Wingnuts Praying for Obama's Death

But this is another example of the Mindless Middle, Hyro. You're claiming that "truth" lies somewhere in between the two statements, without actually defining the extremes or providing an analysis of the accuracies and inaccuracies inherent in each.That's not objectivity. That's intellectual laziness.Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

I'm not grouping you with anyone, Hyro. I'm talking about you and only you right now, regarding this instance and no other. You said:

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The reality of the situation is that truth concerning the matter usually lies somewhere in between your position and a diehard Bush fanatic.

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This is a perfect example of a Mindless Middle comment. You are explicitly claiming that "the truth lies somewhere in between," but you are not at all providing any reason why this is so. You aren;t analyzing any of the various sides of the argument. You aren't showing which parts of which side are accurate or inaccurate.You're simply making a completely unsupported judgment that the most accurate position is a compromise of the two perceived sides.That's what the Mindless Middle is, Hyro. Each and every time anyone says that "both sides are wrong, the truth is in the middle somewhere," without specifically demonstrating where each side is accurate and inaccurate, they are making a Mindless Middle argument.It's not objectivity.If I were to speak regarding the age of the Earth in a debate between a 10,000-year-old YEC "model" and the modern geological estimate, and say "the truth is somewhere in the middle," I would be making a Mindless Middle argument. It's Midnless because I'm not actually doing any thinking - I'm just making the unsupported assertion that neither side is wholly accurate, but that the "truth" is somewhere in the "middle." Never mind that, in that particular case, one side is vastly more accurate than the other, to the point that we can say that one is factually wrong in every way, while the other is demosntrably very accurate given current data. Stop with the tu quoque nonsense and ad hominems. If you don't believe that you're making a Mindless Middle argument, prove it. Show that you did not, in fact, make an unsupported assertion that the most accurate position was a compromise between sides in an argument.Of course, since I've quoted you doing exactly that, good luck. Opinions, of course, by definition are not objective. You play-act at objectivity, Hyro, but instead you make assertions without supporting evidence or even a basic attempt to analyze the logical consistency of an argument - you just say "the truth is a compromise between both sides."Again, that's not objectivity. Objectivity is impartial, yes, but it is based on fact, not finding common ground or compromise between opposing views.Your indignation is as irrelevant as your Mindless Middle debate tactics.

Indeed. On many topics we can establish very clearly which "side" is more accurate than others. On other subjects, we cannot make a simplstic assessment of "good" or "bad" or the degrees of such simply because life is often too complex for soundbyte-sized statements.But in any case, that analysis is necessary, regardles sof complexity, or else any statement is vacuous, with no support. Not always so. This is the thought process that leads to the Mindless Middle. "Moderation in everything" is not always the best advice. Again, sometimes one side is simply wrong.More to the point, if Bush had invaded for oil, one would expect that US contractors or at least their international subsidiaries would have received the Iraqi contracts for repairing, mainaining and operating their oil fields,a nd that oil proceeds would be used to pay for the war effort.In reality, the opposite happened. While energy concerns do contribute in large part to the US interest in teh Middle East, there is as ever more to it than that. It's not an assumption, but neither is it entirely true:

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By March 2003, Hans Blix had found no stockpiles of WMD and had made significant progress toward resolving open issues of disarmament noting "proactive" but not always the "immediate" Iraqi cooperation as called for by UN Security Council Resolution 1441. He concluded that it would take but months to resolve the key remaining disarmament tasks.[4] The United States asserted this was a breach of Resolution 1441 but failed to convince the UN Security Council to pass a new resolution authorizing the use of force due to lack of evidence.

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From Wiki.The fact that the UN-appointed weapons inspections team had found no evidence of WMDs coupled with the fact that US "intelligence" regarding the actual presence of WMDs turned out to be bunk of the worst sort suggests two conclusions: either the Bush administration was grossly incompetent and shouldn;t be allowed to collectively decide what to have for lunch let alone guide national policy, or they specifically and purposefully overlooked any evidence contrary to their pre-established opinions of Iraq, and in effect lied to the American public.The fact that multiple employees of the Bush administration have come forward and criticized Bush, Ceney, and their appointees for their refusal to listen to anything outside of their own doctrine and policy suggests the truth is, ironically for our discussion, a bit of both. Particularly Iran, in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war. Israel likes to rattle sabers, but they usually restrict strikes to individual airstrikes as opposed to outright invasion, and Israeli nuclear capabilities are the giant "secret" elephant in teh room - they would lose their plausable deniability and eliminate even US support with a nuclear strike. Iran had at least actually been at war with Iraq. As ever, hindsight is 20-20. I'll do that. Quite aside from that, Saddam's Baath party was very secular. Even on ideological grounds, he and al Qaeda wouldn't have gotten along beyond the "America is a bunch of dicks" part. I'm sure Saddam smiled on 9/11, but I seriously doubt he would have given any form of aid to bin Laden even if it was impossible to trace. The enemy of my enemy...might be my enemy tomorrow. Not at all, Hyro. You misunderstand.An assertion that "the truth lies somewhere in the middle" without any analysis of fact to support such an assertion is the Mindless Middle.Sometimes, reality really is somewhere between two extremes. But it's not the Mindless Middle if that conclusion is supported by an analysis of fact. I got on your case only because you made unsupported assertions. Now that you've made an attempt to support them, in this case we agree. Ah, but you have: you've taken the side of objectivity, which tells dronester and Bush supporters alike that their assertions are not based on objective fact, but are rather colored by their own personal bias.It's a rather good side to be on. You'll note that I haven't accused you of the Mindless Middle at all in this post - because rather than just saying "you're just as wrong as they are" or "the truth is somewhere in the middle," you've now supported your statements.Personally, I wouldn't say that the truth lies "in the middle" of Bush being a good vs. bad President. I'd say "it's difficult to really make a simplistic statement on such a compelx issue. But on Bush's major policy decisions, particularly with regard to the Iraq war, I can say that regardless of anything else, America is in a weaker position today (diplomatically, economically, militarily, and morally) than it would have been had we left Saddam alone, and the entire region is now significantly less stable. In effect hundreds of thousands are dead and billions of dollars were spent for little or no gain. On that issue, I'd say the most significant highlight of the Bush presidency was resoundingly negative, and certainly inthe realm of public opinion has overshadowed any positive decisions his administration may have made (such as the invasion of Afghanistan)."At the risk of Godwin's law, this is like asking whether Hitler was "good" or "bad." I don't think anyone would ever really argue that Hitler was "good," but he did do some good things - like the construction of the Autobahn. The German Blitzkrieg and use of air power also revolutionized modern warfare. But while there were "good" things, I still wouldn't say that the "truth" lies anywhere in the middle.

Nitpick: the president cannot declare war. Only Congress can make a legal declaration of war. What a President says is irrelevant on that matter.