Politics and Society Moderation Discussion Only Fans Thread

As I said, the discussion of whether or not Israel targets babies needs to go back into the I/P thread. It's a point of discussion as to whether targeting Hamas when they are in a location known to have civilians and babies also constitutes targeting babies. The result of the bombing is the same. While it could reflect a moral issue (collateral deaths versus targeting babies) to the families on the ground it is a distinction without a difference. So I think there is room for differing opinions on that distinction and the moral implications.

I havent seen the post about anyone enjoying dead babies. Please post or pm me the link to those posts. I have seen posts stating that people who support Israel's bombings therefore de facto support the killing of babies. But saying someone enjoys dead babies is a very different thing.

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I said you raised a good question not that you thought it was a good argument.

Again, though, if someone misrepresents your position the first response should be to show why it is a misrepresentation. This helps determine if it was a misunderstanding of ones position versus a disagreement with the others opinion on the issue. If, after the back and forth both sides remain steadfast in their beliefs (the 99.9% probability) then the options are to agree to disagree, simply stop responding to each other, or ignore the person.

But simply having someone continue to disagree with your position because you feel they are ignoring the evidence you present is not in and of itself trolling. People are free to hold the opinions they do in spite of any evidence to the contrary. In fact, on most controversial issues, (vaccines, election rigging, etc) one side or another seems to completely ignore evidence entirely but still sincerely believe their position is sound.

As I said, I will look more closely going forward on how and when the baby killer phrasing is used and in what context. When done out of the context of the current discussion as a throwaway insult that's a problem. If phrased in terms of someone enjoying the death of babies, that is also a problem. Saying someone who supports Israels bombing is defacto supporting killing babies is a different argument that needs to be rebutted rather than moderated.

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OK. I guess we might as well walk through this ITT. The quote of victor the BGP quoted is above. But I have added the post above and below it to capture context that isnt apparent by pulling out the single quote in isolation.

The general discussion was about what kind of deals could possibly be made and whether or not any deal would last more than a few days or even hours.

Boid posts that Israel should negotiate the return of hostages for a cease fire then immediately "resume the blasting of Hamas ...until mission accomplished". The mission being the destruction of Hamas.

victor comments about "good faith zionist" in response to the suggestion that Israel make a deal knowing they intend to break it.

Then victor makes the post that BGP quotes. Given Vics belief (whether supported or not) that Israel is not currently targeting Hamas, but rather civilians and babies as the primary purpose of the bombings, he states that Israel cant "resume blasting Hamas " as Boid suggests, because he doesnt think they are targeted now. Rather he believes that if they resume blasting, it will be of the blasting of babies.

Given that, the implication is that if Boid desires Israel to resume "blasting" then it must mean the blasting of babies, not Hamas.

Let me be clear. I am not suggesting in any way that Vic's position is a correct one or a likely one. But I am saying that given his (disputed) opinion that Israel is targeting babies rather than Hamas with the bombing, there is a conclusion that flows that someone who advocates for resuming bombings of Hamas is defacto advocating for resuming bombing babies.

So that's why its important to not isolate a single quote, unless it is a stand alone violation of forum rules as something requiring mod action. What I think is important to recognize is the distinction between someone with a very unpopular opinion who therefore draws unpopular conclusions that should be rebutted versus what constitutes personal attacks that require mod action.

Thanks for that quote. Are you aware of any examples were he said that a particular poster was said to enjoy (or love, etc) babies being killed as metsfin stated?

And looking up that quote, its was actually in response to a post by metfins that calls for banning people with an opinion other than his on the genocide issue. So it sort of seems like a hyperbolic, generalized response to a hyperbolic generalized comment. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who think what is going on in Gaza in terms of civilian deaths goes way beyond the parameters of defending your nation.

No I don't. Saying to someone who says they think Israel should resume the bombing that is killing way more civilians and babies than it is Hamas fighters that they therefore desire to resume killing babies is very different then saying they enjoy killing babies. Its not just semantics.

If one desires Israel keep bombing until Hamas is destroyed must know that those bombings will bring tens of thousands more civilian deaths. So to support that bombing doesnt mean you enjoy killing babies, but rather you view it as a tragic but necessary effect of accomplishing the mission of destroying Hamas by bombing.

Edit: I may have lost the bubble in the back and forth as to which quote you were referring to. It happens sometimes when while I am typing a response additional posts appear so that my post is no longer directly under where I thought it would be. My reply in this postvwas referring to the Boid/vic exchange about where vic says boid desires babies to be killed. Were you referring to that exchange or the quote that bobo posted?a

Do you think these two sentences are interchangeable?

"they think Israel should resume the bombing"

"one desires Israel keep bombing"

You use one in the first paragraph and the other in the second as if they are interchangeable, but I think they are very different. One suggests a pragmatic consideration whereas the other suggests an emotional pleasure. I should go to the gym now, but I do not desire to.

Furthermore it is possible to desire an action be taken, but not desire all of the outcomes of that action.

I think Ukraine should continue fighting, I do not desire the deaths of Ukrainians or Russians. To suggest that because I think Ukraine should fight I desire every single outcome of that is disingenuous.

The argument intentionally swaps meanings and uses flawed reasoning to imply a viewpoint that was never actually presented.

Regardless of the mental gymnastics used to arrive at the conclusion that someone desires blasting babies, the language suggests that it is an outcome that person enjoys.

Once again I don't think there are currently any antisemities in the Israel thread, but I believe the following quote very accurately summarizes the problem being discussed so I'm going to post it again. You've said that you will look for the context and phrasing going forward, please keep in mind what Bobo, myself, and others have said about the rhetoric being used constantly.

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

I attempted to highlight this earlier by saying that by using the same mental gymnastics I could intentionally misrepresent the "peace deal at all cost" argument as being supportive of/desiring torture, sexual violence, kidnapping children etc. This argument clearly does not support these things. Continually the burden to reply in good faith is placed on everyone but the person in question.

OK. I looked up various dictionary definitions of to desire and none of them said anything about emotional pleasure. But Im not going to go any further down the what does this word mean rabbit hole.

The main point from a moderation perspective (for me) is that if someones argument leads to a statement that another poster supports babies being killed by supporting Israels bombing campaign, then rebut it. Explain why you feel you can be for the bombing campaign as it is being conducted while simultaneously being against the killing of babies. If someone says you enjoy seeing babies killed or you love seeing babies killed that's a different issue. So far the only instance I have seen of that was the quote bobo posted that was an obviously hyperbolic statement that didnt name anyone specifically, since no one thinks everyone in the forum loves babies being killed except victor.

[QUOTE=Bluegrassplayer;58426542[/QUOTE]

“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

I attempted to highlight this earlier by saying that by using the same mental gymnastics I could intentionally misrepresent the "peace deal at all cost" argument as being supportive of/desiring torture, sexual violence, kidnapping children etc. This argument clearly does not support these things. Continually the burden to reply in good faith is placed on everyone but the person in question.[/QUOTE]

You could substitute any group you disagree with and use the same argument. Put vaccine causes autism group, the election was rigged group, the Trump never lies group, or almost any other group in lieu of anti Semite and it still applies. But look at the bolded part. Rebut them hard enough and they shut up. If you don't feel like putting in that effort, then just stop responding to them. If you believe they are not interested in a legit discussion, stop talking to them. If you believe their goal is to draw a reaction, then dont give them a reaction.

Mods arent going to declare winners and losers in political debates. And almost no one ever admits the other side is right. So one of two things usually happen. People get exhausted or bored with the repetitive back and forth and just give up and the argument stops. Or, unfortunately, after using up all the facts and logic, the two sides resort to personal insults and name calling. And that's when the mods have to step in.

It's like the guy who slow rolls the winning hand at the poker table. He does it fir the reaction. But if no one gets upset or calls him a jerk, he stops. There is no point in slow rolling if no one responds.

desire

feeling

It was my own summary of these definitions, I don't think they contradict the dictionary in any way. If you disagree however, I think we can both agree that there is no contradiction in this statement: "I should go to the gym now, but I do not desire to." Feel free to use whatever definition of those two words which explains the difference between them. I do not think it changes my overall point of pragmatic considerations not equating to desire/enjoy/want.

An easier solution might be to look at what a thesaurus lists as synonym for "desire": covet, crave, enjoy
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/desire#...

It does not matter how one arrives at the sentence in question, the sentence clearly states what it states.

I understand your view, what I am trying to say now is that this view is allowing someone to act in bad faith, and it puts the burden of having a productive conversation on everyone else but the person who is performing the mental gymnastics to intentionally misrepresent the views of people they disagree with in the most bad faith ways. It is far more time consuming (and not conducive to a good conversation) to have to defend from these accusations than it is to invent the accusations:

"Browser supports trolling and protects trolls." Extremely easy to state. Going through and explaining why this is wrong will take considerably more effort on your part. (BTW I do not believe this, just using it as an example.) Also it's worth noting that whenever I have actually taken the time to go through and explain my thoughts I'm accused of engaging in boring semantics arguments.

Furthermore even after I take the time to explain why that was not my view, the intentional misrepresenting did not stop. Yes, it's possible to just force myself to be disciplined and ignore it, but it's not a realistic solution long term. While people get bored and exhausted with countering bad faith misrepresentations, people also get bored and exhausted of hearing them unchallenged continually. Discipline is finite, which is how we ended up here having this discussion. When my choices are having someone continually disrupting conversations that I wish to have, and continually saying I believe something I do not believe, or coming here to bring the issue to you, after almost a year of the trying your suggestions I've broken down and decided I'd rather bring the issue to you. It seems like many others share my stance. I will spare you repeatedly stating "Browser supports trolling and protects trolls." for a year in order to illustrate this point, but just know that it's easy to ignore once, and not so easy to ignore over and over and over and over and over again.

I guess it's possible to want something you don't enjoy but that's an edge case, here's another example imo:

So not only does he accuse someone of wanting babies to be murdered, but he references another time he accused this poster of wanting babies to be murdered.

And here is a mod defending the other poster because he believes Victor is accusing him of wanting babies to be murdered:

Would the more reasonable way to read the arguments be that someone believes the bombing is necessary, but they do not desire, want, or enjoy the murdering of babies? A mod here seems to believe so.

Sorry, no, I think I misunderstood your question. My experience has been that Victor tends to most frequently paint a very broad brush with his insults.

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think about it

now, on reflection do you or the holocaust 2 supporting poster named victor see any problems with this line of thinking

If by line of thinking you mean victors position, sure there are problems with that chain of thought. But as I said it's up to other posters to either engage with him or ignore him. I'm not going to mod it away.

Victor since everything about this issue has played out publicly I'll post this publicly as well. While you can see from this discussion I am not going to take mod action on your posts that suggest that the act of supporting Israel in the war de facto means supporting the bombing that is unquestionably resulting in dead civilians and babies.

But having seen some example posts where you go beyond that to personally attacking a poster or groups of posters as enjoying, loving, desiring, etc babies being killed is a bridge too far and needs to stop immediately. So please refrain from such remarks in the future.

Thanks.

best I will allow is that this might be the case only bc people are cowards that lie to themselves or embrace cognitive dissonance.

again, you cant support the bombing and not support the results.

I will just say they support it then since its less inflammatory.

Thanks.

I mean, you have no problem saying feminists like dead babies whenever you get involved in an abortion discussion. How do you like it?

Lol mets. Owned.