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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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Not I, counselor. If you read that post my claim is that some rioters who "committed no crime worse than trespassing" are getting harsh punishments for political reasons. And that some did not enter the building. Not "were charged with no crimes worse than trespassing" (since part of the issue is the difference in charges for similar acts). Not even "were convicted of no crime worse than trespassing". And I did not limit "punishment" to the actual sentence imposed; being held without bail in this case I consider punitive.

You responded to this by interpreting these statements in a much more restricted way, declared them false based on a source showing actual sentences, asking why I believed these false things. Well, the answer to why I believe these things is because they were widely and gleefully reported in the press at the time. That March 2021 D.C. Court of Appeals decision that said some non-violent defendants had to be granted bond? That happened because they were, in fact, NOT being given bond.

You responded to this by interpreting these statements in a much more restricted way, declared them false based on a source showing actual sentences, asking why I believed these false things.

You are not being honest here.

My immediate reply was to ask you to clarify what you meant by "harsh punishments". I then showed my work about what I found after a quick search and asked you if this is what you meant, then again asked you for any specific cases you believed met your own definitions. You didn't respond. So my first top level post showed my work again, explicitly stated that I was relying on an incomplete database, explicitly admitted what you wrote could be interpreted in multiple ways, again asked you to provide any examples you knew about. You finally did reply by citing the Q Shaman guy's case, and I pointed out that your original claim appeared to have been much more expansive than just that guy, then again asked you multiple clarifying questions, to which you did not reply. When I badgered you again about this, it was to again ask you how you arrived at your position, and since at this point you didn't seem eager to defend it, I asked if it was actually based in fact. You responded, but not substantively, and instead implied that I would tie you into knots somehow.

Here's another question: What would you have me do differently? When your original claim was ambiguous, I asked you to define the terms you were using. When you didn't respond, I searched for examples on my own and asked you if this is what you meant. I continued asking you to clarify what you meant even after multiple unanswered prompts. I do not understand what purpose your evasiveness serves. If you're unhappy about being misinterpreted, you can't blame it on the guy hounding you for days repeatedly asking you to explain what you meant.

What you wrote directly above actually cleared up a lot of my original questions (finally!) and had you just said exactly this, we could have avoided much of the long and exhaustive trail of ask-ask-ask-ask I left behind. So once again, what would you have me do differently? I'm actually listening.

I posted that you did the exact same thing Nybbler complained about above--looking for charges, not acts, but now that I look more closely at your links (at least the first two), I don't see where you even compared January 6 protestors to leftists at all, with or without charges. "Harsh punishments for political reasons" here means "harsher than the left is punished". You have to make a comparison (and once you do, "don't look up charges" then becomes relevant).

"Harsh punishments for political reasons" here means "harsher than the left is punished". You have to make a comparison (and once you do, "don't look up charges" then becomes relevant).

Edit to your edit: how am I supposed to know/assume this? Besides asking for clarification, what else am I supposed to do here?