When I said
As long as you can distinguish between fact and opinion and paranoid raving, we really don't care where - if anywhere - you lie in Zebriski's Seven-Dimension Polispace™I meant it.
I'm not a partisan to any particular political grouping, and certainly not to either of the major American political parties, given that I'm (a) a centrist and (b) Australian.
What I do believe in, though, is basing arguments on fact and building them through logic. Because, well, because that works.
Which is not to say that when someone ticks you off, you can't rant a little. Not to say that everyone has to be 100% rational every minute of the day. Not to say that you have to know everything about the subject before you can hold an opinion.
Jennifer is one of the smartest, most level-headed (and craziest) members of our particularly smart, level-headed, and crazy group. The trolls that attacked her recently for not finding amusement in a not-particularly-funny joke were way, way off base.
But launching an attack on the entire political right because of the behaviour those trolls isn't exactly helpful either. (To make it clear, it was not Jen who did this.)
I've never censured, much less censored, any Munuvian for anything they've said (though sometimes I have politely disagreed, and where possible pointed out references to relevant material). And I never want to. I just want people to remember what Daniel Patrick Moynihan said:
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.And remember how to tell the difference.
I'll have to dig up that article on the difference between Type C and Type M arguments again.
Maybe I'm just too touchy these days. Maybe I need some chocolate. Yes, that seems likely.
Hmm.
To make it clear, it's not an existing Munuvian who elicited this response. But of of the people suggested so far, those I thought might not fit in were those who had difficulty with this rule. Except one who was just grouchy.
Posted by Pixy Misa at April 1, 2004 09:27 AM