kwc57
BOHICA Obama
He did defend it. He spoke to the context of "Always" that he used in relation to his experience and said that he didn't mean to speak of everybody in the world. He also conceded that "always" wasn't the appropriate word, although, I think you already knew that. You went for a cheap victory over the poor use of a word and derailed the conversation to focus on that one, relatively insignificant, point. You are better than that.Sorry Pogo, you are one of my favorite posters and I often agree with you on most of your posts, but I'm with Ice on this one... I also get these "wordsmiths" derailing arguments all the time pointing out typos or lazy language that I use and it is obnoxious to have to reexplain myself all the time to people who know good and well what I am talking about. You are a bright guy and completely capable of holding your own in a debate so I hope you lay off the word games in the future and keep the discussion on point as to the substance of what the people you engage with are speaking to.in other words, you choose to go apeshit on a generalization and derail the discussion and i'm out now.In other words you can't take responsibility for your own words.
Yeah, no shit.
It's not that complex --- you simply can't put forth an argument, and then when the flaws in that argument are pointed out, declare that "words don't mean what they mean and therefore I win". That's complete bullshit.
If he wasn't prepared to defend his point he should have simply never made it.
Apparently you didn't read the exchange. I'll summarize.
Nobody anywhere suggested "always" means "since the beginning of time". We all take that to mean, "in the modern experience".
His contention was that "you look back, kids have always played with toy guns". I then did just that, looked back and analyzed the current events shooter as having been born in 1953 or 1954. That's pretty specific. I presented the case of what a kid born in either of those years would have been indoctrinated with in his time.
Then I contrasted an imaginary older brother born ten years earlier and noted how that brother would not have been exposed to the same media indoctrination, because it did not yet exist. Which in turn means said media indoctrination has a finite start point in the time continuum, which did not exist just ten years prior, which refutes the idea of "always", no matter how metaphorically you interpret it.
In other words something changed. There was no "always" before it got put there. That's the whole point of post 31.
His contention was that kids playing with guns is a given; I'm saying no it isn't, because there's a measurable time when that wasn't the case, and I showed and example of exactly HOW and WHEN it got put there. And before that point that dynamic was not there --- hence "always" doesn't work, as it isn't a 'given' --- it's artificially introduced.
Is there some bizarro reason I'm not allowed to make that point, or what?
Or is there some obscure definition of "always" that extends to 1953 but somehow does not extend to 1943? Did Congress declare an "End of Always" day sometime in 1949?
I ain't the one trying to derail with semantics here -- he is. I find that usually when people are derailing like this it's to take the focus off the underlying point, because they're scared shitless of it.
Ah, but a brother born 10 or even 20 years would have had the same indoctrination. You do of course realize that before TV, there were radio and movie serials don't you? You do realize that toy guns predate the 50's don't you?
After a 12-year-old boy was shot by police in Cleveland, Americans confront our history with toy guns yet again
"Guns have been made for children for more than 150 years, as toys and as training tools for boys who would follow their fathers into hunting. The original Daisy air rifle, first built in 1888, was marketed door-to-door to farm families, says Joe Murfin, vice president of marketing for Daisy Outdoor Products in Rogers, Ark., which is also home to the Rogers Daisy Airgun Museum."
Serial Films