rebbiker Dickson's singularly commonplace prose seems to have undergone a makeover with the amusing inclusion of what seems to be a loan-word from some atavistic gypsy dialect.
25 December 2004, 00:40:27 GMT – Like – Reply
Stuart rebbiker is displaying further classic symptoms of numptyhood.
24 December 2004, 20:21:25 GMT – Like – Reply
rebbiker 'They too often abuse the precious liberty which they claim to cherish' By whose lights? Yours you intellectual amoeba? No,wait, I am mistaken, because judging by Dickson's 'come-all ye' stance on Third World immigration,the amoeba, which has no brains or senses,does perceive an attack when an enemy invades its body.
24 December 2004, 01:28:19 GMT – Like – Reply
Stuart -"random strangers"
The problem is that the contributors to David's Comments section are very far from "random". They clearly have a lot in common and thus constitute a definable group. Probably because all these right-wing and "libertarian" blogs all seem to link to each other.
I am no longer so curious, because I believe I have learnt a fair bit about "libertarianiasm" from its advocates on this blog (and a few others). I will no doubt, in due course, acquire further information and experience.
It would do "libertarians" no harm to do a bit of research themselves. I well remember being told-off for likening "libertarians" to anarchists, only to read an item David cut & pasted out of the Libertarian Alliance constitution (at his item on whether "libertarians" should stand for election) which explicitly stated that anarchism was a legitimate school of libertarian thought. As is republicanism.
Because libertarianism cherishes free speech, including offensive speech, does not mean that "libertarians" are obliged to be offensive about gays, ethnic minorities and political opponents. They too often abuse the precious liberty which they claim to cherish.
23 December 2004, 16:03:40 GMT – Like – Reply
Andy Wood I was very curious about libertarianism...
In that case, you should forget about arguing with random strangers in blogs and go and do something more informative, such as read Reason magazine, or the pamphlets on the Libertarian Alliance website, or The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman.
Out of curiosity, how many libertarians do you know?
In real life, none, unless you count the handful of folk that I've sat in the audience with when listening to one of the lectures given by St. Andrews Liberty Club.
23 December 2004, 14:35:42 GMT – Like – Reply
Stuart You are correct. Only the ones on this blog, to my knowledge. I sincerely hope that they are not a representative sample because many of them are repulsive specimens (rebbiker and Verity spring to mind).
I was very curious about libertarianism, but David's blog (or rather his commentators) have put me right off.
I do have a Guardian-reading friend who has recently joined the Scottish Green Party who claims to be a "libertarian", but I suspect he doesn't mean the same thing as you guys. I think he takes it as a justification for toking vast quantities of marijuana.
Apparently, according to a wee test David signposted recently, even I qualify as a "libertarian". I do not consider myself one. I prefer the title "liberal": for free trade and free markets and for a kind, tolerant, egalitarian society.
Since I am a sociable kind of chap, who has moved in many circles of society, I can only conclude that there are not many "libertarians" in real life, as a percentage of the population.
Out of curiosity, how many libertarians do you know?
Andy Wood Out of curiosity, how many libertarians do you actually know? I get the impression that your opinion of them has been formed on the basis of a rather small sample of them.
23 December 2004, 12:51:44 GMT – Like – Reply
Stuart The sad thing is, I am actually in the same camp as David Ellams and apparently every other contributor on this topic, in that I too oppose statutory ID-cards (or more accurately the inter-connected databases behind the state's card.)
However, I am open to persuasion from either side and "libertarians" must appreciate that by using such extreme language they will put off millions of floating voters in this debate. "Libertarians" have an appalling habit of talking loudly and boisterously to the converted and considering anyone else as an automatic foe.
23 December 2004, 12:39:06 GMT – Like – Reply
Andy Wood I've just googled for Godwin's Law, and it appears you are correct.
The version I remembered, which must have been from a second hand source, stated "As the length of a Usenet debate tends to infinity, the probability that one debater will accuse the other of being a Nazi approaches one."
23 December 2004, 12:10:17 GMT – Like – Reply
Stuart Neither had I when you first pulled me up with Godwin's Law. (It was yourself that first drew my attention to the existence of said Law.)
I had said that if a debating opponent wanted to join the DUP he had better start practising the goosestep. Pretty mild stuff compared to the gross nazi/communist comparisons that regularly get flung about by "libertarians".
Godwin said nothing about it only being applicable to "debating opponents":
-"Finding the meme of Nazi comparisons on Usenet illogical and offensive, Godwin established the law as a counter-meme. The law's memetic function is not to end discussions (or even to classify them as "old"), but to make participants in a discussion more aware of whether a comparison to Nazis or Hitler is appropriate, or is simply a rhetorical overreach.
Many people have extended Godwin's law to imply that the invoking of the Nazis as a debating tactic (in any argument not directly related to World War II or the Holocaust) automatically loses the argument, simply because the nature of these events is such that any comparison to any event less serious than genocide or extinction is invalid and in poor taste."
(wikipedia)
It is anyway pretty clear that David Ellams IS calling his opponents in the ID-card debate "neofascists", as well as traitors. Pretty idiotic stuff.
23 December 2004, 10:33:56 GMT – Like – Reply
Andy Wood Godwin's Law.
No. He didn't accuse one of his debating opponents of being a Nazi.
David Ellams All those MPs who either voted in favour of the neofascist proposal to introduce identity cards, as well as those who abstained, or failed to vote against without a legitimate excuse, are guilty of treason.
22 December 2004, 19:51:33 GMT – Like – Reply
Little Drummer Boy "Michael Howard faces an embarrassing rebellion this week when senior members of his team "go missing" rather than support his policy on identity cards."
And with any luck they will never reappear. They can be declared legally dead after seven years.
I know, why so few?
19 December 2004, 21:29:13 GMT – Like – Reply
Stuart I am delighted to see that the infighting has begun:
www.telegraph.co.uk
-"Howard faces Tory rebellion over ID cards By Melissa Kite and Tony Freinberg (Filed: 19/12/2004)
Michael Howard faces an embarrassing rebellion this week when senior members of his team "go missing" rather than support his policy on identity cards.
The Conservative leader may also be summoned before an industrial tribunal by a member of staff who was sacked during a turf war between his chairman Lord Saatchi and his election chief Lynton Crosby. One Conservative frontbencher yesterday described the party machine as "in near meltdown".
John Redwood described the scheme as 'wretched' Months from a probable election, senior Tories fear they have succumbed to a infighting of the kind not seen since the darkest days of Iain Duncan Smith's leadership."
3 comments:
Comments made on previous template:
rebbiker
Dickson's singularly commonplace prose seems to have undergone a makeover with the amusing inclusion of what seems to be a loan-word from some atavistic gypsy dialect.
25 December 2004, 00:40:27 GMT
– Like – Reply
Stuart
rebbiker is displaying further classic symptoms of numptyhood.
24 December 2004, 20:21:25 GMT
– Like – Reply
rebbiker
'They too often abuse the precious liberty which they claim to cherish' By whose lights? Yours you intellectual amoeba? No,wait, I am mistaken, because judging by Dickson's 'come-all ye' stance on Third World immigration,the amoeba, which has no brains or senses,does perceive an attack when an enemy invades its body.
24 December 2004, 01:28:19 GMT
– Like – Reply
Stuart
-"random strangers"
The problem is that the contributors to David's Comments section are very far from "random". They clearly have a lot in common and thus constitute a definable group. Probably because all these right-wing and "libertarian" blogs all seem to link to each other.
I am no longer so curious, because I believe I have learnt a fair bit about "libertarianiasm" from its advocates on this blog (and a few others). I will no doubt, in due course, acquire further information and experience.
It would do "libertarians" no harm to do a bit of research themselves. I well remember being told-off for likening "libertarians" to anarchists, only to read an item David cut & pasted out of the Libertarian Alliance constitution (at his item on whether "libertarians" should stand for election) which explicitly stated that anarchism was a legitimate school of libertarian thought. As is republicanism.
Because libertarianism cherishes free speech, including offensive speech, does not mean that "libertarians" are obliged to be offensive about gays, ethnic minorities and political opponents. They too often abuse the precious liberty which they claim to cherish.
23 December 2004, 16:03:40 GMT
– Like – Reply
Andy Wood
I was very curious about libertarianism...
In that case, you should forget about arguing with random strangers in blogs and go and do something more informative, such as read Reason magazine, or the pamphlets on the Libertarian Alliance website, or The Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman.
Out of curiosity, how many libertarians do you know?
In real life, none, unless you count the handful of folk that I've sat in the audience with when listening to one of the lectures given by St. Andrews Liberty Club.
23 December 2004, 14:35:42 GMT
– Like – Reply
Stuart
You are correct. Only the ones on this blog, to my knowledge. I sincerely hope that they are not a representative sample because many of them are repulsive specimens (rebbiker and Verity spring to mind).
I was very curious about libertarianism, but David's blog (or rather his commentators) have put me right off.
I do have a Guardian-reading friend who has recently joined the Scottish Green Party who claims to be a "libertarian", but I suspect he doesn't mean the same thing as you guys. I think he takes it as a justification for toking vast quantities of marijuana.
Apparently, according to a wee test David signposted recently, even I qualify as a "libertarian". I do not consider myself one. I prefer the title "liberal": for free trade and free markets and for a kind, tolerant, egalitarian society.
Since I am a sociable kind of chap, who has moved in many circles of society, I can only conclude that there are not many "libertarians" in real life, as a percentage of the population.
Out of curiosity, how many libertarians do you know?
23 December 2004, 13:36:07 GMT
– Like – Reply
Andy Wood
Out of curiosity, how many libertarians do you actually know? I get the impression that your opinion of them has been formed on the basis of a rather small sample of them.
23 December 2004, 12:51:44 GMT
– Like – Reply
Stuart
The sad thing is, I am actually in the same camp as David Ellams and apparently every other contributor on this topic, in that I too oppose statutory ID-cards (or more accurately the inter-connected databases behind the state's card.)
However, I am open to persuasion from either side and "libertarians" must appreciate that by using such extreme language they will put off millions of floating voters in this debate. "Libertarians" have an appalling habit of talking loudly and boisterously to the converted and considering anyone else as an automatic foe.
23 December 2004, 12:39:06 GMT
– Like – Reply
Andy Wood
I've just googled for Godwin's Law, and it appears you are correct.
The version I remembered, which must have been from a second hand source, stated "As the length of a Usenet debate tends to infinity, the probability that one debater will accuse the other of being a Nazi approaches one."
23 December 2004, 12:10:17 GMT
– Like – Reply
Stuart
Neither had I when you first pulled me up with Godwin's Law. (It was yourself that first drew my attention to the existence of said Law.)
I had said that if a debating opponent wanted to join the DUP he had better start practising the goosestep. Pretty mild stuff compared to the gross nazi/communist comparisons that regularly get flung about by "libertarians".
Godwin said nothing about it only being applicable to "debating opponents":
-"Finding the meme of Nazi comparisons on Usenet illogical and offensive, Godwin established the law as a counter-meme. The law's memetic function is not to end discussions (or even to classify them as "old"), but to make participants in a discussion more aware of whether a comparison to Nazis or Hitler is appropriate, or is simply a rhetorical overreach.
Many people have extended Godwin's law to imply that the invoking of the Nazis as a debating tactic (in any argument not directly related to World War II or the Holocaust) automatically loses the argument, simply because the nature of these events is such that any comparison to any event less serious than genocide or extinction is invalid and in poor taste."
(wikipedia)
It is anyway pretty clear that David Ellams IS calling his opponents in the ID-card debate "neofascists", as well as traitors. Pretty idiotic stuff.
23 December 2004, 10:33:56 GMT
– Like – Reply
Andy Wood
Godwin's Law.
No. He didn't accuse one of his debating opponents of being a Nazi.
23 December 2004, 09:51:34 GMT
– Like – Reply
Stuart
Godwin's Law.
22 December 2004, 20:52:18 GMT
– Like – Reply
David Ellams
All those MPs who either voted in favour of the neofascist proposal to introduce identity cards, as well as those who abstained, or failed to vote against without a legitimate excuse, are guilty of treason.
22 December 2004, 19:51:33 GMT
– Like – Reply
Little Drummer Boy
"Michael Howard faces an embarrassing rebellion this week when senior members of his team "go missing" rather than support his policy on identity cards."
And with any luck they will never reappear. They can be declared legally dead after seven years.
I know, why so few?
19 December 2004, 21:29:13 GMT
– Like – Reply
Stuart
I am delighted to see that the infighting has begun:
www.telegraph.co.uk
-"Howard faces Tory rebellion over ID cards
By Melissa Kite and Tony Freinberg
(Filed: 19/12/2004)
Michael Howard faces an embarrassing rebellion this week when senior members of his team "go missing" rather than support his policy on identity cards.
The Conservative leader may also be summoned before an industrial tribunal by a member of staff who was sacked during a turf war between his chairman Lord Saatchi and his election chief Lynton Crosby. One Conservative frontbencher yesterday described the party machine as "in near meltdown".
John Redwood described the scheme as 'wretched'
Months from a probable election, senior Tories fear they have succumbed to a infighting of the kind not seen since the darkest days of Iain Duncan Smith's leadership."
19 December 2004, 09:45:06 GMT
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