I had written a couple of days ago:

In the paragraph above we have several actors or groups of actors all splooged into a blob: All the doors opened (passive construction, implied actor), the access started shutting off (passive construction, implied actors). This is not persuasive or even descriptive.   I wish you would de-blob some of your remarks when appropriate.   I wish you would not invoke Demonic Urges and Forces to explain those not convinced or persuaded by your Trump promotion. 

  On 3/19/2016 at 10:56 AM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:
  On 3/19/2016 at 10:05 AM, william.scherk said:
My point was that the events are better explained in the relationship between Carly and her voters. She didn't get enough votes from voters. As for the 'steady stream of Trump bashing,' I gotta ask -- is there a category or conceptual label you can use to describe or denote a person who does not support Trump?  I get Trump Haters, Bashers, Anti-Trump, and a new adjective in the mix, Trump despisers. [...] 

Is there a term to use to denote a not-demonic group of non Trump Supporters? 

Sure. Anti-Trump people. Those against Trump. And so on. I don't demonize someone who criticizes Trump just for criticizing him. There are lots of people who can't stand Trump as is their right. And some of them make great points.

  Quote
Believe me, the establishment Republicrats knew exactly what I am talking about when they punked Carly off.

Those who call Trump a bigot are making the same error. Believe me, that bigot charge will not take with Trump except among Trump haters. If you don't believe me, just watch. My point is that this growing mass of Trump supporters is not made up of bigots (as those making the charge eventually conclude). The truth is these people are no longer listening to those who yell, "Bigot!" Why?

  Quote
How many times and how many people have to appear on air saying they have known Trump for years and he is no bigot? How many times do people have to point to Trump's businesses and show that no bigotry is to be found? How many people from all minority classes have to come out in support of Trump and say he is no bigot? 

  Quote
Now I have a question for you. Is there any category of Trump supporter you can imagine where they are not mentally or morally suboptimal in some manner? 

  Quote
Among all the many theories out there from Trump critics about what moves Trump supporters, I have yet to see one. It's not disagreement. It's failure to even consider the possibility that Trump supporters have correct functioning brains.

Does that attribution of inherent inferiority count as demonization 

A blast from the past that illuminates one of the central arenas of disagreement with my host and leader, MSK.   It almost always comes down to 'identification' of this or that concept or fact or assertion.  

On 2/2/2011 at 2:57 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

William,

I should have used a qualification. Something along the lines of the following: Among people who hold strong opinions about Beck, there are basically two poles, with some variations in the middle and some exceptions.

Of course I don't think all people fit into one or the other of two categories.

In fact, if you look, you will see that I tend to piss off people who predominantly think in terms of black and white. I recognize black and white, but I also recognize that if you use them in a situation where they are useful (where degrees are at issue, for instance), they cause what I call oversimplifications.

And just when people get used to doing the degrees of gray for the appropriate situations with me, I generally point to the color spectrum.

That's when the black-and-whiters get really pissed at me, saying I promote moral equivalency, getting really nasty, yada yada yada. And then they don't know what hit them when I come down on them like a ton of bricks about their own moral shortcomings--in correct black-and-white terms.

In their world, a person like me is not supposed to do black and white. But that's because they don't see the other colors (I believe many are afraid to look) and get confused by those who do.

Anyway, that's just context.

I do hope you mention some of the things you agree with Beck on, also. Too much negative stuff can get awfully bland.

Instead of the issues, it could turn into something like the endless discussions that go on and on promoting the Ayn Rand Love/Hate Myth.

Michael

A fragment from another time. Do my arguments have integrity? Am I obeying my own 'rules' of fair-play in discussion? Am I bigoted?

On 2/4/2011 at 3:39 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

If Soros did that openly, I can only imagine what he did in the shadows since he owns gazillions of ad hoc committees, commissions, institutions, think tanks, and journalistic organizations. Chris Matthews is on Soros' side. Every time Beck farts, a bazillioin articles get written bashing it. Mathews is at the top of that particular heap.

I would be far more interested in discussing how "Caliphate" can become a meme in such a short time, and maybe why Beck did it that way. He has discredited several members of Obama's team to the extent that they had to stop being on the team. Acorn and Van Jones come immediately to mind. So he knows what he is doing on that score.

Of course, I am not at all against looking at and discussing facts.

I just don't want to change the "Ayn Rand was wrong/Ayn Rand was right" bickering on OL for "Glenn Beck rocks/Glenn Beck sucks" bickering. I even ignore most of the Rand right/wrong stuff these days.

This ideas excite me. I'm getting a little too jaded for the other stuff. I'm also getting behind in my work.

In Arizona there are dust devils. A a boy I watched them from my front porch. A swirl of hot air picking up dirt.

On OL we have word devils. I watch them on my laptop with the same sense of wonder: why? why? why? It's not hot air; after all, it's from the brain.

It's like the universe itself as far as getting one's thoughts around it. In it, not around it. To get around it we need to get much more into it. Sort of like comtemblating the sublime? Ironically, unlike the universe, I never had any desire to get inside a dust devil. Crude analogy; I'm already inside the universe. Maybe I should say to get outside the universe.

William, it's not that you don't see the black and the white; it's that you continually run from it as if it were an anti-humanist schematic. A car has a go pedal and a stop pedal. Is that too simplistic?

--Brant

and a turning wheel that turns wheels that turn the car: you either turn it or you don't, drive the car or not

is anybody not bigoted about something or someone?

26 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

William, it's not that you don't see the black and the white; it's that you continually run from it as if it were an anti-humanist schematic.

I continually run from it (the black and the white) ....

I run  as if it (the black and white) were an anti-humanistic schematic.

Them is some interesting starting points for a conversation.  I don't quite get what you mean ... and don't want to presume ("in other words, ") the ramifications. If you had the time and inclination, I would ask for more!

26 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

A car has a go pedal and a stop pedal. Is that too simplistic?

A car has go and stop.  Simple enough, and I agree.   But I don't know how this connects to me and my fear/loathing of 'anti-humanistic schematic.'  In fact, I get a kind of Stop sign at 'anti-humanistic schematic.'

26 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

is anybody not bigoted about something or someone?

Somewhere on the site I wrote a few paragraphs about what I mean when I use the word bigot -- or what I find the most striking and consistent in all definitions of bigot and bigotry.   I will go look later and poke it back in here.  To sum for the moment, it is a habit of mind (bigotry) and a bigot (as opposed to a non-bigot) shows that quality or habit of mind, quality of thinking/reasoning/arguing.

We probably don't need to go to the dictionaries or examples of common usage. I do not -- repeat do not -- conflate bigotry with prejudice nor with racialism or racism.   

Probably the better course is simply to ask Michael what he means by the word bigot and bigotry. And I think I will do that. I am getting less and less interested in the Front6 Porch, Brant, at least as a place I must post to.  I want to serve myself and my goals while giving value.  I think I an going to branch out or narrow down my commentary. Ten years of this and what do I have?   A load of words, words, words. 

Me on the word bigotry and what I think it ,means, or what I intend it to mean when I use it: 

Well, William, I have been posting on the Internet before there was an Internet. Dial Up to a dedicated line. A good 28 years now. (Google Ft Freedom and my name.) All that posting has/had several uses--to the poster. It's all part of ways of making yourself by being yourself. It's mostly a matter of trying to be as honest and forthright as possible apropos what one chooses to address. And what one chooses to address.

--Brant

I've has regrets--there've been a few . . . I posted my way (you too)

http://www.fortfreedom.org/w22.htm

http://www.fortfreedom.org/

I have fun every day. That is my secret.