05-08-2017, 04:47 PM
(05-08-2017, 02:59 PM)Dill Wrote: While we are on the subject of standards--
I remembered the above gem from your "Fake News from Huffpost" thread--A gentle reminder that this is not the first time we have disagreed over standards--you taking the lazy low road and I the high. Your bald-assertive style was in full flower on that thread: unsupported claims followed by personal invective, over and over again.
I hope you didn't break your arm patting yourself on the back.
Quote:I was explaining how one sets up and operates definitions to produce judgments differing sides to a debate could agree on, something other than "just opinion," and you were busy calling everything you did not like "fake news" and "opinion" and denigrating my efforts to raise the discussion out of the mud.
And not much has changed.
Sure, you're convinced you're right and you label disagreement as low brow. Certainly not an argument from a "serious scholar".
Quote:We make this accusation often. Yes. So why do you call people names and belittle them, then accuse THEM of stifling debate? The moderators ask us not to use personal attack. It brings down the level of discussion. Why do you ignore this standard? Can you tell invective from argument?
No, only to the three headed sock puppet hydra. Oddly, no one else levels this accusation at others, literally no one else.
Quote:Accusing me of plagiarism (as if somewhere out there on the internet someone has already written answers to your specific posts and I am just copying them) and ignoring all requests for proof (beyond your intuition), is another form of personal attack. It is also a way of avoiding substantive argument ("scroll up"), to keep the discussion spinning away from a close consideration of questions like whether Islam possess a threat (cultural suicide!) to Western Civilization and who can speak expertly on the subject.
Oh dear god you are a boring, histrionic person. I even owned the mistke, in that instance. I suppose "going high" means constantly harping on it?
Quote:The plagiarism accusation brings me to another point fusing style and standards--the frequency of pointless quips instead of argument. "If you say so." "I love it when you condescend to me, it turns me on." Why don't you see that as just shooting blanks? What have you accomplished?
Trust me, plenty of people reading this thread have gotten exactly what I wanted them to get from it. I've said it to one of you triumvirate, I don't argue to change your mind, because none of you are ever capable of admitting you're wrong. I argue for the other people who read these threads.
Quote:So the difference in standards is one reason why we have such difficulty discussing matters. That and the general lop-sidedness in effort--me taking care to make solid points supported with examples, you pointing to my quotes and making unsupported claims and quips accompanied by personal invective. A discussion with Masterp on Islam goes straight as an arrow, no side issues generated by personal invective and unsupported claims. With you, the discourse spins off in a dozen different directions as you "answer every point" (LOL).
More condescension, more boring. I've made plenty of points, I know when I make them because you tend to not respond to them. I guess I'm just not enough of a "serious scholar" to debate anything with someone of your towering intellect.
Quote:This is my second post in 24 hours on the issue of standards, so I will leave the matter for now and go back to assessing the Islamic threat to Western Civilization.
Please do.
Quote:A suggestion:
Quote:If you have some quips, invective, bald assertion and one-line "arguments," present them in response to this post. If you have something substantive to say about the issue of Islam and Western Civilization, address it to the post which follows. See if you can develop a substantive argument with links, examples, clear definitions, and conclusions which follow from premises--but no quips.
I'll respond as I choose where I choose, thank you very much.
(05-08-2017, 04:22 PM)Dill Wrote: Looks like you have the start of an argument here.
1. Your first premise is that Fear of Islam is not Islamophobia because it is justified. "THEY are an ideology"--I guess meaning all Muslims. (That is talking point now circulating right wing circles: Islam is not really a religion.) Not a troublesome few. And they have ADEQUATELY DEMONSTRATED that they are to be feared. That has me wondering how they have adequately demonstrated this? Have they recently invaded and occupied Christian/Western lands? Have they massacred 6,000 Christians? Perhaps their refugees from our wars are flooding Western countries, threatening to become 1.02 percent of the population in some particular country? Perhaps they have responded to a poll? No sample-size problem here?
Yes, when discussing islam we are discussing people who practice it. Don't ascribe points to me that i didn't make, e.g. islam is not really a religion. This is intellectually dishonest and a tactic you frequently engage in. I suppose I should be grateful you haven't called me a nazi yet. Do you really need me to cite examples of islamic terrorism? Could you be more dishonest?
Quote:Here is your chance to show what you know. Or your own knowledge failing, bring in Sam Harris and Bill Maher. Lay out their arguments. Let's see if they can stand a little cross examination. Or it is yet another chance to throw up a smokescreen of invective and quips and bald assertions. Your choice.
I'll be happy to, as soon as you explain to me how Christopher Hitchens is not a "serious scholar". This is where your inane claims that you have seized some intellectual high ground completely fall apart. I address your posts point by point, (not to your satisfaction, but I could care less about that) you do not do me the same courtesy.
Quote:2. Guess I need to remind you that Nazis did not "equate" opponents with racism. They condemned them for criticizing racism. Remember their goal was to slander an entire religion and Semitic race, calling them a threat to Western culture as well as German values. So I understand your sensitivity to Nazi analogies, even where they are not directly made. You also want to denigrate an entire religion and define its (predominately Semitic) followers as a wholesale threat to "Western values." If denigrating an entire people is what you want to do, then where do you see lack of nuance? Your wholesale denigration is not racist? I have met people who avoid this rather obvious question by presenting themselves as unfairly accused by it. They want to condemn a whole religion without any blowback in world where that always turns out badly. But rather than putting the issue to rest with a clear answer, they choose not to dignify it with an answer. Which doesn't work.
Damn, I spoke too soon. I underlined your previously bolded statement as ultimate proof of your disgusting tactics in this thread. In no way shape or form did I make or imply what you just accused me of. Seriously, you should be completely ashamed of yourself. That would require you to have some sense of shame though, which you appear to lack.
Quote:3. You are not familiar with any of the people I offered as Middle East scholars, and were totally unaware of movements within Islam critical of misogyny. But you want to "nominate" a "spokesperson" for the Islamophobes who is a serious scholar on the subject of Islam. And you don't want to make judgments "from a position of ignorance" (never mind you just assumed I have read nothing of Hitchens work). But you are happy to nominate someone who is not a serious scholar of Islam, someone who will support what you already want to believe. Another manifestation of our difference in standards. It looks like you are perfectly fine with ignorance when it suits your purposes. I am not. Another difference in standards.
Hahaha, this coming from a man who claimed Christopher Hitchens couldn't be considered a "serious scholar".
(05-06-2017, 12:34 AM)Dill Wrote: I have not read everything Hitchens has published.
You admitted this! I did not assume it. This is yet another example of you flat out lying.
Quote:4. "Quotes from Islam's holy books." LOL We see people using quotes from Christianity's holy books in this forum all the time but we (most of us) don't assume they are "experts" on those books or Christianity. The question of Islam is not how Harris reads the Qu'ran but how Muslims do. And I still like polls just fine; I just question the way some people use them. Get some of Harris' arguments out there and let's have a close look at them.
In this you are correct and we see the fruits of this every day. I'll be happy to continue this "discussion" as soon as you stop lying and deliberately misquoting me. Your blatant dishonesty doesn't speak well for your perception of the strength of your argument.
