[MD] Ham unlike you I will not crreate false idols

[Platt Holden]

[Platt]
Note the logic. The University is the sole determinant of what is and is
not a cogent argument. Conservatives do not make cogent arguments.
Therefore, conservatives do not belong in the University. How laughable is
that? Ask the Nobel prize winner Milton Friedman.

[Arlo]
I thank you for repeatedly proving my point.

Nowhere did I say "conservatives do not make cogent arguments". I said, and
I repeat, "young student conservatives attempt to use the rhetorical
tactics they hear on talk radio as a substitute for cogent arguments". 

P: So conservatives do make cogent arguments? 

A: I have no problem with conservative thinking in the academy.
But, as in keeping with Limbaughian deception tactics, you repeatedly and
deliberately misstate my position.

P: No problem with conservative thinking? This from guy who explained why 
liberals dominate university thought by saying "exposure to diverse strands of 
thought at the university level instills liberal-minded thinking." 

A: What is laughable, Platt, is your utter reliance on these rhetorical
tactics, and your willingness to deceive in order to bully your point. If
that's what you want in the academy in place of cogent argumentation, I
feel sad for the future of higher education.

P: I feel sad for the present state of higher education, which is why a number 
of state governments are considering legislation to assure diversity of thought 
on campus which is so obviously lacking.

A: By the way, I checked. Milton
Friedman is required reading in six classes this semester. Marx is required
in only one.

P: What classes? And what are the other required readings? 

[Arlo]
You mean the way you assign motives to the consumers? I thought you said
they were all driven by sex? So we can assign motives to the consumer but
not the producer?

[Platt]
All driven by sex? Another hyperbolic statement. What I said was
intellectuals have taken biology's side against society, repeating what
Pirsig said. The major values of biology are sex and violence. You deny this?

[Arlo]
Hmm... how do you know what drives the consumers to purchase Flynt's
material? And why are "intellectuals" to blame for Larry Flynt's business,

P: Intellectuals generally resist any attempt to censor pornography.

A: But not Larry Flynt himself, who is clearly exploiting biology to make a
profit? So, we applaud (or at least accept) the purveyors of filth because
they are only "trying to make a buck", but we condemn "intellectuals" who
say there is nothing wrong with pornography (even though every intellectual
*I* know condemns pornography as destructive, demeaning and socially immoral).

P: But won't censor it or demand that it be taken off the market because it is 
socially destructive. Like cigarettes. Intellectuals huff and puff but the 
evils of smoking, but won't make selling tobacco illegal. 

A: This amounts to saying, "Hey, the crack DEALER, he's not doing anything
wrong, he's just trying to make a buck. Nothing wrong with that. But the
people who BUY the crack, they do so because of intellectuals who side with
biology over society."

P: There are laws against drug dealers in case you haven't noticed. But 
intellectuals by and large do not take an active role in supporting  the war on 
drugs. After all, tripping out is considered mind-expanding.

A: We are on the same side with this, if you could just for one moment let go
of your conservatistic tunnel vision. In your inability to criticize any
thing done in the pursuit of profit, you bemoan the value decay that leads
to the consumption of products, but applaud (or at the very least refuse to
criticize the profit that drives) the businessman who produces those very
products.

P: Which comes first, the value decay or the anti-social product. I say the 
value decay, as Pirsig cited in describing the downfall of the Hippie culture. 

[Platt]
You have yet to demonstrate any "over-fixation on material profit" or that
earning money "trumps all other concerns." You have offered no evidence
other than your own assumptions about why people do what they do. And you
call that sort of argument one that "will fly in the academy?" Please. That
won't even fly in the 8th grade.

[Arlo]
Well, aside from the fact that I've used you inability to criticize any
activity done towards "making a buck", I've also offered as an example the
success of Walmart, 

P: The success of Walmart is immoral? Why? Give me one good Pirsigian reason..

A: the desire on GM's part to slash employee health care,

P: You mean you want GM to go broke so everybody who works there
will be out of a job?

A: and a while back the deforestation and drilling for oil in public land.

P: Yet you yell about high gasoline prices and oil company profits?

A: Just above I mentioned the production of pornographic materials with no
concern for social outcomes, only a concern to "make profit".

P: So you are are in favor of jailing Flynt?

A: In several
posts, I've talked about the dumping of toxic chemicals across the border
in Mexico, not to mention the outsourcing of jobs to overseas markets where
companies can pay two cents per hour for labor.

P: Providing those laborers with a better life than they have ever known.

A. I've also talked about
Union Carbide and the mine fiasco at Hawk's Nest in West Virginia, where a
desire for profit led to deliberately placing miners in harms way.

P: Without providing any evidence.

A: I've
also, a few posts back, referred to the Ford Pinto, where a desire for
profits led to the company avoiding replacing a defective part because
replacement costs outweighed potential lawsuits.

P: Without providing any evidence.

A: So, you can see why your statement above is just continuing evidence of
deceptive rhetorical tactics.

P: So you can see that your saying so doesn't necessarily prove anything.

[Arlo previously]
This coming from the guy who just called everyone who doesn't accept his
sensibilities "undiscriminating". No egotism there, eh?

[Platt]
And you don't discriminate regarding what will "fly in the academy and what
won't?"  Talk about ego.

[Arlo]
Well, again, if you think deceptive rhetoric and bullying tactics,
distortive cries of "ad hominem" and blind allegiance to ideology should be
accepted into the University is comparable to  bemoaning everyone who
thinks Jagger is as good a singer as Sinatra as "undiscriminating", then
you just continue to prove my point.

P: And your constant personal attacks prove mine - you ran out of persuasive 
arguments long ago.

[Arlo previously]
I've also seen firsthand, and through dialogues with professors, the
effects of "party loyalty" and the dichotomization of American politics in
to "conservatives=All Good" and "liberals=All Evil". This makes for good
talk radio, but it woefully inadequate in the academy.

[Platt]
That sort of evidence is called hearsay which is weak because it is so
easily made up.

[Arlo]
Everything that does not conform to your party's ideology and propaganda is
"made up", isn't it Platt? I mean, the ONLY people who tell the truth are
conservatives. And you accept anecdotal, often third hand "evidence" from
them, rather than considering "first hand evidence" that challenges the
ideology. Why don't you spend a few hours a week in your local University?
Enroll for a class, ask a professor if you can "sit in". Maybe do something
other than listen to the idiotic propaganda coming out of talk radio.

Why don't you get out in the business world and learn first hand what it takes 
to meet a payroll? Then maybe your liberal ideas about business and the profit 
motive would change.

[Platt]
What was the hypocrisy on the conservative side of the interview? And what
was not true other than liberal accusations of bigotry? But, glad to see
you approve of Alito's confirmation. :-)

[Arlo]
The hypocrisy was simply believing that were the confirmation reversed, and
it was President Kerry appointing a liberal nominee, that the reaction on
the part of the conservative minority would be any different. Or was any
different historically. Both parties repeatedly criticize the "other" for
the very same things they themselves do. It's all good theatre, as I've
said, but nothing more.

You couldn't be more wrong. Conservatives did not act like today's liberals 
when Ginsburg and Breyer  were appointed by Clinton.  Oh, well hyperbole and 
distortion are par for the course in Arlo's academy.

Platt