Shining city on a hill

What, you don’t rate prime Texas beef as a lasting contribution?

I found the continued references like “we saved you in WWII, don’t tell us what to do” immensely depressing. No, you didn’t. Your fathers or grandfathers did.

I note that the wealth of the British cities of Bristol and Liverpool was largely founded upon the slave trade, and that the populations of those cities largely opposed the abolition of slavery. By God, if I ever meet anyone who comes from or lives in one of those cities, I shall remind him that he does not belong to ‘the Britain of which Britons have the most reason to be proud’…

What, no helping out in WWI and WII?

No contribution by great American inventors, artists nd philanthropists?

Nothing about our cold war stance?

You totally discount all the others states that were founded between the original thirteen and California?

You discount all the rock and roll voters? Even with people like Springsteen supporting Kerry.

How about the Cuban vote that is majority Republican? They don’t deserve the respect you give the black vote?

What a strange post. To discount so much that America has done in order to pick just four that support your argument.

Look around you, America still has some good things about it, I know it’s hard to believe.

I wrote about this is somewhat more vulgar terms a while ago …

Okay, I’ll dig something out about Nottingham, but Bristol stands. I have to say the Nottingham’s treatment of Cloughie after his resignation was pretty shabby.

More of a Malcolm X man, eh Carolos?

(by the way, here’s an “inside blogsball” snippet for you; Carolos is a regular commentator on the “Gene Expression” website. What an amazing coincidence that someone’s academic interests should run not only to sociobiology and IQ studies, but also to revisionist history about Martin Luther King! Truly a renaissance man! Do you have any opinions on criminology, Carolos?)

One of the great frustrations of American politics is that they are still fighting the Civil War. A century and a half later, the North-South division has shifted a bit – Florida is a lot less southern, the Ohio valley a lot more southern, and the west and the plains have gone from radical progressive states to head-up-their-butts reactionary – but it’s still the south versus the north, and the south still aims to win.

Look at the issues on the agenda: Civil rights, states’ rights, “traditional” values. And, they vote for the rule of a land owning gentry, which the serfs like to believe makes them earthy and closer to their own concerns than those fat cats on the coast.

They never get over it. Never. Every time you you hear the words “Nascar dad”, think “buckrah” and every time you hear “liberal” from some right-wing yahoo, think “Yankee.” Then things start to make sense.

This is the most depressing post I’ve read since the defeat. And as someone who voted for Bush, I almost feel bad for voting that way….Almost ;)

But you need to get a grip. Just how would Kerry have been different? What IN THE FUTURE would Kerry have changed? Would he have stopped the exporting of suspects for torture? Too late, that’s already done. Would he have pulled up stakes in Iraq? Gotten the world (France and Germany) into Iraq? Would he have made patty-cake with Faluja? Or perhaps, he would have ordered the air force to cease bombing targets for the Army (prompting a major retirement at the Pentagon and impeachment of himself)? Of did you think Kerry would stop US jobs from moving overseas? Perhaps you liked Kerry’s idea of subsidizing dieing industries? Or perhaps you thought that Kerry’s reversal of some of Bush’s tax cuts would give remove the yearly deficit? Or maybe you worry that Rov V Wade is in danger, or that Kerry would have shoved gay marriage down America’s throat whether 65-70% didn’t want it or not.

There wasn’t world shaking differences between the two, so buck up and try again in 4 more years. Holy shit I feel like I’m back at the homeless shelter trying to talk drunks into restarting their lives.

On the US Constitution, Robert Dahl has made a pretty good case, in his book _How Democratic is the US Constitution_ that the actual structure of the US constitution has been minimally influential. But, it seems at least prima facie plausible that the idea of a written constitution, and that this could be a real limit on government power- all starting w/ the US, I believe- has been important and influential.

“Black America which brought us in Martin Luther King, one of the greatest moral exemplars of modern times as well as the blues, jazz and soul voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry.”

I don’t disagree. Though this might not be a good path to go down, since there is no way of knowing if MLK would have been the moral leader he was if it hadn’t been for white oppression, and since to the extent that blues, jazz and soul music has its roots in the black church and call-and-response rhythm of gospel, praising it kind of obliges one to retro-actively appreciate the “contributions” of those who enslaved them. History’s complicated, what can you say.

The Constitution on the other hand, I just don’t get how that’s the US’s gift to the world.

Not the Constitution itself so much as the idea of constitutional supremacy.

reinder dijkhus:

Yeah,I was thinking of the Constitution itself rather than the Bill of Rights — which I think has served much more as an inspiration.

‘The states that didn’t secede and which fought against slavery voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry’

Just to point out what should be obvious here, although apparently isn’t: The people who lived in the seceding states in the 1860s *are not* the same people who just voted to re-elect George Bush. So the implication of your post that people living in the Southern United States today are somehow the moral and political heirs of slaveholders and secessionists is bizarre and insulting.

Difficult though you may find it to accept this, George Bush was re-elected because a majority of Americans (many of whom are not prejudiced rednecks yearning for the re-introduction of slavery)wanted him to be their president.

In other news, the review ‘Carolus’ links to talks of “shamelss intellectuals… spin(ing) tales of Thomas Jefferson begetting slave offspring.” DNA analysis has recently established these “tales” as indubitably true.

No. DNA analysis has established that one of Sally Hemings’ sons was fathered by one of about 25 males in the Jefferson family who were in the area at the time. There is no way to know whether the father was Thomas Jefferson.

So the folks whose forebears gave us soul music are Americans you are willing to share with, but the ones who grow the food that feeds you are not?

There is an astonishing fact for you – the states which voted Kerry have six or eight times the murderers per head of population as the ones you despise.

I really think you need to go do some laps and grow up.

I have difficulties too thinking of the u.s. right now in other terms than “the country that reelected bush”.

It certainly is bad intellectual hygiene, and unfair to all the people that didn’t vote for it, and to the country in general.

Then again, each time i try to think along these lines, i remember it’s joe redneck that won the popular vote for bush, thus comforting the bush administration in his magical thinking. More whackery ahead, very probably.

Bleh.

Chris:

There is an astonishing fact for you – the states which voted Kerry have six or eight times the murderers per head of population as the ones you despise.

You wanna cough up some statistics on that one? Cuz, I got some 1999 numbers that say it ain’t so. There’s only a seven fold difference between the state with highest murder rate (Alaska – voted Bush) and the state with lowest murder rate (New Hampshire – voted Kerry.)

Unless the 2003 numbers are way reversed, y’all are pulling one outta your butt.

Geez, I hope Chris never condemned bush for his “with us or against us” rhetoric.

Scott’s table refers to murders rather than murderers, so I suppose it might be possible that Chris has some proof that Democratic serial killers make the effort to go out to Bush states to do their murdering.

I have only fellow redneck’s map pages: eg

http://www.ycsi.net/users/gunsmith/map.htm

claims more like 130 times, on a county basis. I disbelieve the 0.1 per 100K absolutely, I think I saw one at 2.2 murders per 100K and that is what I referred to in my post.

But I thought a good place to check this would be snopes.com so…

By calculating the murder rate for each county and then taking the averages, we find a murder rate (defined as number of murders per 100,000 residents) of about 5.2 for the “average” Gore county and 3.3 for the average Bush county. But since people, rather than counties, commit murders, a more appropriate approach is to calculate the total number of murders in the counties won by each candidate and divide that figure by the total number of residents in those counties. This more appropriate method yields the following average murder rates in counties won by each candidate:

There is a distinct difference between these two numbers, but it is nowhere near as large as the quoted e-mail message states (i.e., 13.2 for Gore vs. 2.1 for Bush). Note that the average of these two figures is 5.3, which, as expected, is very close to the reported national murder rate of 5.5.

So I was completely suckered by this made-up stuff. I apologise, and will pass this on to my gun-nut friends.

Is the U.S. constitution that document that will soon proudly sponsor the amendment that men can only marry women, and women can only marry men?

Or is that the document that was carried down from Mount Sinai by that pre-Christian guy, Moses?
I’m always getting those God sponsored documents confused.

The question on most God fearing people’s minds right now I think is whether Ashcroft, clearly a sob sister, is going to get the boot. We need that Judge from Alabama, Moore, who had the right idea about the ten commandments.

The next four years look lovely. Can’t wait to see what the aweinspiring Constitution looks like after it is all over.

Jimmy: I have an idea for you. Since you seem so keen on putting words into people’s mouths, why don’t you just walk into class, hear the students say “Hello Mr Doyle” and then decide that they have implied all the correct answers to the test, so you can take the year off?

I reiterate, by the way, that you do not have my permission to tell your students that I made a fallacious argument which you, wrongly attributed to me. My actual intention was to convey the meaning “Boo to Carolos”, and I think I succeeded with almost every reader except you.

Overwhelmingly??? You use that word very loosely.

Yes, and from the state that brought us the principle writer of the constitution, Jefferson, it voted for who? Bush?

And from the state that Frederick Douglass labeled as the meanest, cruelest, most vile and hideous slave state, Maryland, we have going for Kerry.

You can report facts (or in your case, half-truths) to make them say anything you want them to, and even use words like overwhelmingly to make people think you know what you are talking about, but the fact is, New York City was the asshole of capitalism before a man named Rudy Guliani turned it around and cleaned it up.

Admit it, you’re still jealous that we went our separate ways and came out victorious in the Revolutionary war. We valued, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness more than we valued the monarchy. We fought because, among other things, we were being taxed in absurd and rediculous ways, which reminds me a lot of Mr. Kerrys proposals to tax America. And in “the world’s greatest city,” to remind us of this great of achievement we have a statue of LIBERTY, given to us by France, who also voted “overwhelmingly” (this time the correct use of the word) for Kerry.

You forgot to mention, Osama, a murderer of nearly 3,000 innocent people, voted for Kerry too.

While I have your attention, the movie industry? Are they all of a sudden the bastions of intelligence because of their undying support for Kerry? If the Dixie Chicks didn’t know how to sing they’d be found at Hooters serving pints of beer for $1, and spouting out their political views in much the same way. As far as I’m concerned, you can carry that to much of Hollywood as well. But seriously, keep posting, write more, let us know how you really feel, because the more you say, the more the Libertarians are going swing to the right.

No wtb. Not “time to go back to school”. As I make clear in a comment above I meant my statement to mean that an electoral college composed of the original 13 states would have overwhelmingly backed Kerry. (And the pop.vote in same btw). 107 to 51 (or 56 if you reunite the Virginias.

Dsquared:

A devastating critique! Except that I did not say (or imply) that anything may be understood to imply anything else. That, after all, would be an idiotic thing to say (or imply), and it ought to have been obvious that I neither said nor implied anything of the kind. What I said was, “I think it’s reasonable to understand your comment as implying that, since (as you argue) he is a racist, we don’t have to take account of what he said. Otherwise, what relevance of your denunciation to Carolus’s original claims could you possibly intend your readers to discern?” You now say that your intention was limited to conveying “Boo to Carolus.” Do you mean that you weren’t intending your denunciation to have any effect (such as, I don’t know, diminution?) on readers’ willingness to take his comment seriously? Because that seems to me highly implausible. Nothing could be more natural than to infer, from X’s responding to something Y has said by impugning Y’s character, that X intends indirectly to impugn what Y has said. Therefore (i) you may reasonably be interpreted as having tried, illegitimately, to impugn a comment whose substance turned out, in fact, to be true, and (ii) you almost certainly did not “succeed with almost every reader except (me)” in conveying nothing more than “Boo to Carolus.”

Don’t worry, I won’t use your original comment in class as an example of the ad hominem fallacy. But may I please use your subsequent comment as an example of distortion?

The American Constitution is an overhyped document. And constitutions themselves are over-rated. The Parliamentary system is a much truer democratic forum.

Any document that placed human beings as 3/5ths of person always risked staining the country that made it. Proof is in the pudding. The American constitution, proud home of the 18th amendment. Soon to contain the 28th amendment against the horror of love and commitment, marriage.

Message from the World to 51% America: we see through you.
Message from the World to 49% America: keep fighting.

Dear Matt,

“Its essential veracity is far from obvious. As has been pointed out unto the point of tedium the USSR bore a massively disproportionate amount of the work in defeating Germany during WWII and the US was far from the only country fighting in Europe on the Western front.”

It’s true that militarily speaking, the USSR may have done most of the heavy lifting. But, as you point out, the desirable outcome of WWII — namely that it was won for democracy against authoritarianism — was in fact due to the US. Had the US remained out of the war but the USSR won, things might well have been worse than if the Nazis won.

When Americans go on about “winning the war” for Europe, it’s short hand for: Intervening in WWI in favor of Britain and France, WWII, and the Cold War. Not to mention our prosecution of the War on Terror.

Dear Chris:

“As I make clear in a comment above I meant my statement to mean that an electoral college composed of the original 13 states would have overwhelmingly backed Kerry. (And the pop.vote in same btw). 107 to 51 (or 56 if you reunite the Virginias.”

Are you talking about today’s population or the population in 1787? Don’t bother to do the figures. This has already gotten too hypothetical for me.

If today’s Republicans are no longer the party of the Lincoln, then surely you’ll admit that today’s blue states are no longer the states that were willing to fight to defend the Constitution in the Civil War. They’ve been taken over by the Know Nothings, or Mugwumps, or something like that. At any rate, that’s about as accurate as saying that the Republican party has been taken over by the Dixiecrats.

Dear Matt,

“Its essential veracity is far from obvious. As has been pointed out unto the point of tedium the USSR bore a massively disproportionate amount of the work in defeating Germany during WWII and the US was far from the only country fighting in Europe on the Western front.”

It’s true that militarily speaking, the USSR may have done most of the heavy lifting. But, as you point out, the desirable outcome of WWII — namely that it was won for democracy against authoritarianism — was in fact due to the US. Had the US remained out of the war but the USSR won, things might well have been worse than if the Nazis won.

When Americans go on about “winning the war” for Europe, it’s short hand for: Intervening in WWI in favor of Britain and France, WWII, and the Cold War. Not to mention our prosecution of the War on Terror.

Dear Chris:

“As I make clear in a comment above I meant my statement to mean that an electoral college composed of the original 13 states would have overwhelmingly backed Kerry. (And the pop.vote in same btw). 107 to 51 (or 56 if you reunite the Virginias.”

Are you talking about today’s population or the population in 1787? Don’t bother to do the figures. This has already gotten too hypothetical for me.

If today’s Republicans are no longer the party of the Lincoln, then surely you’ll admit that today’s blue states are no longer the states that were willing to fight to defend the Constitution in the Civil War. (Just as our “fathers and grandfathers”, and not us, fought WWII.) They’ve been taken over by the Know Nothings, or Mugwumps, or something like that. At any rate, that’s about as accurate as saying that the Republican party has been taken over by the Dixiecrats.

Some error in transmission of my MLK reference document.

It’s here.

Oh, poor Carolos Obscurus is yet again being treated so very unfairly. Why, why should his opinions be so cruelly dismissed. I remember these very cute and very accurate and very very inspiring contributions from him in a previous thread – great points you might even use for a debate in your class, prof. Doyle:

If (as may well be the case) homosexuality is as genetically determined as musical ability or athletic talent and if (as may well be the case) the ‘gene’ for homosexuality is ever identified, you can be certain that pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) or similar eugenic techniques will be used to weed out the ‘undesirable’ embryos from the ‘desirable’ ones.

and this:

Perhaps you have to have a homosexual ‘gene’ plus fetal exposure to some kind of hormonal disorder or virus plus a Freudian mom and dad plus teenage seduction behind the bicycle shed to become a non-wavering gay.

and:

…homosexuality, which most parents consider to be a misfortune (as do most gays, judging by their autobiographies).

Such keen concern for Truth should not be mocked!

Dear Matt,

You’re right. I can only add that I try to use this “rhetorical cosh” on dirty fighters, not those who make responsible or fair criticisms of the USA.

Shorter Carolos: I’m not a racist, and here is a link to a document on a Lew Rockwell website, Lew Rockwell being the founder of the American Nazi Party.

Shorter Jimmy Doyle: Oh Christ, I’ve lost an argument… (deep breath) Dsquared your reading of the implication of the denotation of my counterfactual is…(continues at length).

Dan Hardie:

I’m sorry if you can’t follow what I said. Could you point me to the bit where I lost the argument?

Jimmy, Dsquared noted that Carolus was a racist, did so in an amusing manner and quietly left the stage. You cited this as an example of the argumentum ad hominem. Dsquared pointed out that if someone says ‘x is y, therefore what x’s arguments cannot be accepted’ is an argumentum ad hominem; if someone says ‘x is y, and my reasons for saying this are a, b and c’, that is not an argumentum ad hominem. It is indeed not an argumentum ad hominem, and your lengthy paragraphs of clotted prose cannot change that. So, to answer your question, ‘the bit where I lost the argument’ would have come at the point when you typed out your original post.

Jimmy responds: …that seems to me highly implausible. Nothing could be more natural than to infer etc etc etc (continued on page 92)…

Dan Hardie: I learnt more about the American Nazi Party than I ever cared to know but well thanks for the correction :) :)

Why do you care about the states that fought against slavery?

Maybe because mentioning that the Republicans were against it and the Democrats – then as now – supported institutionalized racism would completely invalidate your point?

Could we perhaps all just politely agree that this debate hasn’t been anyone’s finest hour, grudgingly apologise to one another (Carolos; not you) and vaguely drift back in the direction of the topic?

‘Sorry if this isn’t as authoritative as your Google search.’

It is not a question of whether your recollections of a visit to Monticello are better than ‘my Google search’. It is a question of whether your recollections of a visit to Monticello is more authoritative than the balance of opinions of historians and DNA specialists who have studied the question. And yes, the balance of such opinion is more authoritative than what you can remember from looking at a few museum captions.

Here- culled, I confess to my undying shame, from a Google search- is the website of Jefferson’s home at Monticello and the page dealing with the Hemings controversy:
http://www.monticello.org/plantation/hemingscontro/hemings_resource.html

The bulk of the papers agree that it is not possible to say that Jefferson fathered a child with a slave, that a Jefferson did and that there are 25 plausible candidates for the role, including several notably more likely than Thomas Jefferson himself. Any undergraduate being tutored by you should march straight to the University offices and demand a refund of his tuition fees, because you are incapable of reasoning. Your attempted defence of the ad hominem accusation is verbiage, and you ignore the fact that whilst MLK is a proven plagiarist, the Carolus statement that you defend- ‘MLK was one of the greatest plagiarists of the 20th century.’- can politely be described as ‘massive hyperbole’. King plagiarised widely for his thesis, and much of his speeches contained others’ phrases, but much of what he said in public was original and indeed extemporised. Therefore it is grossly inaccurate to say, as you did, of Carolus’s assessment of Martin Luther King that’ his comment is true. ‘

As you’re a philosopher, I doubt that you’ll mind too much my saying you’re a historical ignoramus. But it ought to bother your students that you are so utterly incapable of reasoning.

“DNA analysis has established that one of Sally Hemings’ sons was fathered by one of about 25 males in the Jefferson family who were in the area at the time.”
well, as long as they don’t cut off my internets porn supply i’m sorted.

you may reproduce this statement and claim that carolus wrote it to dsquared in a private email.

“Anyway, the reason those of the original 13 voted for Kerry? Because once the Louisiana Purchase took place, all the cool places in those 9 states left, went exploring, built a country and left the Liberal maroons behind to swill porter and speak French.”

yeah, can you please point out to me the cool places that used to be in new york, massachusetts, etc. that are now in utah, new mexico etc.

liberals are maroons? i thought judging from the preceding conversation that they were octoroons.

so the original 13 were french and english speaking, and then the english speaking left, taking all their cool places with them, to go to the areas purchased in the louisiana purchase. presumably to get away from them demn frenchies.
and the frenchies who were liberals had sex with sally hemings and produced the vicious porter swilling maroons of our present dispensation. thanks, glad to get that settled.

look at me, reaching out, healing….

This has to be the most idiotic thing I’ve read about the election yet and brings the concept of cherry-picking to a new height. You might as well write:

Massachusetts: home of intolerant, theocratic witch-burners voted for Kerry.

Nevada: the state which gave us easy divorce, legalized gambling and prostitution – voted for Bush.

In any case the accusation that an argument is an attaack on the creidibility of the argument. It is not a mortal sin, rather it is a weak argument. If pointing out that an argument is ad hominem demolishes the argument, the argument fails. If it doesn’t.

Pointing out Carolus sympathies and interests, whatever else it might have been, was an explanation of dsquared’s hostility. If it also diminished Carolus’ credibility I’m not sure who will be upset but the framing of the argument means that it is hard to accuse dsquared of deliberately obscuring the main claim he makes which should allow anyone who knows what an ad hominem attack is to make up their own minds without undue interference.

George Washington…

Thomas Jefferson…

Patrick Henry…

Virginians all, they hail from the state that voted for George Bush.

They fought for Liberty, as George Bush has. They would have voted Bush.

This just in. Bush announces Ashcroft is fired while having a gay toga party (where he and his wife politely pretend no one is gay), wearing a beret, and drinking champagne. Now how’s that for reaching out and healing?

Chris H,
What exactly is wrong with Daniel’s behaviour? I think your post is a far better example of what is wrong with ad hominem attacks because you blur personal inslut with your actual claim.

I put it to you that your claim is weak because the debate following Daniel’s post has not been about either of Daniel’s claims. Rather it has been about whether it was ad hominem or not. Further you yourself obfuscate the weakness of your substantive claim with irrelevant ad hominem arguments.

I do blame Daniel for not simply saying that the source of Martin Luther King’s doctorate is nothing to do with why he is admired and that indeed Carolus does hold some pretty unpleasant views in general.

Once again the problem with ad hominem arguments is that they are weak and that they can be used to confuse. It seems to me that there is nothing confusing about Daniel’s post and tha claims made do not dissolve when the potentially ad hominem nature of the claims is suggested. It is certainly not the only reason that Damiel adressed the nature of Carolus activities.

On the other hand Carolus’ original slur on MLK is a good example of a bad ad hominem argument and Jimmy Doyle was rudely and crudely ad hominem in his response to Damiel. My disappointement is that their ploy’s seem to have succeeded in diverting attention from any substantive claim.

Do we admire MLK because he was a great scholar or because he beautifully and effectively espoused a noble vision at great risk to himself? I think the latter.

Did Jimmy Doyle make any attempt to address the wonderfully lucid claims of Daniel’s post or did he make a half baked personal attack on Daniel? Is there a good reason why he chose Daniel’s comment as an example of ad hominem rather than Carolus or his own? I don’t think so unless he is an artist of unexpectedly high calibre making an ironic Magritte/Stallman style use of self reference.

Finally Mr. Harding do you believe that neither Carolus or Professor Doyle bear any responsibility for the flame war? If not, surely you should apportion some blame to them as well.

Nationalism is silly when it is not disturbing, but I do share rich’s irritation with the “We won the war for you” meme.

To me, the statement is peculiarly trivial. What does this piece of patriotism actually mean? What else can you say on the basis of it? What follows from it? That we should be grateful?

I prefer the parallel question: who suffered to create victory in WW2? That is meaningful because it tells us about a cultural experience which is still deeply embedded in the life of the various communities today, and certainly created the present we are now living through.

Australians, who did declare war on Germany in 1939 from far, far away, may be a bit quicker to point out that the US stayed out until after Pearl Harbour.

I wonder how the isolationist voting blocs which kept Roosevelt out of the War map onto the Red/Blue states now?

Right, one last time to stomp on this clown and then I really do have to grapple with the Fulton, Missouri speech.

Carolus’s original statement:‘MLK was one of the greatest plagiarists of the 20th century.’

Jimmy Doyle’s characterisations of this statement: ‘ in fact, it is true…a comment whose substance turned out, in fact, to be true…his comment is true…I just happened to know it was true on independent grounds. ‘ (What, by the way, are these ‘independent grounds’? Certainly not the scholarship of anyone involved in research on King, since they have carefully pointed out both the existence of and the limits to King’s plagiarism. Does Doyle hear voices in the air? Or was this a kinda-sorta memory of part of a TV documentary? I suspect the latter.)

Facts of the matter: anyone calling King ‘one of the greatest plagiarists of the 20th century’ is engaging in gross hyperbole. King’s term papers and college thesis show considerable evidence of plagiarism. King’s speeches, for which he is most famous, show evidence of occasional plagiarism, and frequent paraphrasing, quotation, rephrasing and reworking of phrases from sources as diverse as the Bible, hymns and spirituals, the speeches of Lincoln, poems, etc. As someone who is currently editing the speeches of Winston Churchill for DVD publication, allow me to inform Mr Doyle that Churchill was at least as much of a paraphraser, rephraser and quoter as King, and so indeed was Lincoln. If Doyle reads, say, Churchill’s ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’ speech, then reads Clemenceau’s speech on becoming French Premier almost a quarter of a century earlier, he will find certain…similarities. Regardless, both speeches are magnificent. Allow me also to assure Doyle, as someone who reads primary and secondary sources before shooting my mouth off on historical subjects, that ‘MLK was one of the greatest plagiarists of the 20th century.’ is not a true statement, unless your definition of ‘true’ is ‘statement compounding hyperbole with lies’.

Doyle further objects to my calling him a historical ignoramus.That’s odd, because the description is accurate. He makes false statements and shows no capacity, or even willingness, to read up on the history he pronounces on.

He made two historical statements, both entirely unsupported by the historical scholarship: one on the ‘truth’ of a grossly untrue statement about MLK (see above); one on the ‘truth’ of Thomas Jefferson’s parentage of a mixed-race child with a slave mother. ‘Slithy Tove’ and I both noted that the preponderance of DNA specialists and historians who had recently studied this matter had concluded that a member of the Jefferson family had indeed got Sally Hemings pregnant, but that there were 24 candidates besides Jefferson and several of them were adjudged- by people who had done years of research into Jefferson and his milieu- much more likely to be the culprit.

I even helpfully appended a link to the Monticello museum’s webpage, which has further links to around two dozen scholarly papers supporting this view. Doyle has refused to read this, on the grounds that he visited the Monticello museum and the guides there told him something different. I’d like to say I was making this up, but I’m not. He really is that much of a fool.

And Doyle is a historian of philosophy. Ah well, it must be a pretty easy subject if all the research you have to do is visit a museum or two and then refuse to read the literature. That Plato bloke was no good, Jimmy- I know, I’ve been to Athens.

Okay, clown, put up or shut up. I’ll send £50 to a charity of your choice if you can prove that Carolus was right because ‘I meant that Carolus was right in that King had plagiarised a very large part of his dissertation. I thought that it was obvious that this is what I meant.’

Carolus said the following, and it was this statement that you were defending as ‘true’:’MLK was one of the greatest plagiarists of the 20th century. And much of what he didn’t plagiarize, he got ghost-written.’

That’s two sentences. I have copied and pasted this several times into my own posts, just to remind you. I have read and re-read those two sentences. Please point me to one (1) phrase or sentence where Carolus objects specifically to King’s plagiarism in his thesis, or limits his claim to King’s college studies. He doesn’t, does he, clown?

He says- and this is now the fourth time at least that I’ve reproduced his statement- ‘MLK was one of the greatest plagiarists of the 20th century. And much of what he didn’t plagiarize, he got ghost-written. ‘
Nothing about theses. No limited claim. Just lies and hyperbole.

As to Monticello, you say ‘Monticello is not a “museum.” It is the house that Jefferson built and lived in, now open to the public, and run by very knowledgeable people.’ It is indeed those things; it is also a ‘museum’, or even a museum without the scare quotes; and it is also the leading centre for archival research into Jefferson’s life.

Which is why I posted a link to Monticello’s webpage concerning the Sally Hemings controversy, which- if you will trouble yourself to read the relevant page- contains links to all the most relevant recent scholarship, wherein the overwhelming consensus is that Jefferson cannot be said to, and almost certainly did not, father a child with Sally Hemings.And you haven’t read those papers- collected by the Monticello people, based on research largely conducted at Monticello, because, er, Monticello (meaning your visit there) is more trustworthy than Monticello (meaning the scholarly papers that the Monticello trustees and scholars have published). You’re a proper fool, aren’t you?

But as I say, disprove my claim that the Carolus statement you defend is a) untrue and b)contrary to your claims contains no reference to King’s thesis but instead is a general characterisation of King as ‘one of the greatest plagiarists of the 20th century’. King wasn’t, that statement isn’t true, Carolus said nothing in his original statement about King’s thesis- you’re a fool. And an ignoramus.

But £50 to charity if you can prove otherwise.

“Please point me to one (1) phrase or sentence where Carolus objects specifically to King’s plagiarism in his thesis, or limits his claim to King’s college studies. He doesn’t, does he, clown?”

Well now, Dick (you don’t mind if I call you Dick? I know you’re name’s Dan, but… it just seems more appropriate, somehow), Carolus’s post doesn’t say anything at all about the nature of MLK’s plagiarism, but, you see, Dick, it does contain a link to a book review, which identifies the plagiarism, and notes that it includes much of his dissertation. Dick. You see. And the first thing I said on the subject, Dick, was in response to Dsquared: “Your fallacy wouldn’t really matter if what Carolus said was ignorable, in the way that characteristically racist sayings are ignorable. But it is not ignorable; in fact, it is true: Martin Luther King Jr’s Ph D dissertation was largely plagiarised.” When I said “it is true:…”, I meant “it’s true that…”; that is, I wasn’t claiming that everything Carolus had said was true. And it was pretty clear, Dick, which bit of what Carolus said I was characterising as true: the general claim (which I admit Carolus expressed hyperbolically) that MLK was a plagiarist, with particular reference to the fact, as stated in the review to which Carolus linked, that HE PLAGIARISED MUCH OF HIS FUCKING DISSERTATION. If you came away with the impression that I was endorsing anything more than this, Dick, then you’re a fool and an ignoramus, Dick. And you’re still denying, on no evidence, Dick, that I’ve read the relevant material on the Monticello webpage. Since you’re clearly proud of your credentials as a real, proper, historian, Dick, who “reads primary and secondary sources before shooting (your) mouth off on historical subjects,” this lack of evidence still makes you a fool and a hypocrite, Dick. You can send the $50 to your nearest retirement home for clapped-out historians.

Well, he started it. Anyway, it’s more fun to insult people in public.

Children, children ….

Genuinely enlightening discussion in this thread has clearly come to an end, and neither of you is going to respect my plea to take your bickering elsewhere, and I’m not going to get drawn in to a discussion of who started it.

So I’m closing the thread to further comments.