"I'm GGG and I approve this message."

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
This is the fundamental dispute here, but you are ducking the real issue by pretending it's about my style of arguing rather than what is happening in Iraq. If you win evidentiary rulings and lose the jury verdict, you lose. Likewise, if we win some tactical military successes and don't get political reconciliation, we lose. That's not a partial victory. That's a loss. My fear about McCain is that he use the military in a way that gets some tactical military victories but also leaves us in a worse position in the world. The reason why McCain scares me is the exact same reason why I think your "the surge is a partial victory" -- my words, not yours -- is pernicious claptrap. Sure there have been some tactical military successes. But that doesn't vindicate the strategy -- that's the whole point. We smoked Saddam Hussein's military, too, but that decision isn't looking so hot now, either.

No I am not. I am saying that when people dispute these things they have an obligation to look at both sides of the issue. Military successes are not insignificant, and portraying them as such to say broadly "it is a failure" is, in my opinion, a cheap argument technique. I won't say whether I believe the lengthy explanation above was in your mind or not when you called the Surge a "tinker bell" policy. I'll leave the length of the explanation juxtaposed against the shortness of your initial statement for others to draw conclusions.

I would not call the Surge a success because it is not. But I also wouldn't call it a failure, because it is most assuredly, not matter how many tropes or Rube Goldberg explanations you can flog to suggest otherwise, not. It is both a success and a failure, in differing degrees. Only a partisan would draw it in stark, absolutist terms.

Bill Kristol has called it a success on television many times. Is that the company you'd keep? Intellectual dishonesty and the elevation of rhetorical and semantic gamesmanship to "win debates" over reaching workable consensus or understanding in discussion of these issues is what's ruining the political discourse in this country, and consequently, our policies. That's why I took your argument to task.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield re: Ty
[Y]ou're biased.

This word does not make any sense whatsoever here.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
No I am not. I am saying that when people dispute these things they have an obligation to look at both sides of the issue. Military successes are not insignificant, and portraying them as such to say broadly "it is a failure" is, in my opinion, a cheap argument technique.

I think I've got the hang of your way of thinking now.

The Titanic's maiden voyage wasn't a failure -- the ship crossed a lot of the ocean. For that matter, the riveters did a successful job -- only some of their rivets popped when the ship hit the iceberg, and many of them are still intact on the ocean floor. George McGovern got millions of people to vote for him in '72 -- you've got to call that a partial success. The Battle of Midway was a partial success for the Japanese -- they sunk a carrier!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
This word does not make any sense whatsoever here.

You're biased too.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
It was a knowing, willful omission of the sort litigators use all the time to allow themselves to make broad statements that don't hold up on closer examination, so I called him on it.

This is a bit like saying that only doctors ever commit medical malpractice. So fucking what? Are you so proud of having partially left the law that you now think that they way we're trained to argue is somehow worse than they way lay people do it, with their primitive grunts, clicks and whistles? Because if so, you're deluded, Monsieur Rousseau. Mr. Hobbes has the better half of the argument about the state of nature vis-à-vis the dialectic.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I think I've got the hang of your way of thinking now.

The Titanic's maiden voyage wasn't a failure -- the ship crossed a lot of the ocean. For that matter, the riveters did a successful job -- only some of their rivets popped when the ship hit the iceberg, and many of them are still intact on the ocean floor. George McGovern got millions of people to vote for him in '72 -- you've got to call that a partial success. The Battle of Midway was a partial success for the Japanese -- they sunk a carrier!

after i kicked your ass so completely on this, well I just thought you's settle down.

What if the Titanic didn't sink-- it was 2 days late getting in. Then what? Sucess?

Honestly, you need to break away from whatever blog is poisoning your brain. I moved away from LGF for that very reason.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
This is a bit like saying that only doctors ever commit medical malpractice. So fucking what? Are you so proud of having partially left the law that you now think that they way we're trained to argue is somehow worse than they way lay people do it, with their primitive grunts, clicks and whistles? Because if so, you're deluded, Monsieur Rousseau. Mr. Hobbes has the better half of the argument about the state of nature vis-à-vis the dialectic.

Can you link to the spark Notes you used to draft this?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
This is a bit like saying that only doctors ever commit medical malpractice. So fucking what? Are you so proud of having partially left the law that you now think that they way we're trained to argue is somehow worse than they way lay people do it, with their primitive grunts, clicks and whistles? Because if so, you're deluded, Monsieur Rousseau. Mr. Hobbes has the better half of the argument about the state of nature vis-à-vis the dialectic.

Nice analogy. If doctors intentionally committed malpractice I'd say you had a point.

Oh, and actually, I've fully left law. "Partial" doesn't exist on this board.

I'm not even dealing with your misrepresentation of my argument.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
after i kicked your ass so completely on this, well I just thought you's settle down.

What if the Titanic didn't sink-- it was 2 days late getting in. Then what? Sucess?

Honestly, you need to break away from whatever blog is poisoning your brain. I moved away from LGF for that very reason.

Good. You handle him. I'm tired. And our resident Dennis Miller seems to want my hide, so I have to go to the basement and break out "Philosophers and Highbrow Scribes for Dummies."

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
This is a bit like saying that only doctors ever commit medical malpractice. So fucking what? Are you so proud of having partially left the law that you now think that they way we're trained to argue is somehow worse than they way lay people do it, with their primitive grunts, clicks and whistles? Because if so, you're deluded, Monsieur Rousseau. Mr. Hobbes has the better half of the argument about the state of nature vis-à-vis the dialectic.

This is rich, by the way, considering my terminal cynicism. I guess I have to give you some props for that.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
What if the Titanic didn't sink-- it was 2 days late getting in. Then what? Sucess?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You were better off with the other picture. This sets you up for too easy a comeback.

[bling trade]

In Iran, a Moslem stoned his daughter to death because he suspected her of having a relationship with a man. The father did this on his own without prompting by legal authorities. As I told Sebbie, the majority of the Iranian and Iraqi population supports this type of punishment.

article

Below is a poster distributed in Nigeria, showing the various sharia punishments imposed: a woman is stoned to death for riding a bike with a man, a man is beheaded for being homosexual, a person's hand is cut off for stealing. At least the Mullah's give advance notice of the laws. The majority of the Nigerian population supports these punishments.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I think I've got the hang of your way of thinking now.

The Titanic's maiden voyage wasn't a failure -- the ship crossed a lot of the ocean. For that matter, the riveters did a successful job -- only some of their rivets popped when the ship hit the iceberg, and many of them are still intact on the ocean floor. George McGovern got millions of people to vote for him in '72 -- you've got to call that a partial success. The Battle of Midway was a partial success for the Japanese -- they sunk a carrier!

Damn. You nailed me there. I can't conceptually distinguish any of those things from the conflict in Iraq.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Damn. You nailed me there. I can't conceptually distinguish any of those things from the conflict in Iraq.

I see. Iraq demands a nuanced view which refuses to see failure, but you see the rest of the world normally.