Tommy Thompson's son: "We have an opportunity to send Obama back to Kenya"

[BigSkyBob]

If only one could bring one's sense of moral outrage to bear on the actual substance, eh, Bob?

Well, as Dingel famously said, "If I let you set the substance of a bill, and, you let me write the process, I will screw you every time!" Allowing people to fabricate quotes with impunity is allowing them to, "screw you every time!"

Be that as it may, substance is called 'substance' for a reason, so perhaps after you've pointed out that people have, by your definition, fabricated quotes it might behoove you to move on to what the person against whom this doubtless unfathomable calumny has been perpetrated actually said rather than continuing to crow about the by-your-definition-fabrication over and over again after you've already made your opinion of it loud and clear to all and sundry.

Quote marks have a meaning. They mean the person quoted stated the remarks between the marks verbatim. A quote had been fabricated not by "my definition," but, rather by the definition. Though I am simply right, other posters have made arguments about why fabricating quotes is a valid act. I answered those arguments. Instead of actually arguing why either my initial argument, or my rebuttals of their rebuttals were inaccurate, you launch into a purely ad hominem attack about me being repetitive. That's pathetic.

First of all, I don't think you're entirely clear on what 'ad hominem' means, since I'm not criticizing you as a person (although you're making it more tempting by the second), but rather giving you helpful pointers on your debating style. Second, JulioMadrid provided an entirely acceptable (and accurate, if you know anything about how elision in citations and quotes is typically handled) alternative to both the original quote, which was misleading, and your insisted-upon full version, which wasn't any better anyway. At this point cooler heads should have prevailed, but you continued in your outrage at the unforgivable sin visited upon Jason Thompson, in a thread that should at this stage have moved to discussion of Jason Thompson himself.

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Entertaining, albeit as a joke, a racist canard about ones father's political opponent-by-proxy isn't 'biting satire directed against politicians in office', not least because it isn't actually funny. Failing attempts at 'satire' that employ racist conspiracy theories as figures of fun should certainly be condemned, yes, as should other types of unfunny attempts at humor. Your apparent conflation of generic universals with particulars is interesting, particularly for someone like me who's making a study of the aesthetics of Tendai Buddhism, but not actually a relevant response to the question of whether or not it's the case that racist conspiracy theories ought not be joked about. Sorry. (It's also not the case that you were limited in your range of potential responses to 'Yes' or 'No', which you should know, since you didn't answer 'Yes' or 'No'.)

1)Evidently, it is you who is "unclear" as to the meaning of "ad hominem." Ad hominem does not mean "criticize." "Ad hominem" refers to arguing at or towards the person making an argument rather than at the argument itself. Insulting, or otherwise abusing the person making an argument is only one form of the ad hominem. Questioning their motives is another. Questioning the appropriateness, or timeliness of their argument is another.

2) You seem to acknowledge that I was correct in noting Thompson was misquoted ["misleading"], but, claim that doesn't matter because another poster offered a slighter fuller version. Again, I consider the revised quote misleading as well. It is never correct to conflate two sentences from different paragraphs into a single sentence. If you wish to cut out the intervening material, it is still correct to leave in the period, add ellipses, and then resume with the capitalized "Or." He simply did not do that. That omission was more than technical. It makes it appear "Chicago or Kenya" was part of a unified thought, when in context it clearly wasn't.

3) Trying to say that the audience member's interjection, "Or Kenya!" wasn't funny is merely your opinion, and, not really relevent to the issue at hand. If the audience laughed, it was "funny," whether you like that fact or not. No joke in inherently funny. A good comedian has to know his audience. And, when Larry Flint published material that among other things accused Jerry Falwell of incest he didn't defend his publication as "funny," but, rather as "satire."

When someone demands I label Thompson's remark "unacceptable," he is, by implication, insisting that I find it "unacceptable" that 1) Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a "c#nt; 2) HBO didn't fire Maher; 3) That cable companies didn't drop HBO after they refused to fire him; 3) Subscribers continue to patronize HBO; or 4) Obama refused to return his highly tainted money.

I have every right to point out what he was really suggesting. Unless, or course, he was demanding selective outrage.

4) References to Obama's father being a Kenyan national are not "racist." The Constitution requires that a President be a "natural born citizen." That requirement applies equally to persons of all races. Arguments can be made that folks whom question whether Obama was a "natural born citizen" are wrong, but, claiming they are 'racist' is purely ad hominem.

5) If Tendai Buddhism is what floats your boat, by all means go for it. However, I don't think it has anything to do with the discussion at hand.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I can't deal with this right now because I have class for the next six hours, but you've clearly put a lot more effort into this argument than I have and you're still wrong, mainly because as usual (but only when it suits you!) you're pretending to think that formal logic and technical definitions are how the world actually works. Think about what that says about us, Bob.

[BigSkyBob]

I can't deal with this right now because I have class for the next six hours, but you've clearly put a lot more effort into this argument than I have and you're still wrong, mainly because as usual (but only when it suits you!) you're pretending to think that formal logic and technical definitions are how the world actually works. Think about what that says about us, Bob.

1) You "can't deal with [it]" because there is no answer.

2) I am in fact right, and, you in fact are wrong.

3) As a person whom fancies himself a scholar, you should be the last person to argue, "formal logic ...[is] [not] how the world actually works." It simply is how academia works. In the real world academics who aren't pedantic strive to grant those not formally trained the necessary skills and concepts and answer that construction. It is beyond charity and tolerance to allow someone to conflate a serious statement in one paragraph with parts of a joke in a subsequent paragraph  into a sentence, which is suppose to consist of a single thought. And, that is surely the case without proper punctuation and annotation.

4) You have made extraordinary efforts at defending the indefensible. It is as if you have a stake in using deliberate misrepresentation in political debate. I certainly don't.

[TJ in Oregon]

It's amazing how much less horrible some of the things those mean nasty evil Republicans say are when you find the actual comments rather than the Atlas Forum propaganda version.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I can't deal with this right now because I have class for the next six hours, but you've clearly put a lot more effort into this argument than I have and you're still wrong, mainly because as usual (but only when it suits you!) you're pretending to think that formal logic and technical definitions are how the world actually works. Think about what that says about us, Bob.

1) You "can't deal with [it]" because there is no answer.

I couldn't deal with it because I have a life. I have, as it happens, right now about twenty minutes to waste.

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Do you even know what I'm arguing anymore (or what you're arguing, for that matter) or is this point just axiomatic for you?

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I'm not so much disagreeing with this as I am disagreeing with the idea that you have to waste God only knows how many minutes or hours of your doubtless very full life in the so-called real world belaboring this point and questioning how much good it does to anyone. The only reason I'm using milder language than you are in discussing the elision of aspects of what was said is because I'm in an environment in which these are extremely serious accusations that I'm reluctant to use while throwing my weight around on Atlas Forum. Your problem with too many cute logical exercises comes, not here, but...in a lot of places, actually, in this particular case when you say things like 'When someone demands I label Thompson's remark "unacceptable,"' [and so on the rest of that sentence, it's several posts up if anybody wants to look at it again]. For one thing, that doesn't 'follow', even 'by implication', unless you think that all unfunny political humor is equal, or even that all statements that anybody could take offense to or has taken offense to are equal. I imagine some people, possibly even many, are hugely misogynistic but find nativist or racist rhetoric unacceptable, or vice versa. Not only that, your own points one through four don't even follow from one another! Also, Bob, unless I'm misremembering, you did in fact have that reaction to the Maher thing. That being the case, why are you not condemning Jason Thompson? Does this conflation only work one way? This is what I meant about Tendai, because your leaps of logic (this, the time you said that one can only be described as 'a conservative' if one holds the 'conservative' position on every single political issue out there, et cetera) can be politely described as 幽玄.

Also, please learn how pronouns work for the love of all that's holy.

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This is spectacular.

It's amazing how much less horrible some of the things those mean nasty evil Republicans say are when you find the actual comments rather than the Atlas Forum propaganda version.

Less horrible, but still rather asinine.

[TJ in Oregon]

It's amazing how much less horrible some of the things those mean nasty evil Republicans say are when you find the actual comments rather than the Atlas Forum propaganda version.

Less horrible, but still rather asinine.

It was a joke! He was laughing while he said it! I have trouble understanding how you can possibly get offended by this. I guess some of the people here may harbor some knee-jerk reaction to immediately be offended by anything said by a Republican, but honestly Nathan I thought you were above such partisan hackery pettiness. Just what is so offensive here? It's not like Thompson's son even likely believes Obama was born in Kenya, so random lady in the crowd yelled it out and he just went along with it. The fact that we have people on here trumpeting this as some major issue is a little snapshot of why American politics is so screwed up today.

[BigSkyBob]

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This is yet another example of your purely circular reasoning. We were discussing Bill Maher and John Thompson. Whether his remarks are "nativist" or "racist" is precisely the question at hand. You have attempted to minimize a particularly egregious misquote based on nothing other than your belief that he made a remark that was  "racist" and/or "nativist." You don't seem to grasp the concept that every human being has the right to be quoted accurately. Noone denies that Bill Maher was quoted accurately.

I see you persist in your ad hominem approach by feigning disdain on spending time to reply to my last post. I believe that political questions ought to be resolved in the context of Truth. When quotes are fabricated the debate moves outside the context of truth. I found spending the time to point out what happened a worthwhile use of my time. In response, I read vacuous claims that the rules of quotation allow for such abuse which I debunked. While it is unfortunate that such low level of discourse exists in the world of politics,  debunking was a necessary step which I felt was a justified use of my time. If you belief you are wasting your time, you do have the resource of skipping the "quote" key. If you don't, spare me the pretenses.

You ask, "That being the case, why are you not condemning Jason Thompson?" In case you failed to notice, Jason Thompson issued an apology for his remarks. Seems he has already "condemned" his actual remarks. Again, my point is that he simply never said what he was falsely quoted as having said. What is being argued, because people are taking both sides, is whether, or not, he had been misquoted.

I can't deal with this right now because I have class for the next six hours, but you've clearly put a lot more effort into this argument than I have and you're still wrong, mainly because as usual (but only when it suits you!) you're pretending to think that formal logic and technical definitions are how the world actually works. Think about what that says about us, Bob.

1) You "can't deal with [it]" because there is no answer.

I couldn't deal with it because I have a life. I have, as it happens, right now about twenty minutes to waste.

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Do you even know what I'm arguing anymore (or what you're arguing, for that matter) or is this point just axiomatic for you?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'm not so much disagreeing with this as I am disagreeing with the idea that you have to waste God only knows how many minutes or hours of your doubtless very full life in the so-called real world belaboring this point and questioning how much good it does to anyone. The only reason I'm using milder language than you are in discussing the elision of aspects of what was said is because I'm in an environment in which these are extremely serious accusations that I'm reluctant to use while throwing my weight around on Atlas Forum. Your problem with too many cute logical exercises comes, not here, but...in a lot of places, actually, in this particular case when you say things like 'When someone demands I label Thompson's remark "unacceptable,"' [and so on the rest of that sentence, it's several posts up if anybody wants to look at it again]. For one thing, that doesn't 'follow', even 'by implication', unless you think that all unfunny political humor is equal, or even that all statements that anybody could take offense to or has taken offense to are equal. I imagine some people, possibly even many, are hugely misogynistic but find nativist or racist rhetoric unacceptable, or vice versa. Not only that, your own points one through four don't even follow from one another! Also, Bob, unless I'm misremembering, you did in fact have that reaction to the Maher thing. That being the case, why are you not condemning Jason Thompson? Does this conflation only work one way? This is what I meant about Tendai, because your leaps of logic (this, the time you said that one can only be described as 'a conservative' if one holds the 'conservative' position on every single political issue out there, et cetera) can be politely described as 幽玄.

Also, please learn how pronouns work for the love of all that's holy.

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This is spectacular.

It's amazing how much less horrible some of the things those mean nasty evil Republicans say are when you find the actual comments rather than the Atlas Forum propaganda version.

Less horrible, but still rather asinine.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Feigning?

Good night, Bob.

[BigSkyBob]

It's amazing how much less horrible some of the things those mean nasty evil Republicans say are when you find the actual comments rather than the Atlas Forum propaganda version.

I have noticed a consistent pattern by the left of reacting to dubious statements by augmenting and exaggerating the alleged underlying offense, and, then, attacking anyone pointing out their distortions as defending the indefensible.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think that's a consistent pattern in political discourse in general.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I guess we have an opportunity to send Romney back to Mexico, as well.