Hey now, no need to call a truce - we're just talking here, aren't we?
Well, for a person that takes pretty serious offense to not being understood properly, I'd just think that it's in your own best interest to try and be as easy to understand as possible. That way you avoid these terribly frustrating encounters with guys like me . . .
I always just thought it was easier to take a post written as a solid format, similar to an article. I don't really write in the mindset of dividing my points or ideas, I just include the quotes as a point of refernce when responding to avoid being totally archane with my comments. It doesn't distract in other form of media I consume, so I suppose I never thought it was necessary for an internet forum I see where you're coming from though, hence the quoting from now on.
For this, I'd just like to say that once again, as a person that takes fairly serious offense at not being read properly, don't you find it just a little bit interesting that you're so eager to tell me that you were planning on completly ignoring the bulk of my comments but then comment profusly?
It is of course your complete right to do so, but honestly, you wouldn't take offense at, say, me stating that "well, I had planned on just ignoring whatever you had to say because it's not worth the trouble, but then there's this . . . " Trust me, my feelings aren't hurt, but don't scold a guy for not grasping your 'complexity' when you're up front with the fact that you don't feel you can even really be bothered with my replies in the first place. Technically I shouldn't feel guilty about not understanding your comments or not properly following any of your numerous orders since you've basically let me know you barely took a moment with what I wrote.
Indeed, 'win' is properly in quotes. I hope you're not taking this as a win/lose enterprise. So far as I'm concerned the only way to win here is to properly understand and appreciate one another's perspective.
I must beg to differ here. I was happily under the impression that a few of us were just spouting off about Ron Paul, editorial jurisdiction in the media, and the value of civic engagement, when you changed the tone and addressed my posting on a much different level. You percieved some slights coming from me and addressed them on the forum - maybe I'm misinterpreting what you mean by originator in this case, and if so ignore the above, but I'd say you're fairly obviously the 'orginator.'
All is always forgiven, but don't blame me if I gloss anything over or ASS-U-ME some points, as you've already made it clear that you had no intention of reading what I replied, despite your numerous responses. You can't get pissed if can't accurately figure out what you've read and haven't read.
Again with the effectiveness? I'll comment on this more further along as I noticed that you mention it again in a later post, but what gives? How is an exchange between you and me, which is largely about how you don't like the way in which I take your posts, more effective elsewhere? You keep alluding to this idea that nothing said here is worthwhile. If that's truly your opinion, then I stronngly suggest you don't trouble yourself with it. Otherwise, I'll go on record as saying this place is as effective as any other for you to explain your problems with my commentary.
Not oxymoronic, just an inaccurate description. The parties can't be hamperingly polarized into uselessness yet so ideologically similar as to be worthless in choosing between. To even state that each party is exactly one dead-set system of values is wrong - each represents an array of different views and neither strictly enforces policy on their members. They're organizational tools that must carry a "big tent" approach due to the characteristics of our democracy. You like Ron Paul's politics, and he's a Republican candidate, yet far from the party norm. Essentially, the 'two sides of the same coin' thing is a very, very simplified way of dismissing the party system as it stands.
Wait just a second - you can't have reasonably expected to take me to task for all my "bullshit," including my "labeling," "framing," and "spewing" of opinions, and not have expected a mega-loqacous guy like myself to respond. Two to tango and all that. I'm not going to take the blame on this one - you may not have wanted it, but I can't feel too sorry for you for not anticipating that I'd reply to your comments then you making the choice to continue replying.
You're an optomist eh? Please don't count on me for any positive things, too much pressure. Is that really why you were skimming? Better than totalling ignoring I suppose, which was the original intention.
It seems I was wrong, and so I do apologize. I may have been projecting my own sensibilities when I took your dozen or so apologies for my lack of comprehension as a means of pointing out my general thickness of skull. To be honest, I still get an inkling of that impression after having another look at the post, but believe when you say that's not the case. I have clearly perpetrated one of my legenday ASS-U-ME moments.
I meant the above refernced comment much more in the figurative sense, as in I didn't understand your motives our source of outrage. Once again, a prime example of talking right past each other. I thought it was pretty clear in its context, but I see not that you're a pretty literal person and took it to mean that I really couldn't comprehend the several paragraphs you had written. I'll take care not to mislead you in the future. For the record, I'm pretty sure I got your gist, for the most part, at least partially, more or less.
I won't tell you what to do, but I will 'suggest' that getting mad over this probably isn't worth the blood pressure.
Problematic for you . . . interesting for me, who knows for anybody else. Not with a wink, but I don't seem to have this deeply ingrained communicational handicap with anybody else.
I'm just including this as a prime example of what I mean when I say some of your comments are very difficult to follow. This statement is heavy on accusations, heavy on references, heavy on topic shifts, but very light on coherence. I'm doing my best, but really, how should I respond, internally or written, to this sort of comment?
To me, that's a more 'verbose' smattering of words and ideas than fifty clearly phrased and organized paragraphs. I'm generally not a very ordered person, but that passage runs the threshhold of chaos.
Well then, I'll have to extend my own demands this time around and ask that you follow your own rules. For example, if a person were to, oh, I don't know, never specifically call another person a conspiracy theorist, and yet find themselves bitterly acosted for "labeling" and "framing" somebody else as a "kooky" conspiracy advocate, I would expect that the upset party in question would recognize thay they were seriously overreacting to comments that weren't even directed towards them. Just a thought.
As we've been over, I casually used the second-person plural ("you guys" being my gentrified version of y'all I guess) when addressing Reber's use of a link, which contained the word 'conspiracy' in it. Never were you called a conspiracy theorist nor did I intentionally attempt to associate your opinions about Ron Paul with an organized conspiracy. Hey, they're your rules.
As I recall, and my recall is poor but we can always look it up, my error in that case was that I suck at math and incorrectly translated the metric and royal measurements by trying to compare them from the stats he listed. That was a math mistake, not reading comprehension, and I gladly apologized for my screw-up when it was pointed out.
Suggesting that this is indicative of some larger problem with my ability to understand others is pretty sili. It's similar to my auto insurance company refusing to cover for an accident because they happen to know that I once ran over a flagstone in my yard while mowing the grass and screwed up the blade on my John Deer, thus demonstrating that I have a crappy record operating motor vehicles. The incidents are only very superficially connected and don't properly inform on one another.
I am, however, flattered that you remembered my post.
Data? Huh?
Geez guy, are you building a RICO case against me here or something? I'll leave it up to anybody that happens accross this mess to decide whether I have some chronic problem with being able to understand the intentions of others (in psychological circles they call this autism).
But, let's not pretend that you pointing out your anger over the content of my posts is some kind of public service for me or my potential conversants better get along. As I mentioned, you're about the only guy that seems to have a profound difficulty with my communication skills. Well, you and my girlfriend, but with her it's intentional.
Ha, Didn't try very hard I see . . . sorry, too rich to resist. If I'm bullshit, then man, you're just a hungry fly.
Ah-Ha! Total lack of close reading or true understanding of my comment, and posibly a bigtime ASS-U-ME statement. I am pissed dude dammit!
As always, kidding, but that's not what I said. Do you really think that I would call Tom Delay a good and honest person. Listen, I may be a little dense and a serial assumer, but I did a pretty good stretch around Washinton, and I promise that sucks all the glorious naivety right out of a person. I said most politicians are very good and decent people, not all. Thinking that all politicians are good would be naive, but that's not what I said.
Now, during my brief jaunt around the lobbying world, I was nicely compensated to love politicians no matter what their personal character and professional habits were, which may have caused some residiual confusion, but I'm pretty sure that a decade of direct exposure to federal politics didn't leave me in a completely misinformed state of mind. I guess it would be either playing my hand or once again flexing my ego to say that members of my family are also in politics and that I grew up around some federal politicans and high level political workers, but then again I could also be letting you know that I've had more exposure to these people than web forums and cable news.
I would reluctantly suggest that a person believing that Ron Paul getting to debate the other candidates on national TV will somehow seriously change the political values of the country is a tad bit naive, but that would be getting back to the original thread topic, which is dead and gone at this point.
I'm an apologist. The nature of elective politics in this country necessitates bullshit. The greeks did it too, and they invented this stuff. Palm-greasing, flip-flopping, and log-rolling are just facts of life in elective government.
Mm, you didn't let it go before I even had a chance to let it go, so I don't feel bad in not letting it go either, since you didn't and it was your thing to begin with, er, wait . . . nevermind.
Sorry. Try to empathize - when you live in a world built on assumptions it's easy read too much into statements.
I guess all my little stabs at sarcastic humor were lost on the audience, or this was a case where you didn't read the post (by your own admission). To be brief, I acknowledged most of your protests against assumption in a pretty flippant way, meaning that while I do understand your grievance, I don't agree with its validity. Judging by your posts, you feel that damn near every word I write is predicated by a serious and patently false assumption. I may be wrong on many counts, but not everything I have said or offered an opinion on has been built around a flase assumption. That's just a very easy way to dismiss any of my rebuttals or points without actually addressing them. Sheesh.
I'm not sure I'd classify this as an argument so much as a good old-fashioned bitchfest, on either side. I feel like an argument has a specific topic, where as this seems to be me defending against the multiplicity of problems you have with my posts.
And so far as wanting to argue, let's have a look at that. I reply with my comments, hence a willingness to procede in the conversation (argument, as you like it), and yet you do the same, also indicating your willingness to participate. Unless you can prove to me that somebody has a gun yo your head and is forcing you to read this stuff and respond, you're just as much in the fray as I am.
I'd love to be able to take all the blame for your actions, but I'm really trying to get into the whole Ron Paul/libertarian/personal respsonbility frame of mind, so I can't offer up my services today, with regrets.
By the way, if somebody really does have a fun to your head, just type an asteriks and I'll send for help . . .
Not at all. Like I said before, this doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm not terribly closer to figuring out exactly why you're so pissed about, although I'm quite sure it involves assumptions, not taking you literally, 'erring' on numerous accounts, writing way too much, and several other related issues. I do seem to have been acquitted of character assasinating and framing though, which is a very positive development.
Uh, thanks.
I was just using them to demonstrate a point and to try and place my comments in context, since your complaints ran all the way back to my very first posting. Now you're just getting mad about crazy stuff . . . and also, you mentioned my comments from a different thread entirely. Pot and kettle my friend . . . And really, we're free-thinking men, let's not constrict our ideas of progression to simple linear allignment. For shame.
Man, I like you, but I couldn't decide whether to consider this comment 'batshit crazy' or 'bugfuck crazy.' In the end, I thought I should just say something nice, and so, it sure doesn't lack for extravagent and nicely alternated punctuation. That's a compliment, so you can't accuse me of 'framing.'
Um, remember what I've been saying about being a little hard to follow? I will say though, you telegraph anger from the written word in a pretty effective manner. It's like I'm posting back and forth with Sam Kinison.
This reminds me of a William Burroughs book. There are revolving themes and repeated motifs, but in a totally random and intentionally disorienting presentation. Too much loquaciousness (you can still say verbose - I like loquacious but it wouldn't hurt to change it up a little every now and then), quoting of older posts, continual and astounding frequency of errors, more assumptions, compounding of these problems, by, uhh, compounding them - really, I think we'd be better off with you just giving me an itemized list. You can leave the caps lock off for that.
I guess you missed my jokes about nausea and redundancy in the post - they playful humor was supposed to defuse your impending volcanic anger at the post and cause you take a step back before seriously considering the content. PenilePersist, how I have failed you.
Damn you're a bossy guy. I have nothing to mention about this except to say that your insisted chronological sequencing is taking on Kurt Vonnegut levels of sophistication. I'm taking it as surreal, avante garde humor. I get it, really, I think.
Ah, now here's something substantive.
You missed my entire purpose from the very beginning. Firstly, I understand that you understand democratic theory and the inherent value of any political discourse.
What you have entirely missed, was that my point in explaining why it's valuable was simply my way of stating that I didn't care that the conversation was marginal, didn't effect anybody, didn't make a difference, didn't have a proper forum, and that nobody gives a shit.
The point you failed to take in, despite my restatements, was that I found value in the conversation, and that, of course, as you say you understand, any political discussion is worthwhile as the interaction of individuals is the building block of a civic culture. Hence, our little discussion, held value and I found it useful in this sense.
The point that I repeated, that has so profoundly enraged you, was meant to counter your point that it was marginal and non-important. Democratic theory states otherwise. If nobody has these conversations, there is no civic culture.
I hate to break it to you, but you inability to take my comments as a my reply to your insistence that it was somehow 'a waste of time' to even discuss the issue, is what facilitated your anger and frustration this entire time. Even now you seem to fail to connect that I repeated my belief in the value of insignificant conversation only in reaction to your repeatedly stating that it was not worthwhile because of the forum and that it wasn't really worth participating in. The only difference is that I wasn't very, very upset by your failure to grasp my meaning.
See above. Just because Reber can't vote for Ron Paul, a discussion of media politics and libertarian values is useless? Talking about Ron Paul is only usefull if it chaulks up to votes for the guy? Okaaay . . . Of course it's insignificant in the grand scheme, but guess what? If nobody has 'insignificant' conversations about politics, then there is no such thing as democratic involvement and civic culture. Once again, you're adament about the fact that you get my point on this, but ya sure don't act like it.
I won't resort to the all caps 'shout' method, but try to follow: I don't care, and never did care, if us bullshitting about Ron Paul was an important converstaion that made a difference - I only defended it on the grounds that any conversation about matters of public interest has at least a theoretical value. You say you agree, yet you protest having the conversation in the first place on the grounds that it's not 'doing anything.' Bit of a contradiction I'd say.
More of the same. As I said - I take your points:
1. You understand the nature of civic culture
2. You contend that this does not alter your belief that it's a waste of time to discuss these issues on a small forum such as this because it does not have tangible political results
My point: This is a contradcition. Civic culture doesn't exist without the insignificant discussions and even a discussion that effects nothing serves a theoretical good - pretty simple eh? You never bothered to examine why I might have repeated myself, only grew very pissed that I had done so. Not really worth all the fuss was it? Well, I hope not anyway.
I'm starting to recall Full Metal Jacket with all the shouting and orders floating around here . . .
Just to be a stickler, you have bitched me out for being loquacious.
I see. Well, considering my last post in response to you, the one that prompted all your responses, was mainly just screwing around and having a laugh at some of you eccentricities, I fail to see how I committed these errors all over again, but I don't think I'm being snide when I say that you may be the only one that really understands exactly what is perturbing you so badly.
I do hope my mega-post will clear up some your lingering concerns or at least release some of your tension, although I don't have a great track record so far.
Just in the interests of disclosure, I did not write this all at once and I certainly apologize in advance if this continues to to cause you the mental stress that I'm detecting slight notes of in your posts. As always, my best, and don't take it to heart. I'll freely admit that I wrote a good chunk of this while sitting around waiting for a fax, so you can chaulk much of my flippancy up to annoyance at having to miss a few hours of sleep waiting from some yahoo to send me a document.
