In response to the response to "Keith Olbermann and the straw man fallacy"
1-) A post yesterday praising the option to disable comments became so popular here that it made it close to the top of the recommended posts list. Now all of a sudden when the most hated TPM member (me) exercises that popular right, TPM'ers flip out, seemingly because I offended a liberal icon (Keith Olbermann).
2-) In a response to my "Keith Olbermann..." post by a member who confessed not to have read it at all, only one replier addressed the fact that Keith Olbermann purported to debunk a comment by Bill O'reilly by providing "first time voter" statistics, despite the fact that O'reilly did not refer to "first time voters" or turnout by any group. This replying member made the puzzling claim that "Maybe Bill-o didn't mean to imply that, but I took it that way at first. BFD". As you can see, the level of confidence this member places on his own interpretation of O'reilly's words is very low. "Maybe he implied it, or maybe he didn't.
Even if we accept that O'reilly implied that voter turnout by African Americans was high enough to decide the elections, Olbermann provided very different statistics as his proof: Statistics for first time voters. And that's a "straw man".
You are all welcome prove that O'reilly did this in the form of comments here in this new diary. Warning: If you instead choose to name-call or change the subject, you will have proved me right.
Thanks.
2-) In a response to my "Keith Olbermann..." post by a member who confessed not to have read it at all, only one replier addressed the fact that Keith Olbermann purported to debunk a comment by Bill O'reilly by providing "first time voter" statistics, despite the fact that O'reilly did not refer to "first time voters" or turnout by any group. This replying member made the puzzling claim that "Maybe Bill-o didn't mean to imply that, but I took it that way at first. BFD". As you can see, the level of confidence this member places on his own interpretation of O'reilly's words is very low. "Maybe he implied it, or maybe he didn't.
Even if we accept that O'reilly implied that voter turnout by African Americans was high enough to decide the elections, Olbermann provided very different statistics as his proof: Statistics for first time voters. And that's a "straw man".
You are all welcome prove that O'reilly did this in the form of comments here in this new diary. Warning: If you instead choose to name-call or change the subject, you will have proved me right.
Thanks.
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Yawn. No, make that a really, really big yawn.
November 15, 2008 5:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about if we engage in ignoring?
November 15, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am sure the phrase implied what I said, but I am not sure BO intended to imply that.
Also irrelevant whether I'm pretending to perceive contrary to BO's intent. He tried to compare incomparables, the diffuse back voting population, and the overtly unified LDS church and some other large congregations. (There were no African-American church congregations doing the same, that I know of.)
November 15, 2008 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you actually read the posts regarding the ability to disable comments, you'd see that most of the posts were from people who believed that the option shouldn't be utilized. Just because a lot of people commented on the thread doesn't mean they agreed with the original post's idea.
November 15, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, did you really expect truthseeker77 to pay attention to that minor detail? :)
By the way, where the hell is David Seaton's Daily Screed? Did we chase him off the property? One can only hope.
November 15, 2008 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think most of the comments on his last post where he announced he would no longer accept comments said if he didn't allow comments we weren't going to read his posts...maybe he decided it wasn't worth his time.
November 15, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is, stillidealistic, that you can never force other TPM'ers to ignore my posts. There are plenty of people who will not read my threads or your threads today. There are also people that don't read the readers' posts every day, and there are new members who will register after today and will be unaware of your request to ignore me.
All those members will read my posts. It would be impossible to control the minds of all members.
Maybe if you post 20 threads every day titled "ignore truthseeker77!" you will see an effect, but even then I wouldn't be so sure.
November 15, 2008 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Truthseeker:
I think the main problem is that you have to realize that Keith Olbermann is an entertainer, just as Sean Hannity is an entertainer. I ignore them both. One of the best decisions I've made in the past couple of weeks was to keep the television on NBC, the real one, for Election Night. It was actually coverage for grown-ups.
I confess to having liked Keith Olbermann when we lefties were stuck out in the wilderness in those dog days of 2003. That was then; the guy is an ass, he has a small but loyal and concentrated audience, and in the real world he is absolutely irrelevant. Check out PBS.
November 15, 2008 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
And CBC. Leafs/Canucks tonight. Awwwwwwesome! ;-)
November 15, 2008 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like Maddow better than Olbermann, but my top 3 are Eric Boehlert, Glen Greenwald and Bob Somerby.
November 15, 2008 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Get over yourself, fuckwit. The "outrage" has nothing to do with your target and everything to do with your lame-ass attempt at cogent analysis. Get a fucking clue and then grow some fucking balls and enable comments and maybe we'll just deign to grace your lick-spittle blogposts with the decency of a response.
Get a clue, asshole.
November 15, 2008 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that will make me change my mind on always enabling comments.
November 15, 2008 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude...what is up?
November 15, 2008 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The article was at best hairsplitting (Olbermann replied to one implication of O'Reilly's argument, rather than the main thesis) and at the worst was patently misleading (O'Reilly was as usual full of hot air, gay rights groups are fuming that the people who should best understand their oppression failed to support them. Olbermann was making the right argument perhaps the wrong way.)
Other than being well dressed baloney, the article was hardly controversial, and disabling comments was accurately interpreted as an attempt to stifle people pointing out your incredible lack of integrity publicly airing this silly argument. Or does that qualify as name calling, which you decided gets you an automatic win.
The main point is that the left has had this divide on the economic side (Turtles vs. Teamsters) and the differences between two groups looking for social progress will be mended as well.
The pot of hatred has been stirred enough recently, and you'd do well to leave it alone. You're a talented writer and could do better.
November 16, 2008 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Disregarding truthseeker's original post which I still haven't read, it is approaching absurd, although great fun, that there are now at least three additional posts taking up space on TPM dealing with TS's original post. It appears to be a winning strategy for TS to disable comments, as I am sure more people have viewed his original post thinking it contained something controversial, which it did: the disabled comments button.
"Warning: If you instead choose to name-call or change the subject, you will have proved me right."
Big yawn...
November 16, 2008 1:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am glad you are having fun...
I find it sad that TPM bloggers are going through this exercise to try to influence someone to change their behavior.
I would rather put energy into petitioning TPM to remove the comments off feature. Did I read somewere that they were going to do that? It would put an end to all of this. Or as was suggested by the cat we just ignore people who blog like this. What they are contributing to the community is NOT what I like best about coming here and I know that we are in a Post-election blogging lull but we could still ignore the stuff.
Having said that because in a way it reflects on the whole community for someone to be in recommended posts... I do prefer that we get the no comments option removed. Because then, at least if someone is posting something that many of us find ridiculous we can say as much in a comment so that when readers stop by the blog itself will not be taken as a reflection of the community as a whole.
Wow that was wordy...
November 16, 2008 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that the no comments feature has no value and as you note may actually carry a negative value by promoting blogs that do not reflect the more complex combinations of intellects here at TPM that would otherwise be reflected in the comments section. So how do we address making such a change? Vote? Discussion,(which I think we've pretty well covered in the various threads devoted to the issue)? It's a shame the revamping of the website included this feature in the first place.
November 17, 2008 1:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
This isn't the first time one of our naysayers has built a strawman by accusing someone else of building a strawman. It is a very Roviavellian tactic.
If you read the first and last sentences of O'Reilly's pernicious rant, he is doing everything possible short of actually making the outright statement, that blacks as first time voters won the day for Prop 8. All Keith did was to expose that link O'Reilly thought he was making with subtle inference.
You'd have to be thick as a brick to miss O'Reilly's subtle subterfuge. Keith was only doing his job, which in part is to expose these mindbending Fox News tricks.
As for shutting down comments, it's like a real pile of chicken-manure. What were you afraid of, Liebuilder? If you can't stand the heat, stay off of TPM. Post to Drudge or maybe LGF, but leave the truth to the real truthseekers.
November 16, 2008 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's no proof in any logic system I am aware of. All it "proves" is that someone dislikes you (name-call) or prefers to discuss something else (change subject), like your poor rhetoric. Has nothing to do with whatever you were positing.
So I guess I just "proved" on both counts that you were correct.
November 16, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink