Charlie Pierce:
I've been doing this for a while now, and I provide links to sources, and sometimes spend a bit of time making clear whatever point I'm trying to make. When some dope comes along who disagrees with me and says, "Prove it!", I can only surmise that person can't read. My other favorite riposte, "Says you," has a special place in my heart, as well.
Suffice it to say that, should you stumble upon this site and spend any time reading it, you will discover all sorts of things, like links and evidence that make clear I actually am referring to real things. You may not agree with me; that's fine. You may not like that I take some things for granted that you believe should be argued for; that's OK, too. One thing, however, should be clear: Disagreement doesn't mean I've failed, somehow, to provide evidence, demonstrated some failure either of simple reading comprehension or interpretation, or otherwise simply made a statement without any support whatsoever. When I see a man with a duck on his head, that's what it is. Similarly, when I read people saying Intelligent Design is a scientific theory, I don't need to defend my denial. I don't need to make clear that some folk's obsession with the sex lives of others, abundant from the frequency with which they start talking about the, demonstrates far more about that person's neuroses than any alleged moral failings they seem to believe exist.
These are things about which I've written far too much. I've made my positions clear, and have good reasons for holding the positions I do. When someone comes along and says, simultaneously, that I have never done so, and in fact am a big fat hypocrite who does not live the way I say I do, without ever having met me, without once demonstrating any insight or thoughtfulness about anything, without doing much of anything other than insisting he or she is a far better person than the rest of the world, I see no need, not one, to do much more than chuckle.
Consider this my last word on this particular matter. You read a post, then whine I haven't provided evidence? As far as I'm concerned, you're insisting there's a duck with a man on its ass, and I feel no need to "convince" you of anything.
It is a fundamental principle of this blog that I can write what is obvious to me, and that which happens right before my eyes, without having to find a "source" to confirm it, much less find a "source" on the other side. (This is the duck-on-the-head principle. If I see a guy walking down the street with a duck on his head, I can write that I saw a guy walking down the street with a duck on his head. I don't need someone else to tell me that they saw it, and I certainly don't need to find someone who will tell me, no, what you saw was a duck with a guy on his ass.)Much the same, I am quite tired of the whining about "evidence" from a certain someone who never, so far as I am aware, evinces any ability to understand a single sentence I've written; he claims people think and believe things they have categorically denied ever thinking; a person who, at least until now, has shown not a moment of willingness to use a search engine to discover the riches of the internet beyond his tiny circle of favorite reads.
I've been doing this for a while now, and I provide links to sources, and sometimes spend a bit of time making clear whatever point I'm trying to make. When some dope comes along who disagrees with me and says, "Prove it!", I can only surmise that person can't read. My other favorite riposte, "Says you," has a special place in my heart, as well.
Suffice it to say that, should you stumble upon this site and spend any time reading it, you will discover all sorts of things, like links and evidence that make clear I actually am referring to real things. You may not agree with me; that's fine. You may not like that I take some things for granted that you believe should be argued for; that's OK, too. One thing, however, should be clear: Disagreement doesn't mean I've failed, somehow, to provide evidence, demonstrated some failure either of simple reading comprehension or interpretation, or otherwise simply made a statement without any support whatsoever. When I see a man with a duck on his head, that's what it is. Similarly, when I read people saying Intelligent Design is a scientific theory, I don't need to defend my denial. I don't need to make clear that some folk's obsession with the sex lives of others, abundant from the frequency with which they start talking about the, demonstrates far more about that person's neuroses than any alleged moral failings they seem to believe exist.
These are things about which I've written far too much. I've made my positions clear, and have good reasons for holding the positions I do. When someone comes along and says, simultaneously, that I have never done so, and in fact am a big fat hypocrite who does not live the way I say I do, without ever having met me, without once demonstrating any insight or thoughtfulness about anything, without doing much of anything other than insisting he or she is a far better person than the rest of the world, I see no need, not one, to do much more than chuckle.
Consider this my last word on this particular matter. You read a post, then whine I haven't provided evidence? As far as I'm concerned, you're insisting there's a duck with a man on its ass, and I feel no need to "convince" you of anything.
