Lizard King
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Post by Lizard King on Jul 1, 2014 12:13:50 GMT -5
Individual opinion noted.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 1, 2014 12:28:37 GMT -5
Individual opinion noted. not just mine. note that, as well.
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Lizard King
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Post by Lizard King on Jul 1, 2014 12:29:59 GMT -5
Individual opinion noted. not just mine. note that, as well. Corollary individual opinion noted
When they vote you their speaker, I'll note it.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 1, 2014 12:37:59 GMT -5
not just mine. note that, as well. Corollary individual opinion noted
it is a consensus opinion in some circles. trivializing it doesn't really elevate your POV, bro.
When they vote you their speaker, I'll note it.
they have already spoken for themselves, but clearly you have not noted it.
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Lizard King
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Post by Lizard King on Jul 1, 2014 12:50:47 GMT -5
Corollary individual opinion noted
it is a consensus opinion in some circles. trivializing it doesn't really elevate your POV, bro.
When they vote you their speaker, I'll note it.
they have already spoken for themselves, but clearly you have not noted it. What makes that clear, dear dj?
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 1, 2014 12:54:06 GMT -5
they have already spoken for themselves, but clearly you have not noted it. What makes that clear, dear dj?
LOL! i was speaking to the broader point of actually considering the opinion, not my speakership. if you want to win that narrow of a point, it is all yours.
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Lizard King
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Post by Lizard King on Jul 1, 2014 13:17:47 GMT -5
What makes that clear, dear dj?
LOL! i was speaking to the broader point of actually considering the opinion, not my speakership. if you want to win that narrow of a point, it is all yours. Well, the really broad point is that it wouldn't BE an opinion if everybody agreed on it: it would be a fact (at least according to Robert Ingersoll).
Which is why I asked why it's clear from my stopping short of enthusiastic endorsement of that opinion that I haven't noted it.
It's not so much the opinion, as it is the meta-opinion that the opinion is right, that I'm addressing.
It would be an odd world if we held forth with opinions that we didn't believe were right, but one that would be interesting for me. I read a while back a proposed "Ideological Turing Test" (the terminology is somewhat garbled, but stet) - the idea was for you to sit, say, one Austrian economist among half a dozen Keynesians, and grill each on the philosophy undergirding Keynesian economics, and see if the Austrian could successfully pass for a Keynesian under those circumstances. And vice versa, of course. The operating hypothesis was that the Austrian would have an easier time of it than the Keynesian in that case, because the philosophy undergirding Keynesianism is taught in the mainstream, which for good measure repeatedly misrepresents Austrian economics, putting the Keynesians at a double disadvantage.
This is part of why I tend to favor heterodoxy.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 1, 2014 14:39:40 GMT -5
LOL! i was speaking to the broader point of actually considering the opinion, not my speakership. if you want to win that narrow of a point, it is all yours. Well, the really broad point is that it wouldn't BE an opinion if everybody agreed on it: it would be a fact (at least according to Robert Ingersoll).
can't say that i agree with Ingersoll. anything that can't be shown is an opinion, imo.
Which is why I asked why it's clear from my stopping short of enthusiastic endorsement of that opinion that I haven't noted it.
It's not so much the opinion, as it is the meta-opinion that the opinion is right, that I'm addressing.
well, on that we can agree. that is the item we are discussing. whether the general consensus view is that Obama is a Villainous Failure. i think most people, even those the dislike him, view him as a benign sort of fool rather than Snidely Whiplash. i think public opinion on his personal likability is still fairly high. and, of course, historians consider him slightly above average, so far. so, you have considerable currents moving against you if you want to put him in the same boat with Cheney.
It would be an odd world if we held forth with opinions that we didn't believe were right, but one that would be interesting for me. I read a while back a proposed "Ideological Turing Test" (the terminology is somewhat garbled, but stet) - the idea was for you to sit, say, one Austrian economist among half a dozen Keynesians, and grill each on the philosophy undergirding Keynesian economics, and see if the Austrian could successfully pass for a Keynesian under those circumstances. And vice versa, of course. The operating hypothesis was that the Austrian would have an easier time of it than the Keynesian in that case, because the philosophy undergirding Keynesianism is taught in the mainstream, which for good measure repeatedly misrepresents Austrian economics, putting the Keynesians at a double disadvantage.
This is part of why I tend to favor heterodoxy.
i am not sure how much knowledge has to do with opinion. in fact, my most recent experience indicates that opinions of a certain kind form in a vacuum. knowledge pretty much eliminates such opinion. edit: that last statement was not intended as a debate item. just reflecting.
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Lizard King
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Post by Lizard King on Jul 1, 2014 15:19:55 GMT -5
I'll add only this: nobody at all suggested there was a common consensus that Obama was a Villainous Failure. There is a current of opinion to that end - one that ascribes sinister motivations to his apparently coordinated strengthening of Islamists across North Africa and throughout the Arabian Peninsula, for example - but that's not a consensus. It's just one interpretation of various facts concerning Obama's statements and actions vis a vis the several countries in which Islamist factions now have a stronger presence than they did in 2009.
I wouldn't say a President as strongly polarizing as Barack Obama could be fairly considered defined by anything resembling a "consensus."
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 1, 2014 15:32:02 GMT -5
I'll add only this: nobody at all suggested there was a common consensus that Obama was a Villainous Failure. There is a current of opinion to that end - one that ascribes sinister motivations to his apparently coordinated strengthening of Islamists across North Africa and throughout the Arabian Peninsula, for example - but that's not a consensus. It's just one interpretation of various facts concerning Obama's statements and actions vis a vis the several countries in which Islamist factions now have a stronger presence than they did in 2009.
I wouldn't say a President as strongly polarizing as Barack Obama could be fairly considered defined by anything resembling a "consensus." do you think he is a friend of the caliphate, jim?
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Lizard King
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Post by Lizard King on Jul 1, 2014 15:46:18 GMT -5
Not in the tinfoil-hat conspiracy sense, no.
However: do I think that his sympathies are with an indigenous people seeking self-determination in the wake of generations of exploitative and imperialistic Western interference? In spades. Do I think that his sympathies lead him to underestimate the danger of certain courses of action (or inaction) in the region? I do. Do I think he overestimates the reasonableness and reliability of certain negotiating parties in the region? I do. Do I think his National Security Council is primarily concerned with political optics and not with continuity in foreign policy? Yep. Do I think ISIS is a force right now primarily because of Obama's decisions? Yes. Do I think the political situation in Egypt has been made worse because of Obama's decisions? Yes. Do I think the political situation in Libya has been made worse because of Obama's decisions? Sure do.
So - an intentional, organized, willing, wide-awake, deliberate traitor to the United States? No. A hubristic neophyte making well-intentioned blunders on the world stage? Yeah.
Just my opinion, though.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 2, 2014 13:38:52 GMT -5
Not in the tinfoil-hat conspiracy sense, no.
However: do I think that his sympathies are with an indigenous people seeking self-determination in the wake of generations of exploitative and imperialistic Western interference? In spades. .
ok, let me ask you this, then: do you side with self determination or imperialism?
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Lizard King
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Post by Lizard King on Jul 2, 2014 14:35:40 GMT -5
Not in the tinfoil-hat conspiracy sense, no.
However: do I think that his sympathies are with an indigenous people seeking self-determination in the wake of generations of exploitative and imperialistic Western interference? In spades. .
ok, let me ask you this, then: do you side with self determination or imperialism? The question for me really is: do I trust a given human being to responsibly captain his own ship? And I find myself reluctantly siding with Thomas Hobbes on that. I'm in the odd anarchocapitalist position of finding the state an evil, but a necessary one.
Does country A have a right to overtake country B - a Manifest Destiny, if you will? Only in the sense that it asserts that claim and is able to defend it - but then I don't think rights exist in any other sense, as a matter of realpolitik "might makes right." Furthermore, if country B is sufficiently weak, and country C sufficiently strong, then it may simply face a choice of occupiers. If the British had nobly respected the rights of the aboriginal Americans, still the French and the Dutch and the Spanish would have been here merrily claiming territory and massacring Indians. So context comes into it as well.
In the case of "self-determination" of an Islamist caliphate, there's the real question of how much that's SELF-determination and how much that's a small group of powerful mullahs DICTATING to everybody else. It may be a Hobson's choice between occupation/exploitation by the Great Satan and genital mutilation/random beheadings/general mayhem under a Qutbist parody of Shar'ia law, but I find it quite straightforward, with my Western biases, to see one of those alternatives as better than the other. I say this with the words of e.e. cummings' "yGUDduh" ringing in my ears, but you can take cultural relativism too far. An example from Israel: the recent deaths of three Israeli teens prompted Washington to urge Israel not to "destabilize" the situation - as if a situation in which young men are kidnapped and murdered because of their cultural heritage is a "stable" one. Of course, as long as you see Palestinians as "self-determining," and the Jews as "oppressing," then it IS Israel that destabilized the joint. It's a fact that the modern boundaries of Israel are substantially larger than those agreed by the United Nations in 1945, and that the reason for this is that Israel's several neighbors have had their several asses severally kicked in several wars of aggression against Israel and ceded territory as a result. Is it, then, Israel's fault? Is it Germany's fault for instituting the Endlosung? Is it perhaps France's fault for insisting on punitive reparations at Versailles? Is it John Maynard Keynes' fault for being insufficiently persuasive? Woodrow Wilson's, for failing to provide strong leadership at a critical juncture? Charles Evans Hughes, for providing insufficient contrast to Wilson in 1916?
... This is the problem I have with picking sides based on culturally relative moral judgements - the buck never stops. I blame the Sikes-Picot Agreement for nearly everything wrong with the Middle East today, for example, but I'm aware how capricious that is. A finger-in-the-wind foreign policy, which is what this amounts to, is a tremendously dangerous thing - sufficiently more so, in the sense of being genuinely "destabilizing," that a strong, coherent, and morally dubious policy (FDR's "Good Neighbor" policy, say, or the Carter Doctrine) is a far superior course. Better the Devil you decide that you know than the one you evaluate on a case by case basis.
Good question, that.
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djAdvocate
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Post by djAdvocate on Jul 2, 2014 16:12:16 GMT -5
ok, let me ask you this, then: do you side with self determination or imperialism? The question for me really is: do I trust a given human being to responsibly captain his own ship? And I find myself reluctantly siding with Thomas Hobbes on that. I'm in the odd anarchocapitalist position of finding the state an evil, but a necessary one.
Does country A have a right to overtake country B - a Manifest Destiny, if you will? Only in the sense that it asserts that claim and is able to defend it - but then I don't think rights exist in any other sense, as a matter of realpolitik "might makes right." Furthermore, if country B is sufficiently weak, and country C sufficiently strong, then it may simply face a choice of occupiers. If the British had nobly respected the rights of the aboriginal Americans, still the French and the Dutch and the Spanish would have been here merrily claiming territory and massacring Indians. So context comes into it as well.
In the case of "self-determination" of an Islamist caliphate, there's the real question of how much that's SELF-determination and how much that's a small group of powerful mullahs DICTATING to everybody else. It may be a Hobson's choice between occupation/exploitation by the Great Satan and genital mutilation/random beheadings/general mayhem under a Qutbist parody of Shar'ia law, but I find it quite straightforward, with my Western biases, to see one of those alternatives as better than the other. I say this with the words of e.e. cummings' "yGUDduh" ringing in my ears, but you can take cultural relativism too far. An example from Israel: the recent deaths of three Israeli teens prompted Washington to urge Israel not to "destabilize" the situation - as if a situation in which young men are kidnapped and murdered because of their cultural heritage is a "stable" one. Of course, as long as you see Palestinians as "self-determining," and the Jews as "oppressing," then it IS Israel that destabilized the joint. It's a fact that the modern boundaries of Israel are substantially larger than those agreed by the United Nations in 1945, and that the reason for this is that Israel's several neighbors have had their several asses severally kicked in several wars of aggression against Israel and ceded territory as a result. Is it, then, Israel's fault? Is it Germany's fault for instituting the Endlosung? Is it perhaps France's fault for insisting on punitive reparations at Versailles? Is it John Maynard Keynes' fault for being insufficiently persuasive? Woodrow Wilson's, for failing to provide strong leadership at a critical juncture? Charles Evans Hughes, for providing insufficient contrast to Wilson in 1916?
... This is the problem I have with picking sides based on culturally relative moral judgements - the buck never stops. I blame the Sikes-Picot Agreement for nearly everything wrong with the Middle East today, for example, but I'm aware how capricious that is. A finger-in-the-wind foreign policy, which is what this amounts to, is a tremendously dangerous thing - sufficiently more so, in the sense of being genuinely "destabilizing," that a strong, coherent, and morally dubious policy (FDR's "Good Neighbor" policy, say, or the Carter Doctrine) is a far superior course. Better the Devil you decide that you know than the one you evaluate on a case by case basis.
Good question, that.
i would imagine that Obama thinks so, too.
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