Natoma said:
I never stated that your quote of me was false.
Um, which is exactly why I never said you stated it.
That was never in contention.
Yup. We agree that my sig is a concise, direct quote that faithfully represents your viewpoint at the time you made it. Right...never said anything differently. Agree.
In fact I also stated that I was mistaken wrt my statement. I merely stated that I don't quote people from forums. That is my particular opinion on the subject, as I stated earlier.
And I'm stating that I personally don't see the point in some "standard" of not quoting people from forums. It's fine that you abide by it for whatever reason you have.
If it's an honest representation, (which we both agree I have made in this case), I don't have a problem with it, no matter what the source. That's my standard. I'm not sure why someone else would have a problem with that, and you certainly did not explain why yourself.
So what makes it inherently bad practice to quote other forum members in a sig?
Here's the full text of Bush's comments:
"There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on," Bush said. "We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."
You tell me how that's taken out of context.
Um...THAT'S NOT taking him out of context. If that was your sig, we wouldn't be discussing this. The problem is...that's not your sig, is it.
Mary K took it out of context, by ONLY citing "bring them on", and you dutifully relayed it to us.
He's "inviting" them to attack because we have more than enough forces to deal with anything. You tell me how that's taken out of context.
Read this part again: "We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation." That to me, is the context. We are confident that whatever comes our way, we can deal with it.
In any case, the White House certainly disagrees with you:
USA Today said:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-07-02-bush-iraq-troops_x.htm
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush's combative tone was not meant to invite attacks on Americans. "...what the president was expressing there is his confidence in the men and women of the military to handle the military mission they still remain in the middle of," Fleischer said.
A.D.Y.D.T.M.T.T.O.O.C! (Don't know what that means? Maybe you'll find out...
Again, can I understand the context as you and Mary K presented it? Sure. Here's an exercise for you.
Reporter #1: In response to being questioned about the ability for the enemy to successfully engage our troops or cause disarray, Bush said "Bring them on".
Reporter #2: In response to being questioned about the ability for the enemy to successfully engage our troops or cause disarray, Bush said "We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."
Both 100% "factual". Both 100% different contexts, wouldn't you say?
So how can there be a case where the President made BOTH statements (let alone who knows what other statements surrounding those that wwere never reported), yet only one context of "inviting" be deemed the "right" one?
Answer: it can't. You're left with picking and choosing specific statements, and omitting other ones, to derive the context.
Now, again, I'm not saying that taking those statements as you and Mary K did was illigitimate. You may very well believe that's the only way ("inviting") that anyone could ligitimately take it.
But then, that poses a bigger issue with your quote, which logic will bear out in a minute.
Whether or not I truly believe those comments would or would not have an impact on the fighting is moot. The president of the most powerful country in the world should not make idiotic comments like that, publicly "inviting" the enemy to attack our troops, whether in jest, hilarity, trying to make a metaphor, or whatever.
So what you're saying then, is that those comments in "full context" are idiodic...and it's obvious to anyone that taken in their full context that they are idiodic, which makes the President idiodic for making them.
Fair enough....but there one small problem there...you didn't quote Bush in full context in your sig. You quoted Mary K. If the full quote was so condemning and idiodic as you claim, wouldn't it be just as effective, nay, even MORE effective, just putting the President's full quote in your sig instead?
That is the only logical thing to do.
Given that you seem to be telling me that "inviting" is the only legitimate context which could be clearly conveyed by Bush's total words all on their own...there are only 2 possible reasons for quoting Mary K instead of Bush himself:
1) You are lying (or my interpretation is wrong), and you admit there can be multiple contexts (inviting or confidence), but you purposely used a "quote of a quote", to only highlight the specific context of your choosing to suit your personal agenda
2) You really believe "inviting" is the only reasonable context to extract, and you simply want to use the shock value of an American Solider who died in the line of duty
for you, to emphasize it.
Take you pick. Either way, I'm disgusted.
And I never said that they want our troops to be attacked. Did I.
No, they're just "inviting" them to. (As if they haven't joined the party already.)
My quote is based on honesty. Complete honesty. You show me anywhere where it is false.
Read above. If you really believed it was based on honesty, and you intention was to show how "stupid" Bush's comments are...there would be no need to quote Mary K quoting the President. You would just quote the President in his entirety.
Any hack can pull a sentence or two and completely distort the context, or only present one possible context of the message.
Apparently, you didn't feel it would be "effective" enough just to post what the President actually said in full context. And that's the real truth here, isn't it?
Do YOU recant because you have been made aware that their statements were lies, or at least misinformed?
Yup. (Either the republican in question was lying, misinformed, or the reporter misrepresented him.) So?
And this doesn't get past the point that her statement is not a statement of fact. It is a statement wrt Bush telling the enemy to bring it on. Well they brought it on, and now her nephew is dead. You tell me where that's false.
Read above. Specifically "Reporter 1" and "Reporter 2". How can we get such vastly different "contexts" from two completely factual statements?
Do you not agree that "quoting out of context" is bad, and gives false impressions of what was actually meant?
Granted, as I said, you may feel that the "inviting" context is really the only obvious / legitimate one. In which case, you weren't purposely lying. Just purposely using a dead American soldier as a prop to emotionally bolster your case, which I'd argue is worse.
Natoma said:
The facts of the case deal with admissions-based discrimination.
Wrong. The facts of this case deal with a specific person who brought a specific case of racial discrimination.
And the white house briefing spoke about discrimination being wrong.
Hint: Quit while you're behind, Natoma.
Now this can be interpreted in one of two ways. Either Bush believes discrimination in all forms is wrong, even if the motivation is good, or he believes that only race based discrimination is wrong, and legacy is fine, by proxy.
No, it can be interpreted in the most obvious way: Bush believes that racial discrimination is bad, and he has made no comment on any other form of discrimination. Neither you, nor I, can infer his views on anything other that the specific discrimination issue brought by the case he is referring to.
Oh noo. But bush is speaking on the wrongness of discrimination.
Right, and specifically wrt the case, which is racial.
And legacy is also discrimination.
I agree.
So if it's wrong because it is a form of discrimination, he needs to say something about it as well. Right?
Um, no. He also doesn't need to tell us his favorite color either.
When did I say that. Eh? I said that we should get rid of all points in the system.
Yup. What part of "RACIAL discrimination" is PART OF ALL discrimination, don't you seem to understand?
Or am I to believe that if a Supreme Court case emerges concerning the constitutionality of legacy discrimination, you would be posturing the argument that "well, geographic discrimination still exists, and gender discrimination, and admissions boards can still use race to an extent, so we shouldn't strike down legacy discrimination."
I wish I could see you trying to tell me that with a straight face...