11-24-2008, 12:42 AM
Stizzealth wrote:
Furthermore, Ted seems determined to deconstruct an argument that I never made. He says that my statement that the argument of allowing the government to regulate anything means that the government can regulate anything, as is argued by Chuckie Schumer, oversimplifies the issue. I don't doubt that there is more than one fallacious argument in the push for reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, but the aforementioned argument is the one Chuck Schumer used.
On further reflection I can kind of see a bit of your point. You seem to be saying here that you took the most utterly literal and ungenerous (and I would say unreasonable) interpretation of Schumer's remark and restated what you then thought the argument implied. So my critique of the analogies you presented were, to the extent that they supposedly were a reflection of his argument, not an accurate deconstruction of an argument you were making. But to the extent that I think you were indeed fabricating an argument - that I believe he was not making but instead represented a straw dog of what his was proposing - to that extent I do think my deconstruction applies. And I will say that if you look at your commentary immediately after the presentation of what you seem to take to be his argument, that it certainly gives the impression that you knew he was actually referring specifically to the what the FCC can and can't do and not to "everything the government regulates". You said at that point, "While I realize that conservative political theory is looked upon as smut by the majority of Democratic officials in Washington, sending the message that political speech can be regulated just as we regulate the pornography industry does no favors for the average American's perception of Washington." That commentary certainly was enough to give me the impression that you understood Schumer was referring directly to what the FCC can and can't do.
And I think the rest of my analysis still stands until you show me otherwise; e.g., "When these creeps have nothing better to do than track down rogue conservative talk radio hosts and accuse them of corrupting the minds of our citizens with aural bestiality...", is nothing more than vapid inflammatory rhetoric.