On Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:27:06 -0500, Jim Logajan wrote:

Wingnut wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:30:32 -0700, Hatunen, who had formerly been on
my side,

No one is against you.

On the contrary. I made what should have been a plain, uncontroversial
statement and was attacked by Mxsmanic. I responded in my own defense and
was promptly attacked again. Every subsequent time I've responded in my
own defense, I've been attacked yet again, usually by Mxsmanic but
sometimes by Dudley Henriques and now, suddenly, by Hatunen and yourself.
I hadn't even seen you in this thread before. It doesn't therefore seem
to me that you even have a dog in this race, so what prompted your sudden
participation?

suddenly launched an attack and called me incompetent at best and a
liar at worst.

Provide a message ID reference and quote the sentence where he used the
word "incompetent" in reference to you.

He didn't actually use the word "incompetent". Rather, he was subtle
enough to insinuate these things without stating them outright.

Of course he didn't. Which is unfortunate, since you really are either
incompetent or a troll. And you can quote me on that.

**** you too, and the modem you dialed in on.

It looks like my attackers are becoming more overt and vocal in their
attacks. But why? I did nothing to provoke them. All I did, and I repeat,
was say:

"Consider who would have been landing the plane if something had caused
the pilot to also conk out, though. Then her prior flight experience
would have become quite relevant indeed."

Why should this be a "crime" for which I get "sentenced" to perpetual
flaming by you and your buddies?

Oh, yeah -- it shouldn't. The only reason why this is happening is
because you and Mxsmanic are assholes and trolls. And you can quote me on
that.

I've never understood why anonymous posters seem to get their knickers
in an uproar - probably nobody knows who you really and I personally
don't care. If you've made your precious handle look bad

But that's just it -- I haven't. A small number of people are acting
hostile, apparently because yonder troll Mxsmanic has a few more admirers
than originally suspected. I haven't done anything wrong. What I did was
call Mxsmanic on some misbehavior of his, and now his tiny little handful
of friends are leaping to his defense. And poorly; rather than trying to
defend or excuse his actions, they're simply attacking his detractors.
Really, do you honestly believe very many people will be swayed to
Msxmanic's side by such an obviously bogus ad hominem argument as
"Wingnut is an incompetent troll"? Most people are smarter than that. And
the other two are Mxsmanic and yourself. :-)

You screwed up - BFD.

No. I did NOT screw up. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with

"Consider who would have been landing the plane if something had caused
the pilot to also conk out, though. Then her prior flight experience
would have become quite relevant indeed."

and more people agree with me than disagree with me. So far dozens of
people have criticized Mxsmanic's position, and their criticisms have
consisted largely of reasoned arguments. Meanwhile, how many people have
criticized mine? Four, and their criticisms have consisted of such
brilliantly logical arguments as "Wingnut is an incompetent troll".

I think it's pretty clear which side is right and which is wrong, both on
the evidence and if you regard it as a popularity contest.

Which is what makes it odd that you would jump in at this late date and
on the obviously losing side of the debate. Just a sucker for underdogs,
perhaps, even when said underdogs are underdogs for the very good reason
that they lack merit?

Still, it's like you're a Leafs fan that suddenly walks into a Penguins
bar wearing a Leafs jersey and says, loudly, "The Penguins suck and the
Leafs rule!"

Where I come from that's described aptly with the phrase "cruising for a
bruising".

I know this has a large probability of being a pointless exercise, but
I'll try it anyway:

(Jim Logajan goes on to spew a large number of similar ad hominem
arguments, most of them boiling down to "Wingnut is stupid, therefore
Mxsmanic's position is the one you should believe". When stated in such
terms, however, it's obviously an invalid syllogism.)

a genuine mea culpa

I have nothing to apologize for. I stand by my position and against
Mxsmanic's and certainly your ad hominem arguments and unpleasant,
insulting bluster will never convince me to change my mind. Only reason
and logic will.

In fact, responding not only with invalid arguments but with increasingly
shrill tones, hostility, verbal violence, and the threat of escalated
verbal violence will do a lot to convince me that my original position is
the correct one for me to take, both because if you were really on the
side of truth and right you would not need to resort to such methods to
try to convert me and because I believe it is not proper to reward such
transparently coercive tactics by permitting them to succeed.

If by sticking to my original position I make your coercive tactics fail,
then I have done the world a great service, for every increment less
effective such tactics are corresponds to an incremental reduction in the
incentive of bullies like you to try to exploit such tactics against
others.

And so I repeat again the statement that has surprisingly provoked such a
lot of vitriol from a small number of highly vocal nutcases:

"Consider who would have been landing the plane if something had caused
the pilot to also conk out, though. Then her prior flight experience
would have become quite relevant indeed."

P.S. your dishonest attempt to suppress my response from appearing in
most of the newsgroups you attacked me in, to wit, your silent followup-
to, has been neutralized. Methinks maybe you made the mistake of
believing your own propaganda and, thus, the fatal error of thinking I'm
*actually* an incompetent troll, when in fact nothing could be further
from the truth.