From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: Steeves Dancing One More Time...
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 18 Nov 92 02:06:33 GMT

In <1992Nov11.095114.5469@wetware.com> drieux@wetware.com (drieux, just drieux) writes:

>Will Steeves <goid@zooid.guild.org> writes:
>] drieux@wetware.com (drieux, just drieux) writes...
>] DJD> goid@zooid.guild.org (Will Steeves) writes:
>] DJD> ] drieux@wetware.com (drieux, just drieux) writes...
>] DJD> ] DJD> 2. That the young gentleman who will kill women if
>] DJD> ]         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>] DJD> ] DJD> they do not respect him
>] DJD> ]      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>] DJD> ]
>] DJD> ] So, Drieux, just who is this person who "will kill women if they do not
>] DJD> ] respect him"?
>] DJD> ]
>] DJD> ] I sure haven't seen anyone threatening women here...  Where, then?
>] DJD> ]
>] DJD> ] Indeed!  When Janis Cortese spoke of "slitting throats," does this mean t
>] DJD> ] she is threatening all men?  Or all people?
>] 
>] 
>] DJD> p1: it is a mainstay of the AntiAboritonist Rhetoric that
>] DJD> a thing is that which it can become.
>] 
>] I don't believe that!  Whence do you derive that I believe such a thing?
> 
>Your Argument in regards to what a woman does with that
>which is not yet born, as if IT were something that
>were already born.

This may be how you interpret something Will said, but I haven't seen
anything which I would interpret in this way.

>Gee... looks like the simple:

>A thing is that which it can become.

>IF you do not hold that, then simply recant your RANTING
>about what happens if a woman decides to have an abortion,
>and accept that she has not MURDERED your child.

Did Will really use the word "murder"?  I thought it was always "kill".

You are entitled to play this semantic game according to your rules,
drieux, but Will is not obligated to play it by your rules.  
To me, the thing killed by Will's SO was their unborn child--homicide
by my rules.  And my rules say it was an unborn child.  So the 
unborn child was what it was, and not something it would become
when it was born.

Now, if you can show Will agreed to play the game according to your
rules, you have a case against him, but he could just as easily be
playing it according to my rules.

So, by my rules, Will never agreed that "a thing is that which it
may become."

>Until then, the point stands.

In your mind, drieux, but not in mine and not in Will's.

>Hence I have offered you the STANDARD you laid down.

You put your spin to it, drieux, making it a different standard.

>I have taken your rule of argument and applied it to YOU.

No, you have applied your rules, not Will's.

>] DJD> p4: you did make the assertion that you would kill
>] DJD> any woman who showed disrespect for you.

This is a baldfaced lie by most people's rules. "Brother" drieux undoubtedly
has a cute set of rules under which it is the gospel truth. :-)

>] I did no such thing.  I said that the act of keeping someone in the dark
>] about an important matter as abortion, was "disrespectful".
>] 
>] And furthermore, I did not imply that I would kill *anyone*, nor did I imply
>] that I would kill *anyone* because of any particular *INSTANCE* of disrespect.
> 

>Please, be honest with yourself.

>The post has floated around far too many times.

>You posted that you would KILL on that condition.

He posted that he would HAVE "probably" killed THAT woman under
that hypothetical condition.

I could at this point cite a convention of logic, that ANYTHING can
follow from a counterfactual statement.  "If 1=0, drieux sucks dinosaur
eggs."  is a VALID statement.  "If she had not told me until a year
afterward, I would have worshipped the ground on which she walked,"
is a VALID statement.  "If she had not told me until a year afterward,
I would have snapped and killed her where she stood." is an EQUALLY
VALID statement.  

Not my rules.  The weird and wonderful rules of logic.

But back to the world of men.  I think it was stupid of Will to make
such a categorical statement about something that never came to pass.
What's done is done, and can't be undone.  

Perhaps a simple apology will do:  "I am sorry I said what I did.  On
sober reflection I now realize that I would never have done such a 
disgraceful thing as killing her where she stood, and I apologize to 
those who believe that I took the name of God, or Allah, or whomever, to
witness to something which was anything but certain."

How about it, Will? 

>] And yes, there *is* a difference between a hypothetical argument based upon
>] one INSTANCE of "disrespect" and your "'logic' jump" to presume that I "would
>] kill" anyone for showing *any* kind of disrespect, which you have "cleverly"
>] equivocated into some sort of "desire for control".

>Point of ORDER.

Clever misdirection.  drieux ducks Will's last statement.

>You have established the criterion that a thing is
>that which it can become in your argument at women
>on the abortion issue.

Not so.  See above.  And the rest of what drieux says builds on this
dubious point, and is therefore deleted.

Peter Nyikos

Xref: sparky alt.abortion.inequity:5159 soc.men:19489 soc.women:19811 talk.abortion:48360 alt.feminism:4630