he doesn't see the difference between actively trying to worsen the lives of innocent people and getting caught up in a political quagmire there's no way I'm going to be the one he's willing to listen to about the difference, so I'm not bothering.
to begin with, that's a pretty bad representation of falwell. i'm sure it's easier for you to think that he jumped out of bed every morning saying "WOOO HOW CAN I MAKE SOME GAYBOS MISERABLE TODAY?!?", but that's more of a cop out than anything. you're just vilifying a guy beyond what he actually did so you can feel justfied in your hate.
Yes, what I really want is to hate people. I don't really care about the people he hurt or the damage he did to this country's political architecture, I just want an excuse to hate somebody. Straw man. So far every one of your arguments has been a logical fallacy from the rules thread, in case you weren't keeping score.
said the pot to the kettle.
man, i'm with shinto. this is ridiculous.
peace out homie.
Pants Man on
"okay byron, my grandma has a right to be happy, so i give you my blessing. just... don't get her pregnant. i don't need another mom."
I don't really know what you're talking about VC, but I will take a moment to say that I am neither a hippie nor a Christian. My insistence that one show some modicum of respect for human life, any human life, is borne out of my personal moral compass. That's what we're discussing here.
straw man slippery slope ad hom false dichotomy lol
Are you a pants man alt now? Because that's who I accused of expecting everyone to hold Christian values. You I'm not arguing with until you acknowledge a difference between dying and actively being killed.
he doesn't see the difference between actively trying to worsen the lives of innocent people and getting caught up in a political quagmire there's no way I'm going to be the one he's willing to listen to about the difference, so I'm not bothering.
to begin with, that's a pretty bad representation of falwell. i'm sure it's easier for you to think that he jumped out of bed every morning saying "WOOO HOW CAN I MAKE SOME GAYBOS MISERABLE TODAY?!?", but that's more of a cop out than anything. you're just vilifying a guy beyond what he actually did so you can feel justfied in your hate.
Yes, what I really want is to hate people. I don't really care about the people he hurt or the damage he did to this country's political architecture, I just want an excuse to hate somebody. Straw man. So far every one of your arguments has been a logical fallacy from the rules thread, in case you weren't keeping score.
said the pot to the kettle.
You can't actually think that's an accident when I seperate your fallacy by itself and follow it up with a structurally identical fallacy which is itself seperated from the rest of the post. Well, actually, you can, if you're either a retard or are trying to cover up that you don't actually have any support for any of your claims.
Seriously VC you've kinda lost it in this thread. Lots of people perform lots of actions that can be called into question as to what extent they directly or indirectly have on the overall "good" and "evil" in the world. One of my personal heroes is Malcolm X, who spent a good deal of his life directly preaching hate and intolerance, that is when he wasn't committing a large amount of crime. Are you glad he's dead, too?
Seriously VC you've kinda lost it in this thread. Lots of people perform lots of actions that can be called into question as to what extent they directly or indirectly have on the overall "good" and "evil" in the world. One of my personal heroes is Malcolm X, who spent a good deal of his life directly preaching hate and intolerance, that is when he wasn't committing a large amount of crime. Are you glad he's dead, too?
I don't know enough about Malcolm X to make that call. If anyone at all would respond with something other than "respect the dead, it's just the way things are done, duh" maybe I wouldn't be flipping out at so many fucking retards.
Edit: Oh no wait, they have started responding with "VC is crazy so his arguments are wrong" too.
Edit 2: And also "Sentry was a dick in some other thread so his arguments are wrong".
Is there something, ignoring courtesy to family/friends, that should stop us from speaking ill of the dead? Is there something unique and special about being human, alive or dead, that we should always seek to honor and treat with respect?
I suspect that the time we spend fretting about death varies inversely with its familiarity.
Seriously VC you've kinda lost it in this thread. Lots of people perform lots of actions that can be called into question as to what extent they directly or indirectly have on the overall "good" and "evil" in the world. One of my personal heroes is Malcolm X, who spent a good deal of his life directly preaching hate and intolerance, that is when he wasn't committing a large amount of crime. Are you glad he's dead, too?
I don't know enough about Malcolm X to make that call. If anyone at all would respond with something other than "respect the dead, it's just the way things are done, duh" maybe I wouldn't be flipping out at so many fucking retards.
The point being that making such judgments about whether or not you respect a person's life based on their beliefs is much more presumptuous than preaching the moral standard that we respect everyone universally, but go on throwing about all the fallacy names that everyone besides you is employing.
Seriously VC you've kinda lost it in this thread. Lots of people perform lots of actions that can be called into question as to what extent they directly or indirectly have on the overall "good" and "evil" in the world. One of my personal heroes is Malcolm X, who spent a good deal of his life directly preaching hate and intolerance, that is when he wasn't committing a large amount of crime. Are you glad he's dead, too?
I don't know enough about Malcolm X to make that call. If anyone at all would respond with something other than "respect the dead, it's just the way things are done, duh" maybe I wouldn't be flipping out at so many fucking retards.
The point being that making such judgments about whether or not you respect a person's life based on their beliefs is much more presumptuous than preaching the moral standard that we respect everyone universally, but go on throwing about all the fallacy names that everyone besides you is employing.
Oh right, you still don't think words can hurt anything, or that there's a difference between hating someone for their accomplishments versus their beliefs, or that there's a difference between dying and actively being killed. Sorry, I forgot.
And I say your point is false for reasons I provided already but you have not yet responded to.
VC, you need to stop accusing people of not responding to your points. As far as anyone on the other side can tell, your points are being addressed in good faith and in keeping with usual discourse. Your continuously repeated accusations of "you're not responding to my points" are getting really tiresome. You need to just trust that the people you are arguing against believe they are answering your points quite well, and that you are not answering theirs very well, and we'll all try to make our points more understandable and respond to others as best we can.
As I've said before, being happy that death silenced someone's voice can only be one of two things: 1) completely misguided, because death takes us all, indiscriminate of our ideas, and therefore cannot seriously be considered a victory in a war of ideas, or 2) an implied statement of support for taking up arms and using death to solve bad ideas, because that is the only way to negate the ineffectiveness in #1.
You can't actually think that's an accident when I seperate your fallacy by itself and follow it up with a structurally identical fallacy which is itself seperated from the rest of the post. Well, actually, you can, if you're either a retard or are trying to cover up that you don't actually have any support for any of your claims.
you've done nothing but mischaracterize my argument since i started posting in this thread. first i think that Christian morality should be applied to everyone. then i think "you're a bad person" for hating someone. then i think that words aren't harmful at all.
seriously, everything i've written here has been misconstrued and distorted just so you can keep on ranting and raving at me.
this kind of crap is why it seems like joe vs the volcano in here.
Pants Man on
"okay byron, my grandma has a right to be happy, so i give you my blessing. just... don't get her pregnant. i don't need another mom."
You can't actually think that's an accident when I seperate your fallacy by itself and follow it up with a structurally identical fallacy which is itself seperated from the rest of the post. Well, actually, you can, if you're either a retard or are trying to cover up that you don't actually have any support for any of your claims.
you've done nothing but mischaracterize my argument since i started posting in this thread. first i think that Christian morality should be applied to everyone. then i think "you're a bad person" for hating someone. then i think that words aren't harmful at all.
seriously, everything i've written here has been misconstrued and distorted just so you can keep on ranting and raving at me.
Actually everything you've written here has been distorted but not misconstrued just because nothing you've said has been a valid argument, and if you don't give me anything to work with there's not much I can do in the way of a counter-argument.
irt Yar;
Fair enough. As someone on the other side, please point out for me the part where someone responded to my argument that dying is not the same as actively being killed. Because that one's relevant to your contribution to the thread.
Seriously VC you've kinda lost it in this thread. Lots of people perform lots of actions that can be called into question as to what extent they directly or indirectly have on the overall "good" and "evil" in the world. One of my personal heroes is Malcolm X, who spent a good deal of his life directly preaching hate and intolerance, that is when he wasn't committing a large amount of crime. Are you glad he's dead, too?
I don't know enough about Malcolm X to make that call. If anyone at all would respond with something other than "respect the dead, it's just the way things are done, duh" maybe I wouldn't be flipping out at so many fucking retards.
The point being that making such judgments about whether or not you respect a person's life based on their beliefs is much more presumptuous than preaching the moral standard that we respect everyone universally, but go on throwing about all the fallacy names that everyone besides you is employing.
Oh right, you still don't think words can hurt anything, or that there's a difference between hating someone for their accomplishments versus their beliefs, or that there's a difference between dying and actively being killed. Sorry, I forgot.
Words can hurt things. Lots of people say lots of hurtful things. Should we be glad every time someone who said a hurtful thing dies?
This is the question you completely copped the fuck out of w/r/t Malcolm X by saying, "Oh -- I don't know enough." You want me to cull some quotes so we can continue with that analogy? It shouldn't take me long to find some pretty inflammatory ones. Maybe it'll be easier if we just jump right ahead to Minister Louis Farrakhan. Are you going to celebrate when he's dead? Mind you -- just hurtful words on his part, unlike Malcolm and his rather extensive criminal history.
You can't actually think that's an accident when I seperate your fallacy by itself and follow it up with a structurally identical fallacy which is itself seperated from the rest of the post. Well, actually, you can, if you're either a retard or are trying to cover up that you don't actually have any support for any of your claims.
you've done nothing but mischaracterize my argument since i started posting in this thread. first i think that Christian morality should be applied to everyone. then i think "you're a bad person" for hating someone. then i think that words aren't harmful at all.
seriously, everything i've written here has been misconstrued and distorted just so you can keep on ranting and raving at me.
Actually everything you've written here has been distorted but not misconstrued just because nothing you've said has been a valid argument, and if you don't give me anything to work with there's not much I can do in the way of a counter-argument.
VC you're completely talking out of your ass here.
Actually everything you've written here has been distorted but not misconstrued just because nothing you've said has been a valid argument, and if you don't give me anything to work with there's not much I can do in the way of a counter-argument.
i'm no expert, but i'm pretty sure it's a fallacy to discount someone's opinions out of hand so you don't have to acknowledge them.
i've offered my argument. you've responded with "i don't like your argument" while at the same time distorting what i've been saying. pretty sure you con't do that.
Pants Man on
"okay byron, my grandma has a right to be happy, so i give you my blessing. just... don't get her pregnant. i don't need another mom."
This is the question you completely copped the fuck out of w/r/t Malcolm X by saying, "Oh -- I don't know enough." You want me to cull some quotes so we can continue with that analogy? It shouldn't take me long to find some pretty inflammatory ones. Maybe it'll be easier if we just jump right ahead to Minister Louis Farrakhan. Are you going to celebrate when he's dead? Mind you -- just hurtful words on his part, unlike Malcolm and his rather extensive criminal history.
What the fuck am I supposed to do? Decide I hate someone I know next to nothing about just because you said I should? Yeah cuz that certainly wouldn't count as evidence for the "oh you just want excuses to hate so you can masturbate to hate" or whatever idiocy.
And if you seriously can't see the difference between actively devoting your entire professional life and millions of dollars to convincing as many people as possible that people who aren't straight or who view women as people should be legislated against "or else God's gonna git ya!" and someone simply saying something mean-spirited to someone else, well, discussion isn't possible.
Actually everything you've written here has been distorted but not misconstrued just because nothing you've said has been a valid argument, and if you don't give me anything to work with there's not much I can do in the way of a counter-argument.
i'm no expert, but i'm pretty sure it's a fallacy to discount someone's opinions out of hand so you don't have to acknowledge them.
i've offered my argument. you've responded with "i don't like your argument" while at the same time distorting what i've been saying. pretty sure you con't do that.
You didn't offer an argument so much as a lecture about your personal views. You then defended your lecture with a series of logical fallacies, which I discounted for being logical fallacies, which isn't "out of hand".
Your argument is as follows:
Hating people who deliberately hurt people is a slippery slope to hating everyone. (slippery slope)
Falwell didn't actually hurt anyone. (hypothesis that it cannot be disproven)
Political quagmires are analagous with deliberately causing harm.
Hating is wrong because you say so.
And then you combined them into a super-strawman with a dash of argumentum ad hominem.
"my point is that there reaches a point where you could spend your time hating every public figure you disgaree with on some level, but honestly, who has that kind of time and energy? all you end up being is a dude on some internet forum angrily trying to defend his right to hate by calling people "fucking hippies"."
Actually everything you've written here has been distorted but not misconstrued just because nothing you've said has been a valid argument, and if you don't give me anything to work with there's not much I can do in the way of a counter-argument.
i'm no expert, but i'm pretty sure it's a fallacy to discount someone's opinions out of hand so you don't have to acknowledge them.
i've offered my argument. you've responded with "i don't like your argument" while at the same time distorting what i've been saying. pretty sure you con't do that.
You didn't offer an argument so much as a lecture about your personal views. You then defended your lecture with a series of logical fallacies, which I discounted for being logical fallacies, which isn't "out of hand".
Your argument is as follows:
Hating people who deliberately hurt people is a slippery slope to hating everyone. (slippery slope)
Falwell didn't actually hurt anyone. (hypothesis that it cannot be disproven)
Political quagmires are analagous with deliberately causing harm.
Hating is wrong because you say so.
And then you combined them into a super-strawman with a dash of argumentum ad hominem.
"my point is that there reaches a point where you could spend your time hating every public figure you disgaree with on some level, but honestly, who has that kind of time and energy? all you end up being is a dude on some internet forum angrily trying to defend his right to hate by calling people "fucking hippies"."
hahahah i didn't say ANY of what i bolded, but that's okay. also, i do think it's kind of funny that you're accusing me of being the one calling people names.
but who cares, cuz you win! hooray! later tater.
Pants Man on
"okay byron, my grandma has a right to be happy, so i give you my blessing. just... don't get her pregnant. i don't need another mom."
Hating people who deliberately hurt people is a slippery slope to hating everyone. (slippery slope)
Falwell didn't actually hurt anyone. (hypothesis that it cannot be disproven)
Political quagmires are analagous with deliberately causing harm.
Hating is wrong because you say so.
hahahah i didn't say ANY of what i bolded, but that's okay.
@Pants Man - How can you say that with a straight face?
1) the problem with that is that it's a reeeaallll slippery slope with hate. (...) at what point do you get to where you start to hate everybody you even slightly disagree with?
2) he [falwell] didn't really do anything except spew hateful rhetoric.
3) welfare reform probably hurt more people than falwell ever did.
4) (...) a dude on some internet forum angrily trying to defend his right to hate by calling people "fucking hippies".
The point being that making such judgments about whether or not you respect a person's life based on their beliefs is much more presumptuous than preaching the moral standard that we respect everyone universally, but go on throwing about all the fallacy names that everyone besides you is employing.
@celery77 - You basically seem to be arguing "no matter what you think you know about someone's actions or beliefs, you should respect them just as much as everyone else."
I can't get behind that at all. I don't respect certain people. Sometimes this is because of their beliefs, sometimes it's because of their actions.
I'm not sure how the whole "hate" argument started in this thread anyway. Hating someone is a powerful, usually emotional reaction - it has nothing to do with a rational conclusion that a specific person does not deserve respect, or the rational conclusion that the world would be better off without that person.
Vrtra Theory on
Are you a Software Engineer living in Seattle? HBO is hiring, message me.
Is there something, ignoring courtesy to family/friends, that should stop us from speaking ill of the dead? Is there something unique and special about being human, alive or dead, that we should always seek to honor and treat with respect?
Depends. If you're a follower of the first documented hippie in human history, then yes. If you have a moral system that mirrors that of the first documented hippie in human history, then yes. If you have a moral system based on what people do rather than what they're born as, no.
the problem with that is that it's a reeeaallll slippery slope with hate. falwell was an asshole, and i'm not saying you don't have the "right" to hate his actions or anything (or hell, even him), but at what point do you get to where you start to hate everybody you even slightly disagree with?
Here you take the part where I said "based on what people do" to which you responded that to base hate on such is a slippery slope to hating everyone you even slightly disagree with. This is exactly like saying "well I dunno, the minute the police start ticketing people for actually speeding, we'll start down a slippery slope to police ticketing people for thinking about going faster than 65".
for all of falwell's assholery, he didn't murder anybody. he didn't really do anything except spew hateful rhetoric. i mean, damn, welfare reform probably hurt more people than falwell ever did. do you hate bill clinton? jimmy carter's incompetence kept hostages in iran for a long, long ass time. do you hate him? falwell wasn't some horrible inhuman monster, no matter how much you want to vilify him, and he probably doesn't warrant the kind of hate shown here and in other places.
Here you actually start strawmanning me as well, as at no point did I indicate that by hating I thought him less a human. I'm just saying it's not always all that bad a thing when a human dies. Also happily pointing out people you disagree with but weren't actively trying to hurt people solely for reasons of their own baseless personal prejudices and obsession with hating people who dared to disagree with him. Every last one of them, part of a conspiracy to murder everyone in America. And he convinced millions upon millions of people of this. And given that I think the political system in this country is presently broken, I'm not sure why it would be at all irrational for me to hate quite a large number of politicians, so that's a bad pool to try to pull examples from.
my point is that there reaches a point where you could spend your time hating every public figure you disgaree with on some level, but honestly, who has that kind of time and energy? all you end up being is a dude on some internet forum angrily trying to defend his right to hate by calling people "fucking hippies".
yeah, congrats buddy. hate seems to have worked out real well for you there.
You're going to offer an alternative interpretation then, I assume?
1. my objection was with the completely ridiculous way he phrased my argument. falwell didn't "deliberately hurt people," no matter how much you want to vilify him. he was an asshole, but he didn't go out of his way to make anyone's life miserable. insinuating as much is just hyperbole to justfy hate.
2. wow, you really went out of your way to pull that out of context. hateful rhetoric is OBVIOUSLY hurtful. but compared with actual, concrete actions that effected people (like i was saying), what he did doesn't even compare.
3. he didn't deliberately cause harm. being a giant douchebag and broadcasting your douchebag views isn't the same thing as deliberately causing harm
4. how in the hell does any of that imply i think "hating is wrong because i say so"? i was attacking the fact that he's using name calling to justify his right to hate someone, which just makes him look like an ass. we've been over this.
Pants Man on
"okay byron, my grandma has a right to be happy, so i give you my blessing. just... don't get her pregnant. i don't need another mom."
1. my objection was with the completely ridiculous way he phrased my argument. falwell didn't "deliberately hurt people," no matter how much you want to vilify him. he was an asshole, but he didn't go out of his way to make anyone's life miserable. insinuating as much is just hyperbole to justfy hate.
2. wow, you really went out of your way to pull that out of context. hateful rhetoric is OBVIOUSLY hurtful. but compared with actual, concrete actions that effected people (like i was saying), what he did doesn't even compare.
3. he didn't deliberately cause harm. being a giant douchebag and broadcasting your douchebag views isn't the same thing as deliberately causing harm
4. how in the hell does any of that imply i think "hating is wrong because i say so"? i was attacking the fact that he's using name calling to justify his right to hate someone, which just makes him look like an ass. we've been over this.
And I think you're making excuses for him and are continuing to underestimate the lethality of language.
Edit: You do know that whether or not my assertions of what the man did are true, they're not impossible things for a person to do and the argument I'm making is that such things are fully deserving of hate, and are at the very least a perfectly valid reason to be glad they died, right?
That's just the way it goes with you and a handful of other people who are as far as I can see only vaguely literate. For example people who think that dying and being killed are the same thing, and people who think being glad someone's gone means physically desecrating their resting place. I'm sure this cop-out will impress SithDrummer, seeing as he has the same affliction as you.
I explained here exactly why, in the context of this discussion, dying and being killed are pretty much the same thing. That's part and parcel to what we are arguing here. Rejoicing in someone's death doesn't make sense if you are attempting to differentiate dying and being killed. The only real difference in dying and being killed is that one of them is willed. And by your celebration of his death, you'r acknowledging that you willed it.
The only remaining variable is whether or not you have the balls to admit that you don't act upon your will, but rather just celebrate on the Internet when fate acts upon it for you. Or, acknowledge that you're wrong about this and that it is a rather pathetic evil to rejoice in someone's death when life and death were not a factor in the problem they presented.
I explained here exactly why, in the context of this discussion, dying and being killed are pretty much the same thing. That's part and parcel to what we are arguing here. Rejoicing in someone's death doesn't make sense if you are attempting to differentiate dying and being killed. The only real difference in dying and being killed is that one of them is willed. And by your celebration of his death, you'r acknowledging that you willed it.
The only remaining variable is whether or not you have the balls to admit that you don't act upon your will, but rather just celebrate on the Internet when fate acts upon it for you. Or, acknowledge that you're wrong about this and that it is a rather pathetic evil to rejoice in someone's death when life and death were not a factor in the problem they presented.
Honestly, I think most people paid Falwell little mind while he was alive, aside from noting when he did obnoxious things. Upon hearing of his death, they were thrilled that he would no longer be doing those things, and largely lacked either the capacity or the inclination to explain those feelings in a manner less inhumane than "Yay, he's dead!". I'd wager most people are not, in fact, celebrating his death, but rather the end of his negative actions, but they simply haven't thought about articulating it better.
The only remaining variable is whether or not you have the balls to admit that you don't act upon your will, but rather just celebrate on the Internet when fate acts upon it for you. Or, acknowledge that you're wrong about this and that it is a rather pathetic evil to rejoice in someone's death when life and death were not a factor in the problem they presented.
I find this a hypocritical attitude given your statements in the Virginia Tech game thread. How do you find this pathetic, but yet find no reprehension a simulator which reinacts a massacre of 32 innocents?
As I've said before, being happy that death silenced someone's voice can only be one of two things: 1) completely misguided, because death takes us all, indiscriminate of our ideas, and therefore cannot seriously be considered a victory in a war of ideas, or 2) an implied statement of support for taking up arms and using death to solve bad ideas, because that is the only way to negate the ineffectiveness in #1.
Either way, it is wrong.
1) Yes, we all die, but there're certain strategic advantages to being further down the line than your enemies regardless of whether or not you killed them. 2) No. In fact I stated exactly the opposite, because the death of a public figure doesn't happen in a theorhetical bubble, it happens in the social climate as well. As it stands, people who try to blame his enemies for his death will come off as a raving lunatic to the majority of Americans. However if one of his enemies had actually gone and killed him, people have a sound accusation there and his death becomes a weapon against the side I want to see win.
That's part and parcel to what we are arguing here. Rejoicing in someone's death doesn't make sense if you are attempting to differentiate dying and being killed.
Unless it's good that they died, but that it would have been bad if they'd been killed.
And by your celebration of his death, you'r acknowledging that you willed it.
I am not Professor X. I can't will someone to die to death. What I can do is prepare counter-moves for every move of theirs I see, and then if they die, acknowledge it and hope their congregation falls apart in the ensuing internal-political struggle for succession.
The only remaining variable is whether or not you have the balls to admit that you don't act upon your will, but rather just celebrate on the Internet when fate acts upon it for you. Or, acknowledge that you're wrong about this and that it is a rather pathetic evil to rejoice in someone's death when life and death were not a factor in the problem they presented.
False dichotomy. I continue to assert my original position, that there's nothing wrong with being glad some people are dead.
ViolentChemistry on
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
I explained here exactly why, in the context of this discussion, dying and being killed are pretty much the same thing. That's part and parcel to what we are arguing here. Rejoicing in someone's death doesn't make sense if you are attempting to differentiate dying and being killed. The only real difference in dying and being killed is that one of them is willed. And by your celebration of his death, you'r acknowledging that you willed it.
What? No.
I wouldn't have killed Falwell because I play by the rules of a pluralist democracy. However, I am happy that Falwell is dead because it makes his views less likely to persist. There just isn't any inconsistency here.
1. my objection was with the completely ridiculous way he phrased my argument. falwell didn't "deliberately hurt people," no matter how much you want to vilify him. he was an asshole, but he didn't go out of his way to make anyone's life miserable. insinuating as much is just hyperbole to justfy hate.
2. wow, you really went out of your way to pull that out of context. hateful rhetoric is OBVIOUSLY hurtful. but compared with actual, concrete actions that effected people (like i was saying), what he did doesn't even compare.
3. he didn't deliberately cause harm. being a giant douchebag and broadcasting your douchebag views isn't the same thing as deliberately causing harm
4. how in the hell does any of that imply i think "hating is wrong because i say so"? i was attacking the fact that he's using name calling to justify his right to hate someone, which just makes him look like an ass. we've been over this.
Organizing and helping to empower a giant bloc of voters who believe that AIDS is God's punishment for being gay didn't do any harm? Really? And it wasn't deliberate?
Oh, that's right, gay people aren't actually people. And straight people with AIDS are probably just gay people pretending to be straight.
Unless it's good that they died, but that it would have been bad if they'd been killed.
So, just so I'm clear, you're saying that you wished him dead, and would support his killing, if only it weren't for the fact that murder would grant him martyr status? Surely that isn't the crux of your argument. Are you sure you've thought much about what evil is?
In other words, remove the risk of martyrdom, and you're all about murdering people to silence disagreement? If not, please explain.
False dichotomy. I continue to assert my original position, that there's nothing wrong with being glad some people are dead.
It's not a false dichotomy. His death isn't a victory if life and death weren't the terms of the dispute. It isn't that hard. It's like celebrating your victory in Monopoly because the guy you are playing against got sick and had to quit playing. You didn't really win. His health wasn't really a part of the Monopoly game and only came into play as an unfortunate reality. It's a shitty, weasely thing to do to dance in victory in that case.
Similarly, your dispute with Falwell is over ideas. It's over things that are said and believed. His death is not a part of that dispute. By celebrating his death, you are stating that you support death as a legitimate tool in the discourse of ideas. That when a disagreement over the definition and social standing of same-sex marriage is effectively settled by the loss of human life, you are elated. It's a shitty, weasely thing to do to dance in victory.
I'm not arguing that you owe him any respect. If someone comes to you and says, "man Falwell died, what a true American Hero" you are fully in your right to say, "I disagree, I think he was a bigot and did much more harm than good in his life." But if you want to bring his death into it, the only acceptable comment is, "I only wish he'd learned the error of his ways before his life ended." Everything else is supporting death as a solution to ideas you don't like. And that only leads to nonsense and/or evil.
Unless it's good that they died, but that it would have been bad if they'd been killed.
So, just so I'm clear, you're saying that you wished him dead, and would support his killing, if only it weren't for the fact that murder would grant him martyr status? Surely that isn't the crux of your argument. Are you sure you've thought much about what evil is?
In other words, remove the risk of martyrdom, and you're all about murdering people to silence disagreement? If not, please explain.
False dichotomy. I continue to assert my original position, that there's nothing wrong with being glad some people are dead.
It's not a false dichotomy. His death isn't a victory if life and death weren't the terms of the dispute. It isn't that hard. It's like celebrating your victory in Monopoly because the guy you are playing against got sick and had to quit playing. You didn't really win. His health wasn't really a part of the Monopoly game and only came into play as an unfortunate reality. It's a shitty, weasely thing to do to dance in victory in that case.
Similarly, your dispute with Falwell is over ideas. It's over things that are said and believed. His death is not a part of that dispute. By celebrating his death, you are stating that you support death as a legitimate tool in the discourse of ideas. That when a disagreement over the definition and social standing of same-sex marriage is effectively settled by the loss of human life, you are elated. It's a shitty, weasely thing to do to dance in victory.
I'm not arguing that you owe him any respect. If someone comes to you and says, "man Falwell died, what a true American Hero" you are fully in your right to say, "I disagree, I think he was a bigot and did much more harm than good in his life." But if you want to bring his death into it, the only acceptable comment is, "I only wish he'd learned the error of his ways before his life ended." Everything else is supporting death as a solution to ideas you don't like. And that only leads to nonsense and/or evil.
Assuming that his influence never reached beyond the bounds of a Monopoly game, I agree with everything you just said.
Assuming that his influence never reached beyond the bounds of a Monopoly game, I agree with everything you just said.
Yeah, but that's the rub. The reach of his influence and its effect on you and others is very much the debate of ideas. If he was a modern-day Hitler with the power to inspire torture and murder in the hearts of otherwise good men, maybe. But he wasn't even a good leader. He was just a particularly intelligent and successful thumper who manuevered himself in front of a wave of public sentiment.
Assuming that his influence never reached beyond the bounds of a Monopoly game, I agree with everything you just said.
Yeah, but that's the rub. The reach of his influence and its effect on you and others is very much the debate of ideas. If he was a modern-day Hitler with the power to inspire torture and murder in the hearts of otherwise good men, maybe. But he wasn't even a good leader. He was just a particularly intelligent and successful thumper who manuevered himself in front of a wave of public sentiment.
Assuming that his influence never reached beyond the bounds of a Monopoly game, I agree with everything you just said.
Yeah, but that's the rub. The reach of his influence and its effect on you and others is very much the debate of ideas. If he was a modern-day Hitler with the power to inspire torture and murder in the hearts of otherwise good men, maybe. But he wasn't even a good leader. He was just a particularly intelligent and successful thumper who manuevered himself in front of a wave of public sentiment.
You're going to tell me to respect the dead and then go right on to deny him credit for his accomplishments?
It's like celebrating your victory in Monopoly because the guy you are playing against got sick and had to quit playing.
Well, if there were some serious money on the game, and the guy was kicking my ass, I'd be glad he got sick and had to quit playing (assuming, as happens in most cases, that quitting forefits the pot or at the very least invalidates the bet).
Or, truer to life: if my life or continued happiness and health depended on the game's outcome, and I was losing to the other player...
But this isn't about winning. It's about being rid of a negative aspect of your life without having to lift a finger. It's similar to the happiness that comes from finding a twenty in a deserted parking lot, or hearing the news that a potential malignant tumor turns out to be nothing of importance. It might not be a victory of ideals, but it IS a win of sorts and sometimes worthy of celebration. (Edit: last time that happened, I celebrated my good fortune with tasty coffee, bought with the twenty I found.)
But if you want to bring his death into it, the only acceptable comment is, "I only wish he'd learned the error of his ways before his life ended."
Or you can just admit that after 73 years, one is not likely to reform, and one can just be glad that he's gone.
I really fail to see why you absolutely have to narrow the beam down to only two outcomes of meaning. (Edit #2: And narrowing it down to "anyone who's glad about this is secretly a murderer" is absolutely ridiculous.)
You're going to tell me to respect the dead and then go right on to deny him credit for his accomplishments?
I think I pretty clearly stated that you don't have to respect the dead. What are you talking about?
the only acceptable comment is, "I only wish he'd learned the error of his ways before his life ended."
I have to suddenly pretend there was even a remote possibility that he just didn't know he was hurting people and would come around to a light that made some kind of sense as he was reaching the age where senility starts to really ramp up? And that's not a demand that I respect the dead? No.
Incidentally my actual response when I heard of his death was "Oh, good." and then that was the end of it. It's not like I called up everyone I knew and threw a kegger.
Power carries much valuable learning, even if it has been used in a way that others disagree with. It needs to be respected, its lessons need to be learned so that it can be used and controlled by others in the future, or have abuses of that power cut off before becoming more.
You can disrespect the use of power, and the same for the people that held it, but it is not good to say, "That man was useless because he used power in a way I do not like.". Not liking something does not make it untrue. Falwell was a powerful figure, and used his abilties to control and manipulae a great many people. He found a way to achieve many listeners who were willing to consider and make use of his words and understanding.
When understanding is flawed, it is not to be respected. It should be removed whenever possible. We remove the power of dead understanding by not giving it homage, and letting it pass away. It's a good process, its natural for many to be glad it exists. Maybe some even delight in its application to specific people.
I think it is important to be realistic when judging others, to realize that there are many ingrediants to a life. Some of these items are good or true, and deserve acknowledgement of their nature. Some things are bad and should be discarded or warned about. If you judge someone, it does not make all things in that life equal to that judgement, this judging is only an overall picture. Different aspects to that life need to be considered independantly of others, so we can learn from both the good and the bad. Even if a bad man dies, the good in him dies too.
Quillblade on
Owl cocked his head and asked,"What should I inquire about?"
Raven said, "Good start".
Do you really think that there's a shred of credibility in that? Two meth addicts rob and beat someone to death and later try to invoke "gay panic" as a lame defense (and fail), and you think that is because of Falwell?
I'm not supporting or defending any stance of Falwell on homosexuality. Misguided as it was, his stated stance generally seemed to be one of "show them love and help them convert back to holy straightness." He was nowhere near the skinhead you paint him to be.
I doubt I would agree with Falwell on many things. But you trying to heap responsibility for the Shepherd murder onto him is such a pitiful grasp that it only makes me think you must be doubting your own sincerity at this point.
As for VC, you've already acknowledged that, save for the risk of creating a martyr, you fully support bloodshed as a means of silencing voices and spreading your ideas. That is more evil and hateful than anything Falwell ever did. Not much more we can debate.
Posts
said the pot to the kettle.
man, i'm with shinto. this is ridiculous.
peace out homie.
Are you a pants man alt now? Because that's who I accused of expecting everyone to hold Christian values. You I'm not arguing with until you acknowledge a difference between dying and actively being killed.
You can't actually think that's an accident when I seperate your fallacy by itself and follow it up with a structurally identical fallacy which is itself seperated from the rest of the post. Well, actually, you can, if you're either a retard or are trying to cover up that you don't actually have any support for any of your claims.
I don't know enough about Malcolm X to make that call. If anyone at all would respond with something other than "respect the dead, it's just the way things are done, duh" maybe I wouldn't be flipping out at so many fucking retards.
Edit: Oh no wait, they have started responding with "VC is crazy so his arguments are wrong" too.
Edit 2: And also "Sentry was a dick in some other thread so his arguments are wrong".
I suspect that the time we spend fretting about death varies inversely with its familiarity.
Oh right, you still don't think words can hurt anything, or that there's a difference between hating someone for their accomplishments versus their beliefs, or that there's a difference between dying and actively being killed. Sorry, I forgot.
As I've said before, being happy that death silenced someone's voice can only be one of two things: 1) completely misguided, because death takes us all, indiscriminate of our ideas, and therefore cannot seriously be considered a victory in a war of ideas, or 2) an implied statement of support for taking up arms and using death to solve bad ideas, because that is the only way to negate the ineffectiveness in #1.
Either way, it is wrong.
you've done nothing but mischaracterize my argument since i started posting in this thread. first i think that Christian morality should be applied to everyone. then i think "you're a bad person" for hating someone. then i think that words aren't harmful at all.
seriously, everything i've written here has been misconstrued and distorted just so you can keep on ranting and raving at me.
this kind of crap is why it seems like joe vs the volcano in here.
Actually everything you've written here has been distorted but not misconstrued just because nothing you've said has been a valid argument, and if you don't give me anything to work with there's not much I can do in the way of a counter-argument.
irt Yar;
Fair enough. As someone on the other side, please point out for me the part where someone responded to my argument that dying is not the same as actively being killed. Because that one's relevant to your contribution to the thread.
This is the question you completely copped the fuck out of w/r/t Malcolm X by saying, "Oh -- I don't know enough." You want me to cull some quotes so we can continue with that analogy? It shouldn't take me long to find some pretty inflammatory ones. Maybe it'll be easier if we just jump right ahead to Minister Louis Farrakhan. Are you going to celebrate when he's dead? Mind you -- just hurtful words on his part, unlike Malcolm and his rather extensive criminal history.
i'm no expert, but i'm pretty sure it's a fallacy to discount someone's opinions out of hand so you don't have to acknowledge them.
i've offered my argument. you've responded with "i don't like your argument" while at the same time distorting what i've been saying. pretty sure you con't do that.
What the fuck am I supposed to do? Decide I hate someone I know next to nothing about just because you said I should? Yeah cuz that certainly wouldn't count as evidence for the "oh you just want excuses to hate so you can masturbate to hate" or whatever idiocy.
And if you seriously can't see the difference between actively devoting your entire professional life and millions of dollars to convincing as many people as possible that people who aren't straight or who view women as people should be legislated against "or else God's gonna git ya!" and someone simply saying something mean-spirited to someone else, well, discussion isn't possible.
You didn't offer an argument so much as a lecture about your personal views. You then defended your lecture with a series of logical fallacies, which I discounted for being logical fallacies, which isn't "out of hand".
Your argument is as follows:
Hating people who deliberately hurt people is a slippery slope to hating everyone. (slippery slope)
Falwell didn't actually hurt anyone. (hypothesis that it cannot be disproven)
Political quagmires are analagous with deliberately causing harm.
Hating is wrong because you say so.
And then you combined them into a super-strawman with a dash of argumentum ad hominem.
"my point is that there reaches a point where you could spend your time hating every public figure you disgaree with on some level, but honestly, who has that kind of time and energy? all you end up being is a dude on some internet forum angrily trying to defend his right to hate by calling people "fucking hippies"."
hahahah i didn't say ANY of what i bolded, but that's okay. also, i do think it's kind of funny that you're accusing me of being the one calling people names.
but who cares, cuz you win! hooray! later tater.
@Pants Man - How can you say that with a straight face?
1) the problem with that is that it's a reeeaallll slippery slope with hate. (...) at what point do you get to where you start to hate everybody you even slightly disagree with?
2) he [falwell] didn't really do anything except spew hateful rhetoric.
3) welfare reform probably hurt more people than falwell ever did.
4) (...) a dude on some internet forum angrily trying to defend his right to hate by calling people "fucking hippies".
@celery77 - You basically seem to be arguing "no matter what you think you know about someone's actions or beliefs, you should respect them just as much as everyone else."
I can't get behind that at all. I don't respect certain people. Sometimes this is because of their beliefs, sometimes it's because of their actions.
I'm not sure how the whole "hate" argument started in this thread anyway. Hating someone is a powerful, usually emotional reaction - it has nothing to do with a rational conclusion that a specific person does not deserve respect, or the rational conclusion that the world would be better off without that person.
Is that so?
Here you take the part where I said "based on what people do" to which you responded that to base hate on such is a slippery slope to hating everyone you even slightly disagree with. This is exactly like saying "well I dunno, the minute the police start ticketing people for actually speeding, we'll start down a slippery slope to police ticketing people for thinking about going faster than 65".
Here you actually start strawmanning me as well, as at no point did I indicate that by hating I thought him less a human. I'm just saying it's not always all that bad a thing when a human dies. Also happily pointing out people you disagree with but weren't actively trying to hurt people solely for reasons of their own baseless personal prejudices and obsession with hating people who dared to disagree with him. Every last one of them, part of a conspiracy to murder everyone in America. And he convinced millions upon millions of people of this. And given that I think the political system in this country is presently broken, I'm not sure why it would be at all irrational for me to hate quite a large number of politicians, so that's a bad pool to try to pull examples from.
See above.
You're going to offer an alternative interpretation then, I assume?
2. wow, you really went out of your way to pull that out of context. hateful rhetoric is OBVIOUSLY hurtful. but compared with actual, concrete actions that effected people (like i was saying), what he did doesn't even compare.
3. he didn't deliberately cause harm. being a giant douchebag and broadcasting your douchebag views isn't the same thing as deliberately causing harm
4. how in the hell does any of that imply i think "hating is wrong because i say so"? i was attacking the fact that he's using name calling to justify his right to hate someone, which just makes him look like an ass. we've been over this.
And I think you're making excuses for him and are continuing to underestimate the lethality of language.
Edit: You do know that whether or not my assertions of what the man did are true, they're not impossible things for a person to do and the argument I'm making is that such things are fully deserving of hate, and are at the very least a perfectly valid reason to be glad they died, right?
Seriously, you're kind of going crazy right now.
The only remaining variable is whether or not you have the balls to admit that you don't act upon your will, but rather just celebrate on the Internet when fate acts upon it for you. Or, acknowledge that you're wrong about this and that it is a rather pathetic evil to rejoice in someone's death when life and death were not a factor in the problem they presented.
Honestly, I think most people paid Falwell little mind while he was alive, aside from noting when he did obnoxious things. Upon hearing of his death, they were thrilled that he would no longer be doing those things, and largely lacked either the capacity or the inclination to explain those feelings in a manner less inhumane than "Yay, he's dead!". I'd wager most people are not, in fact, celebrating his death, but rather the end of his negative actions, but they simply haven't thought about articulating it better.
I find this a hypocritical attitude given your statements in the Virginia Tech game thread. How do you find this pathetic, but yet find no reprehension a simulator which reinacts a massacre of 32 innocents?
1) Yes, we all die, but there're certain strategic advantages to being further down the line than your enemies regardless of whether or not you killed them. 2) No. In fact I stated exactly the opposite, because the death of a public figure doesn't happen in a theorhetical bubble, it happens in the social climate as well. As it stands, people who try to blame his enemies for his death will come off as a raving lunatic to the majority of Americans. However if one of his enemies had actually gone and killed him, people have a sound accusation there and his death becomes a weapon against the side I want to see win.
Unless it's good that they died, but that it would have been bad if they'd been killed.
Important difference, as I already discussed.
I am not Professor X. I can't will someone to die to death. What I can do is prepare counter-moves for every move of theirs I see, and then if they die, acknowledge it and hope their congregation falls apart in the ensuing internal-political struggle for succession.
False dichotomy. I continue to assert my original position, that there's nothing wrong with being glad some people are dead.
What? No.
I wouldn't have killed Falwell because I play by the rules of a pluralist democracy. However, I am happy that Falwell is dead because it makes his views less likely to persist. There just isn't any inconsistency here.
Oh, that's right, gay people aren't actually people. And straight people with AIDS are probably just gay people pretending to be straight.
In other words, remove the risk of martyrdom, and you're all about murdering people to silence disagreement? If not, please explain.
It's not a false dichotomy. His death isn't a victory if life and death weren't the terms of the dispute. It isn't that hard. It's like celebrating your victory in Monopoly because the guy you are playing against got sick and had to quit playing. You didn't really win. His health wasn't really a part of the Monopoly game and only came into play as an unfortunate reality. It's a shitty, weasely thing to do to dance in victory in that case.
Similarly, your dispute with Falwell is over ideas. It's over things that are said and believed. His death is not a part of that dispute. By celebrating his death, you are stating that you support death as a legitimate tool in the discourse of ideas. That when a disagreement over the definition and social standing of same-sex marriage is effectively settled by the loss of human life, you are elated. It's a shitty, weasely thing to do to dance in victory.
I'm not arguing that you owe him any respect. If someone comes to you and says, "man Falwell died, what a true American Hero" you are fully in your right to say, "I disagree, I think he was a bigot and did much more harm than good in his life." But if you want to bring his death into it, the only acceptable comment is, "I only wish he'd learned the error of his ways before his life ended." Everything else is supporting death as a solution to ideas you don't like. And that only leads to nonsense and/or evil.
Assuming that his influence never reached beyond the bounds of a Monopoly game, I agree with everything you just said.
So his ability to influence people like Eric Robert Rudolph or the guys that killed Matthew Shepherd counts for nothing?
You're going to tell me to respect the dead and then go right on to deny him credit for his accomplishments?
Frankly, I fail to see why the terms of the dispute are in question at all. I think you're making this important for no good reason.
Well, if there were some serious money on the game, and the guy was kicking my ass, I'd be glad he got sick and had to quit playing (assuming, as happens in most cases, that quitting forefits the pot or at the very least invalidates the bet).
Or, truer to life: if my life or continued happiness and health depended on the game's outcome, and I was losing to the other player...
But this isn't about winning. It's about being rid of a negative aspect of your life without having to lift a finger. It's similar to the happiness that comes from finding a twenty in a deserted parking lot, or hearing the news that a potential malignant tumor turns out to be nothing of importance. It might not be a victory of ideals, but it IS a win of sorts and sometimes worthy of celebration. (Edit: last time that happened, I celebrated my good fortune with tasty coffee, bought with the twenty I found.)
Then you leave the twenty there, so I can find it and be happy about it. ;-)
Or you can just admit that after 73 years, one is not likely to reform, and one can just be glad that he's gone.
I really fail to see why you absolutely have to narrow the beam down to only two outcomes of meaning. (Edit #2: And narrowing it down to "anyone who's glad about this is secretly a murderer" is absolutely ridiculous.)
I have to suddenly pretend there was even a remote possibility that he just didn't know he was hurting people and would come around to a light that made some kind of sense as he was reaching the age where senility starts to really ramp up? And that's not a demand that I respect the dead? No.
Incidentally my actual response when I heard of his death was "Oh, good." and then that was the end of it. It's not like I called up everyone I knew and threw a kegger.
You can disrespect the use of power, and the same for the people that held it, but it is not good to say, "That man was useless because he used power in a way I do not like.". Not liking something does not make it untrue. Falwell was a powerful figure, and used his abilties to control and manipulae a great many people. He found a way to achieve many listeners who were willing to consider and make use of his words and understanding.
When understanding is flawed, it is not to be respected. It should be removed whenever possible. We remove the power of dead understanding by not giving it homage, and letting it pass away. It's a good process, its natural for many to be glad it exists. Maybe some even delight in its application to specific people.
I think it is important to be realistic when judging others, to realize that there are many ingrediants to a life. Some of these items are good or true, and deserve acknowledgement of their nature. Some things are bad and should be discarded or warned about. If you judge someone, it does not make all things in that life equal to that judgement, this judging is only an overall picture. Different aspects to that life need to be considered independantly of others, so we can learn from both the good and the bad. Even if a bad man dies, the good in him dies too.
Raven said, "Good start".
I'm not supporting or defending any stance of Falwell on homosexuality. Misguided as it was, his stated stance generally seemed to be one of "show them love and help them convert back to holy straightness." He was nowhere near the skinhead you paint him to be.
I doubt I would agree with Falwell on many things. But you trying to heap responsibility for the Shepherd murder onto him is such a pitiful grasp that it only makes me think you must be doubting your own sincerity at this point.
As for VC, you've already acknowledged that, save for the risk of creating a martyr, you fully support bloodshed as a means of silencing voices and spreading your ideas. That is more evil and hateful than anything Falwell ever did. Not much more we can debate.
And if he doesn't die, how do we get the good out of him? Some kind of drill, perhaps?