Reply #13: Actually, you are not doing that.

[Febble]

You are classifying everyone, because "Us" and "Them" includes everyone. And you define "Us" as everyone who thinks that the Dems won 2000, 2002 and 2004, and "Them" as everyone else. Then you mischaracterise Everyone Else as thinking the Dems are losers. And when members of "Them" say - "hey - that's not what I think!" you produce a third category - those who can't make up their minds.

So you ARE classifying people, and you ARE in fact, classifying everyone, wrongly. And having condemned two of your three groups to being different from "Us" you then say that one of those groups you "thoroughly distrust".

So don't try to tell us that you are not classifying anyone, because that is exactly what you are doing. And it is both silly and offensive.

I think - I know - that the Dems won in 2000. Gore won the popular vote, and at least two excellent studies demonstrated that he won Florida. I don't know about 2002, not because I can't make up my mind, but because I don't know enough about it. And I think it is unlikely that the Dems won the popular vote in 2004, although I think it is possible that they won the electoral college vote. I certainly think it is likely that they won New Mexico's electoral votes. But my view is arrived at not because I can't make up my mind, but because I think that that the evidence that the Dems won is far from overwhelming. It certainly doesn't mean I think Dems are losers.

Intelligent people can make up their minds as to what they think is likely on the basis of evidence. Where the evidence is inconclusive, different people may come to different conclusions. You happen to have come to different conclusions from mine. You seem to find that more of a problem than I do. But what I do find a problem is your implication that only two views are possible, and that one of them is not acceptable. Actually I don't find it very democratic.