Posts by Joe Wylie
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I like "arsehole" because everybody has one . . .
Only those "boring, ugly, serious people" who don't happen to be ostomates.
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My mates and I used to, whenever any MAN used to be talking bollocks about women, remind them not so gently that we were W I M M I N.
When I was a little trainee Catholic in primary school we had regular prayers, which we all recited together, out loud. One day, at the final "amen", an indignant little female voice piped up "What about a-women?"
While I haven't retained any of the religious mumbo-jumbo, that bit certainly stuck. Thanks Cheryl, wherever you are. You may have been a bossy little bugger, but after all these years I'm grateful. -
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If Paul Henry abusing someone can be held up as a point, then abusing Paul Henry can be too. It was a reductio ad absurdum on the "free speech has been damaged" line. Graeme was just trying to straighten the point out - because the reductio is a valid criticism, that means the negation of the point holds - Paul Henry abusing someone is not a point, and nor is abusing Paul Henry. It's an ad hominem attack, an invalid line of argument.
Thanks for that Ben, great post.
If Graeme's comments here lack their usual clarity and require interpretation, might that be because the definition of free speech is a moral rather than a legal issue? Henry's style has never been to present 'suggestions' based on sincerely held convictions. He's built a career pandering to a substantial fanbase by playing the cynical shit-stirrer, signalling his true intentions with nudges and winks. Such an approach is calculated to preclude any valid 'line of argument', even at some hypothetical $2 Shop of Ideas level.
Cunt or not, Henry's the equivalent of the vexatious litigant - an individual who is not acting in good faith for the purpose of annoying or embarrassing an opponent.
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And when that happens, you really have nothing to say to each other, so you might as well call a cunt a cunt...
So it really is a case of stop wanking, you cocksuckers.
Thank you. Thought so. -
There are a number of good reasons for attacking people directly, and for attacking Paul Henry in particular, but such attacks are the antithesis of the marketplace of ideas.
When Henry's called out, it's an attack. Yet when Henry takes a swipe at Satyanand, it's a "suggestion". Have to 'fess up, that distinction's lost on me.
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The marketplace of ideas is the place where we decide that Paul Henry's suggestion that Anand Satyanand isn't a real New Zealander is false, but we do that by attacking the idea, not by attacking Paul Henry.
That might make sense if Henry's attack on Satyanand had been a 'suggestion', made in good faith. It plainly wasn't. If he'd been someone's learned friend uttering weasel words in the cause of his brief then it might be appropriate to accord him the euphemisms associated with strutting one's fine mind. He isn't, of course.
As it is, all that's apparent is that you seem rather squeamish about Henry being called out for the cynical racist that he's shown himself to be.
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Can't help thinking we missed out on democracy here in Chch.
By way of compensation there's Bob the born-again Bats fan. Seems that the real reason he couldn't engage in debate was that he was too busy learning the chords to North by North.
Awwwww . . . -
Jeez Jonathan, you found a real one? They're almost as rare as the solar-powered sundial watches. But truly, my role in that pioneering Colin Wilson project was pretty minor.
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. . . so the healthy, vibrant Australian international film production industry NZ Equity were pointing to is now ... er, Happy Feet 2.
As the kind of movie that doesn't require any kind of 1st-world heritage, i.e. cutting-edge technology or hordes of caucasian spear-carriers, the Happy Feet X franchise could easily have the bulk of its production moved pretty much anywhere.