Letters to the Editor
Margalis
Published Letters: 614 Editor's Choice: 16
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Projection at its finest
[Read the article: Oops, she did it again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As any woman who has ever chosen (or been forced) to kick it old school can tell you, surrendering a baby whom you will never know comes with a steep and lifelong cost.
Fundamental fallacy to believe that everyone on earth must think the same way you do.
Besides that the piece was just pointless and boring.
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I was born just slightly too early it seems. Girls today are going to raves, dropping X, having parties where they perform oral sex on every boy there, congregating in the nude, making out with each other just to turn guys on.
Society is crumbling and sadly I can't enjoy it.
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Trolls don't have hearts and minds
[Read the article: McCain spokesman John King of CNN]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have a lot of patience for people that genuinely differ even in dramatic ways, but no patience for people who just want to score points.
I've noticed a trend everywhere in internet political discussions: people who used to argue conservative positions based on merit now argue by changing the subject, obfuscating and running interference.
What PW wrote is clearly nonsense. His defense of the media was actually an attack on the media -- incoherent. But coherence only matters if you are arguing in good faith.
I'm not going to attack and dismiss someone who is arguing in good faith but misguided. (In my view) Changing arguments on the fly, attacking straw men, bringing up the old "why are you bothering to write about this?"...those are familiar troll tactics from people who merely crave negative attention.
The error here is one of projection: posters who argue on merit in order to convince naturally assume that others are doing the same. They aren't. PW has even said himself that he does not want to convince anyone of anything.
Given that why bother responding at all?
The reality is that no matter *what* the topic is, Shooter and PW will find some way to disagree, because that is their entire motivation for posting. That is the *only* reason they read and respond.
Shooter has been using the same disproof by non-sequitor for a year or more. Tigers don't change their stripes.
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Fairness and impartiality are not the problem
[Read the article: Oops, she did it again]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The problem is that Dowd sucks, to put it bluntly. She isn't informative, interesting or convincing.
People seem to think that op-eds are a free pass to write anything. That's not how it's supposed to work. They are still supposed to be a service to the reader, presenting an informed and well-reasoned opinion.
Although yes, Joan has no right to complain as she prints Paglia. Stones, glass houses and the rest. It takes a certain sort of willful stupidity to attack other pundits and guys like Imus while printing that dreck. Especially since Paglia's meow-meowing is as bad or worse than anything Dowd puts out.
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Education is meaningless
[Read the article: McCain spokesman John King of CNN]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]History is full of educated or intelligent people that thought utterly moronic things. (Isaac Newton chased alchemy for most of his life and he's on the short list for smartest person ever) The key is that the biggest brain in the world doesn't matter if you don't use it.
You might operate as follows: you observe some facts, then you derive some theories and policy suggestions from those facts.
But this is how most people operate: they latch on to some theories and policies that appeal to their psyche, then invent a rationale to match.
Being well-educated or intelligent only means that they are better at that invention. Look at what PW is still doing. His only intention in this thread is to show up Glenn...somehow. He is engaging his brain only in service to that goal. It probably doesn't even occur to him to seriously consider his own arguments from an antagonistic perspective to see if they hold up.
Shooter and PW are extreme cases of this but it afflicts plenty of the liberal posters here as well. Most people are perfectly willing to accept (and make) terrible arguments as long as they agree with the basic thrusts. In this case the basic thrust is "Glenn bad urrr! Salon readers freaks garrr!"
I covered this sort of thinking in my blog recently:
http://margalis.blogspot.com/2008/01/we-dont-drink-kool-aid-here.html
To most people there is no such thing as a bad argument as long as it serves their purposes.
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People are still responding to PW - amazing
[Read the article: McCain spokesman John King of CNN]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are certain obvious giveaways that someone is not interested in good faith debate. A prominent one is the use of in-group jargon and lingo.
"Radical lefty" is one such example. This sort of language illustrates that the speaker is merely playing to a like-minded audience rather than a general one.
I would point out that "wingnut" is much the same, which is why I try to avoid it and similar words unless I'm only openly mocking.
When people begin throwing out terms like dittohead or Demoncrap or communist/marxist/socialist (without appropriate context) or talking about the majority of Americans as the "fringe" the honest discussion has ended.
Radical lefty fringers hate America! Wingut Cheetoz eaters are chickenhawks! Those are not arguments, they are playground insults.
One thing I appreciate about Glenn is that he uses strong and biting language without relying on in-group language. In-group language is not meant to convince or inform, the only purpose is to get members of the in-group nodding dumbly in sheeplike agreement while out-group members fume.
LWM - let it go. Don't you have better things to do with your time than argue with someone who virtually everyone already recognizes as worthless?
My policy is never to talk to trolls, only about them. (It works well on misbehaving children as well, for much the same reasons)