Reply #15: Heres the point.

[beevul]

""Quit acting" - that is an order to agree with what you said, followed by a request that if someone disagrees with you, they should assist you in getting something you appear to want. If they refuse to either agree with you or assist you in repealing regulation, then their position is 'simply unacceptable'."

Arguing from a standpoint that "we don't have any gun control" was what I was addressing. I simply asked folks that argue from such a standpoint to put their money where their mouth is, or concede that we DO in fact have gun control, and quit attempting to argue from a standpoint that we don't have any.

Somehow thats wrong? I think not.

""The dishonesty has to stop." - this demand is followed by a list of all the reasons why anyone who disagrees with you is wrong. You offer no proof of your claims, you simply inform anyone who might want to engage in this 'adult discussion' that they are patently dishonest."

Its not a matter of who disagrees. Its a matter of fact. A "standard capacity" magazine, is a standard capacity magazine. Labelling it otherwise doesn't make it something different.

An "extended capacity" magazine, is not the same thing as a "standard capacity" magazine. I assert that any pretense of them being the same is dishonest, because they are in fact two different things.

And this is somehow wrong? I think not. Facts are what they are. Opinion doesn't come into it.

"If they can't admit that they are wrong, then they can't engage in the discussion. You add that that applies equally to both sides, but you've already informed everyone that they are dishonest, so apparently your side is the only one that's true. Not much equal in all that."

I've informed "everyone" they are wrong? Hardly. If you argue that something is something other than what that something really is, then yes, you're wrong. I did not however accuse "everyone" of doing that, now did I?

"I don't know - perhaps you do want to engage in an adult conversation. But you don't seem to grasp that demands you show as much respect for other positions as you are demanding be shown to yours."

Respect is earned, not assumed. In the case of discussion, its earned by being factually correct, and intellectually honest, which is what those criteria are entirely about.

If I see someone espousing a position based on facts, and that poster is willing to admit what the facts are, rather than ignore them, the respect has been earned.

If on the other hand, that poster wishes to "spin" or "mischaracterize" something, into something it is not, they get none.

So called "high capacity magazines" for example. If a poster wishes to acknowledge that theres a substantial difference between an "extended capacity" magazine, versus a "standard capacity" magazine, they will get respect for it.

If they argue under the pretense of wanting to ban "extended capacity" magazines, and in the process characterize "standard capacity magazines" as "high capacity", they're being factually incorrect, and intellectually dishonest.

And they get none.