We can debate ideas but not facts.

Recently I've had to delete comments by one of my readers. I don't like doing this, but I have minimum standards for comments: they have to be fact-based, logical, and make sense.

I have no problem with people disagreeing with my posts and explaining why in a comment.  I usually rebut it (if I have time) and sometimes these turn into a mini-debate. Fine, but to have an intelligent debate there must be some common ground and some respect for facts. 

You might recall a few years ago I had a long debate with commenter, Adspar, who saw things differently than I did but at least we both accepted the same reality, we just disagreed on how those facts affected our future.  I agreed with much of what he wrote but not his conclusions.  I enjoyed it but at some point we both realized we were at an impasse.

The commenter I recently banned (for the third time I believe) rejects facts and lives in a world where might makes right.  If you say it often enough and loud enough it becomes a fact.  For example, he recently crowed that Fox News is the most watched cable news network, by far, as though that proved anything.  They may be number one because they are smarter and right more often than the others, or they may be number one because they tell angry, bigoted people what they want to hear instead of the truth.  Just because more Americans believe God made the world in seven days than believe in evolution, it doesn't make evolution untrue.  And because a lot of rich energy companies have spent billions convincing people that people aren't affecting our climate in any negative way, 95+% of the professional climatologists say we are, and dangerously so and all the propaganda in the world won't change their conclusions.  Anyone who can't understand and accept these basic concepts should move on, but this individual didn't and insisted that his make-believe world was the reality I must accept.  Not in my lifetime.  So be it.

--Trakker

 

 

Comments

[Dan D. Doty]

Thanks for telling everyone what was on your mind... but it wasn't the truth.

Trakker, you suffer from it is know as Magic Thinking; this the way I want the world to be, so there fore, it is.

I use facts, you just choose to ignor them because they don't match the drama playing in your head.

Example; if you went by facts, you wouldn't have that gone a stupid rant about the Zimmerman case in Flordia.

You don't like facts.

And if Fox News lies, show everyone an example that can checked independently ( not from a hit piece on a Left-Wing website).

[Trakker]

Okay, Dan, since I wrote this about you, I will accept this rebuttal from you and let readers decide who to believe.

The reason why it is a waste of your time and mine to debate here is that your reality is not my reality, and your vision of America - where a self-appointed armed vigilante can harass an unarmed black kid (because of is race and his clothes) walking back to the house where he was staying, and end up shooting him to death is one I will fight to my dying breath. Even if Trayvon got mad at being harassed and turned on Zimmerman and a fight ensued, pulling a gun and shooting him to death is wrong in the country I grew up in, and I will not give up the right of Trayvon's right to live just so that arrogant, paranoid bullies can carry deadly weapons around in public ready to shoot anyone makes them feel threatened.

[Dan D. Doty]

Trayvon was pounding Zimmerman's head on the sidewalk, was he allowed to beat someone to death in your reality.

[Trakker]

Please produce any proof that George Zimmerman was being "beaten to death" by Treyvon. Really, didn't you see the footage of George walking into the police station shortly after the incident? Did that look like someone near death? No, but guess who didn't get up and walk away? The guy who was just minding his business, walking home before being harassed by a gun-toting asshole. He died. He DIED! He was an American citizen who was doing nothing wrong and he was shot dead by a guy who walked away with barely a scratch on him, who didn't even need to go to the hospital - and yet all you gun nuts are freaked out about how that mean black thug beat poor George Zimmerman to death almost. That is not reality, that's paranoia.

[Dan D. Doty]

I said, and I repeat did Trayvon have the right to beat George Zimmerman to death.

All the facts and evidence are on Zimmerman's side. You didn't see the pictures of the wounds, you didn't mention the hospital reports of the injuries, or his factured nose, or The crime scene reports.

George Zimmerman was punched in the face, and his head was being pounded against the sidewalk. He felt his life was in danger,period. If someone is getting their pounded against a sidewalk, and they shoot the person who is doing it, you want to call that murder and not self defense.
That is because you choose to ignor the facts and make all judgement on emotion alone.

[Trakker]

FERGODSAKE, Doty, Zimmerman was the aggressor! He started it! Of course I saw the pictures of Zimmerman's wounds, his swollen nose and the abrasions on the back of his head. So what? He was in NO danger of being beaten to death. Haven't you ever been in a fight? And this is precisely WHY I strongly object to letting stupid gun owners run around armed with deadly firearms. If Zimmerman had no gun, an innocent kid who did nothing but try to walk home from a convenience store, would still be alive.

Being armed with a gun doesn't give you the right to kill people who hit you with their fists. You can't just swagger around with a gun and assume you now have the power to go around starting fights and then shooting them if they suddenly get the best of you.

[Dan D. Doty]

How was George Zimmerman the aggressor? Did attack Martin? Did he threaten Martin?
Just who broke who's nose? Who was pounding a guy's head on the sidewalk?

Do people have the right to beat someone if they think they are being followed?

How can you say that George Zimmerman was in no danger of being beat to death; he was having his head pounded on the sidewalk, in his mind he was in danger of being beat to death.

Instead of showing facts and evidence, you have decided to go two emotional rants, neither of these rants showed any evidence of Geoerge Zimmerman commiting murder.

Your rants sound like they came out of Chris Dorner's manifesto; if someone pisses you off you have the right to hurt them.

What they whole exchange has proven is that you are the one living in your own little world, and I'm the one using facts, not you.

And before you do anything, why don't we have some neutral parties come over here and judge this debate.

[Trakker]

Doty, this whole incident is going to go to trial someday and the lawyers will have to wade trough the evidence and pass judgement and we'll both have to accept it.

I'm going to have the last word here. I don't expect you to understand where I'm coming from. Facts as I see them. Neighborhood Watch members are not supposed to be armed. Zimmerman was armed. Zimmerman correctly called the police and reported a suspicious person. The Police told him not to not follow the person. Zimmerman disobeyed. There is a REASON why Neighborhood Watch members are supposed to be unarmed - because civilians are not trained to handle suspicious people (who may or may not be doing anything wrong). There is a REASON the cops told Zimmerman to stand down and wait - because civilians are not trained to confront suspicious persons, and civilians have no authority to confront a suspicious person. A cop has a badge and a uniform which identifies him/her as law enforcement. All Martin knew was that some civilian was following him slowly in his truck, and that both pissed him off and scared him, just like anyone else his age would be.

Was Zimmerman acting in his capacity as Neighborhood Watch? Then he shouldn't have been armed and he should have identified himself as a member of the Neighborhood Watch and asked Trayvon where he was going. Trayvon would have told him and the matter would have ended there. Or was Zimmerman acting as an armed citizen? Once he called the cops and they told him to stand down and wait for help that should have ended his involvement. In either case, if George ad followed the rules Trayvon would still be alive. But Trayvon is dead, because George wasn't a responsible citizen. And this is why I'm so furious about this: an innocent unarmed high school kid is DEAD because a gun-toting hot-head who assumed Trayvon was a thug, ignored the cop's order, and went after Trayvon. Do you understand what DEAD is? Do you know how WRONG it is that an innocent kid walking home was shot to death? I have no sympathy for Zimmerman. He brought it upon himself. He wasn't hurt badly, spent no time in the hospital, and seemed perfectly fine an hour later.

We'll see what comes out in the trial.

[Dan D. Doty]

Yes, a trial.

A place where all facts come to light and rants do not win the day no matter how much you scream.

The facts have not been on your side, the evidence has not been on your side.

I remember that old movie, JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG.

Ernst Janning tells Judge Haywood that he didn't know that all the things done under the Nazis would " come to that."

And Judge Haywood tells him that it " came to that" the first time he sentenced a man he knew to innocent.

And its coming to that now; if you are willing to send a man to prison because of your hate, your fear, your sense of Political Correctness, then we have turned a terrible corner in this nation.

And one day you'll deny to others that you were not one of the ones who denied others their rights to make demons inside yourself happy; and you also know its not the truth and you have become the monster you acquised others of being.

[Trakker]

Thanks you Dan, for confirming my decision to delete your outrageous comments from my blog.

In your comment above you have set yourself up as judge and jury and determined that I am a Nazi who would willingly sentence an innocent man, and a monster because I disagree with your god-like decision that George Zimmerman must be innocent because gun-owners NEVER lie, and no one must ever accost a gun owner and expect to live, regardless of the circumstances.

You are much closer to the person you accuse me of than I. Sadly (and I mean it) you will never understand why.