Hitchens being an ass

Lonewulf said:
Which was your whole point. Notice the quote I made earlier.
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Which was my whole point??? The only thing you've made clear is that you don't understand my point. I do not consider the Isle of Lesbos to be populated by nutters, therefore that clearly wasn't my point.

And you still haven't answered my question.

Lonewulf said:
This does not seem to fall into line with the rest of what you are saying above.
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So come on Lonewulf, what is more acceptable: the word "dyke" or the word "lesbian"? If the latter, why do you think offending Lesbians is okay but offending lesbians isn't?

Your evasion of this question - over and over and over again - is leading me to suspect you don't have an answer.

ETA: I see you've edited your response. I haven't got time to address your edits now, will have later.
 
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CoolSceptic said:
Which was my whole point??? The only thing you've made clear is that you don't understand my point. I do not consider the Isle of Lesbos to be populated by nutters, therefore that clearly wasn't my point.

And you still haven't answered my question.
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You keep claiming that I haven't answered your question. But anyways, you still haven't answered why you said this:

The point following from this, of course, is the absurdity of trying not to offend everybody. It just can't be done. At some point, you'll offend someone, no matter how careful you are.
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I bolded it so that maybe you could actually see it.

If that had nothing to do with your point, why say it?

So come on Lonewulf, what is more acceptable: the word "dyke" or the word "lesbian"?
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Lesbian.

Also, as I said before: Depends on context.

If the latter, why do you think offending Lesbians is okay but offending lesbians isn't?
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My post was edited. I'll wait for you to compose a reply.

And I tend to edit my posts a lot, as my first response usually isn't my best one.

Your evasion of this question - over and over and over again - is leading me to suspect you don't have an answer.
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Or maybe I'm trying to get you to explain the bolded quote, which you still refuse to. Which makes me think that I didn't have a strawman after all, you're just hiding your point now that you realize how silly it was.

Or, and I admit I do admit the possibility, I did get you entirely wrong. But I'm demonstrating, through that bolded quote, why I may have mistaken your point. Because I honestly do not see what that has anything to do with what you're saying now.
 
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As usual, the real problem here, as in so many conflicts and problems in this world, is based on a simple logical mistake.

Hitchens correctly thinks that telling the truth without concern to whom it might hurt is SOMETIMES praiseworthy and important and brave. That is certainly the case when he -- for instance -- tells us the truth about North Korea or Mother Teresa or Iraq or pedophile priests.

But it does not follow, as he obviously believes, that telling the truth without concern to whom it might hurt is ALWAYS praiseworthy and important and brave. If you told your grandmother that she's old and not good-looking, that is probably true, but it would not be brave or important or praisewothy. It would just be rude.
 
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Skeptic said:
Look, Hitchens has one all-important quality. He is a brave man, both physically (as seen by his travels, if nothing else), and socially: says what he thinks is the truth without any concern whom it might hurt.

We need more men like that, to tell us the truth as they see it about important things -- like what religion, or communism, or Iraq, or whatever, is REALLY like.

But it is one thing to say the truth about important things, quite another thing to deliberately insult private individuals for no good reason.

Hitch is his own worst enemy.
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Private individuals? Sykes is a celebrity who had no compunction about getting personnel in her White House Correspondents diner schtick. Why is it off-limits for Hitch to get personnel in the same forum? It may be a boorish comment, but not any more so than Sykes' comments directed at Limberger. Hitch pointed out in his inimitable fashion, that Sykes' observations about the POTUS were flattering when they were supposed to be withering.
 
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Private individuals? Sykes is a celebrity who had no compunction about getting personnel in her White House Correspondents diner schtick
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Er, I hate to point out the obvious, but she was invited to do a stand-up comedy act at the dinner, which might explain why her "getting personal" was somewhat more acceptable. That's what stand-up comedians are expected to do, after all.
 
Skeptic said:
Er, I hate to point out the obvious, but she was invited to do a stand-up comedy act at the dinner, which might explain why her "getting personal" was somewhat more acceptable. That's what stand-up comedians are expected to do, after all.
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Did you think Hitch crashed the event?

BTW: All those who speak at the event, be they comics, politicians, reporters or pundits are invited and are expected, whether are are successful or not, to provoke humor,
 
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SRW said:
Why do I get the distinct impression that if he had said "typical conservative bleep" it would not have stuck with you.
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Please stop trying to read my mind. You suck at it.

I, for one, have seen no evidence Hitchens is a critical thinker. Sure, he shares some opinions that critical thinkers tend to arrive at, for example about religion. But critical thinking is not and has never been about which opinions you hold, but about how to arrive at them.
 
Chaos said:
Please stop trying to read my mind. You suck at it.

I, for one, have seen no evidence Hitchens is a critical thinker. Sure, he shares some opinions that critical thinkers tend to arrive at, for example about religion. But critical thinking is not and has never been about which opinions you hold, but about how to arrive at them.
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Read Hitch's "For The Sake Of Argument" and then you can understand how he arrived at his opinions. Who are these bona fide "critical thinkers" that make a handsome living in print, TV, and on the lecture circuit?
 
Lonewulf said:
4) If the majority of people on the island of Lesbos really cared, why did they even bother changing their name back to Lesbos for increased tourism?
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Before I respond to the rest of the quote (which will probably be tomorrow now), do you have any evidence to support this assertion? Particularly with regard to motive / opinion. As a rule, I am very wary of assuming motives; in a logical, reasoned debate, motives can easily become a can of worms. I'm not suggesting you're wrong here, I'm just looking for some supporting evidence.
 
CoolSceptic said:
Before I respond to the rest of the quote (which will probably be tomorrow now), do you have any evidence to support this assertion? Particularly with regard to motive / opinion. As a rule, I am very wary of assuming motives; in a logical, reasoned debate, motives can easily become a can of worms. I'm not suggesting you're wrong here, I'm just looking for some supporting evidence.
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Well, I admit, I can't read minds, so I can't state that I know for sure what the motives are. However, if you accept wikipedia, here is a quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbos

The meaning of the word lesbian derives from the poems of Sappho, who was born in Lesbos. The poems contain powerful emotional content directed toward other women and have frequently been interpreted as expressing homosexual love.[2] It is due to this association that Lesbos and especially the town of Eresos, her birthplace, are visited frequently by lesbian tourists.[3]
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This doesn't prove motives, but it does demonstrate that lesbian tourists are big on touring the location.

(The source is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonely_Planet -- not sure if they're entirely reliable, but they seem to know a bit about tourism!)

I should add that I could easily retract this and not put even a dent in my overall argument, so it's not really all that important one way or the other.

(And if you don't like the word "lesbian", you could always use the word "Sapphian"... ;) )

I don't see much in the wiki article about a name change, though. But like I said, I'm perfectly willing to retract this point.
 
Chaos said:
Please stop trying to read my mind. You suck at it.

I, for one, have seen no evidence Hitchens is a critical thinker. Sure, he shares some opinions that critical thinkers tend to arrive at, for example about religion. But critical thinking is not and has never been about which opinions you hold, but about how to arrive at them.
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That's funny, since I haven't seen any evidence from you, in relation to Hitchens or yourself in terms of critical thinking.
 
Lonewulf said:
I have a good feeling about this new arrival! He's going to last a long time!
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This is you:

Im_kind_of_a_big_deal.jpg
 
Frohstar House said:
If yu can red it whats teh problem?
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Well, you've tread on my love of proper use of language AND my love of proper use of internet memes, so I have to say that the problem is, you just fail.


Frohstar House said:
lol wut?

It has spce
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My version is better.

In the official version, it has no question mark.
 
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