Stathol wrote:
You know... DE, your last reply makes it abundently clear that you aren't actually listening to anything I say. And since you apparently have nothing better to do than straw man the arguments of everyone who disagrees with you (the "boogeymen people", a.k.a. The big bad cop-haters) while continuing, with great irony, to complain about how you're getting stereotyped, and at the same time repeating, ad naseum what is nothing more than great big appeal to authority, ... then I can't say that I really see any further value in continuing this so-called "conversation".
You've whipped this out with 2 different people now: Both me and Taskiss. As for complaining about me getting stereotyped, that's been in response to two specific people who think all they need to do is start referencing DEs' personal history in an appeal to motive, either directly, or with cute comments about "pigs", not at you or the board in general. Apparently it's perfectly fine for to come in with a pompous and ignorant lecture about "free societies" then simply resort to snide, content-free remarks when one's bombastioc lecturing is cricticized. Furthermore, I'm hardly strawmanning anything, since the general tenor of feeling toards any sort of law enforcement on this board is that if someone can imagine how they might contrive some legal avenue to do something then they necessarily will try to because all any of them care about is more authority for the sake of more authority, and none might, you know, care about protecting people, catching actual criminals, or providing for the rights of citizens. There's no irony here except for the fact that you also fail to cricticize at least two people who have made no argument whatsoever but just come here to make snide trolling remarks. I should also point out that the reference to "the boogeyman" was not aimed at you but at the sentiment in general.
The fact of the matter is that there's a long history of people's personal distrust of law enforcement being treated as some sort of unassailbable axiomatic truth, and of course now you claim that it's a strawman to refer to it. This is highly convenient since it is never explicitly stated. It's merely incorporated as an assumption, such as the claim that there is a "rising trend of police abuse" which has been made more than once (not just in this thread). Strangely, it A) Never explains what the supposed abuse is B) never provides any evidence other than anoccasional anecdote that is supposedly evident of a trend, but which mysteriously utterly lacks statistical support of ANY sort, not even from a questionable or biased source and C) which is never the main point but is simply referenced obliquely in regard to some other point.
I've pointed out why pointing out court rulings is not a fallacious appeal to authority, and the only counters have amounted to some varient of "but
I don't think it says that", such as this appeal to textual analysis, as if that were not simply an attempt to use academic authority to impose a convenient meaning. It is hardly the case that the 50+ men who wrote the Constitution all sat down and engaged in painstaking textual analysis to ensure that the wording was precise and exact to mean one thing and only one thing that they all agreed on perfectly. It is also hardly the case that a modern person could dispassionately and accurately determine that meaning without imposing at least some personal view on it given both knowledge of the intervening time, changes in language during that time, and the personal ideas of whoever happens to be doing it. It is no more than an attempt to claim one authority is better than another based on special pleading for a method that gives desired results but strangely, does not submit the analyzer to any sort of review by people society has chosen to vet them in the way that judges are vetted.
In fact, what's abundantly clear from the fact that you've done this to two different people now is that you simply don't have an answer for my points, and have decided to simply start claiming I'm "pitching a fit", "strawmanning", and whatever else. I've acknowledged that you are correct about potential for data analysis. I've also acknowledged that you are correct that the court can make an inadvisable or disagreeable decision. I do not, however, agree that the courts' decision can be incorrect because I do not believe that there is a correct or incorrect decision. Court cases arise from the need to determine how the Constitution applies in a particular situation where it is not clear what a particular action constitutes.
You, evidently, simply want me to stop saying things that you disagree with as a condition for constinued discussion, such as your demand that I stop claiming the court is a "divine and unimpeachable will" (after which you hilariously accuse ME of strawmanning) despite the fact that I explained
in detail why the courts do and should have the final say on application of the Constitution in response to an earlier post of yours. I further explained that I don't see any practical or acceptable alternative to the Court having the final say as
someone, somewhere must have the final say and I see no better institution that the Courts which are vetted by 2 different elected branches but at the same time are not subject to the whims of the electorate and the manipulations of the press. All you're doing by complaining that I'm "appealing to authority" is claiming that some
other authority should have the final say, some authority ostensibly doing a "textual analysis", which conveniently pretends that some different authority might derive different results from textual analysis and who would say which was correct? Some yet further authority? How would we ensure that any of these was, in fact, being fair and objective in their analysis? Who is vetting these people? What gives their positions any legal validity? Why would we rely on the opinions of people the Constitution grants no legal authority to whatsoever when adherence to the Constitution is the ultimate goal here in the first place? In point of fact, as I pointed out, an unacceptable court decision can be remedied by means of ammendment or by revisitng the issue in the future; court decisions are hardly unimpeachable, but you have utterly failed to deal with this point.
In fact, this entire response of yours is a great disappointment to me since it indicates that you've abandoned your normal posting style which is generally significantly above that of most of the rest of us. Instead, you've decided to go down the road of pretending I haven't dealt with your points and am repeating myself ad nauseum because somehow explaination of my position is simply repeating myself. I can only imagine that this is a result of you being tired of the entire issue after 10 pages. Regardless, if you want to forego further discussion, fine, and you're certainly entitled to your personal opinion. That doesn't, however, obligate me to not post things you don't like.
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