I'm not picking on you for your views here, Gautam. As periodically seems to be the case, your way of arguing them disturbs me. Conversely, it's not that I agree with Jeroen, but he seems to argue reasonably... until he becomes angry. It's my hope that we can all argue well, not that we can all agree.
Nick Me: There's another possibility, one that seems more tenable to me. You have more sympathy for Jeroen's views than mine - therefore his mode of argument seems more agreeable to you. Since you, in your discussion with me, so far have always adopted a pose of moral superiority and condescension, you choose to do so in this discussion by a meta-comment on rhetoric, instead of actually discussing points - something on which I could actually engage you, as opposed to your repeated assertions that can only be judged subjectively, not argued based on reason or evidence. But this is, in truth, nothing more than moral masturbation. I'm so superior to you, because I condemn your rhetoric from my own position on high. Nonsense. First, you condemn rhetoric _only_ when it comes from the side of the debate with which you disagree, which all by itself reduces your credibility to non-existent. Second, because my "rhetoric," as you so dismissively call it, gets to a point at the heart of the discussion, that you ignore for whatever reasons of your own. It is that there are, in fact, people who hate our country and would seek to tear it down. Many of the criticisms directed at the United States are produced by those people, and political commentators all over the world, from across the political spectrum, from Andrew Sullivan to Christopher Hitchens to Tony Blair, have recognized this fact and rejected the arguments of these people wholesale. As do I. That you seek to attack my rhetoric while remaining silent about that of those who attack your own country speaks poorly of you, but it does not weaken my own position. When you come out and argue against repeated distortions of fact that are aimed against the United States, exaggerations like calling debatable decisions crimes against humanity, criticisms of hypothetical human rights violations that are explicitly sanctioned in the Geneva Accords and so on - then you might have some credibility as someone who could comment on the fairness of the rhetoric on both sides, instead of just using it as a way of scoring cheap points without actually addressing arguments. If that sort of rhetoric doesn't bother you, but mine does, then I'm quite comfortable with my rhetoric, really. Show some even-handedness, and I _might_ take you seriously. Until then, you're nothing more than a partisan who won't even stand up for their own positions. Gautam (written after spending the last 5 hours celebrating his birthay with _much_ too much enthusiasm - although I don't think that weakens my point)
