What do you think?

[vox]

I've noticed something that I find a bit disturbing and very widespread. I'm going to use the following exchange as an example. The point isn't to verify the merits of this particular exchange, but to discuss a larger issue:

Capitalist wrote: "Even the police rob people with their unnecessary speeding tickets. They give people speeding tickets for going 50 in a 40 during the middle of the night, but then let child molesters out of jail after serving 30 days in prison."

I responded by saying that it isn't the police who are in charge of sentencing.

Solzhenitsyn replied to me, asking me what my point was, adding, "It was a general indictment of the entire system."

If we look at the original statement, we find that it's very specific. It's about the police. There's nothing in there to make anyone think otherwise, as far as I can tell, yet Solzhenitsyn reads into it a much larger meaning.

I suggest that the right-wingers on this forum have a bad habit of applying their own personal prejudices to statements. Rather than reading what was actually written, they read what they want it to say, using a broad, pre-defined framework of cultural identity in order to twist the meaning of anything to their own purpose. It's this style of "debate" that not only highlights their lack of critical thinking skills but also displays a willingness to deceive themselves perceptually.

Thoughts?

vox

[El Che]

lol. My thoughts are that most of these guys are rather brain dead. And as such its difficult to have a serious argument, because most of them dont even understand what the argument is most of the time and just post totaly unrelated stuff, and then you have to clear everthing thing up, and then they go "so let me get this straight yadayadayada..."*yawn*

[Michael De Panama]

I'm thinking that I totally agree with you, and I'd like to see what the capitalists have to say for themselves.

[Solzhenitsyn]

Vox,
Capitalist's post: "Even the police rob people with their unnecessary speeding tickets. They give people speeding tickets for going 50 in a 40 during the middle of the night, but then let child molesters out of jail after serving 30 days in prison."

Why do socialists have problems with contextual reading? It's not that hard to get the gist of Capistalist's statement. I chose to read the context of his post to determine the nature of his use of the word 'police'. It's obvious to all that the police do not normally hold trials for criminals and that police only investigate and arrest criminals. It not a reasonable to believe that the police are charged to do otherwise. Therefore, his use of word police is attributable to bad word choice. My exgenesis of his statement holds if you substitue "criminal justice system" for "police". The statement makes sense then. Vox, are you the product of two acid casualties or something. I suggest you put down Das Kapital and hone your reading skills.

[vox]

Solz,

Is "exgenesis" a new word you just made up, or did you mean exegesis? Let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say you did.

An exegesis is a crtical explanation or analysis of a text. You didn't do that. Rather, you simply substituted "criminal justice system" for "police," which certainly isn't a critical analysis.

However, let's move on. According to you, I, as a reader, have to second-guess the writer and determine what the writer really meant to say. I have to figure out whether or not the writer made a "bad word choice" and then substitute something that makes more sense to me. (Isn't this the same argument Reagan Lives made about the whole "human nature" thing at one point, even talking about bad word choice?)

Indeed, it's not even a substitution, but an insertion (you must penetrate the text here). Let's look closer at this:

"Even the police rob people with their unnecessary speeding tickets. They (the police) give people speeding tickets for going 50 in a 40 during the middle of the night, but then (insert "the criminal justice system") let child molesters out of jail after serving 30 days in prison."

Perhaps you're right, Solz. When reading a right-winger's post, we must keep in mind that they can't choose words very well, sometimes saying things like "exgenesis" for exegesis and "a reasonable" for "unreasonable," though even with that substitution the statement "It not a reasonable to believe that the police are charged to do otherwise" still doesn't really make very much sense in the context of your post.

I'm all for contextual reading. I'm also for clarity. Perhaps right-wingers should spend a little less time foaming at the mouth and a little more time reading The Elements of Style.

vox

[FtWfTn]

"Even the police rob people with their unnecessary speeding tickets. They (the police) give people speeding tickets for going 50 in a 40 during the middle of the night, but then (insert "the criminal justice system") let child molesters out of jail after serving 30 days in prison."

,but then (insert "the criminal jutice system") LETS child molesters out of jail. .... ...

since this is grammer class 101 i'd like to help out. . .your let shall now become a lets

[vox]

It's not really about grammar. However, I was only trying to show the point at which the change occurs. I was not trying to change the original quote, which is, really, rather the point.

vox

[Imperial Power]

I'd just like to say that capitalist should watch his present and post tense. Comma use also needs work. I hope this peer review will be helpful and your essay turns out great. (bullshit)

[Solzhenitsyn]

Here comes before us, Vox, obviously suffering from poverty of thought (among other things), to express his/her/its pompous outrage at our nonconformity to accepted scholastic standards in formal writings of the English language. We first note that this would be a worthy pursuit if we were writing in a respected journal such as [i]The New England Journal of Medicine. Alas, the Che-Lives.com Socialism vs. Capitalism Forum is not a peer reviewed scientific journal nor do we have the time to acheive said standards recommended by Vox, specifically The Elements of Style (no publisher given). Since Vox cannot distiguish between formal technical writing and casual personal writing forums, we shall make an effort to answer the germain complaints he/she/it brings before us, to wit: the word 'exgenesis', word substitution, poor grammatical structure et al. Let us begin.

1) A Lexicon With Two Words: Neologism and Exegesis.

First, we should point out that Vox does not follow the recommended style manual. He ends an independent clause with a preposition. Which is a terrible breach in the english language to be sure. Secondly we note that there is a term for a word that is "made up" which is the word 'neologism' to be exact but that does not apply to our particular breach in style.

Here we simply have a case where the we couldn't remember the exact word 'exegesis' but knew the meaning and so we decided to hazard a guess instead of refering to a dictionary. Which is laziness on our part but is not, strictly speaking, coining a neologism.

Exegesis by your definition is "a crtical [sic] explanation or analysis of a text". A more authoritative definition is "a critical explanation or interpretation of the meaning and elements of a text, esp. of Scripture" (Random House College Dictionary, emphasis ours). Please remember the italicized text at its purpose will soon become evident to all.

2) Of Word Substitution and Poor Reading Comprehension.

To refesh your memory here is the reconstructed paragraph according to Vox:
"Even the police rob people with their unnecessary speeding tickets. They (the police) give people speeding tickets for going 50 in a 40 during the middle of the night, but then (insert [should be substitute, not insert] "the criminal justice system" ) let [sic] child molesters out of jail after serving 30 days in prison."

When it is self-evident that the plain meaning of our statement was this:

"Even the (substitute: criminal justice system) rob[s] people with their unnecessary speeding tickets. They (the criminal justice system) give[s] people speeding tickets for going 50 in a 40 during the middle of the night, but then (substitute: the criminal justice system)let[s] child molesters out of jail after serving 30 days in prison."

The police are a sub-division of the criminal justice system as are the criminal courts, appealant courts and prisons. Our revision of the original paragraph is the more reasonable approximation of Capitalist's meaning.
The reading of the paragraph originally given by Vox suffers from 'concrete thinking'. It is not a sustainable position to state that the intended meaning was that the police are charged with trying and sentencing criminals. Either Vox is of an exceptionally low intellectual caliber or his/her/its apparent motive was to exploit Capitalist's imprecise language to ridicule his/her supposed lack of intelligence.

If someone makes a grammatical mistake in a text, it is indeed incumbent on the reader to arrive at a reasonable conclusion as to the true idea trying to be expressed by the author by using the grammatically correct areas of the text to serve as clues while analysing the areas affected by mistakes. This is an extention of ideas refered to as "contextual reading" or "interpreting words in context" that are usually taught in grammar or elementary schools. We suggest that Vox retry grammar school or give up reading all together.

To the claim that our interpretation does not qualify as an exegesis, we must say our interpretation of the paragraph is an exegesis because we have indeed interpreted the meaning of the paragraph in question ad nauseaum. We feel the readers will agree especially in reference to the last part.

3) A's That Won't Go Away

Vox isn't quite finished with his complaint yet. He feels that "not a reasonable" constitutes bad word choice instead of a simple typographical error. By simply deleting the word 'a' we arrive at a different conclusion. Vox not only needs work in reading comprehension but does not comprehend the difference between poor word choice and simple typographical error.

Finally, we do not oppose clarity in writing but expect to be given a reasonable margin of error given the limited amount of time available to compose posts and casual nature of this fine forum. We note that clarity of thought is more important in our hierarchy of priorities, and that it is something Vox has not yet demonstrated.

[sabre]

oh my god you guys are like an old married couple


quit arguing about petty linguistics

I understood wat capitalist was saying, quit trying to pick this shit apart to find teeny little flaws in their statements its annoying bullshit

[PaulDavidHewson]

actually, I am a mind reader.

Stalin/Mao/Castro would have loved me, so they can smash down all signs of opposition while still being formed in the mind.

Vox, this thread is so useless and biased.
It's based on nothing but assumptions, please post evidence when making these statements.

You generalise away and hope that your comrades back you up.

[PaulDavidHewson]

Oh no wait, they wouldn't have loved me, since i'm a supposed intellectual and all.

[vox]

"Our revision of the original paragraph is the more reasonable approximation of Capitalist's meaning."

Of course, this is only according to Solz, with his personal prejudice, and not according to what was actually written. The only way the right-wingers can make a point is to change the original text!!! Indeed, in his latest revision, he's removed "police" entirely!!! Hee! Now he's saying that he knows better than the writer!!! What profound arrogant stupidity.

Let's face facts, huh? The right-wingers are revisionists. They repeatedly say things that are ridiculous, and then blame the READER for not understanding it!!! It's quite preposterous!

No more proof is needed, folks. Right-wingers wish us to somehow divine their meaning. If they use the wrong words, somehow it's our fault. If they say the police do something, we, the superior Left, must change what the right-winger said in order for it to make sense!!!

This is what Solz has told us, bright boy that he is.

Think of is as affirmative action for the very dim right.

Hee!

By the way, Solz, Elements of Style isn't an obscure text at all, but one that any educated person should be familiar with. (Oh, and what I just did there, ending a sentence with a prepostiion, that's not wrong, you know, or don't you keep up with grammar?)

Regardless, the point has been shown, very explicitly, that the right-wingers need our help in understanding what they write. Solz puts the burden squarely on the reader, not the writer.

If anyone here doesn't understand what I've written, please ask ME. Don't be like the right-wingers, who presume to know better than the author.

You're a sincere delight, Solz. A joke that doesn't understand itself. Hee!

Love,

vox


(Edited by vox at 6:24 pm on May 10, 2002)

[vox]

"Vox, this thread is so useless and biased.
It's based on nothing but assumptions, please post evidence when making these statements. "

What didn't you understand? I know you need guidance when dealing with someone like me, but you've to help me understand your inadequacy, for I can't, like you right-wingers, divine magically, from half-thoughts and wrong words, just what it is you are trying to say.

I've made myself, and my position, quite clear. What don't you understand, little one?

vox

[PaulDavidHewson]

Ah yes, the good old:"you don't understand me" argument.

Like Stalin and Castro and Moa, You don't understand me? You must be anti-revolutionary!!


"I suggest that the right-wingers on this forum have a bad habit of applying their own personal prejudices to statements. Rather than reading what was actually written, they read what they want it to say, using a broad, pre-defined framework of cultural identity in order to twist the meaning of anything to their own purpose. It's this style of "debate" that not only highlights their lack of critical thinking skills but also displays a willingness to deceive themselves perceptually. "

Heavily biased, no arguments and you generalise away.
Can you give examples of the above statement?
And please don't confine your examples to one person only, because that would mean one person represents all the rigt-wingers on this forum.

greets from the little one.

[vox]

Huh, PDH?

I didn't give you any argument at all (if I did please point to it).

Indeed, I only asked you for clarification, for I don't know what the hell you're on about. I gave my argument in the original post. You say I didn't. Okay. Show where I didn't. If it's so obvious, you shouldn't have any trouble, right?

Fact is, I think you're just trying to get my attention. Okay. You have it. Now what?

I didn't give a "you don't understand me" argument. You've accused me of it. Prove it or shut your worthless right-wing hole (personal prejudice is, of course, applied here).

One thing, though, don't expect respect. I think you're filth already.

Love on ya,

vox

[Ernest Everhard]

Personally I'm happy to see the old vox back.

[vox]

lol. Glad to be appreciated.

vox

[reagan lives]

I'm not sure that was a compliment.

[vox]

Another profound insight from Reagan Lives (in his own filth).

Dazzle us some more with your mediocrity, mr. monkey.

vox

[Solzhenitsyn]

Of course, this is only according to Solz, with his personal prejudice, and not according to what was actually written. The only way the right-wingers can make a point is to change the original text!!! Indeed, in his latest revision, he's removed "police" entirely!!! Hee! Now he's saying that he knows better than the writer!!!

Even your own comrades won't try to rescue you from your self-induced intellectual coma. Sabre agrees with me, so my 'personal prejudice' really isn't that personal, your asinine ranting not withstanding.

What profound arrogant stupidity.

Speaking of such things . . .

Let's face facts, huh? The right-wingers are revisionists. They repeatedly say things that are ridiculous, and then blame the READER for not understanding it!!! It's quite preposterous!

We try to emulate Karl Marx and marxists as much as we can. I guess we're successful. Vox gives his seal of approval to our performance!

No more proof is needed, folks. Right-wingers wish us to somehow divine their meaning. If they use the wrong words, somehow it's our fault. If they say the police do something, we, the superior Left, must change what the right-winger said in order for it to make sense!!!

Damn Vox, that paragraph went nowhere fast.

This is what Solz has told us, bright boy that he is.

Think of is as affirmative action for the very dim right.

Hee!

*yawn*
I suppose you find yourself extremely witty and that is sad indeed. I almost shed a tear for you there, Vox. Almost.

By the way, Solz, Elements of Style isn't an obscure text at all, but one that any educated person should be familiar with. (Oh, and what I just did there, ending a sentence with a prepostiion, that's not wrong, you know, or don't you keep up with grammar?)

There are many manuals of style in capitalist countries. The one I have is called the Writer's Reference. Moving onward, Vox offers a debate on the finer points of grammar, claiming a vastly superior knowledge of English grammar or such. The fraud of this will become readily apparent soon enough.

I'm sorry, but grammar doesn't change that much, Vox. I have knowledge of most grammatical rules which is more than can be said for yourself.

Readers beware! I'm about to expose Vox's recalcitrant stupidity. It's very disturbing.

"Preposition - Any member of a class of words that are used before nouns or adjectives to form phrases functioning as modifiers of verbs, nouns, or adjectives, and that express a spatial, temporal, or other relationship (< Latin præposition a putting before, a prefix, a preposition = præ before + position a placing, a putting)." - Random House College Dictionary. Emphasis mine.

Before is the operative word here, Vox. What do you not understand about it? You must use a preposition before the word modified. Hence, you cannot end a clause or a sentence with a preposition because nothing follows. There is no such creature as a postposition in English grammar in spite of your dim-witted claims otherwise. Of course, you could have avoided the appearance of insolent stupidity by picking up etymological clues like the common prefix 'pre'. Reading skills are very important, Vox, and you demonstrate a complete lack of them with every post. Like I've suggested before, please endeavor to attend elementary school: It might take your brain off life support.

I suppose I should help you on your way by correcting your poor grammar. It should read: "By the way, Solz, Elements of Style isn't an obscure text at all, and is one with which any educated person should be familiar."

Regardless, the point has been shown, very explicitly, that the right-wingers need our help in understanding what they write. Solz puts the burden squarely on the reader, not the writer.

Writing clearly is helpful, but since Capitalist made no further posts on the matter, I'm afraid we're stuck with interpreting his paragraph to conform to rationality. Everyone does this to some extent because texts are often unclear as to their meaning. Marx was somewhat intelligent because he did found an exotic religion after all. Yet, he was unable to acheive sufficient clarity in writing his books. The existence of competing sects of Marxism attests to this fact. Do commies need our help to understand his writings? Vox, you seem to be sending a double-bind message. What way do you want to have it?

If anyone here doesn't understand what I've written, please ask ME. Don't be like the right-wingers, who presume to know better than the author.

Then by all means, rewrite all of your posts to conform to the dictates of reason.

You're a sincere delight, Solz. A joke that doesn't understand itself.

You're a repulsive imbecile, Vox. An idiot in desperate search for an institutional home or a self-euthanasia project who manages not to be aware of his plight.

Hee!

I saw this earlier in your post also and must say that you have something there Vox! Excellent! Hee is half of hee-haw which is, of course, the sound of a braying jackass. You're halfway to doing something exceptionally well suited for your meager talents and for that you should be congradulated.

Love,

vox

Warmest Regards,

Solz.

N.B. I agree that this thread is becoming tiresome, but as long as Vox keeps coming back for punishment, I'm more than willing to accomodate him. Think of it as my contribution to the rights of the disabled.


(Edited by Solzhenitsyn at 7:08 am on May 11, 2002)

[reagan lives]

Well done, Solz, but take it from the expert: no matter how many times you whack vox with the mallet of reason, he keeps popping back up. My guess is that he'll let this thread drop, then reference it later as an example of him emerging victorious over the right-wingers. In case you haven't noticed, none of his leftist comrades ever defend him on any point (with the occasional exception of his protege El Che). This is largely because Ernest and I have reduced his credibility to tatters through months and months of posts like the one you just made. Impressed as I am, I do think you missed a few classic voxisms:

"I gave my argument in the original post. You say I didn't. Okay. Show where I didn't."

Think about that one, vox. The logic will blow your mind. We'll deal with the practical implications of this statement a little later.

"The only way the right-wingers can make a point is to change the original text!!!"

The only way vox can make a point is by ignoring or obfuscating the meaning of the original text.

"I didn't give a 'you don't understand me' argument. You've accused me of it. Prove it or shut your worthless right-wing hole (personal prejudice is, of course, applied here)."

"I know you need guidance when dealing with someone like me...What don't you understand, little one?"

Happy?

"I know you need guidance when dealing with someone like me, but you've to help me understand your inadequacy, for I can't, like you right-wingers, divine magically, from half-thoughts and wrong words, just what it is you are trying to say."

One...two...three...four...five...six! SIX commas!! Maybe you want to give Elements of Style another glance, vox. Then again, I am dealing with someone who tries to dish out grammatical advice in one post and writes "lol" in the next. Ah, those capricious Internet intellectuals.

You've painted yourself into quite a corner here, vox. On the one hand you're saying that it's Capitalist's fault that you can't understand his post (when, as Solz has pointed out, anyone who reads at a sixth grade level could), and then on the other hand you're acting like PDH is a moron because he can't understand your post. He accused you of basing your argument off of assumptions and asked for proof...you ignored that request completely. Instead, you said:
"I gave my argument in the original post. You say I didn't."

Now, if PDH were you, he'd say "Show me where I said that you didn't give an argument in the original post." What he said was that your argument was shitty in the first degree, and he asked you to back it up. You, of course, just do your little jig and hope that nobody notices the fact that you've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar of intellectual fraudulence yet again.

[El Che]

I think a village is missing its idiot. But thats just me :P

[Guest]

Hey Solz, El Che agrees with us!

[Capitalist]

El Che is Dead, like Hitler he lives on in the minds of fanatics.

My point about police tickets is simple. I hate big oppressive government because it becomes corrupt and robs the hard working people.

Like Police Tickets - They have become a cash machine for small towns and local government. d

Driving fast is not unsafe, unless you are going 80 in a school zone or around people going 70. But going 80 on an open interstate, with no one around or while trying to pass people in the right lane, doesn't really fucking matter. I think it is safer to go 80 and get the fuck out of the way and pass instead of stacking up a line of impatient drivers in the passing lane.

Police need to use INTELLIGENT judgement (if the person is driving unsafely - then give them a ticket, if the person is technically speeding - but it doesn't really matter because it is in the middle of the night or they are passing others - than who cares?

Another example - Red Lights in the middle of the night. The year is fucking 2002! - yet we still have stupid red lights on roads in the middle of the night. I may stop at these lights - but I'm not going to wait for 1 minute while obviously nobody is around for fucking miles (except for the cops eating donuts hiding nearby in a dark parking lot, so they can cash in on impatient driver). These lights need to go to blinking red after a certain time when traffic has subsided. That way people don't have to wait at red lights like idiots.

By the way YOU CAN TURN LEFT at a Red Light on A ONE WAY ROAD GOING LEFT. I hate waiting behind stupid people who do not know this simple concept.

I believe in Efficiency.

We need more efficient transportation, not more speed limits, red lights and speeding tickets.

MORE OVERPASSES! Not more welfare, use my tax money to save the environment and carbon monoxide output.

The whole speeding ticket thing has turned into a cash machine for local government. Tickets are not issued for unsafe driving.

They are issued to make money.

[poncho]

Cuba most cities with traffic lights go to a flashing yellow for slow down but not stop on the main streets; secondary streets go to flashing red treat as a stop sign. On the freeway in Cuba I've passed cops at 90 to 100 m.p.h never been stopped or ticketed.

Capitalist you need Fidel he does everything you want and need resistance is futile stop fighting your people!

[Guest]

THis is capitaist imperial, and I can personally vouch for VOX being quite the idiot, i mean, this individual tried to use the soviet union's "lack of funding" for its falling behing the USA in technology and infrastructure. He fails to mention #1 that the USSR built 3 x the hardware the US did, and if they could afford that, they could afford pouring their funds into tech, they just couldn't, also, if military funding was so constrained, they should have at least given the world some kind of invention, but they never did, the vast majority of invention and innovation in the last 150 years has come from the USA. And #2, the US was also constrained by budgetary considerations. We have to allocate $$$ to social welfare and education too, and we have limilted military allcation just like the soviets, to say nothing of the population advantage the soviets had. He also was still caught in the 60's, thinking that because the soviets were in space 1st they somehow had beat us in the space race. I guess all the LSD made him forget the next 40 years, when the US orbited and landed on the moon, created the space shuttle (1st re-usable space vehicle) and spearheaded the international space station. Anyway, his final arguement was that the USA was not the most technologically advanced nation on earth. He of course, failed to mention which country was (I wonder why). Vox is full of idiotic rhetoric that he can't support.

[peaccenicked]

The neoliberalism of the right wingers on this site is laughable.
Complaining about fines for speeding.
The grammar issue really is a bit stupid, it takes away from the real dim witted self centred narcistic rants that grace this bb.
The big bad State robs but the capitalists are good guys.
What moronic logic?
It is hardly worth arguing with such idiocy.
There are posts which go into these issues already.

[Imperial Power]

Peace I find all these issues exhausted over the past months I've been here. The rhetoric has become too boring. The one thing I find is the well organized ability to find faults with the current system as any opposition party must in hopes of gaining power. What I never see is proposals of how to do things differenlty and realistically. For instance, many say nuclear weapons should be totally banned. OK how do you remove all the distrust in the world to make that work?