META: Having the last word

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 3:58 PM 4/17/96, rick hoselton wrote:

>I am enjoying this discussion, but I feel like I'm running out of
>useful new ways to try to express this idea.  If I don't reply,
>it doesn't mean you have convinced me. :)

I have long used this principle. All discussions have to end at some point,
and I have no problems with others having "the last word." If they think
that by having the last word, or by my non-response to their points, that
they have "won," or that I am speechless before their eloquence, then of
course they were not worth arguing with in the first place. No point in
arguing with the preterite. (My neo-Calvinist stoicism showing.)

Recall the recent absurdity of one of our list members repeatedly saying "I
see that Joe Blow has still not responded to my arguments, so I guess he
has conceded defeat! Hee Hee." The more likely explanation is that his
opponent simply realized what he was dealing with.

--Tim May



THE X-ON CONGRESS:  INDECENT COMMENT ON AN INDECENT SUBJECT, by Steve
Russell, American Reporter Correspondent....You motherfuckers in Congress
have dropped over the edge of the earth this time... "the sorriest bunch
of cocksuckers ever to sell out the First Amendment" or suggesting that
"the only reason to run for Congress these days is to suck the lobbyists'
dicks and fuck the people who sent you there," ....any more than I care
for the language you shitheads have forced me to use in this
essay...Let's talk about this fucking indecent language bullshit.