Lawrence-
<<Seems like any time someone has a point contrary to yours, you start calling them names, taking offense at slights not intended but imagined, and THEN, crying fouls as to their rhetorical conduct.>>
Would it be expecting too much from you to cite where I have started calling people names? I don't believe I've done that [exempt, if you will, my comment to Tomasso, as while I believe the essential correctness of my claim about him, the antecedents were not on this thread]. I deal much more in the realm of ideas. And if you can't back up your claim, I'll simply state that you don't let accuracy stand in the way of a good smear job. That would qualify you as being a vicious little hatchet man in my book: Tailgunner Joe couldn't have done better.
I note you have a bit of a history of attributing comments to me that I simply have not made. Just for a little refresher. You post 8278 to me contained the following disinformation concerning what I allegedly said: "your contention that personal prosperity is unlinked to personal freedom is absurd and unsupported by history." Well after repeated goading on the subject, you indicated I had not made that claim (post 8333) and went on as follows:
and in its place, submit the following "Your contention that "The "progess" in China in recent years has been material, not in terms of human rights." is absurd and unsupported by history.">>
Of course, after calling my claim absurd, you failed to note why it was absurd. Perhaps you could have the intellectual integrity to trace the improvement in political/human rights in China in the past decade or so and so prove me wrong. Instead, your method of argumentation seems to be to hurl insults, and not deal with the underlying idea. Kindly don't refer to economic rights, an area in which I have indicated China has made significant improvement. But the essence of humanity is not to live by bread alone.
You post 8333 continued in the following scholarly vein:
<<For me, personal prosperity and material progress are synonymous, as are personal freedom and human rights. I'm sorry you consider my paraphrase a smear.>>
I don't what prompted that first sentence. You seem to be drawing attention to a virtually self-evident truism. It certainly was not in any meaningful sense a response to anything I posted. But your second sentence was a cheap little self-justification. You didn't paraphrase something I said- you attributed to me an idea that I had never enunciated, in an effort to make me look ridiculous. Is that the kind of disputation that passes muster at Harvard?? If you think so, I'll be happy to pass on some of your comments to your major professor if you provide me his or her name.
But back to your most recent post to me:
<<I'm a big fan of most of the participants on this board. Not one of which you haven't already insulted.>>
I don't believe I engage in gratuitous insults. I have made harsh comments about people and their ideas on SI. But I generally say why I think their ideas are deficient. You, on the other hand, don't bother with such niceties- merely calling an idea "absurd" or "twaddle" appears to suffice, in your mind, to refute it. Pretty pathetic for a Harvard grad student! Moreover, where have I said even anything remotely personally critical about folks with whom I've corresponded on this thread like Bosco or Stitch? Or is this simply another in a series of false witness you have made against me???
Larry |
