What you're probably up against now.

[pokeyburro]

"Well, I'm still agnostic about Palin. I like her, and I find most of her policy proposals worth a consideration (and frankly, if you don't know what they are, it's because you haven't looked into them. She's been very upfront about her views). But were the election right this very minute, I don't know that I could vote for her. Teh Fred was my man

Comments

[tompurdue]

> treasonous, lying, biased "media"

I have no response to that. I just kinda wanted to type it into its own box so that I could look at it by itself. (I don't believe its author would think I'd altered it by taking it out of context.)

[pokeyburro]

You're too smart for me to simply take that at face value.

Thoughts like that are what you're probably up against, too. And there's many ways to respond to that, actually. Some easy, some hard. He's not a troll, and he's not an dummy.

[tompurdue]

Face value is precisely how I meant that. It's a deep metaphysical problem. There is no form of dialogue in which he and I can communicate.

If he's not a dummy, then I must be. There is no logical alternative. In fact, I'm more than I dummy: I'm a traitor.

There is no solution here. We're in an epistemological trap, two states that cannot coexist. It will only be solved by somebody dying.

[pokeyburro]

I sympathize. But there's plenty of logical alternatives. One or both of you could be exaggerating, overgeneralizing, and/or working from incomplete data, just for starters.

[tompurdue]

Exaggerating, overgeneralizing, or working from incomplete data?

That would be me. I've been called a traitor, so the other errors of argumentation seem comparatively minor.

Name one "logical alternative" after that. Logic implies speaking, and there isn't a single word that can come out of my mouth that won't have me dubbed a liar, ending the argument before I've completed a single syllable.

You'll insist I'm exaggerating. Reread the quote and tell me to my face.

[pokeyburro]

treasonous, lying, biased "media"

Are you media? (or "media"?)

And yes, if you insist I tell you to your face, I'll walk over to your cubicle and say you're exaggerating. For that matter, if I knew where Christopher M. was, and he was within walking distance, I'd tell him he's exaggerating, to his face. And based on what I've read of his online presence, he'd agree.

If you're just expressing anger that you can't get your point across without being called a traitor or a liar, I sympathize with that, too - and so do a lot of conservatives. They can't get their point across without being called a redneck, thug, or stupid - and that's just if they're male.

[tompurdue]

So why are you re-posting the comment of somebody who's exaggerating? What am I supposed to learn from it?

It makes his entire argument content-free. My argument is that there's nothing to say about a content-free argument.

I do not say he's a stupid redneck thug because he's a Republican. I say he's a stupid redneck thug because he makes a stupid argument.

Strictly, he's not actually a redneck or a thug, at least based on the data I have. I do, however, have data that he's stupid. The rest is just exaggeration.

> Are you media? (or "media"?)

I make arguments nearly identical to the "media".

[pokeyburro]

Your argument is flawed. An exaggeration does not make an entire argument content-free. If it did, then you couldn't simultaneously claim that your media-based arguments are content-full

[tompurdue]

It's the nature of this particular exaggeration. It declares, "I am uninterested in any argument that does not confirm what I already believe." Even if the rest of the argument is cogent, or even correct, by declaring that it is impossible for it to be wrong, it leaves me no response except agreement

[pokeyburro]

Well, I haven't exactly been blunt about this, but the main reason none of my arguments justify the claim of treason is because I don't consider the claim of treason to be justified. Either for you, the media, or the "media".

The term "treason" has accumulated significant connotation in addition to its technical meaning. The comment's usage strikes me as taking dramatic license with the connotation of a word with the implied intent of applying its technical meaning later. See also "thought crime". I suppose I could convict him of that, but the trouble is there's about ten billion other Internet comments doing the same sort of thing.

You've read at least three times as much Shakespeare as I have; you know quite well how easy it is to say something without actually saying it. Same goes for any journalist or editorialist. This isn't simply a case of me hearing things. I can't convict them of anything either, because they didn't actually say what they imply. In enough cases, they might not even mean to imply anything (and I really am