On Sat, 5 Apr 2003, Harmon Seaver wrote:
> I noticed, but arguing with Tim is rather pointless. If he tried to refute
> primary sources with tertiary sources in a paper at any university he'd not only
> get an F but probably some very nasty comments from the prof as well.
> So when you're dealing with someone who resorts to that kind of crap, what's
> the point?
Excellent!
The reason I do it is not to bang heads with Tim (he's welcome to whatever
fucking nutiness he prefers) but there are others out there who will get
the wrong idea if it's not refuted reasonably regularly. They haven't made
up their minds and because of their unfamiliarity [1] with the various
issues they may be a monotonic viewpoint. That just exacerbates the
problem by creating more 'Tim's'. If nothing else it lets them know that
there -are- other views out there that can stand toe-to-toe, and at least
give as good as they get.
Personaly, one of him is enough ;)
Outside of that it is pointless, and one of the reasons that over the
years of my participation in this list I've dropped my interaction with
him more and more.
[1] I'm in a discussion on a private list with a person who believes the
the way to solve Iraq's problems is to import Soccer (actually more
generally, sports) into their culture. My responce that forcing
western views on them at the expense of their consent and culture is
just plain evil. I got the typical knuckeheaded response that if I
didn't like it I should move. I responded that I intend to stay and
fight for my country and what it -really- stands for. For some
reason Americans in general don't seem able to keen the distinction
between ones 'country' and its 'government'. More of tha religous
type psy-ops I suspect.
It reminds me of a picture I saw on CNN of one of our aircraft
carries with a list of various events against American forces
in the Middle East, it was titled "Why we are hear" trying to
cast the fact we are acting in self-defense irrespective of the
fact that it is -us- in their backyard with big guns. Why are we
here? Because we can't keep our nose out of other peoples business
and believe that 'I want' justifies taking something. In short,
if anyone believes 'greed is good' they only need to look at the
news for a excellent example of why that view is simply bullshit.
I simply refer them to Verne's books "Paris in the 20th Century"
and "Invasion of the Sea". If one doesn't 'get it' by the end of
those two, they never will. The latter is an excellent answer as
to why the Middle East is the way it is, and why 'we' (as in
Western civilization) are responsible and the wrong-doer here.
--
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