these things are not the same.

[ulysses]

This:


("Quiverful" family)

is not this:


(Fr. Ray Bourgeois of School of the Americas Watch)

I'm just sayin'.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. Who is the guy in the second picture?

I'm not familiar with him.

[ulysses]

5. he's the guy who began School of the Americas Watch.

He's a Catholic priest.

[struggle4progress]

6. Big crowd at military school protest gets earful of patriotic music from Army (2003)

Saturday, November 22nd 2003
Associated Press

... Leaders of School of Americas Watch, which has protested at Fort Benning every year since the early 1990s, said they planned to sue over the noise tactic and accused the Army of a "psychological operation."

"There's a lot of ill will being caused that's not necessary," said the Rev. Ray Bourgeois, SOA Watch founder. "The closer we get to closing that school down, the meaner they get." ...

School of the Americas Watch holds the demonstrations every November to mark the killings of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador on Nov. 19, 1989.

Some of the killers had attended the school, which moved to Fort Benning from Panama in 1984 and is now under the jurisdiction of the Defense Department as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation ...

http://www.soaw.org/new/newswire_detail.php?id=356

[cosmik debris]

2. I don't get your point

Would you care to be a little less obtuse?

[struggle4progress]

3. I see no reason for you to call the poster "obtuse," which (as you know)

means blockheaded, dense, doltish, dumb, stupid, thick, or dimwitted.

[cosmik debris]

7. I know a lot of definitions for "obtuse" that aren't those.

Obviously you are looking for a fight this morning, so perhaps you could explain the point of the post.

Is he saying a family is not the same as a single man?

Is he saying that a Protestant is not the same as a Catholic?

Is he saying that sitting down is not the same as standing up?

Is he saying that a black and white photo is not the same as a color photo?

Is he saying that having a lot of children is not the same as having no children?

And what on earth could motivate the poster to make such points?

[ulysses]

9. let me clarify by saying that

this:


(Ted Haggard)

is also not the same as this:


(MLK, of course)

That help?

[cosmik debris]

10. So I was right

A color photo is not the same as a black and white photo.

[ulysses]

11. if you wish.

I would submit, however, that I'm not the one being obtuse. :)

[struggle4progress]

17. I'm simply objecting to what seems to be name-calling:

obtuse .. adj.frml. 1 slow to understand, (syn.) dull: He was being obtuse when he said he didn't understand the problem ...
http://nhd.heinle.com/Definition.aspx?word=obtuse

ob-tuse
Pronunciation Eb tus
Eb tyus ...
Definition 2. not keen or quick to notice, feel, or comprehend; dull or insensitive.
Synonyms stolid , insensitive (2) , insensible (4) , impassive (1) , dull (5) , unfeeling (2) , blunt (3) , insensate (3)
Crossref. Syn. thick
Similar Words stupid , dense , crass , bovine , callous , thick-skinned , thick , crude , slow ...
http://www.wordsmyth.net/live/home.php?script=search&matchent=obtuse&matchtype=exact

ob·tuse ...
1a. Lacking quickness of perception or intellect. b. Characterized by a lack of intelligence or sensitivity: an obtuse remark ...
http://www.bartleby.com/61/73/O0017300.html

[cosmik debris]

18. Dueling definitions

From Merriam Webster.

2b : difficult to comprehend : not clear or precise in thought or expression

[struggle4progress]

20. No. See #19 (link provided). Your misuse is well-known and often complained of.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=96984&mesg_id=97018

The point is simply that if you call people "obtuse" when you mean something else, they are likely to be insulted.

[cosmik debris]

22. I said exactly what I meant and I meant obtuse

I am sorry you can't understand that the way Webster does, but that is all there is to it.

[struggle4progress]

33. Oops. I thought you might be concerned not to insult folk accidentally. My apologies!

[ulysses]

4. seems straightforward to me.

:shrug:

[Sal Minella]

8. Could you have intended "less obscure," not "less obtuse?"

[cosmik debris]

12. From Merriam Webster

Obtuse: 2b : difficult to comprehend : not clear or precise in thought or expression

I said exactly what I meant. I wasn't looking for a semantic argument, I was looking for an explanation of the post and perhaps even an understanding of the motives of the poster. But I got a semantic argument. Oh well...

[ulysses]

13. you really need a full explanation of the post?

I mean, I can do that too, but I suspect that you know full well what I mean and just don't want to admit it. Or are Ted Haggard and MLK the same?

[cosmik debris]

14. There are many different interpretations of your post

I listed some of them in my post #7. I was just a little curious what your interpretation of the post was. So I offered a chance to explain. In stead you repeated you position with more cryptic glyphs.

It is obvious that the two are not the same. I just wondered what point you were trying to make by pointing out the obvious.

[ulysses]

26. of course there are,

but given the forum in which this is posted, and the fairly common thread of discussion here that often begins "All 'religionists' are...", it stretches credulity to suggest that it was about color vs b&w photographs. :D

My point is simply that progressives have strong and suitable allies among people of faith.

[cosmik debris]

27. I still don't understand what motivated you

to belabor the obvious. Did you ever have doubts that some people of faith support the Democratic Party?

But thanks for the explanation. Did you notice that it only took ten words to state your point. But it took several posts to obfuscate your point. (I hope I don't get another semantic scolding for my use of obfuscate!)

[ulysses]

30. no.

Did you ever have doubts that some people of faith support the Democratic Party?

Nope. The motivation came from the ongoing statements here to the effect that all people who profess a faith are the same - and, by implication, deluded and bad.

I've made the same statement I'm making here plainly in the past. It's gotten a lot more commentary when made graphically, though. :)

[cosmik debris]

32. What we have here is

failure to communicate

[struggle4progress]

19. Common errors in English

ABSTRUSE/OBTUSE

Most people first encounter “obtuse” in geometry class, where it labels an angle of more than 90 degrees. Imagine what sort of blunt arrowhead that kind of angle would make and you will understand why it also has a figurative meaning of “dull, stupid.” But people often mix the word up with “abstruse,” which means “difficult to understand.”

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/abstruse.html
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html


Malapropism

A malapropism is an incorrect usage of a word by substituting a similar-sounding word with different meaning ... An instance of misspeech is called a malapropism when: ... The word used sounds similar to the word that was apparently meant or intended. Using "obtuse" (wide or dull) instead of "acute" (narrow or sharp) is not a malapropism; using "obtuse" (stupid or slow-witted) when one means "abstruse" (esoteric or difficult to understand) would be ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malapropism

[cosmik debris]

21. Merriam-Webster is wrong?

If you have a complaint about the Merriam-Webster on line dictionary, contact them. I consider them to be a credible reference source an I don't intend to change my opinion based on you desire to promote a semantic argument.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?obtuse

[struggle4progress]

23. Merriam-Webster, being descriptivist, does not recognize misuse at all:

whenever enough people misuse, misspell, or mispronounce a word, Merriam-Webster adopts the misuse as the meaning, the misspelling as the spelling, and the mispronunciation as the pronunciation.

The Decline of the Dictionary

... People's using disinterested when they mean uninterested does not displease a descriptivist. A prescriptivist, by contrast, is a language conservative, a person interested in maintaining standards and correctness in language use. To prescriptivists, disinterested in the sense of uninterested is the mark of uneducated people not knowing the distinction between the two words. And if there are enough uneducated people saying disinterested (and I'm afraid there are) when they mean uninterested or indifferent, lexicographers enter the definition into their dictionaries. Indeed, the distinction between these words has all but vanished owing largely to irresponsible writers and boneless lexicographers ...

All it takes for a solecism to become standard English is people misusing or misspelling the word. And if enough people do so, lexicographers will enter the originally misused or misspelled word into their dictionaries, and descriptive linguists will embrace it as a further example of the evolution of English ...

There are other examples of Merriam-Webster's inexcusably shoddy dictionary making. According to the dictionary's editors: ...

• The spelling supercede is a variant of supersede ...
• The verb predominate is also an adjective meaning predominant
• enormity means the same as enormousness
• infer means the same as imply ...
• flaunt means the same as flout ...
• The pronunciation of nuclear is NU-klee-er or NU-kya-ler ...

http://www.vocabula.com/2003/VRAugust03Fiske.htm

To put it simply, Merriam-Webster produces shoddy dictionaries ...

[cosmik debris]

25. I'll tell Webster to quit selling dictionaries without your approval.

I'm sure they will bow to your overwhelming intellectual superiority.

[TheBaldyMan]

15. both claim to be Christian

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Since Ray Bourgeois is a Catholic priest

then he is presumably against contraception, and therefore supports families like the "Quiverful" one. Apart from their also being against contraception, do we know anything else about them? What, then, makes them significantly different from a Catholic priest?

[ulysses]

24. what makes them different

(and note that I didn't choose a generic Catholic priest - I chose Bourgeois for a reason) is that I can differentiate between a political enemy and a political ally.

In retrospect, the Quiverful folks probably weren't the best choice, as I don't have exact proof of their being RW fundies (any more than you have exact proof of Bourgeois' support for their family planning habits), but I very much suspect that they are.

[Finder]

28. The common denominator is that both use religion...

as the basis of their movement.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. Perhaps Haggard should have been contrasted with Bourgeois?

After all, we know he talked frequently to the White House.

[ulysses]

31. yes.

That would have been a better illustration, yes.

[JerseygirlCT]

34. Oh I do believe they are

there's a lot about the women submitting to their husbands, and building an army for God... it's sick stuff, IMO.

And not ALL priests actually agree with all the RCC's teachings on issues of sexuality. They stay in the church for many reasons, and continue to work for change from the inside. I don't know your example, but it's worth mentioning in the general sense. Or I hope it is, anyway!