Originally Posted by roachboy

alansmithee:
here is your post from a couple days ago:



i dont know, maybe you write in some code that i cant decipher--but all the appearances that your actual writing gives would lead me to think that you do, in fact, assume that the motive for "terrorism" is jealousy over lifestyle.

when i responded with what i assumed was obvious irony (maybe not--my apologies if i was obscure) that you were making a ridiculous seperation between "lifestyle" and what that "lifestyle" requires for support, you simply reiterated your argument that things were as you said they were.

the only way i would know whether you in fact think this way would be if we were to be able to sit around having a few beers in 3-d life and talk.
which would be fine...i hope that i do not give the impression that i would treat you as a human being the way i treat the arguments you make here.
we are on a messageboard...what is written is what i react to.

as for my inability to take your arguments seriously: well, i dont.
this has nothing to do with "hatred" or any of the other cliches that you might toss about to rationalize the fact that people simply do not agree with you. if anything, i assume that you--and most of the folk with whom i argue here who position themselves on the right--are more intelligent and flexible in your thinking than the arguments you run out let you appear to be.

i have assumptions about politics and its relation to trying to understand why the world in which we live is as it is--so do you. we disagree--and fundamentally disagree--about what constitutes basic data. what you tend to rule out seems to me important more often than not.

this is important because i do not think that politics is a simple question of opinion--i do not think that all positions are equivalent because folk happen to believe them.
this is not a question of religious committment--on those grounds, you would be right in your assumptions that there is a requirement that one simply allow others to believe as they like simply because they do so.

but if you conflate the two registers, debate is pointless. and maybe it is.
but if this is an index of how the political climate in the states is moving--then, brother, we are all fucked.
and whether we do or do not pay attention to exhortations to pull together as a team will make no difference whatsoever.

i do not see debate like arm wrestling--i am not interested in the illusion of winnning or losing arguments, really. what i am interested in is trying to argue that there is a wealth of material--of data--information--available that enables you to see the question of "terrorism" in different ways---what i am interested in, on this score, is trying to force a different set of assumptions about what is and is not relevant into the conversation. in the end, it may well be that you see this as an attempt to win some match with you--and while i do think that your politics would collapse if you looked at things differently, whether you as a name that tracks across the green box that is any given post agree or do not is not really that big a deal to me.

and no, alansmithee, i have not figured everything out. and i am not a particularly "ivory tower" sort--if i was, what would i be doing here? if what you say was true, why would i talk with you? what would be the point? i would simply assume that you and everyone else here was probably an idiot and go do something else. and so i find your argument on this count to not only be wrong but personally offensive. because, at bottom, you do not know me and so do not know what you are talking about.

i do see conservative ideology as dangerous. dangerous for anything approaching a democratic polity, dangerous as a logic for thinking about the world, dangerous as a politics for thinking about domestic issues.

if you want to have an actual debate about the types of assumptions that shapes how you or i might view the question of terrorism, then let's do it: all assumptions on the table..let's go. i would enjoy it coming from someone on the right for once--but i doubt you'll take me up on it. in the end, you find yourself backed into an uncomfortable place and you cop out by trying to present yourself as some kind of victim. your choice: just dont expect that it will have much in the way of positive impact on how seriously i take you. which does not, i suppose matter much.

there are perfectly legitimate reasons for anyone to not accept conservative ideology. this whole discourse within rightwingland that characterizes anyone who disagrees with you as motivated by hatred is a declaration of intellectual vanity that far outstrips anything you impute to me. yours is the position that works from the assumption that your arguments are above reproach. if you did not assume was much, why would the only recourse you have to explain differences of views is the empty dicourse of "hatred"? there are no rational grounds for not agreeing with conservative ideology: all dissent is equally irrational. how much more vain could you possibly be? seriously...i dont see how you could go any further in that direction. but in this case, the problem is not yours--it is the ideolgical structure you adhere to--these arguments circulate endlessly in conservative media orf all types. but it is vanity, alansmithee.