers and decimate the populations that support them in order to fight the menace of escaped Texas convicts” then I am not just being a little over the top with my rhetoric; I’ve made an actual boneheaded proposition. It’s not proper for me to defend criticism of my argument by whining about being attacked “just because I think we need to take some positive action to stop these prison escapes.”
If there’s a failure to understand the implications and meanings of Zenster’s statements, perhaps that failure is not on the part of his critics?
xenophon:
Sure, but this example is over the top as well. You’re engaging in hyperbole to make a point.
Rather than use examples, why don’t we go to the source material itself?
May I suggest that you choose an entire post of Zenster’s, the one that you think is the most egregious, and either duplicate it here, and/or provide a link? That way we can see it in its full context, and see if it’s as bad as you say.
Let’s not just do soundbites. Let’s just do one whole post. The worst one, in your opinion, and we’ll use that one as a benchmark.
Does that sound reasonable?
My problem is not with Zenster’s holding an opinion, or with that opinion being that action needs to be taken. I agree that action needs to be taken.
My problem is with his (mostly) unapologetic spreading of, to put it politely, misinformation – “The U.A.E. has a Taleban [sic] government,” “Bush gave $43 million to the Taliban to stop opium trafficking,” “The Afghan people have implicitly supported the Taliban by not revolting” – combined with his rather preposterous, “Oh, woe is me! Though I greatly deplore the darker instincts of man’s soul, and his participation in the continual reddening of the tooth and claw of his nature, I needs must find myself advocating the decimation of the Afghan countryside!”
If his position is misunderstood, given the apparent intelligence of the people who are misunderstanding him, maybe it’s his fault.
PLD:
Would you accept the same offer I made xenophon? Show me the worst example, a complete post and link.
No I’m not. I’m giving an example of extreme rhetoric to make a point about extreme rhetoric. Jeez, Scylla, you’re a damn fine writer; I know you understand this stuff.
Uh, yeah. It looked pretty fair and reasonable when Abe did it about twenty times in the OP. You want to discuss one post? Fine. Paraphrase this post, including the specific advocacy of “some level of decimation to their society such that there are a limited number of reprisals before their gene pool is wiped out entirely.”
Is that what we’re calling straw men these days? 
Well thank you. I was trying to be polite.
Well, yeesh, Scylla, the OP is full of links. At least it is on my version of the SDMB – YMMV. Feel free to click some.
As I said, the “worst” examples – I cannot choose a single one that is qualitatively “the worst” – are the ones where he is posting outright non-facts that are easily contradicted with a three minute Google search, and being unapologetic about it.
For example, see his OP here, and note especially the first and last sentences. Then, further down in the thread, even after being called on it by several people, he reposts a few paragraphs from the OP and spews more bile. He gets called on it some more, and comes up with this beauty, still maintaining that the Bush government is indirectly supporting the Taliban, then stating that he was a victim of “erroneous reporting” but that the “spirit” of his posts was correct.
Xenophon:
All right. Here’s that whole post:
I’m not super clear on what is specifically being proposed in this post (though it sure looks pretty grim at first glance doesn’t it?)
To be frank, it doesn’t make good sense to me.
The passage you refer to is the fallacy of the excluded middle:
If you would like me to paraphrase it, I’d take it to say that “On some level of their society (not sure who “their” is) we need to kill one out of ten of them now, so that we don’t have to kill them all later.”
Would you agree that that’s a fair paraphrase?
What exactly are we to assume from this (and I’ll fully concur that it’s a badly put argument?"
Is Zenster saying we should arbitrarily kill 1 out 10 people of Arabic blood? Afghani? Is he referring to one out 10 of the Taliban, or Al Quaeda?
Should we take this literally despite the admonition he makes twice that he is not advocating genocide or wholesale slaughter?
I agree that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as put, but I would take a guess that Zenster’s intended meaning (badly and somewhat offensively put,) is that we need to react strongly now even if that means causing the suffering of innocents, because if we don’t, this thing will escalate on both sides and ultimately we’ll be forced to take much greater and devastating measures.
I see it intended as an argument along the lines of it’s better to cut off an infected hand now, than have to cut off the whole arm later.
Do you agree or disagree?
Well, I guess I disagree with yuor interpretation.
Rather, I suspect that might be what he was intending to say. But it’s sure not what he said. As near as I can tell, decimation of a population is wholesale slaughter, and (since I can only assume the topic is the population of Afghanistan) of civilians to boot.
So, it sure looks like he really and truly is not “advocat[ing] immediate slaughter of all Afghani civilians” . . . just a tenth of them.
That’s more like cutting off the whole arm to the shoulder when taking the hand is all that’s required.
PLD:
Sorry to make you do extra work, but I wanted to argue specific examples, rather than wholesale.
In any event, you’ve chosen well, bringing me to a thread where Zenster outright attacks my main man, Dubya.
He certainly dug himself a hole in that thread, yessiree.
I’ve dug myself a pretty formidable hole on occasion as well, I’m sure you’ve noticed.
Sometimes it can be a pretty difficult thing to climb out and fill that hole back up though.
To make another analogy, when getting in a fight with somebody it’s usually a good idea to leave them a way out, if you can. While that might not necessarily follow in a debating forum, it didn’t look like Zenster had much of a way out that allowed him to save face, hence his “spirit” comment.
I guess this has become a stock phrase, but what’s “justice tempered by mercy” mean? In your post Scylla, you seem to mean “justice shouldn’t go too far, but should be moderated by mercy, at least here and there”. Another view could be that mercy is the “mood” of justice. I take it much more literally. The sharpness, strength and resiliance - the very nature of - the sword of justice relies upon mercy. If you just quench a sword in the blood of your enemies it will shatter. Tempering is not an optional extra or a crumb thrown by a patron. Without mercy, there is no justice. There are actions, perhaps there is revenge - but not justice.
andros:
You’re correct as it reads. But, if we’re to take it literally we still need to decide who the “they” are that we should be killing 1 out of 10 of.
You seem though to give the benefit of the doubt as to intention, which is all that I was looking for, as I don’t think he meant it as bad as it came out.
hawthorne:
I’m not sure what you mean in your description. But what I meant was that if we simply blow the crap out of the Taliban and any hapless Afghanis who get in the way, that is neither the wise, nor the right thing to do.
Innocent Afghanis who are just trying to survive are in harm’s way, and they’re going to suffer. Though we’re not the cause, we’re the instrument of that suffering.
From both a humanitarian, and a political perspective it is important that we provide help and aid to these people and help them rebuild their country.
We don’t want to be a righteous bully. The message that has to be sent is that on the one hand we are ruthless, driven, and inexorable when attacked, and that on the other we are caring and compassionate and would treat others as we’d like to be treated. We don’t seek an eye for an eye.
We should be thought of as both a terrible enemy, and a great and caring friend.
Scylla, it isn’t so much that he found himself in an instance of having dug a hole and being unable to find a graceful way out. (Christ, I live in a hole sometimes.) It’s that every time someonetakes the shovel out of his hands he just grabs another shovel.
Quite right. I based my assumption on a couple different things, notably the reference in the first sentence to Afghan civilians, reference in the third paragraph to the “society,” and reference in the fifth paragraph to the need for entire nations to suffer.
:shrug:
That’s a pretty intimidatingly formidable display of coding prowess there, PLD.
[sub]ummmm, yeah that’s some pretty bad stuff, isn’t it?[/sub]