And he has contradicted himself with this most recent of his posts.
>
>That's still true.
>
Since you have proven that it was indeed NOT true, why should we continue to
believe you?
>
>Kevin also wrote, on another subject, " So you're not too busy to make
>assinine statements... ."
>
In point of fact it was the same subject: your continued refusal to back up
your own claims as well as your continued refusal to admit when those claims
are wrong.
>
>To which I reply that debating with people who lack basic civility and
>adapt a patronizing attitude is simply not an interesting thing for me to
>do.
>
By refusing to support or otherwise defend your claims, it was in fact you
who had adopted a patronizing attitude. In breaking off the discussion by
implying that you were too busy to waste time on my "absurdity", it was in
fact you who had abandoned any pretense of civility. So in fact you must
find it a very interesting thing to do.
>
>There are ways to debate issues....
>
And part of the correct way is to provide arguments that support your claims
when asked to do so. Simply stating a claim as if it were absolutely true,
without providing any supporting arguments to demonstrate that truth, is not
debating, it is demagoguery.
>
>...calling your adversary's intelligence or
>education into question is not the way I will pursue.
>
First of all, I said it was your claim that was assinine, not you. Since
even highly educated and extremely intelligent people can say assinine
things on occasion, labeling what they say assinine is not a reflection on
either their education or their intelligence. Secondly, people have
occasionally been taught bad stuff, even in college. That they believe it
is no reflection on their intelligence, unless they refuse to consider the
possibility that what they were taught was wrong. That it was taught to
them by a college professor, however, is no guarantee that it is not
assinine. Thirdly, if my referring to your claims as assinine in fact
constitutes a personal attack be me on your education and/or intelligence,
then you labeling my claims as absurd would also constitute a personal
attack be you on my education and/or intelligence. As such, what you claim
in the above quote is patently false since you yourself have engaged in the
same activity you have accussed me of.
Regardless of whatever crimes I may or may not be guilty of, at least I am
not a hypocrite.
>
>When it is done to
>me, I prefer to simply walk away rather than defending myself against
>claims made by someone who does not even know me.
>
And as always you missed the point. I did not ask you to defend yourself
against my claims; I asked you to defend your own claims. The problem seems
to be that you cannot separate your claims from yourself as a person. I am
responding to your claims, not to my opinion of you; I am critiquing the
validity of your claims, not of you as a person. Yet you seem to consider
any challenge of your claims as a personal attack on yourself. If you
cannot learn the difference and thus behave properly, then you have no
business being on this list. However, if you would like to debate your
claims in proper fashion, which includes offering support for your claims
rather than just dogmatically asserting them, I would be happy to take up
the challenge.
I have spoken my peace and will say no more. I will not respond further to
anything Burgy has to say on this subject, unless he wishes to debate the
issue at hand. If, however, Burgy instead choses to respond to the comments
made in this post, then we will know that it is not true what he says about
giving me the last word.
Kevin L. O'Brien