Just don't tell this to the Kool Aid-imbibing liberal moonbats, who pounced on my 25-word entry. Let me be blunt: I really don't give a damn if they found that quick entry "insightful" or not, nor will I ascribe them any credibility when they can't even do me the courtesy to spell "Eidelblog" correctly. I wrote the entry in question at nearly 3 a.m. and was deliberately brief because I was headed for bed. I get up pretty early during the week because I have a serious job and do serious work. Someone has to perform earn all the tax dollars that liberals like to redistribute to themselves, right? I question how many of them generate any significant economic activity at all, besides using the power of government to spend other people's money.
Not particularly worth reading.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Do you even know the context in which I wrote that? No, you don't. Had you bothered to follow the link, you'd have seen the liberal idiocy that irritated me in the first place. But evidently you didn't really read my entry, so I'll just say "thank you" for the selective quotation. That's fine, I'm used to liberals doing it all the time.
Feel free to dispute the economics I presented there, or elsewhere. Major posts are listed on the side, and comments are open.
Posts: 3 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Ah. How many links must a casual visitor to your site read to find excuses for your tone and behavior, exactly?
If you're only a jerk out of context, I certainly apologize. It's a shame that context forces you to be a jerk.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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So by your own admission, you didn't even check the rest of my blog. You focused on one paragraph out of several, specifically one whose background you don't even know. Again, feel free to argue against the economics I presented...or is your style to make absurd generalizations about personality?
Of course, I could take the same approach as my original detractors, and just declare your "Not particularly worth reading" statement to be "not particularly enlightening."
Posts: 3 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Wow Perry, you're tone here is identical to that in your blog. You immediately jump to the defensive and attack everyone around you. Perhaps with a calmer, more understanding approach you, and your ideas, would be better recieved.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally blogged by Perry: I question how many of them generate any significant economic activity at all, besides using the power of government to spend other people's money.
Oh, that's rich, a conservative accusing liberals of no economic impact, other than taxing-and-spending. While President Bush and other soi-disant conservatives have balloned the national debt beyond all reason. I suppose corporate welfare (for example, the valentine to pharmaceutical companies known as the Medicaid prescrption benefit) and massive military spending increases get a free pass from the "spending other people's money" epiteth? Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Hmmm... gotta say that I don't think much of any writer who attacks their readers. You write it, you deal with the consequences, including the misinterpretations. If you think they're wrong, prove it by continued example. Write stuff that won't be taken out of context. Understand that every article must stand on its own and paraphrase the content of links if necessary to do that. Furthermore, the writer is, to a very great extent, responsible for how his/her writing is read. If it's not clear to readers, that *is* a failing of the writer. Sure, there will always be a lunatic fringe who misread everything, but if you're getting more than one person telling you the same thing, you have clearly failed to communicate your point.
Unless your only point is that you like to slap people around and blame liberals for being idiots. That did come across.
Posts: 700 | Registered: Feb 2000
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"So by your own admission, you didn't even check the rest of my blog."
No, actually, I admitted no such thing. Rather, I quite charmingly and politely neglected to challenge your assertion that anyone who had read further in your blog would recognize that you were in fact merely responding rudely in context, and instead chose to point out that rudeness in context -- especially when obtaining that context might require that a reader expose himself to several other incidents of similar rudeness, each within its own context -- is remarkably similar to rudeness taken out of context to the untrained eye.
What you are saying, in other words, is that a casual visitor to your blog would have to read a fair number of your articles in order to establish that your tone -- snarky, condescending, and insulting -- is presumably completely justified by the tone taken by your critics. Leaving aside the issue of whether it would be reasonable to expect this of a casual visitor, or whether the casual visitor is in fact far more likely to read just one of your rants and dismiss you as a frothing fruitcake, I would suggest the following -- as one writer and amateur pundit to another:
Any tone that requires context to be civil is an uncivil tone. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but don't try to pretend that you're just returning fire or giving as good as you get or anything else that attempts to excuse your lack of civility. Either way, you've chosen to be uncivil; that you feel your incivility is justified is just a personal rationalization for misbehavior. Again, be uncivil if you must -- but don't pretend to civility, or say "I'd be civil if other people weren't so mean to me."
No one else has the power to make you be rude.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Tom: How is "Your old friend is a bit of an ass." civil?
Tom read the blog and formed an opinion. What's wrong with that?
quote:Of course, I could take the same approach as my original detractors, and just declare your "Not particularly worth reading" statement to be "not particularly enlightening."
Mmmmm...regirgitated insults... :drools:
quote:This yet again proves how retarded Hatrack can be at times.
Yeah, it's funny how inteligent, well-researched, opinionated discussion can be "retarded."
Oh, and "retarded" is an extremely loaded and offensive term.
Posts: 1660 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Amanecer: you based your opinion on...one paragraph, evidently. Clearly you didn't even look around my blog, if at all. Nice try, though, thanks for playing.
* * *
Morbo: Morbo, I'm not a conservative. Had you actually looked at my blog with the least bit of scrutiny, you'd have seen the "When conservatives become socialists" entry. It explains why I, who once dislike them as much as liberals (perhaps more). I've consistent opposed Congress' profligate spending, including the ridiculous prescription drug bill.
It's been said that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. Then what do you call a conservative who's been mugged by his own "conservative" government? You'd probably call me a libertarian, but I dislike that term. Call me a Jeffersonian: I believe in limited government, and a moral people worthy of not needing government telling them what to do.
So that's strike one, I'm afraid. Second, the national debt is better measured by GDP. Which should be more worrisome, borrowing $2 if your annual income is $100, or $10 if your annual income is $300? Obviously the latter, because you need to look beyond raw numbers and actually compare the national debt to something. So that's strike two.
My question to you: where were all the liberals, especially Krugman, when Congressional spending under Democrat-controlled Congresses was an even higher percentage of GDP than it is today? Where were their cries of "fiscal responsibility"? http://cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0#table2
For God's sake, don't assume everyone's partisan.
* * *
OlavMah: clearly you didn't read my blog either, otherwise you'd have known I was "attacking" those who attacked my blog (and quite cowardly so, with no trackback nor sending me a link). Perhaps you're young and don't realize this, but it's flatly impossible to write or say something so it can't be taken out of context or misrepresented. If you want lessons, talk to Paul Krugman. He's the one who lied last September that "Bush simply shrugged" when a reporter asked the President about North Korea.
This is beyond the saying, "Take that as you will." Why should it be MY fault when someone distorts what I said?
"Sure, there will always be a lunatic fringe who misread everything" -- you realize that weakened your argument, don't you?
"but if you're getting more than one person telling you the same thing, you have clearly failed to communicate your point." By your own logic, they could simply be part of the "lunatic fringe," right? I presume you're talking about the "out of context" issue, not the economics I presented in the actual post.
"Unless your only point is that you like to slap people around and blame liberals for being idiots. That did come across." I don't mince words. Had you actually looked through my blog, you'd see posts listed all along the right side where I criticize both major parties.
* * *
Tom: try a little punctuation, particularly period, to avoid the sun-on sentences. That being said, you wrote this: "How many links must a casual visitor to your site read to find excuses for your tone and behavior, exactly?"
That tells me you didn't read the rest of the entry, let alone looked through my blog. Thanks for confirming your previous admission, though it wasn't necessary.
"rudeness in context...is remarkably similar to rudeness taken out of context to the untrained eye." Good lord, if that isn't another hilarious admission from you. You did, after all, apologize for not taking my "rudeness" out of context.
"What you are saying, in other words" Actually, I am saying no such thing. You can put words into my mouth, but I can't in yours? Well, thanks for demonstrating your hypocrisy.
"a casual visitor to your blog would have to read a fair number of your articles in order to establish that your tone -- snarky, condescending, and insulting -- is presumably completely justified by the tone taken by your critics." Once more, the link was right there for people to click. This IS the WWW, you know, so hyperlinks to put something in context are commonplace. Links within my entries open in new windows; if someone doesn't understand what I'm talking about when I provided all this, it's not my fault he's lazy.
"Leaving aside the issue of whether it would be reasonable to expect this of a casual visitor, or whether the casual visitor is in fact far more likely to read just one of your rants and dismiss you as a frothing fruitcake, I would suggest the following -- as one writer and amateur pundit to another:" Oh my, I'm a frothing fruitcake. Now, ahem, just who started the ad hominem? A casual reader of YOUR posts in this thread here wouldn't have to read much to see that your tone -- snarky, condescending, and insulting -- is completely unjustified by the tone taken by your critic.
"Any tone that requires context to be civil is an uncivil tone." I see now what your original error is: you think I intended to be civil. I never claimed that. I merely indicated that you'd have a better understanding of why I wrote that, had you bothered to follow the link.
"Again, be uncivil if you must -- but don't pretend to civility, or say 'I'd be civil if other people weren't so mean to me.' ... No one else has the power to make you be rude." You called me an "ass" and then demand civility from me. Once more, you're a hypocrite.
* * *
scottneb: try sticking to the issue, please. Nobody said anything's wrong with forming an opinion. My friend, whose identity I didn't even know until after my second response, simply pointed out that Tom was the first one to be uncivil.
If you think my insult was regurgitated, you clearly don't know why it was appropriate.
Finally, what "intelligent" or "well-researched" discussion have any of you been generating in this thread? Tom calls me an ass, yet with the exception of Morbo, all I've seen from "y'all" is a series of ad hominem attacks. And even Morbo has yet to address the economics I put forth in my blog entry.
Posts: 3 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote: For God's sake, don't assume everyone's partisan.
I don't think you're necessarily partisan. I think you're snide, biased, and opinionated.
quote: Tom: try a little punctuation, particularly period, to avoid the sun-on sentences.
You know, this happens often enough that I think we need a Davidson's Law up there with Godwin's:
Any post which attempts to criticize the grammar and/or spelling of a previous post will always contain at least one obvious typo or similar error.
That said, not one sentence in my entire post is technically a run-on. I recognize that they may be complicated and long, but they're all correctly punctuated.
quote: That tells me you didn't read the rest of the entry, let alone looked through my blog.
I'm afraid I have yet to see where I have conceded this point, much less given you this impression. I'm deliberately playing with you now, though, by not volunteering more information; I am, quite frankly, giving you more rope so that you can continue to hang yourself.
Please don't assume that just because I hold a negative opinion of your writing style I haven't been exposed to enough of your writing to form an opinion.
quote: I see now what your original error is: you think I intended to be civil. I never claimed that. I merely indicated that you'd have a better understanding of why I wrote that, had you bothered to follow the link.
I never said I thought you intended to be civil. Quite frankly, I was quite confident that it was not your intention to be civil, and felt it was cowardly of you to hide behind "Well, they were rude first" when quite clearly you were unashamed of your own incivility.
It is, in fact, precisely because I felt it was obvious that you were being deliberately uncivil that I called you an ass.
So far, you have not given me any reason to reconsider.
-------
Frankly, I couldn't care less about the economics in your blog entry. I could engage you in an interesting conversation on the topic, as I'm fairly familiar with the concepts involved and did in fact read a number of your posts, but I'm disinclined to do so with the kind of person who uses Freeper "moonbat" drivel and says things that boil down to "all liberals are stupid and worthless."
And I'm not even a fiscal liberal.
-------
If what you're seeking is productive conversation, perhaps you shouldn't indulge your nastier desires on the front page of your blog. This is a lesson I think more bloggers could stand to learn, actually.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I keep on wanting to make a post of something along the lines of 'Less Coulter, more....' And then I am stuck. I want to say George Will but even though he's pretty reasonable on television, his columns stoop to over-generalizing and a little mud-slinging. NRO has become more partisan,it seems to me.
Cato, Heritage, and most of the conservative think tanks are almost the only places left where you can get a good conservative opinion without having to hold your nose to do it.
Dear Bob, won't someone think of the children?
Edit: I don't want to turn this into a conservative versus liberal columnists debate again. I know there are plenty of mean liberals out there. I am genuinely asking if, outside of the think tanks, there are any conservative commentators who respect liberals or at least take a freaking break every once in a while from slamming them.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I think it amusing when libertarians use "liberal" like a cuss word. Cause, you know, libertarians don't hold any liberal beliefs.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Perry, speaking as someone who writes political essays all the time for school, believe me when I say that people will actually take you seriously if you leave out words like "moonbat" and also, if you write a response to a critic, don't say things like:
"nor will I ascribe them any credibility when they can't even do me the courtesy to spell "Eidelblog" correctly."
If you don't ascribe your critics any credibility for such a small thing as courtesy, you're unlikely to ascribe any credibility to their arguments. To which I ask you seriously: why the hell would you write a response to it in the first place? People aren't going to ascribe credibility to someone who barks at shadows, in fact, they may start to believe that those critics who you don't "ascribe credibility" to may have a bit of truth in their arguments.
Perry, you know as well as anyone who even has a passing interest in politics that power doesn't come from party-lines or making a lot of noise (be on TV or on forums) but it instead comes from those that listen to you. In this sense, you would do better to actually try to persuade those that oppose you, and let your words and beliefs become what they are, regardless of how people classify you.
Avoid preaching to the choir, trust me, it gets you nowhere.
Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Ammendum: (upon further inspection of blog)
Dude, I don't click on links in an essay. You want to persuade me, present and interpret the data yourself. Links detrack from your argument.
Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I'm afraid I have to side with Perry and Chreese on this one, in spite of how well-loved Tom is here. If there is a good reason to call someone an ass and a jerk because you don't like their writing style, I've yet to hear it.
It strikes me as being pretty rude to start a fight like this in a thread in which someone was just saying hello to a friend.
It makes me embarassed for hatrack, frankly.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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Perry, I'll take another swing at your blog later.
Annie and Epictetus, good points.
quote:Originally posted by Epictetus: Ammendum: (upon further inspection of blog)
Dude, I don't click on links in an essay. You want to persuade me, present and interpret the data yourself. Links detrack from your argument.
True to a point--if you cannot summarize what's on a link, it's probably just a distraction.
But often a summary is not enough, depending on how much material your essay/blog covers--if it covers a LOT, then links are essential to provide depth.
I think hyper-texted documents are inevitable in the future.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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*nod* Clicking on blog links is common enough that it's come to be expected, although it certainly shouldn't be required for comprehension.
quote: If there is a good reason to call someone an ass and a jerk because you don't like their writing style, I've yet to hear it.
It's not that I don't like his writing style. It's that he quite deliberately insulted -- repeatedly -- at least 30% of the population. And lest you say "Yeah, but his initial rudeness doesn't justify your rudeness," let me assure you that I had in fact anticipated -- even counted on -- that objection. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I don't want to be drawn into the discussion of whether someone is or is not an ass, or whether it was or was not appropriate to call someone an ass. But I will say that if I'm reading an essay, I'm not going to keep interrupting it to click on links and go read other stuff just so I can understand the essay. If the essay can't make me understand its points all on its own, it's not worth my time to read it at all.
This is another one of those pitfalls of the Internet, I think. We can link to other sites so that at the click of a mouse button, people can have even more sources of information right before their eyes. This is an amazing new achievement in the history of literacy, but the temptation to use that is too great sometimes. I have no problem with people providing links so I can, if I wish to, track your sources and see where you're coming from. But if I'm reading a book, and it contains a footnote referencing some other book, I'm not going to put the book down and go read that other book. I'm reading your book because I want to know what you have to say. Internet essays are no different.
Posts: 1814 | Registered: Jul 2004
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TL, good point. I don't want to tear into someone who was just saying hello.
About the links, what I mean is that a link with a brief summary is often a better way to go. As it is, linking to sites that support your argument with words like "this" in the middle of the sentence is, in my view, a major distraction. Also, if you don't present some form of argument yourself, it causes the peice to take on an entirely diffent tone, one that can cause the writer to appear less informed or unbiased than they actually are.
It also has to do with the fact that my intenet is really slow. Where I used to be able to have five or six windows open at a time without any problem, my parent's dial-up connection makes that very difficult. Posts: 681 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: Amanecer: you based your opinion on...one paragraph, evidently. Clearly you didn't even look around my blog, if at all. Nice try, though, thanks for playing.
I like how you automatically assume that everybody would see you completely differently if they only read your ENTIRE blog. If I find your tone offensive simply by glancing around at your blog, I'm definately not going to read the entire thing. That said, I did find a few things you said interesting. However the language that surrounded them was so lacking in understanding for others' beliefs, that I was turned off. I know that I would recieve your ideas better if your tone was more compassionate. Perhaps I'm not the audience that you hope to attract.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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