@ghug, you see why I made my one post and then didn't bother replying. He likes arguing so much that he'll ignore any argument you make that could possibly end the conversation. It's just a different form of trolling. I'd stop before you waste too much of your life, he's gone 4+ hours debating with abge before. They ended 100% on a different topic then they started on with each of semck's posts intending to drag on the "debate".

I know. Semck and I debate a lot. It's fun when I'm in a good mood, but I'm kind of sick of it here.

""You know you do this, there's really no point in denying it."

I do deny it, and frankly, this whole thing is really surreal. You're just suddenly jumping on me for some claimed huge pattern in ALL my arguing on this forum, with no evidence (not even this thread, as I've shown, and as any reader may go back and check).

When I argue, I address the point that I consider most important or interesting. Other people may consider other points more interesting. I've had enough fascinating conversations on webdip to believe that, often, other smart people agree with me about what was interesting in the first place.

But as I say, if you don't, great -- don't respond! Nobody is impelling you to respond to anything I say that you consider unimportant. What I don't understand is this bizarre attack out of left field that I "always" ignore almost all of somebody's points.

Wow, I guess you haven't been around when I was being criticized for writing multi-thousand-word posts because I won't let any point go unaddressed.

"You thrive on bringing the scope of an argument down and then beating people down with your argumentative skills. All it does is make you feel good about "winning," which is not really the point of debates such as these."

I thrive on no such thing. I address whatever points I consider interesting in a particular case, and I consider that if somebody saw fit to make a point, then they will consider it sufficiently important to keep discussing. I think it is EXTREMELY odd to take the position that any post author should consider anything he said so unimportant that it is somehow offensive of me to bring it up.

The only case I can really think of is that SOMETIMES I will address only a particular point I consider fallacious or wrong, instead of jumping on every point somebody made. I do this because it is the point that I consider fallacious. There is no rule that says that I have to disagree with everything somebody says; nor is there any rule that says that, if somebody makes logical errors, and also makes points that I disagree with for reasons of broad philosophy, I have to get into a discussion of the latter in order to address the former.

Moreover, I do not choose the points to respond to because it makes me "feel good about winning." I chose them because I consider them both important easily corrigible. If you consider them unimportant, feel free to ignore.

Parenthetically, I say this is the only thing I can think of, but it's not something that applied in this thread. In this thread, I addressed every important point made by anybody I responded to, and I addressed it on the core substance.

Anyway, at least now you're admitting that I addressed all jmo's points, but you're denying I addressed them "the right way," so that counts as some kind of evasive arguing technique. This is really surreal. Obviously, I have seriously irked you somehow. Whatever it is, it's not by failing to respond to points on this thread, that's for sure. Anybody who can read can read my above posts and see that I did, indeed address the points each person was making.

Frankly, the MAIN point I wanted to make to you was that you were wrong in denying the relevancy of Tolstoy's central claim. The school thing was, for me, a divertissement, a little extra fun because you'd made such a silly claim. It may have ended up being more words, but it is you who are focusing obsessively on one point to the exclusion of the rest. Sorry. That's just how it is.

"Thanks for actually making an argument on this one, but you're still wrong. The anti-gun crowd is taking a problem that is directly leading to deaths, creating an agenda behind it, and trying to fix it, using those deaths to further it, whereas Tolstoy here is taking a tragedy, finding a way to connect it to his political agenda, and using it to advance that agenda. Do you not see the difference?"

This is question-begging, and it's why your argument doesn't work. Anybody in favor of gun control will believe that lack of gun control is leading directly to deaths, but opponents will disagree. Similarly, any strong libertarian will believe that a strong government is leading directly to deaths, and opponents will disagree. So both of them are using news stories that they believe clearly support their (morally important) positions, while their opponents believe that the stories don't, and that the connection to the political agenda is forced. There is complete symmetry here.

I'm not going to continue in the absurd discussion over whether my debating style, across all webdip conversations, offends you. If I really argue in such a self-evidently deficient manner, then you should just rejoice and kick my butt by re-emphasizing the important points that I allegedly refuse to address. What you're doing now, on the other hand, is just whining like a little kid because you don't like how I (apparently) win arguments.

At the risk of derailing a solid derailment, I would like to comment on the post I made earlier that a couple people replied to. I have seen pro government types here, and certainly a lot of radical types. But I can't think of anyone who I'd consider a pro government radical. The radicals are usually the anti govt ones, and the pro govt are usually not that radical.

Ok there ... Now back to arguing about arguing styles ;-)

@jmo,

"I'd stop before you waste too much of your life, he's gone 4+ hours debating with abge before. They ended 100% on a different topic then they started on with each of semck's posts intending to drag on the "debate".

What conversation? Link or topic, or it didn't happen.

Well, I'm pro-government, but with a little more limitation and public oversight than we have now and a lot less interference than the government does at present. In this particular case, the evidence (the cameras) should not have been collected on the scene, but with court ordered subpoenas. The witnesses names should have been taken and them informed *not* to erase any recordings they had made. Then a order should have been issued to collect the evidence using IA officers specifically because officers were involved in the incident (no, I won't call it a killing, I will call it a death under questionable circumstances). If it had been a drive by, then the subpoenas would still have been required, but the evidence could have been collected by any officer. But that is just my view on how evidence collection and maintaining the chain should be done.

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=982098&page-thread=1#threadPager
^that was the one I remembered. I opened 12 cases during the time you two went at it there.

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=982098&page-thread=1#threadPager
^that one was jumped to mind too, though it spanned over several days and was fairly on topic.

OK, JMO. My first interaction with abge on that thread was his post to me, as follows:

"Sybvlvyvl has made it clear that he likes the limiting nature of the constitution. He also has made clear that he particularly likes the freedom of religion the constitution provides. Given that, does it not seem disingenuous that he'd want to add power power to the constitution to conform to his particular religious views."

Our entire discussion thereafter was about the compatibility of wanting religious ideals reflected in legislation (or the Constitution itself) and valuing the limitations of the Constitution. My last posts in the thread were squarely on that topic, as were abge's. I thus deny the drift that you claim.

Although actually, both links you posted were the same, so I'm not sure whether this is the one you thought was, or was not on topic.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraphtv/9865581/Chocolate-shoes-a-runaway-success-for-Valentines-Day.html

@draug; see that's what I mean. There's nothing radical about your pro govt views.

By the way check out the French thread. I ignored it at first because I don't know shit about French, but I should have realized it would quickly derail and become entertaining.

threadID=1009708

If someone buys it for me (and pays for the medical bills bound to result from a diabetic hyperglycemic coma), I'll eat a train!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9766133/Huge-chocolate-train-steams-into-records-books.html

What the heck! I was on the shoe eating thread, I swear!

It's cool, Draug, you didn't make this one any weirder.

Alright Draug, I now believe your claims that the site is switching you to other threads. Can you send me an email with what browser you're using and how you're switching between a phone/computer, etc. Anything you think would help Kestas narrow it down.

@semck, It's nothing against you in general. I just find your writing style annoying over a long period of time. Your more involved conversations never seem to get anywhere and to me at least seem to focus on arguing one point just to argue.

@JMO,

Well, sorry I give that impression. I certainly don't argue "just to argue." In fact, by and large, it is a goal to decrease my time spent on this site, and I will allow myself to post on a particular topic only if I consider both the topic and the point sufficiently important to justify the possible time commitment. There are a lot of topics I could jump in just to argue where I don't, because I consider it unimportant.

I do take a fairly theoretical view toward a lot of topics, which could perhaps seem like what you're saying if you're more of an applications guy. For example, in the thread you linked, which was about gay marriage, my whole discussion with abge was about the role of religion in law-making generally (and only occasionally about gay marriage). That's just because I consider that a much more important question, and one worth my time getting involved in the discussion. Gay marriage is a single issue. The role of religion in government is an issue that has always come up, and will never stop coming up; and in any case, it's very hard to fully analyze the gay marriage question before reaching some kind of agreement (or at least understanding) on it. So I discuss that sort of thing much more than things like gay marriage itself. But that's just because I consider them both more important and more interesting.

(As far as never getting anywhere -- I can understand what you're saying, though I've rarely seen anybody "get anywhere" in terms of convincing anybody of something, on this forum; though it does happen. But I think clarification is often reached, at the end, even if minds are not changed, and I consider that quite useful).

Wow. We are now arguing about arguing? I'll move on over to the shoe-eating thread.

No, you're wrong. We're not arguing about arguing. Please support your ridiculous claim.

Police hierarchy in new south wales (that's a state in Australia...) officially encourage people to video the cops doing their job. Serious.

We are on webDip, we know where New South Wales is :)

Touché