Says the man who apparently thinks that I, as a libertarian, am too blind to understand the "full significance" of my own arguments. The arguments mean what he says they mean, and there is no contradicting him. And pointing out that someone might find this view of his to be somewhat insulting, and there are apologies aplenty, but followed by more insistence that libertarians just don't understand.
Libertarians do not understand the Constitution. They do not understand the way common law works. They do not understand the way our government works. They do not understand the way the founders intended our nation to grow. They THINK they do, but they don't. Now, if you find these observations to be insulting, consider yourself insulted. They are, in fact, expressions of my opinion. I do not extend the meaning of these criticisms to the intellectual capacity, the education, the integrity, the morality or any other personal trait that libertarians in general or any particular libertarian may possess. But I surely think that they don't get it. I also think that Jewish people don't get that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah. I think that Muslims don't understand that Israel belongs to the Jewish people by divine intent. I think that abortion providers just don't realize they are killing live children. I think that gun-control advocates don't understand the second amendment. I think that Yankees fans don't realize that George Steinbrenner is the anti-Christ. (OK, a lot of them do, but can live with it as long as the Yanks are in contention.) These are all opinions. Those who take these as insults are unable to differentiate between a disagreement of opinion and a personal insult. Another way someone might choose to express that is that they "can't take criticism."
Was the "perhaps never" not enough?
Which "perhaps never?" If you're going to quote something as proof of my saying something I didn't say, please have the courtesy to quote it in full. I didn't say you wanted to eliminate government now. You said I did. I never said or implied that. That was a complete fabrication on your part. You took something I said and read into it. You've been doing that this whole thread. Please give me a quote of mine which ACTUALLY says that you want to eliminate government now or have the decency to admit that you have misstated my position.
I explain that I take a sentence to mean exactly what it says, and somehow this too is wrong because what I really mean, according to you, is that nothing has meaning except what I insist it has, as if I'm some how making up meanings.
That is exactly what you are doing. You do not take a sentence to mean exactly what it says. You take a sentence to mean exactly what you THINK it says. Since very few sentences outside of (perhaps) legal documents have an "exact" meaning, you may be right or wrong in what you take something to say. For the record, since you are making such a huge point of this, YOU ARE FULLY CAPABLE AND OFTEN GUILTY (if such is an appropriate term) OF MISINTERPRETTING OTHER'S STATEMENTS. If you define that trait as stupid, you are in fact by YOUR definition, stupid. By MY definition you are simply human, like everyone else of this forum including me.
The underlying premise here seems to be that I'm wrong regardless of what I say. Even if you and I should somehow make the same sort of argument, I'm still wrong because, according to you, I don't understand the "full significance" of it. But you're being sarcastically critical of my logic? Heh. Okay. Oh, and I am pretty sure I never mentioned your ego.
When did I ever say you were wrong regardless of what you say? I never said that. Please provide a quote where I made that statement.
I take exception to being told I cheat by suggesting words have meanings.[/color]
Good thing I never said any such thing, isn't it?
Imagine further my surprise that you started out with the premise that libertarians don't understand their own arguments, which essentially allowed you to assign any meaning you wanted to them and then claim my counter arguments were irrelevant because I misunderstood you.
Tell me, UP. Are you capable of misinterpretting something I post? If it is within the realm of possibility that your omnipotence does not extend to reading minds (which you have, yourself, stated it does not) and you DO misinterpret something I say and then take offense at it, how might I convey to you my true intent without being accused of changing my meaning?
I did NOT say that you did not understand your OWN argument. What I said was, you did not understand the full significance of some WORDS which we BOTH used in a similar fashion. You INSIST that this means you do not understand your OWN argument. See, this is where I cannot correct your misperception because you REFUSE to accept that what you TAKE my meaning to be might not be what I INTENDED the meaning to be. I mean that even though we use the same WORDS (or, at least, pretty much the same) we are, in fact, not making EXACTLY the same argument. I've even tried to illustrate that point by making an argument that could equally be used by Hitler, Clinton, Bush, other world leaders and a couple of generic voters. Same words - totally different meaning. You can't accept that. That's your problem, not mine.
But when I point out that you then didn't say what you meant, I'm told I am wrong because then I'm supposedly insisting that everything only means what I say it means, and of course you said exactly what you meant. And I'm not to take offense or find fault because that's just unreasonable.
Yeah, that's pretty much true.
Heh. Since you missed it, I'll repeat it:
No need to. I didn't miss it. I simply think it proves nothing. It is the typical "sky is falling" nonsense that libertarians use to justify their fear of government. I give such anecdotal evidence and the arguments they are intended to support the same creedence I give to liberal anti-gun arguments that cite Columbine, Virginia Tech, NIU and the like.
For the record, I think libertarianism is the far end of the "reduce government" argument. It is not the EXTREME end - that would be anarchists. I also think liberalism is the far end of the "increase government" argument. The extreme end is communism. I view libertarianism and liberalism as foolish (as opposed to anarchy and communism, which I view as actually evil). You may feel free to be offended by that critique of your political beliefs. I certainly make no apologies for having that opinion, nor for expressing it on a political debate forum. But I make no judgment as to the intelligence, integrity or morality of people who espouse those positions. If you take personal offense at my critique of your political stance, that's your problem.
Again with the utopia. I was going point out, again (sigh), that no one is arguing we'll end up in a utopia full of perfect people who all think alike, but then I remembered that you think libertarians don't understand the "full significance" of their own arguments. So I won't bother.
No, you DID bother. Again with the "I'd say this, but I won't." Now what, exactly, does "won't" mean, I wonder? I always took it to be a contraction meaning "will not." I further took that phrase to mean you intended to, um, NOT do the thing that you said you "won't" do. In the context of your several uses of this particular word, it appears "won't" means "just did." Now see, THAT is what I would call "changing the meaning" of a word. Because, I'm pretty sure that, with all of the many possible meanings of "won't," "just did" is not one of them. If we were involved in some sort of scored competition, I might even accuse you of "cheating." I might even say you use an immature and petulant technique to take a cheap shot rather than address an argument sensibly. But, hey, I won't.
I can take criticism just fine.
No you can't.
But there is a difference between criticism and outright falsehoods. (You know, like "Libertarians cry that relying on the government to protect our rights is cowardice.")
That's not a falsehood. Libertarians do make that argument. Neil Boortz is a libertarian. He makes that argument frequently. I did not at any time say ALL libertarians. I simply said that "libertarians" make that argument. I would say that you are using the "broadbrush" defense gratuitously even after I have clarified it because your poor arguments are not supported by the facts without that fallback position. But, hey - oh wait, I just did.
There is a difference between criticizing an argument and suggesting that people don't understand the arguments they make. One is about the argument. The other is about the person's faculty for comprehension.
Yeah. You don't comprehend my meaning. That's pretty much true.
You expect people not to take that as an insult?
No. I have seen that you consider the possibilty that you misunderstand something as an insult. So I NOW expect you to take it as such. OTOH, I expect most rational, intelligent people to take that as a clarification. I, personally, do not take offense at someone telling me "you misunderstood me, let me correct that misperception." I am, as it turns out, not omniscient.
If I said Mormons are naive for buying into all that crockery about Joseph Smith "interpreting" the Urim and Thummim, you wouldn't think that was just a little bit of an insult?
Not at all. I get it all the time. I expect people who disagree with Mormonism to pretty much take that stance. Calling me naive for that belief could be taken as insulting. It could also be taken as concern. I don't take such things personally. After all, if Mormonism is false, then any such criticism is accurate - and might even save my eternal life if heeded. I think, of course, that such criticism is wrong. That is just difference of opinion.
If I said Mormons did not understand the true nature of their own religion, you wouldn't think that was insulting Mormons?
No. I would think it was saying Mormons were deceived. I get that constantly. I pretty much think all other Christian religions are missing some very important points about Christianity. I think non-Christian religions are missing the most important thing - the divine nature of Jesus Christ. As such, I think that most of them do not understand the full significance of their own beliefs. Those who believe there is a god, whomever he, she or it may be, are correct - but some do not understand that God is our eternal father, the God of Abraham. Of the three great religions that DO get that much, one of them doesn't understand that he is also the God of Isaac and Jacob, and two of them don't get that Jesus Christ is his literal son - the savior and redeemer of the world. Within the faith division that gets that latter point, the overwhelming majority don't get that Christ's religion was corrupted over two millenia and needed to be restored. I mean no insult by that. I simply mean that not everyone gets the full truth. Since ALL of us can't be right (our positions are incompatible) SOME of us must be wrong. The fact that most people think I am the wrong one doesn't insult me. If they are right, I most certainly DON'T get the true nature of my faith which would be eternal in consequence. I don't think they are right. But I am not offended by their disagreements.
Where I take offense about religious disagreement is where I am told that I am "brainwashing" people. That implies deliberate intent - as opposed to "preaching false doctrine" which implies a error. I disagree with the latter, but I understand the intent. I take offense at people insulting Jesus Christ. I consider him sacred, and it bothers me to see him maltreated in the same way it would bother me to have someone insult my wife. I get offended when someone talks about temple garments as "holy underwear" or make other such trivial characterizations of things I consider sacred. (That's one of the main reasons I avoid doctrinal debate. Like most debate, it convinces few, but unlike my political views, it involves casting pearls before swine.) I get downright pissed off when someone refuses to vote for Mitt Romney simply because of his religion. I view that as religious bigotry. But I generally do not take religious criticism as personal criticism.
If I said your "interpretation" of BT's comment was wrong because you did not understand what the debate was really about and your insistence of your "interpretation" being right was really nothing but arrogance, you wouldn't think maybe I was insulting you, not even a little?
I didn't say that.
I said that:
1) Your interpretation of BT's comment was wrong.
That was my first statement. I would never take offense at someone telling me I misunderstood the meaning of a sentence. I would examine it to see if that might be true. If it was a third party who was offering the critique (as I was, in this case) I might say that he was wrong and I disagree with him. If it was the original poster, I would take his clarification as a statement of his true intent. I assume that if a person believes what he said, he will defend it on merit. If he says that I have misinterpretted his meaning I will accept his word for that. I am human. I assume that you have a better idea of your intent than I do (and please look at point 2 below before offering an argument that this contradicts my belief that you do not understand the debate). In no case, however, would I take offense at someone telling me I didn't understand something.
2) You didn't understand what the debate was about.
Even at face value, this is a statement than can be interpretted several ways. There is no EXACT meaning to this statement. But I have clarified this several times, and you refuse to ackowledge my intent in this statement. My meaning, and this statement reflects this appropriately - if not without some ambiguity - is that BT was responding to HIS interpretation of what you said. He was offering a rhetorical question to illustrate that many see government as a good thing. You took it to mean something more than that - and responded to it as such. So I said, and I still believe, that you responded in that fashion because of what YOU THOUGHT the debate (on THIS PARTICULAR POINT) was about. BT meant something different from what you thought he did. So it would be correct to say that
both of you thought the debate was about a slightly different point. I would not take offense at such a critique. In fact, it is exactly the critique that you are countering with. I take no offense in your saying it is I who misunderstand BT's intent - and therefore the debate. I think it is wrong, but it is not offensive.
3) You were arrogant in assuming that yours was the only interpretation of BTs comments.
Of the three, I might be offended at the third point. That was intentionally about YOU. The first two were simply critiques of your argument. I did not make all of those arguments together. I made the third in response to several attempts to clarify what I was trying to say with the first two. Your initial misunderstanding (if, in fact, I am correct in my interpretation of BT's question) was just misunderstanding. your continued insistance that you could not be wrong about that interpretation, that "words have meaning" and your further statements that I am deliberately changing the meaning of my own statements is, in fact, arrogant. You deserve the critique, it is accurate, and you may feel free to be insulted. The difference, of course, is that I wouldn't refuse to accept that I might be wrong about something. So while there are numerous times when I have been accused of arrogance (some of which were accurate) I wouldn't find myself in this particular situation.
So your oversimplification of many points made over the course of this debate cannot be answered in one pat answer. But in general the answer is no. I would think that your opinion of my argument was wrong, but that such an opinion was limited to my argument - not me personally. I have a lot of opinions that are wrong. Sometimes I'm pretty arrogant about them. Sometimes I come to understand that I am, in fact, wrong. Sometimes I fail to see that fact. Sometimes others think I am wrong, and I'm not. If being wrong makes me stupid, then I am one stupid SOB. So is everybody else on this forum, and in the world.
Open my mind to your viewpoint that libertarians are naive, utopian and lack understanding of the "full significance" of their own arguments?
No. Open your mind to the fact that you are misunderstanding my meanings. Open your mind to the fact that clarifying my meaning is not the same as changing it. Open your mind to the fact that, whatever my shortcomings may be, changing my meaning to avoid losing a point is not one of them.
Oh gee, I'm (not) sorry. Why in the world would I, a libertarian, have ever taken that personally? So what if you lied about libertarian positions then said pointing that out was irrelevant? How could anyone not see that you meant that only in the most respectful way? (Oops, I'm being sarcastic again.)
Well, since I didn't lie about libertarian positions, that argument IS irrelevant.
Pooch, I do respect your ability to debate. I don't expect you to agree with libertarianism. I'm surprised to ever find out anyone agrees with any libertarian position, so I suppose I expect you to not agree. But you tell me you have no respect for my political philosophy, tell me libertarians believe all sort of things which they do not believe, that I had no understanding of the debate in which I was participating, and that while I might be sincere I don't understand the "full significance" of my own arguments. And then, heh, and then you basically claim there is something unreasonable about me finding some offense in all that. After all that, you're pissed that I treated you like a hostile opponent? Come on. Talk about not understanding the full significance of your own arguments... Sheesh.
The only thing I am pissed about is your insistance that I am deliberately changing the meaning of my words. That goes beyond telling me my position is wrong. It goes to my own integrity. That IS a personal insult. It doesn't depend on my political view, my religious beliefs, my outlook on life or even my understanding of a point. It is directly and intentionally ad hominem. You are not criticizing my viewpoint (even if by extension such a critique might be taken to criticize me). You are not saying (except where it might support your underlying accusation) that I am making a poor argument, or that my argument contradicts some other argument I have made somewhere else. In fact, you have accused me of several unpleasant personal traits, and in some you might be right. Perhaps I may be ignorant of libertarian views. Perhaps I am mistating them as a result of that ignorance. Perhaps (though you may not have specifically said these things) I simply lack the intellect, open-mindedness or general common sense to get the ultimate brilliance and correctness of libertarianism. I don't think so, but I'm not perfect. But any of those traits would not involve a lack of integrity. By saying I deliberately change the meaning of my words when I go to clarify them, you are directly accusing me of lying. I do not do that. On that point, and that point alone, I take offense. The rest is simply disagreement.