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

[primitive]

Yawn, Zzzzzzzzzz

Edit:
Oups, Geo snuck in a funny post

[ May 30, 2003, 19:26: Message edited by: primitive ]

[Fyron]

The fact of the matter is that Gore specifically said that he created the internet. He did not say that he took part in shaping it through legislation, he said that he created it. I can spell it out from the text if you really want me to. This is probabably not what he meant to say, but it is indeed what he said. This is what makes it a "mistatement" or a "verbal gaffe". You are only showing hypocrisy when you consistently deny this. Noone has to prove that he did not create the internet (in any form, the physical connection or the web, surfing, email, IM, etc.), because everyone knows that is not true (even you have stated as much). He had absolutely no part in the creation of any of it. Perhaps in the popularization of it (I am not sure on this point), but that certainly does not allow him to say that he created it by any logical standard. Geo or SJ can not logically say that they created SE4, after all. So, a reasonable line of reasoning would lead a person to the conclusion that Gore either messed up (accidental lie) or he deliberately set out to deceive. Everyone that has been posting here that has not unreasonably denied logic has said that it was most likely an accidental lie, not a deliberate one.

[rextorres]

Gore is old news. I don't know what he meant by the internet statement although it was a good way, during the campaign, to divert from all of W's gaffes.

Anyway now even Wolfowitz a Senior Administration official is admitting that "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." I'd rather argue about what that means and conveniently is more relevant to this topic.

[Aloofi]

You guys still discussing Al gore??!!
I went out for lunch, the lunch got overextended with a couple beers and political conversation, and I got back and you still discussing the same?!

[Alpha Kodiak]

The humorous part of this whole discussion is that it started with my point that it is easy to take someone out of context and make them look stupid. Apparently, politicians deserve the benefit of the doubt unless they are Republicans.

I had never read Gore's comments about the Internet, and I assumed they were taken wildly out of context. It turns out they were more ridiculous in context than I had believed. Certainly, however one takes the comments, they were more indicative of poor judgment than:

"{waves hello}"- G.W. Bush waves to the blind musician, Stevie Wonder, as reported by the Washington Post, March 6th, 2002

I would wager that almost anyone on this forum would gesture to a blind person when greeting them, as it is an action that is ingrained, rather than premeditated. It is the same thing as making hand gestures while talking on the phone to someone. Yet that is used to ridicule the President. Surely people can find juicier material than that on just about anyone.

[geoschmo]

By honest accounts what Gore did during his time in Congress was help to spur the growth of the internet by encouraging government agencies that he was involved in create and maitain a presence on the world wide web. But the fact is he had absolutly no part in creating the internet as he was still attending Yale university at the time it was created. So no matter how you massage the words he said or the context he said them in it was one of two things. A lie, or a significant verbal gaffe. It can't be neither, no matter how much Gore supporters would like it to be neither.

Geoschmo

[teal]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
By honest accounts what Gore did during his time in Congress was help to spur the growth of the internet by encouraging government agencies that he was involved in create and maitain a presence on the world wide web. But the fact is he had absolutly no part in creating the internet as he was still attending Yale university at the time it was created. So no matter how you massage the words he said or the context he said them in it was one of two things. A lie, or a significant verbal gaffe. It can't be neither, no matter how much Gore supporters would like it to be neither.

Seems to be a misunderstanding about the word create. You maintain that the word create can only mean one thing. Namely the initial construction of something. I don't think that is correct. (and further I don't think that you maintain that except when it is politically convenient for you to slam someone you already don't like with it). Say at some point in the future that Space Empires takes off and becomes the biggest game since Monopoly and further assume that I give substantial assistance to its growth. I might then say in perfectly natural language that "I took the initiative in creating the Space Empires phenomenon." Now the Space Empires phenomon certainly existed before I came along but that does not make my statement either a verbal gaffe or a lie. It is just me using natural language to express the idea that I helped something to rise in stature. The analogy is almost perfect. The internet existed before Gore came along but wasn't very big and he did provide some assistance in its growth. Whether this assitance merits the self congradulation he gave himself is another question but humble politicians tend to go nowhere fast and I would challenge you to find one. It was neither a lie or a verbal gafe but an honest, if somewhat overly proud, statement that had the unfortunate trait that it was easy for unscrupulus and willfully destructive people to take out of context much like the crazy Michael Moore likes to do.

Your welcome to try again with another one of Gore's so called lies. I think we have exhausted the internet one clearly in Gore's favor.

[teal]

I did some informal surveying to make sure I wasn't completely crazy... Turns out I'm not. If you think I am either crazy or just crazy on this point then you can ask yourself long and hard why do you think both me and BM posted the entire paragraph of the interview and then said, "see, its perfectly obvious there was no misstatement here." Either we were so completely wacko as to actually hand the other side complete text that they could use to hang us with a great big glowing sign or else we were completely reasonable human being approaching the quote from a different point of view and reached a reasonable conclusion which we are then somewhat flabbergasted to learn that other reasonable people disagree with us about...

My favorite answer is from my survey is, "Gore was trying to say as little as possible". Now *that* is something we can agree on.

Cheers!

Teal

[Fyron]

Point of view has little to do with what the statements Gore made mean. It is irrelevant what he meant to say, all that matters for purposes of this argument is what he said. And what he said indicates that he had a large hand in the creation of the internet (take the internet to mean whatever the heck you want, it doesn't matter). Which of course he did not. In all probability it was a mistatement (an error), but of course Gore can never make errors. Its always taken out of context. This is the picture you are painting by essentially ignoring the only reasonable meaning of his statement and creating new meanings that show that Gore did not make a verbal gaffe.

[ May 31, 2003, 11:08: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by teal:
I did some informal surveying to make sure I wasn't completely crazy... Turns out I'm not. If you think I am either crazy or just crazy on this point then you can ask yourself long and hard why do you think both me and BM posted the entire paragraph of the interview and then said, "see, its perfectly obvious there was no misstatement here." Either we were so completely wacko as to actually hand the other side complete text that they could use to hang us with a great big glowing sign or else we were completely reasonable human being approaching the quote from a different point of view and reached a reasonable conclusion which we are then somewhat flabbergasted to learn that other reasonable people disagree with us about...

My favorite answer is from my survey is, "Gore was trying to say as little as possible". Now *that* is something we can agree on.

Cheers!

Teal

Actually, he was trying to say as much as possible not as little as possible. If he had just taken the extra second to say 'I took the initiative in the legislation that created the internet." he'd have been completely correct -- he was a primary sponsor on both major 1970s and 1980s bills that made the Internet what it is today. In that case this ridiculous controversy would never have occured. But he is a politician, after all, and politicians are professional advertizers who advertize themselves for a living. So he over-reached while thinking on his feet and trying to make himself look as good as possible.