Help Wanted! Intelligent Liberal

I am curious, but as I said in my earlier post I am not "bleeding heart" liberal, and can often seem conservative.I'm a libertarian who shifted toward socialism based on the evidence of its utility for some things. I don't oppose all war, but the war in Iraq is a war crime. I don't oppose gun ownership, but some measure of reason in arms control is useful.Your blog did not seem overtly political and so it was not clear what kind of debates you wanted to have, or how continous they'd be. It sounds like it would all be on your own site, which would be fine with me.If you are interested, or not, let me know.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

It doesn't take Mentok the Mind-Taker to plumb your true agenda, FM. Even this post is another sterling example of you asking for an "intelligent liberal" out of one side of your mouth, and equating liberal ideas with idiots and charlatans out of the other. I think around here you'll find that its the conservatives who substitute empty repetition of platitudes for empirical fact. You would appear to be simply one more in that mold. And you say this as a resident of a country that's already a large part socialist? And working just fine?We're actually discussing this topic in another thread. Here's the link: EvC Forum: Socialism in Venezuela has made illiteracy a thing of the pastWe'd sure love your input on the subject.

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I have not seen much intelligence here either.

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Yeah, we get this a lot. A lot of people blow in here and claim that no one here is very intelligent or very knowledgeable or unbiased or whatever without even attempting to engage in some kind of conversation. Until you decide to take part in some of the debates here, your statement comes across mainly like, "I have not seen many post here that agree with my position."

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

Holmes, I would enjoy having many discussions with you. I have seen many of your posts here and have developed a great deal of respect for your comments. We do disagree on many subjects but your points are well written and are supported by sound reasoning. You appear to be someone who can have an intellectual discussion with me without ignorantly butting heads.Crash/Chet, you have successfully degraded yourself to the schoolyard argument, “I know you are but what am I?” Forgive me if I do not respond in kind. Have a nice life.Chiropterea, as my post clearly specifies, my comments were made solely within the context of this thread. If you can illustrate much intelligence between Tal’s introduction and my first post I will gladly retract my statement.

So, no response to my arguments. Gotcha.

LOL, you left me nothing to discuss without joining you at a childish level.

Too late - both here and at your blog, your responses betray an intellect that is childish in the extreme.Oh, don't whine, now. You're the one that made it personal.

Ah, but how grown up and intellectal you would have appeared if you had indeed replied to the questions in a forthright manner, ignoring what you considered a childish response and addressed the facts and substance of Crashfrog's argument.You would have simultaneously appeared thoughtful an informed and made Crashfrog look, well, childish and uninformed.It currently looks pretty much as though you are avoiding addressing his points, and instead are focusing only upon the manner that he presented them.edited to correct spelling.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 11-10-2005 08:03 PM

Since no one was impressed with his claims that "socialism cannot work because people are greedy", does that mean that there are no "intelligent liberals" here?

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

crashfrog did not post an argument worthy of any intelligent response. In each of his responses he only accused conservatives of producing lies and "empty repetition" which is just what I illustrated as the regular liberal agenda. Thus, my use of the more common childish phrase, "I know you are but what am I."Does everyone who clams Bush lied lack the comprehension to understand that all their liberal heroes were saying the exact same things? Then, logically speaking, it is impossible to claim, for certain, that Iraq did NOT have WMD. At most you could claim that we have not found any WMD, so, we do not believe that they had any. But, to say that they did not have any would be a logical error. You cannot prove a negative.Saying we did not find any would also be false. I do not know why this administration has not declassified or leaked the details. Perhaps it is because they do not believe in sacrificing national security for the sake of political expediency or a private book deal which, I might add is, once again, a typical liberal practice.

I'm intrigued - can you clarify what you mean by this? I would expect that the ability to prove a negative relies on the nature of the positive proposition being refuted. After all, I see no logical faux pas with set theorists attempting to prove the negative proposition "five is not equal to four".

From a list of common logical fallacies: http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~pinsky/logic.htm

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Appeal to Ignorance (Proving a Negative): an argument that asserts a claim is true because no one can prove it is wrong; this shifts the burden of proof to the audience or opponent rather than the claimant

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Thanks for the clarification. Indeed the logical fallacy of an Appeal to Ignorance is to be avoided. As your link points out, this fallacy relies on a specific proposition being unprovable - and this of course depends on the nature of the positive proposition being refuted. However the fallacy does not state that all negative propositions are unprovable (which is how I (mis?)read your assertion "you cannot prove a negative").

Hello, Francis.I think you might have replied to the wrong post. At least, I don't see what your response has to do with my post, or in anything that I have ever posted to you.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

My response was one addressing several posts. Yours was merely the last one and my title responded to your title.