Bush lets out his inner asshole

[viscousmemories]

I don't think you understand what "strawman" means. It's a logical fallacy that involves setting up an argument someone did not make and then attacking it. As anyone who reads this thread can surmise (even without clairvoyant abilities) the fact that livius never made the argument you were attacking (that Bush's behavior was morally repugnant) indicates that you made that argument up out of whole cloth. Or straw, as it were.

The fact that you have never answered her actual challenge (in fact completely ignoring her generous clarification of her point yesterday) while continuing to badger me about trivialities leads me to believe that your intentions in this dialogue are at least disingenuous, if not malicious. Not unlike your failed attempt to publicly embarrass me by starting another thread to accuse me of being a big ole meanie in this one.

As Evil Willow would say, "Bored now."

[mickthinks]

'strawman" means [...] setting up an argument someone did not make

That appears to declare all drawn inferences as strawman fallacies. I don't think valid inferences can be dismissed as 'strawmen'.

I believe it was reasonable to assume that when Livius applied the terms "appalled", "making a kid cry", "inappropriate", "hurtful", "cowardice", "meanness", "picking on a little girl" to Bush's behaviour, she was implying that she thought he was morally wrong, even thought she did not actually say that she thought he was morally wrong.

I'm not sure [you've refused to clarify] but I think you are saying I was wrong to make that assumption. That is the issue that depends on Livius's beliefs. I think you need to know her mind in order to say that.

Mick
you have never answered her actual challenge LOL! This would be a good point if I weren't answering anyone's challenges. I hope I'm free to depart from your agenda and post according to my own priorities?

[erimir]

Hey mick, wanna see my inner asshole?

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

I hope I'm free to depart from your agenda and post according to my own priorities?

Yep, you sure are.

[mickthinks]

Thanks viscousmemories, for the reassurance!

I didn't say being dismissive is morally repugnant,

You said [here] "To me, Bush's dismissive comment was the first (and most important) evidence of his moral repugnance." I don't think in this kind of context* an action can be evidence of morally repugnant behaviour without being morally repugnant behaviour.


Mick
* Interestingly, in a forensic situation; investigating a murder, say; an apparently innocent act such as the purchase of a bus ticket might prove to be crucial evidence that convicts the guilty. The non-repugnant behaviour would be evidence of repugnant behaviour. But not in this case of the crying girl.

[viscousmemories]

Whatever game you're playing, I bet you think you're winning.

[mickthinks]

I bet you think you're winning
How odd! Is there anyone here whose thoughts you don't claim priviledged access to, vm?

Mick

eta: I think everyone loses when egos get in the way of ideas. We both started losing this debate when you criticised me for my attempts to keep the tone good-humoured (instead, I guess, of expressing the irritation you presumed I must feel at your tactics). Any chance of you returning to an exchange of ideas in good faith?

[viscousmemories]

Thanks mickthinks!

[mickthinks]

aren't such name alterations so clever?
Yeah, I think they're pretty cheap and witless too, emorrhoid! Suck seems to take them seriously though, and I didn't feel I should disappoint him.

He'll love yours I'm sure!

Mick

[ChuckF]

When I was 8 viscousmemories stole my lunch money and then blamed it on an immigrant kid who didn't speak English but everybody knows it was vm and not the immigrant and he never apologized not even once which is all I really want I don't even care about the lunch money I would have given it to him if he asked just because I wanted to be his friend but he was too tough and thought he was too cool for school but I still didn't tell the teacher because I didn't want to get him in trouble for stealing because stealing is bad so I let that immigrant kid get punished to protect vm.

[viscousmemories]

Holy shit, that was you?!

[mickthinks]

Hi viscousmemories!

I don't believe I have the same behavioral obligations when posting on this forum as the President of the United States does when addressing enquiries from his constituency.
I'd agree, he has obligations we don't have, but that doesn't mean we can call his behaviour appalling when it isn't really appalling by anyone's standards.

I don't think 'yeah, thanks' is appalling behaviour. I don't think it becomes appalling when a girl subsequently bursts into tears.

Mick

[Sock Puppet]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

Yeah, I think they're pretty cheap and witless too, emorrhoid! Suck seems to take them seriously though, and I didn't feel I should disappoint him.

[mickthinks]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

Wow! That's one sexy cocoon babe you've hitched up with there, Sock! (Can't wait to see the baby pix !)

[Sock Puppet]

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

eta: I think everyone loses when egos get in the way of ideas. We both started losing this debate when you criticised me for my attempts to keep the tone good-humoured (instead, I guess, of expressing the irritation you presumed I must feel at your tactics). Any chance of you returning to an exchange of ideas in good faith?

For us to "return to an exchange of ideas in good faith", I would have to believe that you were ever engaged in an exchange of ideas in good faith. I don't. I think that you have been engaged in trying to demonstrate moral superiority and intellectual sophistication by way of presumptuous and demeaning criticisms of various posters' comments in this thread while deftly avoiding any discussion of substance. I have no interest in attempting an exchange of ideas in good faith with someone who appears to be constitutionally incapable of it.

Keep in mind that my opinion isn't based only on your comments here, but your comments at the Philosophy Now and Galilean Library forums as well. I did a little reading last night to see if maybe I had misjudged you and I don't believe I have. As far as I'm concerned this 'debate' between us is over.

[mickthinks]

Thanks BDS!

I'm sure Bush would agree that he should have been more sensitive, but the notion that his comment [...] makes him a "bully" is ridiculous. Agreed! (I wouldn't have dared to say 'ridiculous', but you've been here a lot longer than I have. )

I don't think the journalists are "spinning" the story. Bush tried to make a wisecrack, and it made some girl cry -- that's the story.

The bare facts according to Watser's link are;

• Bush said 'yeah, thanks'.
• The crowd laughed.
• The girl cried.
• Bush and his aids responded with sympathy.

The impression that Bush's response was sarcastic, and the suggestion that the response made the girl cry (not something else such as the laughing crowd), have been added by the journalists. And casting Bush's subsequent sympathy as 'backpeddling' was classic spin.

By the time Watser dubbed it 'letting out the inner asshole' the picture of prejudice feeding off media-spin is pretty complete, I think.

Mick

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

*plonk*

[JoeP]

Thanks mickthinks!

... Not.

[mickthinks]

Hello livius!

can you please provide a source for your claims about the feminist position on young girls crying in reaction to a comment an adult made?

I don't think I made a claim about any feminist position, but I can see why you want me to defend my reference to feminism.

The idea that women's feelings are specially delicate and that men have a burden to protect them from getting distressed, and that a woman's distress in male company is the man's responsibility if he could have prevented it; that idea belongs to the kind of patriarchal society that I think feminism opposes.

Mick

[Shelli]

As to the thread title.. literally even.

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by Sock Puppet

Oh, I can't guarantee that. You're such a precious example of juvenility wrapped in a thin cocoon of verbosity that I might feel compelled to fuck with you now and again.

im stealing that from you sock maybe not today but one day.

and i probably wont attribute it. but hey, theft is the most sincere form of flattery.

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

The bare facts according to Watser's link are;
Bush said 'yeah, thanks'.
The crowd laughed.
The girl cried.
Bush and his aids responded with sympathy.
The impression that Bush's response was sarcastic, and the suggestion that the response made the girl cry (not something else such as the laughing crowd), have been added by the journalists. And casting Bush's subsequent sympathy as 'backpeddling' was classic spin.

By the time Watser dubbed it 'letting out the inner asshole' the picture of prejudice feeding off media-spin is pretty complete, I think.

Actually, I think this is a pretty accurate analysis of both the news article and the response it generated here. If mick had made this his first post in the thread it just might have generated some worthwhile discussion, rather than rapidly degenerating into yet another "but you said / no that's not what I said and you all suck" thread.

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by mickthinks

The bare facts according to Watser's link are;
Bush said 'yeah, thanks'.
The crowd laughed.
The girl cried.
Bush and his aids responded with sympathy.
The impression that Bush's response was sarcastic, and the suggestion that the response made the girl cry (not something else such as the laughing crowd), have been added by the journalists. And casting Bush's subsequent sympathy as 'backpeddling' was classic spin.

By the time Watser dubbed it 'letting out the inner asshole' the picture of prejudice feeding off media-spin is pretty complete, I think.

In fairness, we can't know whether Bush's response was sarcastic or not, since we didn't hear it. He may have replied with a voice that was just dripping with sarcasm. Or he might not have intended any sarcasm at all.

Neither do we know that Bush and his aids responded with sympathy. Maybe they did, and maybe they didn't. Saying that Bush responded with sympathy to the girl's crying is no less conjecture than saying that his initial response was sarcastic. Bush may have simply been attempting to save political face, with no thought of sympathy whatsoever.

Cheers,

Michael

[Angakuk]

Granted, mick's use of the word sympathy also constitutes spin. However, Bush's subsequent response and the follow-up private meeting with the girl give every appearance of sympathy. In politics, after all, appearance is everything.