"Would it really have changed your reaction that much if I said "the websites argument" instead of "your argument" but otherwise my posts where unchanged?"
Yes, it would have. It would have changed everything. It would have indicated that I was not having expectations forced upon me to defend statistics randomly selected to support an argument that YOU wanted to talk about.
"All my response where to the text of your posts, even if it was quoted info from that link. I didn't go over to the link and argue against statements that where made there that where not in your posts.
I made an argument about not favouring the death penalty because I was convinced that many innocent people had been framed or mistakenly killed throughout history in the name of justice. As I see life as the luckiest of all lotteries, and as any possible after life would not be any of us, but rather someone or something else--I therefore view such an injustice as the ultimate tragedy regardless of the degree of risk.
Surely it might have been clear to you that such an argument does not require any defense of child age limits or the like. I don't care what age you kill the kid at. I don't care if he is 8, 10, 18, or 39. I am against it. I don't care what their IQ is. I don't care if it is 50, 100, or 150. I am against it. I don't care what the statistics are, across 40 rows and columns from California to Kuwait. I am against it. So when you started implying by remark and tone that I ought for some reason to mount a defense, against some argument or opinion which you took gratuitous occasion to insinuate was a weakness in my argument, I naturally felt insulted.
I am against the death penalty. There is no weakness in an argument based on personal principle.
So again, the statistics on those sites were not MY conclusions or arguments; nor as far as I know were they the conclusions or arguments of anyone else. If memory serves me they were a bunch of statistics.
Again, none of the statistics on death penalties inform any part of my argument except the regrettable statistics and reports which indicate how people have either slipped or been forced through the cracks by incompetent or ruthless people.
I don't think my questioning of those points. Esp. questions like "what do they mean by children" where irrelevant or otherwise unimportant to the conversation
They were relevant and unimportant, Tim, because you were couching them in a tone and context which imputed that some position of mine was at stake, and required to be defended. As I have explained: this was not the case. It was this imposition which I found both insulting and deceptive.
So, if you had simply wished to discuss something about children, I would have been happy to offer my opinions. But you were not asking for an opinion; you were demanding a defence. Two very different matters.
I do not have either the time, the energy, or the patience to defend websites or statistics which do not inform any arguments which I have made.
I would be happy to share or discuss my opinions on any subject, and even to develop arguments around them; but I will not humour the pretense that my principles either stand or fall in accordance with some website stat which is not relevent to my argument--particularly as the insinuation was introduced gratuitously and impertinently.
if you wish to consider them tiresome that is of course your prerogative.
I considered them tiresome because they pretended to challenge my argument rather than to solicit my opinion. |
