At 07:12 PM 10/26/2004 -0700 David Brin wrote:
>b) Don't you deal with the bigger culprits first and
>in some proportion to their involvement?
Sometimes you deal with the problem you *can* deal with first, if two
problems are roughly similar in their seriousness. (BTW - I am not
agreeing with you that the Saudis were a bigger problem, just arguing that
even if you do believe this that Iraq was still a roughly comparable
problem in seriousness.) There are at least 10 very big reasons why the
Saudi problem, even if it was as you describe, was more intractable than
the Iraqi problem.
This is, BTW, the same reason why the US doesn't do more for the Tibetans
and Uighurs - there isn't much more we *can* do.
>d) that's a response to the litany of evidence of
>Saudi Jihad? That's a RESPONSE? Al Jazeera rants
>Jihad by night and the Wahhabi-purchased mosques rant
>it by day.
Uh.... Al-Jazeera is Qatari, and is hardly welcomed in Saudi Arabia.
>We have no energy policy and conservation is gutted
>while oil prices skyrocket pouring billions straight
>from our SUVs into the pockets of those wanting death
>for our sons, and THAT paragraph sums up the wisdom
>offered in response?
I don't know anyone who believes that conservation coudl seriously impact
our energy security.
>1) to say that I call "anybody who disagrees" with me
>a traitor was a damned deliberate lie. Either prove
>it or @[EMAIL PROTECTED] apologize!
I have already posted an array of your comments that had some very nasty
things to say about Republicans in general. To summarize my reading of
those posts, you described Republicans as being dumb/uneducated, of holding
a grudge against the Union, of having no ideas, and you have denounced
"utter nastiness, idea-bereftness, hatefulness, shrill intemperate
jingoism, rapaciously insatiable kleptomania and slavish devotion to the
Saudi Royal House of the present GOP."
If this is still not enough evidence for you, how about this Dr. Brin -
perhaps you could name a public figure who:
a) broadly agrees with the Republican/President's/neocon Agenda of:
-fighting the war in Iraq
-cutting taxes
-broad-based restrictions on abortion
-reforming Social Security into an individual-savings system
b) by definition disagrees with you on at least three of the four above
whom you don't consider to be a traitor and/or monster?
To the best of my recollection, every public figure who has supported that
Agenda in disagreement with you, you have accused of treason and/or
sub-humanity.
>2) even if others disagree with my intensity of
>response to Gautam's para about Egypt and Germany, it
>is easy for anybody to see that it was an argument
>rife with flaws and not one to hold up as a paragon of
>argumentation.
The argumentation style was called "reductio ad absurdum." I'm not
necessarily a big fan of it, but you, yourself recently used the exact same
technique when you repeated the "every sperm is sacred" ridiculousness.
Methinks that you should not protest this technique too much.
JDG
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