DNAunion: When I originally responded to Welsberry, I did not "reply to all". The e-mail was put flagged to be deleted, then my computer hung so the e-mail is gone. Therefore, I cannot post this in the same thread as the others on this subject.
>DNAunion: I notice that no one said a word to Susan for her unprovoked insults of me and the others? But when I - the outsider - returned the favor all hell broke loose. You people blindly follow your self-imposed double standards. Too bad you can't just face your opponents honestly - that you have to resort to underhanded tactics.
>FMAJ: More uncalled for accusations. That you now call me dishonest and underhanded is again something totally out of line and uncalled for.
>DNAunion: Your attempts to misread my statement are duely noted.
"You" refered to the generic (and immediately preceding) "you people" - not you specifically.
[End Quote - DNAunion]
>Welsberr: Color me curious. How does identifying an accusation as "generic" somehow give scope to excluding a "specific" application? It seems to me that a "generic" accusation is inclusive, not exclusive. If
you wanted to reassure FMAJ that he was not among the targets of your "generic" accusation of dishonesty and underhandedness, that this was precisely the wrong way to do it.
If there is some principle of exclusion from the accusation that you intended to convey, I suggest that it is not at all clear in what you have written.
You might want to explicitly qualify the accusation.
Wesley
************
DNAunion: All very true for someone not familiar with my typical statements: I explained something but not what I should have (forgetting that "you people" here don't know me). Most people from ARN - those familiar with my "style" as seen in my several hundred posts there - would probably have noticed my out-of-character use of "you people" in referring to others (my purpose for using this term is explained later).
My original statements were not directed at FMAJ personally - I was not assigning any of the negative attributes I listed to him or anyone else specifically. That was what I attempted to point out in the post to which you responded (but didn't do such a good job on, as I did not also address the "you people" part).
The more important point is that in fact, it was not my intent to label anyone with those negative qualities. My statements about "you people" was a counter argument to the type lodged against "us people": to show by use of reverse logic the problem with making the kind of global charges that have been made against all of "us people" (i.e., those who are not "you people").
If you are old enough to remember, think back to an episode of "All In The Family". Lionel (the son of the George and Weezy Jefferson), while talking to Archie Bunker, said something to the effect of "You people....". Archie stopped him in mid-sentence and said, "Who are you calling "you people"? Youze people are "you people"!". Of course part of the moral of the show's exchange was that neither side should lump all those unlike themselves into the single group of "you people", depriving the others of their individuality
and pigeonholing them as all being alike (with the added implication that "you people" are somehow lesser than "we people"). You see, by one of "those people" turning the use of "you people" back on the people that
call the others "you people", Lionel exposed the problem with the common usage of the incorrect term by Archie - up until that point, Archie probably said it a dozen times and no one paid much attention!
That is analogous to my point. "You people" lump all of "us people" into a single group of dishonest and ignorant individuals whether we rightfully belong to it or not: I was reversing the logic (to expose the problem with the original classification by "you people" of "us people") by lumping all of "you people" into a similar single group of dishonest people, whether or not each of you deserves to be included in such a group or not.
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