[OT] Another heated discussion about the Iraq siutation, war and politics.

[teal]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Although I do need to say one thing about your analogy. I am someone who has been more than a little responsible for encouraging the popularity of Space Empires IV, the "Space Empires Phenomenon" as you so eloquenly put it, through my work with PBW. I believe I have a right to feel some pride in my accomplishments. However if I were to sit down with a reporter and state unequivically "During my service with PBW, I took the initiative in creating Space Empires." people would have every right to take me to task for it.

Geoschmo

That's why I phrased it carefully to be the Space Empires phenomena obviously only Aaron can claim to have created Space Empires itself. And I would not take you to task for that statement, but rather say that you deserved to utter it for your hard work.

I agree that this discussion has probably gone far enough. I like my default position that politicians are mostly truthful until shown beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not. You are of course welcome to believe whatever you want about certain politicians.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by teal:
That's why I phrased it carefully to be the Space Empires phenomena obviously only Aaron can claim to have created Space Empires itself.

That was my point though. You are making a distinction there that Gore did not. He didn't claim to have encourage the growth of the Internet, a claim by many accounts he had the right to make. He didn't claim to have taken the initiative in creating the Internet "Phenomenon", a claim which would probably be a bit excessively boastful but perhaps a case could be made to support it. He stated he had a hand in the creation of the internet. That's why I maintain it must be defined as a fairly serious mistatement of fact, whether intentional or not, rather then mere braggadocio.

Geoschmo

[teal]

Originally posted by geoschmo:

quote:

---

Originally posted by teal:
That's why I phrased it carefully to be the Space Empires phenomena obviously only Aaron can claim to have created Space Empires itself.

That was my point though. You are making a distinction there that Gore did not. He didn't claim to have encourage the growth of the Internet, a claim by many accounts he had the right to make. He didn't claim to have taken the initiative in creating the Internet "Phenomenon", a claim which would probably be a bit excessively boastful but perhaps a case could be made to support it. He stated he had a hand in the creation of the internet. That's why I maintain it must be defined as a fairly serious mistatement of fact, whether intentional or not, rather then mere braggadocio.

Geoschmo

---

Oh come on. Only in certain republican dominated alternate realities does the term internet mean only strictly the physical connection of one computer to another in a network. I would be willing to bet that the word is probably more often used to represent the entire phenomena of web surfing, e-mail, Online shopping, data transfer and organization by companies, on time inventory control, etc. It is clearly in that sense that Gore meant the word and only if you were out to hang him and not to give him the reasonable benefit of the doubt would you define the internet in your fashion. Once again the burden of proof is in your court. You must *prove* that Gore was a liar, not wave some words around and make it look like maybe, if cats were only the kind of animals that people have in their houses and not also creatures that live in the wild and behave quite differently from the domestic variety, then the statement was factually incorrect. Language is horribly imprecise, there are many different definitions for each word. Default position for any sentence is that you take the definitions and meanings that make the sentence make sense, not deliberately choose those meanings which make the sentence look bad. Misquoting and misrepresentation are the true evil culprits here. They should be hanged equally when applied to Gore as when applied to Bush.

[geoschmo]

He chose the words he did precisely for the reason that they have a particular meaning to the majority of the people that heard them. You can't now after the fact try to defend him by saying they don't really mean what all those people thought they meant.

How can we possibly ever hold any politician to anything he says if they are free to redefine the terms in any way they see fit?

Geoschmo

[Aloofi]

Ok, in a change of topic, lest go to Afghanistan.
What's going on over there?
There are rumors that the local governors sent to Kabul only 50 million pounds out of the 300 they collected Last year, and that Kharzai may retire due to health problems, and that feudalism has increased, not decreased, and that.......

[teal]

Must resist urge to continue silly debate, must resist, will to resits failing, urrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh

1) At least 50% of the voting public didn't seem to have any problems with it the way you do (hardly a "majority of those who heard it interpreted it in the bad way"). Ok maybe they all didn't hear the interview and the subsequent republican attack machine (although how they could miss it is beyond me), that's still sufficient evidence that you have failed to show your case beyond a reasonable doubt. Plenty of reasonable people disagree.

2) In no way did I say that politicians should not be held acountable. Just that you should tend to believe them rather than not. And while we're on the subject isn't it better to hold them acountable for their policies and ideas rather than whether they occasionally have problems with the English language? i.e. Isn't the never ending spinning and misrepresentation and doing your damnest to hang the other guy rather than give him the benefit of the doubt the true bad thing here?

[teal]

Yup Afghanistan great topic great. Love to talk about Afghanistan...

[geoschmo]

I'm not trying to hang Gore over his choice of words. For me his policies were why I didn't vote for him, not because of a few mistatements of fact that he made. But the discussion seemed to be over whether or not he actually made a mistatement. You are not the first person I have had this discussion with. And Gore appologists consistantly refuse to admit their guy screwed up. What's wrong with admitting someone made a mistake? I am not even insisting it was an intentional lie. For someone of Gore's political training to make such an obvious lie is pretty unbelievable. So I have always just been under the assumption that it was simply a gaffe. But it ammuses me that I have never heard a single Gore supporter own up to it rather then trying to spin it.

Geoschmo

[dogscoff]

Ok, in a change of topic, lest go to Afghanistan.
What's going on over there?

There's a very interesting documentary on UK tv tomorrow I'm hoping to catch, called "Afghanistan: Here's one we invaded earlier." The trailers mention the heroin industry (on the way back up apparently) and the fact that the regional warlords appear to be taking control. I have little else to contribute to the discussion right now, maybe after the weekend=-)

As for the "creating the internet." I wouldn't necessarily call it a lie becasue it is so blatantly untrue and such an incredibly stupid thing to say. The word "create" means "to make something that didn't exist before". There is no other officially recognised meaning, and I find it hard to believe anyone is even trying to argue otherwise.

If he actually did mean to say that he contributed to the growth of the internet, then he is simply inarticulate.

And no, I'm not banging any particular "party line". As I've stated before I have only a very limited interest in and knowledge of US politics.

[Loser]

I just noticed where you guys are from.... Now that's interesting...

So I'd guess neither Teal nor Dogscoff would know exactly what I meant if I said that Gore is a Yankee, no?

I am curious because I wonder just how much of U.S. culture you have absorbed/are familiar with/know about/can express.

[ May 30, 2003, 15:33: Message edited by: Loser ]