on 3/23/00 10:04 AM, William Meecham at [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Ms Trecy, do you know the meaning of 'ad hominem' ?  Your response below
> is a classic example; and as to predictable, many on this list feel
> that your responses are predictably right wing.
No, it's you who you don't know the meaning of the term. I said Andrej's
arguments are laughable and irrational. That's not ad hominem. That's a
comment on the quality of his thinking. I went on to say that his presence
on this list was instructive in the same way that Anthony Lewis is for
Chomsky; his wildly irrational, deeply chauvinistic views, coming from a
self-described leftist, illuminates just how deranged the loci of Serbian
cultural values are. Saying this is no more ad hominem than your or any
other person's characterization of Western/US society as racist or
imperialist or sick or whatever label you care to affix. Whether or not my
characterization is true or not is a matter of debate, but at least I offer
evidence for it--namely, just about every self-serving, sickeningly
self-pitying word that drops from Andrej's keyboard, set against the endless
bloodshed of the country he feels we are not privileged to criticize.

It's sad that the quality of thought on this list is so poverty stricken
that I have to give lessons in Remedial Logic, but an ad hominem argument is
one in which the truth of falsity of a proposition is said to flow from the
character of the person making the statement. Something is true or false
regardless of who is uttering it, as any Chomskyan worth is salt should
acknowledge.


Ironically therefore it was Andrej who was parroting an ad hominem argument
(I started to write "making an ad hominem argument" but Andrej doesn't make
arguments, he just parrots those made by people whose conclusions he likes),
when he posted the long piece that carried this subject line, as it argued
that you couldn't trust Human Rights Watch because it was funded by people
like George Soros. That is a classic ad hominem argument, as anyone not
wholly enslaved by kneejerk Marxist sectarian propaganda would be able to
recognize.

But of course you and others smear me as a racist or right-wing reactionary
because I don't agree with your views, rather than make a defensible
argument for your position, so it's obvious that every thing I've written up
to this point is like Beethoven to a deaf person. Oh well.

But say, I would like to know what actual evidentiary basis you cite for
your proposition that I'm a right-winger? I voted for Nader, worked for the
FSLN, raised money for CISPES, phonebanked for INFACT, and have read
virtually every word that Chomsky was written on politics (and some that he
was written on linguistics), which last point is far more than you can say
for yourself, since you demonstrate a complete ignorance of Chomsky's
methods at just about every turn. I admit that I don't read The
Revolutionary Worker (though I once got my picture in it for demonstrating
against Ollie North), but I am anti-death penalty, pro-gun control,
pro-affirmative action, etc. etc.

Is it my allegiance to Englightenment values of logic and hostility to rank
hypocrisy and stupidity that makes me a reactionary? If so, then guilty as
charged.

PS You might learn how to spell my name, if it's not too much trouble.


--
Tresy Kilbourne
Seattle, WA