No, you are.

I just had an Adam Baldwin flashback. (Yes, that Adam Baldwin, from Firefly.)

An argument is any discussion were people put forth ideas and defend them. By you saying my analogy was flawed (and I admit it is not perfect) you are entering into an argument with me. There is no negative connotation to the word, ‘Argument’ in the logical sense.

By the way, we are now arguing about the definition of argument.

Huh? I wasn’t arguing about anything. I was asking a question to bring up a point for discussion.

We have our areas of disagreement, C, but lets not look for places to argue that aren’t there.

It is not an attack on his humanity, it is an attack on his intelligence.

Which, now that I think about it, is offensive to chimps.

Man, I learn new stuff here all the time.

Not because it sounds better, because it is the truth. Anyone can look back at our exchange and see you are lying. I’ve done everything I need to do to support my argument, and even gone the extra distance and said what evidence i would find acceptable.

And the fact that you are willing to continue the argument, but not present further evidence, is damning proof that you are unwilling or unable to be intellectually honest in this matter.

You know you’ve lose and when your post above was a clear admission of that.

Think that if you want. A more accurate reason would be that I don’t think you are being even remotely intellectually honest in this case, and that coupled with seeing your history here leads me to conclude that engaging you is a waste of time. I know I’m not the first person here to reach that conclusion. But you should go with the defeated explanation (and i’m sure you will) because hey it sounds better.

Sean: “You’ve changed multiple variables. The sex involved and the context.
What about a man slapping a man’s ass at the office…”

You realize you’ve gone from arguing about reality to arguing about my analogy, right?

Even if my analogy isn’t perfect, and no analogy is, it still shows that two events can be appropriate or inappropriate depending on the people and the context.

Back to reality…

In reality, there is a long history of racist people comparing black people to monkeys and apes in order to say they are merely animals. This is undeniable. Absolutely undeniable.

There is no comparable history when it comes to white people, especially white people calling white people monkeys and apes. … Which is strange since white people have more in common with monkeys and apes. We have the same skin colour (If you shave a ape, it’s pink, and angry. Never shave an ape.) and we have more body hair than black people, at least on average. But regardless, there is not a long history of anti-White racism that uses monkeys and apes as part of the imagery.

What? You mean Jay Tea was wrong? That can’t be.

No one who has read this thread will buy that excuse. I’ve posted evidence and examples. I have even posted the level of evidence I would find acceptable for you to prove your case.

The fact of the matter is, you know you are defeated and you are running away.

This is why I insult people. Because after doing the work to put forth my argument, they run away.

You would think he’d get the hang of it by now.

If we include the fact that McCain’s dad was a naval officer his entire life, that means McCain has not spent a single day of his 72 years on the planet off the public payroll

Well said.

I’m not.

You’ve changed multiple variables. The sex involved and the context.

What about a man slapping a man’s ass at the office, or a man slapping his female teammate’s ass after she hit a home run? Would the former not be odd even sexist in some way (an unwanted contact because someone expressed their desire inappropriately) and the latter be an accepted expression of camaraderie?

Oliver, this is how the thread went:

Oliver: I assert A.
Variety of commenters: What about B? Or C? Or D?
Oliver: I assert A.

Your claim that you save on words is just a weak way of rationalizing a way for you to avoid dealing with B or C or D. It’s a common theme for you, and it’s crap. You’ve done the same thing when you mischaracterize political opponents words - commenters point out the flaws in your claim, usually by pointing out the context, and your response is to ignore those arguments and say, “They said these words!” again. I have a hard time believing that you don’t understand this and you think its easier to just play dumb (which is probably true), but you concede arguments when you don’t address counter points. Sorry.

>Those are the same things. Conservatives desire a government so small it can’t really do much of anything. Then they either give an honest answer and say they don’t give a shit about those who would be left behind and screwed by such a government, or they bullshit about how private charity will pick up all the slack and the magical market will police business on its own.

I think you have a caricatured view of people who don’t share your views. (Which is probably human nature, to some extent.) I would agree with your claim that we need government to do long term expensive things that companies wouldn’t do. How else would we get an extensive system of roads? Electrical infrastructure out to rural areas? You keep repeating that like its a contentious thing. There are some things that only the government can reasonably do, and all but the most hardcore libertarians would agree with you. I would personally have two general problems with what you said above though:

1. You seem to have the attitude that you want a certain level of government, and you don’t care what it costs to get that. Would you be as enthusiastic if it required 50% tax rates to get it? 70%?
2. You don’t seem concerned with the tradeoffs inherent in any government program. Social programs that give money to people will encourage dependency on those programs, for example. Regulations can discourage investment. Bureaucracy can inhibit innovation. This isn’t to say that these things should never be done, but the impulse in politics is to make it seem like you can solve a problem by waving the magical government wand, and avoid dealing with the tradeoffs. And there are always tradeoffs. Sometimes the tradeoffs are worth the benefit. Sometimes they are not. All to often, the tradeoffs are never mentioned.

Thus is the nature of language and meaning, my friend.

I’m surprised you didn’t supply any links to support your claims about the Great Society. Do we put that down to malice or stupidity?

Of course, placing this passage is an easier call, I think:

Obama is about 25 years younger than McCain, and has spent his whole life on the public payroll. He’s been on the national stage for less than four years. McCain spent over 20 years in the military before going into politics, and he’s been in national politics for over 20 years. That’s a substantial differential in experience.

One look at Obama’s bio will tell you that from 1993 to 1996 he worked full-time as an associate attorney at a private law firm in Chicago. After 1996, when he was elected to the the Illinois Senate, he continued to work for the firm through 2000 on a part-time basis.

He has also worked as a part-time con law teacher at the University of Chicago Law School which is a private school.

So the statement that Obama has spent his entire life on the public payroll is just flat out wrong.

But while you applied the phrase “spent his whole life on the public payroll” to Obama incorrectly, you didn’t use the same phrase to describe McCain’s resume at all. I have to ask you why?

According to you, McCain spent 20 years in the military and then another 20 years as an elected official. Looking at McCain’s bio, he went straight from the US Naval Academy to the Navy in 1958. That was 50 years ago. So McCain has been on the public payroll himself for exactly 50 years, not 40 as your numbers imply. If we include the fact that McCain’s dad was a naval officer his entire life, that means McCain has not spent a single day of his 72 years on the planet off the public payroll.

Would you care to explain yourself?

Oh! So its no longer “do-nothing government”, its government that “should be uninvolved in as many cases as possible.” Apparently in Oliver-land they are the same thing. I would call them different things.
Those are the same things. Conservatives desire a government so small it can’t really do much of anything. Then they either give an honest answer and say they don’t give a shit about those who would be left behind and screwed by such a government, or they bullshit about how private charity will pick up all the slack and the magical market will police business on its own.

It’s not the size of government I care about. I want the right size government to get the job done. If it takes one bean counter, great. If it takes an entire office building filled with bean counters, so be it. I’m interested in a government that gets the functioning of a society done, not an idealogical exercise where we can giggle about the government getting smaller while ignoring its lack of response. We especially need government for long term expensive projects that corporations see no immediate upside to investing in. At the end of the day those same corporations tend to reap the benefits of government investment anyway. So be it.

Wow. So when I pointed out your argument was merely circular reasoning, you responded by… repeating your argument. It doesn’t get better the more you say it.

Seriously, I understood your argument the first time. It’s circular reasoning. You can’t argue calling Bush a monkey is racist because there’s a long history of racial attacks against white people by using the monkey insults against Bush as evidence. You need something more. Something that happened before Bush.

On the other hand, we have that evidence when it comes to the monkey insult with Obama. For a long, long time white supremacists argued that like monkeys, black people were somehow less evolved than white people. This is stupid on a number of levels, including the fact that there’s no such thing as less evolved. Scientifically that term as no meaning. But that’s another matter.

See, I can bring up independent evidence that shows the situation between Obama an Bush is different. This is indisputable, however, I sense that you will continue to dispute it. Am I correct.

“or just merely a stupid reason (you don’t like their politics.) Oh wait! I forgot, I’m talking to CS! You know all about the second reason, don’t you.”

And you are a liar as well. Congratulations. I don’t call people sub-human because I don’t like their politics. It takes more.

>And the person who determines whether the listener is off their rocker is the person who gave offense in the first place? Yeah, sure, makes sense …

I agree that doesn’t make sense, but what you seem to be leaning towards doesn’t make any more sense to me - that the arbiter of what is worthy of being offended by lies solely with the person who ‘received’ the offense. Deferring to someone to that extent only encourages them to expect and abuse that deference, as I have come to believe Oliver does. The rest of us have to screech at each other for a bit, talk it over, and work it out in some way that doesn’t require one person to become subservient to the whims of the other.