Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Pierce T . Wetter III]

> My biggest objections to Pierce are that:
>
>         a) He's mostly very boring.

 Yeah, my natural writing style tends to satire, but that isn't very
useful for debate.

 I could have responded with your original post:

 "Yeah, Bush wants to be able to delay the election so that if he's 
going to lose, he can delay the election a week, piss everyone off at 
having to go to the voting place twice, and _really_ lose the election. 
Good plan, W!"

 That would have been more entertaining I suppose.

>         b) He tries to shift debate from the hot issue that attracts
>            the interest of many raeaders to a lesser issue for which
>            he has lots of prepared responses.  A reply to his specific
>            points would, for the most part, be a digression from the
>            original topic.  I, for one, have trouble regarding him as
>            an honest debator, therefore.  (E.g., a debate topic about
>            structural facism arising in the u.s.?  pierce wnts to turn
>            that into a debate about the objectivity of the press.).

 I would admit that if I have one ax to grind, its that the issue of 
bias
in the press is moot. They've have to be competent to be biased. I
encourage everyone to check any media derived beliefs they have. It
constantly amazes me how rumor turns into "fact".

 However, my original posting on this issue was that I felt you had
overreacted, and that the reason I thought this was so was that you
were encouraged to do so by the media coverage. After a couple of people
replied, you are correct that the thread drifted off topic, but that's
nothing new for mailing lists. I thought about changing the subject line
to my replies, but decided it was probably moot, since there had been
little discussion about this DHS issue.

 And none of this was prepared. I'm probably just a little bit too
obsessed with US foreign policy right now because I really, really
don't want us to fuck it up like we often do. The quality of debate
in the US right now (basically, zero except on some web logs) isn't
helping.

>            On this point it is a blessing that we have so many
>            non-USians participating:  Pierce's outright absurdities
>            and non-sequitors have resonance within the US that I think
>            they mostly lack outside the US.

  I like talking to the non-USians too, because living in the US, I
end up getting fed a certain perspective by the various media 
conglomerates
and I like hearing other perspectives.

>         c) One lacks the sense, in speaking with him, that this is a
>            debate conducted for our mutual enlightenment -- rather,
>            one senses that he is in this thread to "win a game" rather
>            than to be an intellectual.

 Nope, I have an open mind. A couple of people have changed my mind 
about things based on our discussion. I'm not going to change my mind 
based on
bland assertions by someone else unless its from their own personal
experience. So I have little patience for people who spout rhetoric at 
me:

 "Bush Lied, People Died"
 "Bush is Hitler"
 "Its all about the Oil".

 How about "its all bout the Sykes-Picot agreement?" Not quite as good a
slogan, but definitely a factor in our presence in Iraq.

When was the last time you changed your mind Tom?

> (Cites do not an intellectual
>            make.)

  I don't cite to impress people, I cite because I want _them_ to cite
so I can get more information. There is often a big difference between
the headline of an article and the content, so I like to go read the
article for myself. If the article quotes someone, I like to go read
the full response.

>  I've never felt as though any of his posts towards
>            me ask a question about my views that I might answer;
>            rather, the consistent feeling is that his posts towards me
>            invite me into a debate that can be prolonged,
>            meaninglessly, indefinately.

 Its pretty much a given that you and I will never be able to 
communicate
very well, given your bottom up view of things and my top down view of
things. I can just about tweak my head to see your point of view, but
I've never been able to get you to see mine.

So over and over I try to explain my point of view, then ask you where 
I might be wrong, and you nitpick about something I said and ignore 
everything else and we go round and round.

> My tentative and reluctant conclusion, therefore, is that people
> should mostly ignore him except where it is expedient to formulate a
> real message as a reply to one of his bogus messages.  _We_ have work
> to do.  _He_ has an abstract debate to win.

  Well, I think people can make their own choices about whether to read
my posts or not, and probably have. I will point out that it wasn't me 
who started a political discussion on a software mailing list, it was 
you. Rebuking
me for participating seems rude. Perhaps next time you post a two line
political discussion topic you can provide an outline of acceptable
directions the conversation can go.

 Pierce