On 18 Feb 2006 at 15:16, Andrew Stiller wrote: > On Feb 18, 2006, at 9:16 AM, Richard Yates wrote: > > > After a long, informative, and civilized thread this one went over > > the edge from evidence, reason, and substance and into personal > > attack through sarcasm. > > I have encountered this phenomenon numerous times, from a variety of > different offenders. Eventually I came to understand that this kind of > reaction (I call it "sputtering") is a kind of acknowledgement by the > offender that he (very seldom she) has lost the argument. That being > so, the only appropriate response is to quietly declare victory and > drop the subject.
This is such total fucking bullshit. Johannes never attempted to even address the subject of the discussion because he freely admitted he hadn't read the judicial decisions that were the entire subject of the discussion (all the factual information about the case that I was relating came from there; Johannes offered no factual information about the Sawkins case, nor did he quote any statutes, in UK law or otherwise). When I point out that his assertions have no basis in fact this provokes offense on Johannes' part and I get told that pointing out that Johannes has no facts on his side means that I've lost the argument? You people are ridiculous. I have never become angry from these kinds of meta-discussions of my posts, but this has tipped me over the edge. I was never anything other than cordial. I never used ad hominem attacks, I never misconstrued anyone's argument. I always used facts and pointed out when someone else was mis-stating the facts. For that, I'm offensive. I'm sorry, but if Johannes can't handle the truth, plainly stated, then he shouldn't be participating in a discussion, especially one where the facts were so central to the arguments being made. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
