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

[teal]

Ok. The question.

1)Did Gore make a mistatement?

The rules of the game.

2) Gore shall be considered to not have made a mistatement unless shown to have made a mistatement *beyond a reasonable doubt*. i.e. He is innocent until proven guilty.

The verdict.

3) Geoschmo and the entire republican attack machine have failed to show number 2 because reasonable people can read Gore's entire interview and not think that he made a mistatement (myself included and many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many many other people).

Any questions? I presumb that you disagree with part number 3 of the argument that you have shown it beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't see how you can consistently maintain that point of view in that given similar situations with the tables reversed you would surely believe that someone was being smeared rather than that they made a mistatement. I believe this about Bush, I don't see why you have such a problem believing this about Gore.

And what do we mean about mistatement anyways? If you are merely implying that the statement is badly worded in the sense that it can be easily misinterpreted then I certainly agree. Gore is guilty as charged, he failed to act like a perfect mathmatically correct robot in every conceivable situation including an interview where he was answering with spoken language and not even in complete sentences always. If on the other hand you imply that the sentence was intended to convey the idea that Gore did physically make the internet then I certainly disagree. That was not Gore's intention and as reasonable people we should give him the benefit of the doubt and try to see things from his point of view rather than attacking him for something that he is not really responsible for.

Lastly about the word create. Say that your company has a web page that is very basic and just lists your company address and phone number and maybe a picture of your building. Then say you are assigned to upgrade your company web page along with a team of other people and you work hard on this project all day and at the end you put up a new company web page, using much of the code of the original web page I might ad, that is much improved with pictures of your co-workers and stuff. Then when you get home and your wife asks you, "what did you do today." It would be perfectly natural to answer, "I *created* a web page". QED. If you can't see the difference between this Version of the word create and the Version championed by a literal reading of the dictionary (making something that did not exist before because technically there *was* a web page there before) then I can't help you.

[Edited to remove a logical hole that others could distort for their purposes].

[ May 30, 2003, 16:02: Message edited by: teal ]

[teal]

I'm not really from Germany. I'm just here for a few months. I grew up in Idaho (probably why I slanted liberal, if you had to grow up in a one party communist state then you would probably reject the ruling party as well...

[Baron Munchausen]

Let's get our own facts straight before we accuse people of lying, ok?

Al Gore did not claim to have invented the Internet.

Fact.

From March 1999 CNN Interview:

BLITZER: I want to get to some of the substance of domestic and international issues in a minute, but let's just wrap up a little bit of the politics right now.
Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley, a friend of yours, a former colleague in the Senate? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

GORE: Well, I will be offering - I'll be offering my vision when my campaign begins. And it will be comprehensive and sweeping. And I hope that it will be compelling enough to draw people toward it. I feel that it will be.
But it will emerge from my dialogue with the American people. I've traveled to every part of this country during the Last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

During a quarter century of public service, including most of it long before I came into my current job, I have worked to try to improve the quality of life in our country and in our world. And what I've seen during that experience is an emerging future that's very exciting, about which I'm very optimistic, and toward which I want to lead.

All he is saying, though unfortunately phrased in a way that sound-bite artists could twist it as they inevitably did, is that he was involved in the legislation that enabled and expanded the commercial Internet. Which is true. But once the media-machine gets hold of some cutely distorted idea they repeat it until no one remembers the truth anymore.

What is it about human conversations that they can never stay on a focus? We've got the SE V thread yammering about lawsuits and a stupid legal system while this thread has drifted from Iraq to US world relations and internal politics to... wait for it... the originality of the SE series and comparisons to Al Gore's 'creativity' or lack thereof over something he didn't say. Hmm.

[ May 30, 2003, 15:43: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[geoschmo]

Baron, your post was kind of ironic. You end it by complaining about the thread not staying on focus, but the first half of it was rehashing points of the debate that have been throughly covered in the Last couple days. You didn't add anything new to the conversation at all.

As far as the SEV thread being off on a tangent, I can't argue with you there but this thread long ago left the narrow bonds of it's original purpose. It has been used for nummerous and diverse discussions, all loosely related to a political theme. So this discussion is quite appropriate for this venue.

Geoschmo

[Suicide Junkie]

he was involved in the legislation that enabled and expanded the commercial Internet

Dosen't look like that to me. There are no qualifiers in his statement there.

He took the initiative in creating the internet.

That is a far cry from being just ... involved ... in legislation ... that made it easier ... for companies to sell stuff ... on the internet.

While you could technically say he helped create the internet as it is today, that is kind of sad.
You could also say that poor, globally hated butterfly technically helped create the horrible hurricane that devastated the coast a while ago. (Take your pick from the many storms and coasts)

*****
During my years as a modder I took the initiative in creating Space Empires IV.
*****

[Baron Munchausen]

Actually, Geo, what I posted has not been covered previously. That's why I posted it. As with almost every other discussion of Gore's supposed claim his actual words were NOT part of the discussion! I posted those words so people could know what they were talking about.

I agree it's a confused mess, but it's not the claim that the media has told and told and told everyone that it is. The power of repetition is real, though. It's been proven in psychological studies. The more you repeat something at someone the more likely they are to believe it. That's why advertising works.

[ May 30, 2003, 16:36: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[dogscoff]

hat is it about human conversations that they can never stay on a focus?

That's a very good point.

Has anyone noticed how you throw cheese out when it gets mouldy? I mean cheese is just mould anyway, isn't it, so isn't mouldy cheese just mouldy mould? You wouldn't refuse to drink wet water, so why do we throw out mouldy cheese?

(Actually, I usually just cut the mouldy bits off and eat the rest=-)

[Narrew]

ohh, nothing like a good chuckle when I first get up now I need to get my coffee

[teal]

BM: (gritts teeth) I'm afraid that I must agree with Geo here... I posted the paragraph that Gore said a while ago, you added the question and a further paragraph, but that wasn't strictly necessary for anyone who wanted to wade back through too many Posts of Geo and I sniping at each other...

You however did support my claim that reasonable people can read Gore's words and not come to the conclusion that he made a misstatement and for that I thank you immensely. Reasonable people can also read it and arrive at the conclusion that he did make a misstatement. However, (and this is the super big gigantic key point which Geo has failed to address in any of his Posts) the default position is that someone is innocent until proven guilty. i.e. In a messy and muddled situation Gore should be given the benefit of the doubt and be considered to have told the truth not the other way around. If we were to believe that the accused were always guilty before being proven guilty or that all that was necessary to prove someone guilty was to find a couple of reasonable people who thought them guilty then that would be a messed up world indeed.

Edit: Oh yeah I totally agree with BM about the Space Empires V thread being totally off topic and regret my small roll in that derailment... This thread however is clearly the general off topic political heated discussions and don't really feel like we are wandering off topic here. Hopefully just having a good old fashioned disagreement which I hope everyone is enjoying...

[ May 30, 2003, 16:54: Message edited by: teal ]

[Erax]

Originally posted by dogscoff:


Has anyone noticed how you throw cheese out when it gets mouldy? I mean cheese is just mould anyway, isn't it, so isn't mouldy cheese just mouldy mould? You wouldn't refuse to drink wet water, so why do we throw out mouldy cheese?

Um, no it isn't. Cheese is the fat and protein content of milk, plus salt and calcium, coagulated by an enzyme extracted from a calf's stomach (anyone grossed out yet ?)

Mould is a fungus that feeds off the cheese, often making it taste better.