I love Obama for his style, grace, intellect and his way with words. I want the healing power than an Obama Presidency could deliver to this country.

Barf!!! Man, anyone *that* easily misled is surely a CINO, or the new Andrew Sullivan.

Funny Ignatius, I just heard Michael Medved, and later Laura Ingraham discussing a Ross Doubthat column and they both have exactly the same interpretation of Parker’s column that I, and others here do. Seems the only person in disagreement over interpretation here is you.

And no, I dont think anyone is suggesting that gay Jews take a back seat, they are clearly, however, suggesting that “the religious right” or “social conservatives” take a back seat… I dont know many people who think of gay Jews when the phrase “the religious right” is employed, except, again, apparently you. Most think of fundamentalist Christians. You might notice that Dan refers to “them” and not “we”, meaning even he recognizes that he is talking about a group of which he doesn’t consider himself a part.

But if you insist on continuing this line of reasoning, you might consider stretching first — this kind of contortion can lead to injury.

“I love Obama for his style, grace, intellect and his way with words. I want the healing power than an Obama Presidency could deliver to this country.” (syndicated column 9/19/08.)

“If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.” (syndicated column 9/26/08.)

“I would not vote for someone who appeals to our lesser selves.” (The Colbert Report, 10/13/08.)

Sounds like Kathleen Parker is trying to get a gig as the radical right spokeswoman on the MSM bobblehead festival.

Good points. I have to slightly defend myself now, as follows. There are many things I’m certain of. And if somebody disagrees with me (or I them), it usually comes down to a difference in fundamental premises, making the argument un-resolvable. I do not accept their premises, taking the attitude that my basic premises are right. In the end, I share much of Professor Quibbles’ “I’m right, you’re wrong” attitude. But I usually try to at least name the difference in basic premises. I may even say the words, “I object to your underlying premise that…” to try to shed light on the real difference. As opposed to, you know, employing fallacies of equivocation to create men-of-straw that are easily knocked down, then feeling great about myself. There it is.

AE – Send an e-mail to Dan. In these situations, I often send him an empty mail with a one-word title, ’spamfilter’. He is great about it.

The point of quibbling, as you have pointed out, is to deny the premise not disprove it. Perfesser Qibbles relies on tripping you on your own words by recasting what you say to his supposed advantage. He starts and finishes with the assurance that he is absolutely correct. His only unsettled business is to cast the other views as invalid. This is not intellectual argument by any definition. It is sophistry. I expect to be corrected in my use of the word sophistry. Unfortunately, Perfessor Quibbles has honed sophistry to an art form. He just may not know it.

Since #45 is American Elephant, I am not going to presume to speak in his stead

I spoke in my stead, but I keep getting filtered.

*knock, knock, knock*, anyone home???

Ignatius seems to advocate being a literalist. One reads word for word…

Yes. Except that a word may have multiple definitions, and when it does, I find that the Professor focuses exclusively on the particular one that will serve his argumentative goal, and insists it was the one you meant, though often it wasn’t. I would describe his tactic as argument-by-straw-man. He misinterprets a person’s words, then demonstrates the absurdity of “their” position (which is his misinterpretation). Recent example: this thread: http://www.gaypatriot.net/2008/12/03/media-malpractice-led-to-ignorant-electorate/

In the present thread, AE perhaps stepped into the trap (sorry, AE) with his formulation “shunned to the back of the bus”. All the Professor has to do is show that he and/or Parker never called for anyone to be shunned, and he’s won – by his rules. And of course he and Parker don’t want evangelicals to be shunned: the GOP still needs their votes. But, as I’ve been pointing out, Parker and the Professor nonetheless paint a picture where evangelicals should STFU, when it comes to explaining or “advertising” the reasons and motivations for their policies. As the Professor has put it:

There is a huge difference between people of faith being active in politics and faith itself driving policy or policy being advertised in religious terms.

In other words: Let’s have policies developed and “advertised” in strictly non-religious terms. In practice, it means the non-religious can “advertise” their (generally non-religious) wishes and reasons freely, while the religious must be much more circumspect. That *is* a second-class status. If widely adopted as a standard, I guarantee it will alienate enough religious conservatives to cost the GOP many future elections. See #23 for Rove’s take on how the partial alienation of religious conservatives already impacted the 2008 election.

#45 Cite me where GPW and/or Parker advocate shunning religious conservatives. You won’t find such phantom phrases because they aren’t there.

Since #45 is American Elephant, I am not going to presume to speak in his stead. But as a linguist, I have an opinion of my own about the efficacy of “reading between the lines” and discerning an author’s voice and intent. (We all know what “ACME” means when Wile E. Coyote drags open a box in The Road Runner.)

Ignatius has proved a positive. That is as unremarkable a feat as testing a red hot burner with your finger to determine if the burn will be as painful as the last time you did the same thing. GPW and/or Parker did not use the phrase of “shunning religious conservatives.” You can read for yourself and find no such wording.

But poor Ignatius screws up his proving a positive exercise by saying something paradoxical and ironic that is worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan. He wants American Elephant to point out where the “phantom phrases” that are not there are.

Now, boys and girls, we must put on our thinking caps to get to the heart of this. I suggest this old poem as a model: Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. How I wish that man would go away.

Ignatius seems to advocate being a literalist. One reads word for word and takes no meaning other than what is written. This erases the place of parable or moral fable or metaphor or anything approaching creative writing. The spirit is in the word and the mind need only accomplish the reading of the word and Webster’s first definition of it.

To go beyond that formula is to have Ignatius cry “foul” and start upon the construction of a circular argument of rules constructed on the spot to prove his point.

Aristotle framed the “argument” as the agreement to disagree. He meant that to argue the two sides must understand that they are not in agreement. They proceed to show the fallacy in one another’s argument. When one plays a “rule” with which the other does not agree, the argument is over. Not won. Just over. That is why formal logic and its hard rules were set down. Aristotle is still studied and basically his rules of logic remain unchanged and unaugmented.

Ignatius would do well to bone up on the basic rules of argument. He is particularly in need of understanding the “undistributed middle term” and all of its cousins.

And no, I dont think anyone is suggesting that gay Jews take a back seat, they are clearly, however, suggesting that “the religious right” or “social conservatives” take a back seat… I dont know many people who think of gay Jews when the phrase “the religious right” is employed, except, again, apparently you. Most think of fundamentalist Christians. You might notice that Dan refers to “them” and not “we”, meaning even he recognizes that he is talking about a group of which he doesn’t consider himself a part.

But if you insist on continuing this line of reasoning, you might consider stretching first — this kind of contortion can lead to injury.

If by ’shunning to the back of the bus’ you mean something along the lines of ‘relegating to the position of least influence’, you still fail. Neither writer states anything of the kind. And so I’m back to my original statement waaaaay back in #19: “The idea that this is what is being advocated bears absolutely no relation to what was written.” I think you’re overreacting by being “grossly offended”, but you’re free to react in any way you see fit. I’m not attacking you, I’m just pointing out where I think you’re misinterpreting. I’m not putting you down, calling you names, insulting you.

In other words, a straight-forward demand that religious conservatives take a back seat.

As far as I know, GPW is a religious Jew. Does it make sense that he would advocate that he be ’shunned’? Does it make sense that you can read the suggestion that a party be less dominated by religious conservatives and then make the leap to that suggestion being “…a straight-forward demand that religious conservatives take a back seat”…? Perhaps it makes sense to you, but once again, that says more about you than about what we’re discussing.

It might have been better had Parker’s article dealt specifically with religious conservatism rather than conservatives. That way we could avoid hypersensitive religious folk getting upset with imaginary dissing. But I doubt it. I guess the part in the Decalogue about not bearing false witness is situational.

And it will be very easy to contrast fiscal conservatism with a Democrat congress that, if a fire broke out in the capitol, their first instinct would be to try and smother it under piles of money.

It is apparent that you have engaged in “protecting the metaphor” which is somewhat curious as we do not know whether y(our) Purfeser Quibbles considers the “back of the bus” as a place of honor rather than a place of scorn as would be commonly thought. Furthermore, we do not know for certain whether the folks on the back of the bus are even on the correct bus! Consider the idea that they entered through the back of the bus in order to avoid paying the fare and they entered the wrong bus as well.

I offer this as an example of how very confusing things can become when one is being monitored by Perfeser Quibbles. I suggest we switch to throwing people out of airplanes as the metaphor of choice. (I also like the thought of firing people through the torpedo tubes of a submerged submarine.)