I've stated my reason for being here: to keep myself on the cutting edge of emerging rhetorical trends, so I can practice my responses and tear down stupid ideas on both the left and the right when I encounter them in meatspace.
So you apparently disagree that "we're not here just so you can have an audience every time you want to feel morally and intellectually superior." We're all here just to serve your own selfish needs. Gotchya.
I don't mind harsh responses one bit. Unlike most people, I'm able to focus on content rather than form.
Who's being distracted by "form?" Did you mean to say something else here? Like "substantive content rather than style or invective"?
I'd be happy if people just responded what my positions actually are. ... You, for example, keep implying that I'm a conservative, as if I'm not constantly at odds with Jeff myself.
I don't think I've ever responded to you as though you've taken positions you haven't taken. I appreciate that you're not a "conservative" in the same sense that Jeff might be, and if you feel I've painted your churlishness-as-typical-"conservative"-behavior with too broad a brush, I'm sorry for it. But let's not slip between the two.
Wrong. I owe respect to people's inalienable right to hold stupid beliefs. This implies no debt of respect to those beliefs or to the people who hold them. The inability to make distinctions like this is one of the things that frequently loses people my respect.
The reason you owe the members of this community at least a modicum of respect is that you seem to want and expect them to read your comments. I'll agree that, if your only stated purpose in participating here is to practice wiping your ass with us so that you can be assured that your ass is clean when you offer it up to a meatspace prostitute, there's no reason to regard us with any respect at all, but you shouldn't expect us to thank you for the opportunity or pay any attention to you at all, other than to say, "Go fuck yourself."
The inability to appreciate the distinction between what I've said and the ludicrous strawman you've first attributed to me and then insulted me for holding is a key reason why I have to restrain myself so often when addressing you.
What you call "self-restraint" is frequently nothing more than couching ignorance and bigotry in long-winded pseudo-intellectualism. I respond with the vitriol that the actual substance of your comments deserves.
If I am ignorant or bigoted, you're free as always to demonstrate as much and charge me with the task of either defending what I've said or admitting my limitations. Happy to go either way. But all you seem to be capable of doing is to read a lot into what I've actually said and then insult me for saying things I haven't said, which suggests to me a possibly insurmountable problem of reading comprehension.
no subject
So you apparently disagree that "we're not here just so you can have an audience every time you want to feel morally and intellectually superior." We're all here just to serve your own selfish needs. Gotchya.
I don't mind harsh responses one bit. Unlike most people, I'm able to focus on content rather than form.
Who's being distracted by "form?" Did you mean to say something else here? Like "substantive content rather than style or invective"?
I'd be happy if people just responded what my positions actually are. ... You, for example, keep implying that I'm a conservative, as if I'm not constantly at odds with Jeff myself.
I don't think I've ever responded to you as though you've taken positions you haven't taken. I appreciate that you're not a "conservative" in the same sense that Jeff might be, and if you feel I've painted your churlishness-as-typical-"conservative"-behavior with too broad a brush, I'm sorry for it. But let's not slip between the two.
Wrong. I owe respect to people's inalienable right to hold stupid beliefs. This implies no debt of respect to those beliefs or to the people who hold them. The inability to make distinctions like this is one of the things that frequently loses people my respect.
The reason you owe the members of this community at least a modicum of respect is that you seem to want and expect them to read your comments. I'll agree that, if your only stated purpose in participating here is to practice wiping your ass with us so that you can be assured that your ass is clean when you offer it up to a meatspace prostitute, there's no reason to regard us with any respect at all, but you shouldn't expect us to thank you for the opportunity or pay any attention to you at all, other than to say, "Go fuck yourself."
The inability to appreciate the distinction between what I've said and the ludicrous strawman you've first attributed to me and then insulted me for holding is a key reason why I have to restrain myself so often when addressing you.
What you call "self-restraint" is frequently nothing more than couching ignorance and bigotry in long-winded pseudo-intellectualism. I respond with the vitriol that the actual substance of your comments deserves.
If I am ignorant or bigoted, you're free as always to demonstrate as much and charge me with the task of either defending what I've said or admitting my limitations. Happy to go either way. But all you seem to be capable of doing is to read a lot into what I've actually said and then insult me for saying things I haven't said, which suggests to me a possibly insurmountable problem of reading comprehension.