Speakers Corner summarized

[livendive 8]

In my opinion, the assertion in this editorial is applicable to the vast majority of discussions in Speakers Corner. The inability to make a cogent argument has become pretty pervasive in our society, and even moreso when the subject is of a political or religious nature.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2011132171_pitts21.html?prmid=obinsite

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Don't confuse them with facts
To listen to talk radio, to watch TV pundits, to read a newspaper's online message board, is to realize that increasingly, we are a people estranged from critical thinking, divorced from logic, alienated from even objective truth.

Syndicated columnist

I got an e-mail the other day that depressed me.

It concerned a piece I recently did that mentioned Henry Johnson, who was awarded the French Croix de Guerre in World War I for single-handedly fighting off a company of Germans (some accounts say there were 14, some say almost 30, the ones I find most authoritative say there were about two dozen) who threatened to overrun his post.

Johnson managed this despite the fact that he was only 5-foot-4 and 130 pounds, despite the fact that his gun had jammed, despite the fact that he was wounded 21 times.

My mention of Johnson's heroics drew a rebuke from a fellow named Ken Thompson, which I quote verbatim and in its entirety:

"Hate to tell you that blacks were not allowed into combat intell (sic) 1947, that fact. World War II ended in 1945. So all that feel good, one black man killing two dozen Nazi, is just that, PC bull."

In response, my assistant, Judi Smith, sent Mr. Thompson proof of Johnson's heroics: a link to his page on the Web site of Arlington National Cemetery. She thought this settled the matter.

Thompson's reply? "There is no race on headstones and they didn't come up with the story in tell (sic) 2002."

Judi: "I guess you can choose to believe Arlington National Cemetery or not."

Thompson: "It is what it is, you don't believe either ... "

At this point, Judi forwarded me their correspondence, along with a despairing note. She is probably somewhere drinking right now.

You see, like me, she can remember a time when facts settled arguments. This is back before everything became a partisan shouting match, back before it was permissible to ignore or deride as "biased" anything that didn't support your worldview.

If you and I had an argument and I produced facts from an authoritative source to back me up, you couldn't just blow that off. You might try to undermine my facts, might counter with facts of your own, but you couldn't just pretend my facts had no weight or meaning.

But that's the intellectual state of the union these days, as evidenced by all the people who still don't believe the president was born in Hawaii or that the planet is warming. And by Mr. Thompson, who doesn't believe Henry Johnson did what he did.

I could send him more proof, I suppose. Johnson is lauded in history books ("Before the Mayflower" by Lerone Bennett Jr., "The Dictionary of American Negro Biography" by Rayford Logan and Michael Winston) and in contemporaneous accounts (The Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times). I could also point out that blacks have fought in every war in American history, though before Harry Truman desegregated the military in 1948, they did so in Jim Crow units. Also, there were no Nazis in World War I.

But those are "facts," and the whole point here is that facts no longer mean what they once did. I suppose I could also ignore him. But you see, Ken Thompson is not just some isolated eccentric. No, he is the Zeitgeist personified.

To listen to talk radio, to watch TV pundits, to read a newspaper's online message board, is to realize that increasingly, we are a people estranged from critical thinking, divorced from logic, alienated from even objective truth. We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voices that do not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe.

I submit that any people thus handicapped sow the seeds of their own decline; they respond to the world as they wish it were rather to the world as it is. That's the story of the Iraq war.

But objective reality does not change because you refuse to accept it. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge a wall does not change the fact that it's a wall.

And you shouldn't have to hit it to find that out.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: lpitts@miamiherald.com

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[kallend 2,151]

The rules of Speakers' Corner prevent complete imbeciles from being told that they are indeed imbeciles.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[captain1976 0]

Proof? What credibility does Arlington Cemetery or for that matter any branch or department of the US Government have?

The school books are full of lies and deception. Anything in history that may be offensive to others is eliminated and twisted to a politicaly correct agenda.

Even the words on the Thomas Jefferson Memorial were not written by him, they were written by someone who thought what he might want to convey.

Ever hear of the Lincoln Plan? I did because I read it. President Lincoln enacted legislation to send all of the former slaves back to Africa. Why? Because his personal transcripts and signed statements divulge that he “did not” believe in their equality and wanted them out of America. You won't see this shit in the school books.

Deception and fraud are everywhere, especially in the junk science associated with so-called global warming.

I can deal with the truth, not the lies and deception orchestrated by the left. I learned to do my own research before anyone ever heard of the internet.

You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime

[livendive 8]

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Proof? What credibility does Arlington Cemetery or for that matter any branch or department of the US Government have?

I thought the appeal to authority was an ironic oversight, but he later clarifies a bit by citing multiple credible sources that substantiate the claim. When discussing historical "fact", the only "proofs" one can provide are reference sources, and to counter these one must prove a logical impossibility, discredit the references, and/or provide a bigger, more credible body of references. I cannot personally prove that the Holocaust happened, but I find the historical references indicating it did far more convincing than the arguments of the naysayers.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[kelpdiver 2]

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The rules of Speakers' Corner prevent complete imbeciles from being told that they are indeed imbeciles.

Assholes too.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

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In my opinion, the assertion in this editorial is applicable to the vast majority of discussions in Speakers Corner. The inability to make a cogent argument has become pretty pervasive in our society, and even moreso when the subject is of a political or religious nature...

...Blues,
Dave

I didn't quote the whole thing, but yeah, it's pretty typical. The argument against consists pretty much of "No, it isn't" and "your sources suck, but I'm not going to quote any of my own, I just don't like yours".

Example 1

Example 2

I enjoy a decent debate, as long as it stays reasonable. That's why I bail on threads as soon as certain postwhores jump in because I know it's going to turn into one of the above YouTube videos.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[Andy9o8 2]

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The rules of Speakers' Corner prevent complete imbeciles from being told that they are indeed imbeciles.

It's not "prevention"; it's more "a challenge".

[Andy9o8 2]

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Proof? What credibility does Arlington Cemetery or for that matter any branch or department of the US Government have?

The school books are full of lies and deception. Anything in history that may be offensive to others is eliminated and twisted to a politicaly correct agenda.

Even the words on the Thomas Jefferson Memorial were not written by him, they were written by someone who thought what he might want to convey.

Ever hear of the Lincoln Plan? I did because I read it. President Lincoln enacted legislation to send all of the former slaves back to Africa. Why? Because his personal transcripts and signed statements divulge that he “did not” believe in their equality and wanted them out of America. You won't see this shit in the school books.

Deception and fraud are everywhere, especially in the junk science associated with so-called global warming.

I can deal with the truth, not the lies and deception orchestrated by the left. I learned to do my own research before anyone ever heard of the internet.

I understand why numbingly-stupid mouth-breathers bash liberals just for the sake of getting in a gratuitous bash: it's the best they have to offer. But I never quite understand why intelligent, articulate conservatives (like yourself) sometimes find the need to do that.

You were doing fine, and I agreed with your post, until it devolved into the cheap shot against liberals.

You're right about the intellectually dishonest sanitization of history books, as well as the abuse of junk science to promote political agendas. For years, racist Southerners, including many academicians, would viciously attack historians who suggested that Thomas Jefferson had sex with slaves, and fathered children with them. Yet DNA evidence has since pretty much established the truth of that. Eisenhower's WWII affair with Kay Summersby was sanitized for quite some time, too. And there is a saturation of junk science abounding in support of creationism in the guise of "intelligent design", and in supposed refutation of the knowledge of evolution.

Anyone who thinks that sanitizing history books in the name of political correctness, and/or the use of junk science to promote and agenda, is more predominant with "the left" than with "the right" is either grossly ill-informed or just intellectually dishonest.

P.S. - check out some of the hits on this Google of the phrase "Texas School Book Controversy":

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=texas+school+book+controversy&aq=4sx&aqi=g-sx3g1g-sx1g1g-sx1g1g-sx2&aql=f&oq=texas+schoolbook&fp=c26c79a56c95bda8