Reply #112: If my labeling your strawmen set a record, it is because your post used a record number of strawmen. [View All]

[LooseWilly]

Make non-strawman arguments, and I won't have to respond by identifying your arguments thusly.

The onus is upon you. :)

It is indeed, "not a strawman" when you are quoting me... but when you use the quote for a mis-interpretation of what I said (by paraphrasing incorrectly), and then proceed to argue with the mis-interpretation of the fallacious paraphrasing... then - yes, you are making a strawman argument.

... If you're unwilling to defend your own assertions then responding to you is a waste of time. It would be a bigger waste of time to provide you with links of things which are common knowledge but you claim to be unaware of.

Uhhm, unwilling to defend my asertions? Really? Did you not read my post? "waste of time to provide you with links of things which are common knowledge..." —if these are things which are such common knowledge, then it shouldn't be hard to find links. I provided links. Your unwillingness to do likewise indicates that you are taking liberties with facts, and are unwilling to defend your own assertions. Your continuing projection on the subject of not supporting assertions, as well as the subject of "authoritarianism", is becoming truly telling and I'm beginning to suspect that it also explains your repetitive use of strawmen.

You may not realize the implications of your attitude that we need to plaintively ask the President to pressure Congress on our behalf instead of exercising that power directly ourselves, but I see how it puts the people in the position of begging to an authority figure.

Once again, I never said "need to". It is you who keeps insisting on twisting what I say to include that detail, which is convenient - since that addition is the basis for your whole disingenuous assertion. If you had read the definition of "strawman" that I provided in my last post, you might understand that by misrepresenting what I've written with that addition, you are engaging in a "strawman argument".

I don't know how often I will have to repeat this point before you finally seem to understand it...

First, I find it a little funny that you're trying to prove Obama doesn't bother pressuring Congress by linking a MSNBC story about him canceling a foreign trip in order personally pressure Congress. Nice.

I wasn't saying that Obama doesn't pressure Congress... I was saying I want to see him pressure Congress to pass policy legislation as progressive as that which he spoke of during the campaign... my link showed Obama doing the opposite— pressuring Congress to vote for health care reform without a public option. Pressuring Congress, specifically the House, to "move rightward" on policy, instead of trying to push the Senate to "move leftward". When Obama does things like this, it pisses off people who thought he would at least show some resolve to enact policy that he himself (and his team) devised.

If it were true that Obama is pushing Congress right then he would be introducing legislation to the right of what can pass Congress. Correct? You may remember that Clinton would split the difference between Congressional Democrats and Republicans by introducing something down the middle of what each caucus wanted. By contrast, everything Obama has introduced is to the left of what will pass the Senate Democratic caucus.

Since you love examples of things that should be obvious:
Obama introduced cap-and-trade, personally called members of the House to get it passed there, and now the Senate refuses to vote on it.
Congress watered down Obama's financial regulation proposal.
Obama introduced HCR with the public option before conservative Senate Democrats took it out.
Congress reduced the size of Obama's proposed stimulus package.

Uhh, maybe you don't understand the meaning of supporting your assertions? Show me some specifics to support these assertions. "... everything Obama has introduced is to the left of what will pass the Senate Democratic caucus." I am not aware of Obama actually introducing anything... I know that he speaks of rather progressive policy, but when the specifics are finally distilled from the rhetoric it always seems to have taken Obama's relatively-compromise position and compromised that, and often compromised it again. HCR that compromised away the public option, and then compromised in a mandate- comes to mind.

Why don't you provide some specifics? And, while you're at it, provide some evidence that Obama and the White House have actually done something to keep the core ideas of the policy intact. You've asserted: "Obama introduced cap-and-trade, personally called members of the House to get it passed there, and now the Senate refuses to vote on it.", now back that assertion up. See if you can make me feel like I wasn't an idiot for voting for Obama...

On every major issue Obama is pushing for things to the left of what will pass both houses of Congress. So, for you to believe that Obama is pushing Congress right I must conclude that you:
1) Are predisposed to believe any drivel a blogger writes as long as it attacks Obama.
2) Are on drugs.

So... once again, assertion without any evidentiary support whatsoever. The projection is really getting tiresome, as well as repetitive. I do thank you, though, for mixing in a little Gibbs-ian ad hominem drug-user assertion. It's kind of telling, really... as no one who is, in reality, a "Radical Activist" would ever consider drug use to be indicative of someone's cognitive functions... that's a view more common for bourgeois activists, or bourgeois authoritarians...

Is there something you'd like to tell us?