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Originally Posted by roachboy
alansmithee:
i did not see anything so onesided in the article that it merits the kind of response from you--but then again i am not in a position where defending cheney is a matter of preserving my political identity---and since it is not de rigeur for me, i have no problem with considering fundamental critiques of his kind of politics.
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You couldn't be further from the truth. My "political identity" isn't tied up in Cheney. I could name any number of things that I think he is wrong about, or has done wrong. What I don't see a purpose for is taking one-sided potshots and putting forth faulty arguements.
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the conservative set here could have handled this whole thing differently, you know: any one of you could easily have advanced counterarguments that refuted the op characterization of cheney--but you didnt.
you could have tried to point to other material that presented what you regard as a more balanced image of him and his politics--but you didnt.
you could have gone after the historical component of piece, and that from a number of angles--but you didnt.
you could even have tried to mount a defense of cheney---but you didnt.
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Again, it's because the whole thread and op-ed that started it wasn't worthy of a true rebuttal. I also wouldn't bother putting up a logical, well-thought out rebuttal if someone claimed the moon landing was fake, or that the earth is flat. To even bother to do so gives more credit than is warranted. There was no desire to debate the particular merits of Cheney or his politics, the point was for the liberals to pile on conservatives (yet again).
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instead, it was sophomoric idiocy time, food fight time blah blah blah.
it is strange that this kind of idiocy seems to pass for legitimate argument in conservativeland.
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Sure, it was sophmoric. But it was intentional, as opposed to the unintentional humor and self-important idiocy of the op-ed piece and the OP. When serious discussion is warranted (or desired) I have no doubt that it can and will come about (as it has many times before by both the board's liberals and conservatives). But just like in this thread
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=97611 liberals totally were dismissive and mocking of the OP, because they felt it wasn't deserving of a real answer. This thread is nothing but the other side of the coin. And I don't see this as necessarily a bad thing-hopefully it leads to more actual debate instead of just wanting to pile on one side or the other.