I wasn't attacking you, but your excessive use of the word and your many defenses of that excessive use. It's like those who use obscenities in large quantities when they talk. After awhile, the f-word etc. lack any shock value. It ends up being meaningless noise.
^^^^^ CB: Your argument here is known in technical logic as begging the question. The issue in dispute is whether I use the word excessively or whether you and others don't use it enough. You are asserting as true without supporting argument your position on what is in dispute.
I don't agree with you that by the amount of time I use the term causes it to be meaningless. I believe your failure to use the term is dangerous.
That's the debate. You can't settle the debate by asserting baldly your position in the debate without any supporting argumentation.
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I don't know if my posts are interesting or not. If they aren't perhaps some objective observer can tell me. -- CB: Wow, that's an interesting thought. I'm not bored at all.
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Carrol:.
I would agree with this, but I think there is another danger that such rhetorical slovenliness
^^ CB; It's not slovenly. It is precise. What is slovenly is your discussion of fascism. Take below. It is lazy speculation with very little supporting evidence. Where else in time and space has a population done what Carrol lazily speculates about below ? Carrol is too lazy to find one in history. Easier to just spout off.
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Carrol: enhances even more -- a steady increase in repression until we have the equivalent of fascist repression within still democratic forms.
^^^^^ CB: This is truly a lazy , confused thought. Absolute no argument as to how referring to the Bush adminstrations' war on Iraq as fascist or the Patriot Act , etc. as a fascist climate will "enhance even more -- a steady increase in repression until the equivalent of fascist repression within still democratic forms."
Lets "unpack" this slovenly nonsense. The repression is steadily increasing already, but no worry about fascism in that (!) It's the calling it fascist that enhances it. How is that ? And then it is steadily increasing until, lo and behold , it _does_ reach the "equivalent of fascist repression ". Are we to think that if we hadn't called it "fascism" it wouldn't have got to "the equivalent of fascism" ,as Chip B suggests ? That seems a rather ridiculous idea: we wouldn't have "driven" it to the equivalent of fascism if we had just not called it by the name "fascism". Is this a "speak of the Devil" theory ? Afterall, it us premature anti-fascists who will cause fascism to come about by our name calling. Bullshit ! Everything would have been fine, until our naming it caused it to turn into what we called it.
And what is this "equivalent of fascism still within a democratic form " ? What's the difference between that and fascism ? Duh.
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Carrol: Most people are more sophisticated on this subject than are many left intellectuals.
^^^^^ CB; Yea, they might be more sophisticated than _you_ left intellectuals.
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Carrol: They will see that _obviously_ the Bush administration isn't fascist,
^^^^ CB; How would they see that when the Bush administration is _not_ obviously not fascist, that is , signs of being fascistic ? This is begging the question , like Jim D.
^^^^ Carrol: and therefore they won't see it as being repressived _at all_.
^^^ CB: Another in a series of non-sequiturs. Why would they not see the patent fact that it is repressive in lots of ways ? How does some leftists calling it fascistic suddenly blind people to the fact that it is repressive ? Is it the Cassandra-effect ?
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Carrol: It is really crucial that leftists teach americans to recognize that fascism is not the only or most threatening form of repression; that repression of _all_ kinds must be resisted.
CB: Carrol always says this but he never gives an argument supporting it. What is this other form of repression not worthy of being called fascist that is so great ? Any significant form of repression is worth calling fascist. Distinguishing it from fascism does absolutely nothing in helping to defend against it. The best way to warn people and arouse them against this fanthom "non-fascist" repression is to show its similarities to the well known historical examples which were fascism. Why would people be aroused to fight this Neo-repression by saying to them " Oh but be sure and notice that it is not the same as fascism and never call it "fascism." ? If you call it fascism , it will become fascism..
This is slovenly, confused thinking if I ever saw it.