OhPinchy said:
Clubman - I never intended this to turn into a popularity contest - I wanted to get you to consider a change of tone in your posts so that people would feel less likely to get shot down if they post something you disagree with. I think this would benefit the AAM community as a whole.
To be perfectly frank I consider this to be quite patronisimg and presumptuous on
your part but there you go...
But sometimes I feel that you concentrate on minute flaws in an argument which may well exist but do not really take from the substantive point being made, and this detracts from the overall debate - sometimes its better to let things go if they are slightly incorrect but inconsequential.
You keep saying stuff like this fail to back it up. Look at how many times the word "sometimes" occurs in your post. It's largely generalisation and at best extrapolation from individual incidents in which I may well have been curt or flippant. But to tar most or all of my contributions with the same brush is simply unacceptable to me and certainly not something that I would let go without challenge - even if this reinforces your prejudice against me.
Also, sometimes people may not have factual evidence to back up a point but are still right, but right on cue you seem to always come right out with what I believe to be a confrontational approach and dismiss these points.
Once again I think it is only fair to ask you to provide examples seeing that you are making such accusations...
Blind faith in government reports is a dangerous thing because vested interests are often involved, and in this particular case the culture of silence would prevent the truth coming out.
... for example, where have I ever exhibited a tendancy to place bling faith in "government reports"?
I feel that if I posted this in a normal thread it would be a matter of minutes before you came out and dismissed it due to lack of concrete evidence and so I wouldnt bother posting it.
I am not dismissing your points - I am merely asking you to support them with evidence which I think is not unreasonable on my part.
I also feel that you would ask me to quantify what I mean by 'ridiculous' and we would once again be on a tangent debating the minute details of a post rather than the notion contained therein, which would surely be a more interesting debate. When I am debating something with a person I debate the notion of their argument, not the minute details.
Much of the time the devil is in the detail. A purely deconstructionist approach does not always yield dividends but challenging arguments which may be initially premised on fallacious grounds, and therefore fallacious themselves, is fair game in my view.
The reason for this is I believe that, fair enough this particular person may not be putting their point across in the best possible manner, and may have gotten a fact or two slightly incorrect, but by focusing on these flaws I beat the person and not the notion which they are arguing for.
Well, if an argument/discussion is worth doing then it's worth doing right. I don't see any need to gloss over significant errors or flaws.
If a better debater took their place he might make a ************************* argument for the same notion - this is why I debate against 'what' the person is arguing for as opposed to 'how'. I think this makes for more rewarding debates (and I've no problem with people informing me of new things that show my point to be wrong) and this way its less likely to get bogged down in the nitty gritty specific details of the argument.
I don't really understand this point.
I really don't have time to go trawling through your posts to dig out examples but they are there - I think the one in the MJ case where you take issue with my 'he was found not guilty of these charges but that does not mean he is an innocent man' point - the vast majority of people would get this without a blink of an eye but you chose to dissect it which I think was being unnecessarily picky and in no way added to the debate given that most people would not take issue with the point.
I stand over my rebuttal of your
MJ comment above. I can't see how you expect people (or at least me) to accept your criticisms, never mind act on your "advice", if you can't even be bothered to support them with examples or evidence.
True you can't please all of the people all of the time and your contributions overall are very valuable, but I just feel that by toning it down a bit when countering others' arguments youd be moving closer to pleasing all of the people all of the time.
I still maintain that I have nothing to tone down so don't expect me to change now.