I honestly don't know what to say here.
I am not trying to drive you away.
I would just like, however, for you to view things from my perspective.
I posted what I thought was a pretty fascinating, counter-conventional
wisdom article that had a lot of interesting things to say. I get one
response from it - a sarcastic, biting, caustic response that addresses not one whit of the issues I was hoping to discuss - but instead changes the
subject to an unrelated, (and in my mind, baseless) partisan political
attack.
1. It wasn't a sarcastic remark in that there was no intended irony or satire or ridicule intended. I seriously believe that the Bush Administration will use propaganda like that discussed in the article to try to deflect criticism from the 9/11 commission.
2. It _is_ related to the subject of culpability for the 9/11 attacks. The article suggests that some flunky lawyer is responsible for hamstringing the FBI and the security of the entire nation. This is something that I can imagine the FBI would love for us to believe, but I find the idea ludicrous. Furthermore, it attempts to pass the blame for 9/11 onto privacy advocates which is typical of the kind of song and dance used by the Bush administration to deflect criticism.
3. My remarks were not directed at you, but at the ideas behind the article. You didn't even say whether or not you agreed with the article in your initial post(though I assumed you did).
Moreover, again from my view, this response accuses me rather
directly of posting something which is not in fact at all interesting or
fascinating, but rather, quote, "spin" - which makes me either a "hack" or a "sucker" to post such as thing as being in the
"fascinating/interesting." department that gets one to think outside the
conventional wisdom.
No, it makes you partisan and willing to jump on a line of reasoning that will bail your guy out if it's true. I did not intend to insult you personally at all and if I did, I'm sorry.
So anyhow, I do respond to all of this with a bit of sarcasm myself -
albeit certainly sarcasm that is no harsher than what I received from
someone who disagreed with my Lord of the Rings *movie*review* - and yet I also take great care to make sure that I also address whatever substance
there was in what you had to say - even if it does completely change the
topic.
We must be using a different definition of sarcasm. Clearly in your remarks there was an intent to ridicule me an a taunting manner. Trevis' remarks, while a bit harsh IMO, expressed his disagreement, and he attempted to soften the blow with the remarks that followed.
And again, I don't believe I was changing the subject at all. I believe that the ideas in the article you ghosted may form the foundation of the Bush administrations attempt to deflect criticism from the 9/11 commission.
And yet, I am getting a lecture about how I don't need to use sarcasm to
make my points? Well, if I don't need to use sarcasm - how about you?????
Well to reiterate, my remarks were not sarcastic and more importantly they were not directed at you personally.
Anyhow, like I said, I am *not* trying to drive you away. I feel that if we can just work out what the ground rules are, I'm sure that we can keep
having civil disagreements on political issues here. I very much want to do that, as I do respect what you think and what you have to say. Contact me off-list about these ground rules if you want.
What it basically comes down to is direct your criticism to the argument, not the person. If you feel you've been insulted, flesh the situation out instead of escalating it. I realize that I'm no picture of perfection so if you can tell me where you think I'm out of line, I'll listen and attempt to amend my attitude to take your criticisms into account.
-- Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
