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Comment by raganwald | Hacker News Reader

I also stand up for Stallman:

http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-also-stand-up-for-stallman

Regarding your blog entry, I don't think it's instructive to compare the way adults respond to an extremely blunt spoken person to your child being bullied. Stallman's an adult who doesn't pull punches -- he described Steve Jobs as "evil" right after his death. Is it bullying for him to get counterpunched, or just robust dialogue? I vote door number two.

As for your kid being bullied, you need to be all over that issue as a parent. No kid should have to endure it as the price for attending school.

I have no problem with people counter-punching Stallman on the issues. If you think that the closed iOS/Apple ecosystem is good and not evil, please, I want to hear your argument. But I heard very few people making that argument. The arguments tended to just be character assassination. Stallman lacks social graces, he doesn't recognize that it's necessary to be polite when someone dies, therefore his views are automatically irrelevant.

So I do think it's bullying, unless you're going to address the substance of the argument rather than its tactfulness.

I think the argument, with regards to Jobs, was rather that Stallman was inappropriate on writing his statements so soon after Job's death. Edit: To clarify, the bulk of the arguments where not against his ideas but rather directly concerned with his behavior. I don't consider it character assassination. The counter-argument was that he was correct, which does not actually excuse the way he stated it. You can say something correct in the wrong manner.

Now, regarding the rider for speaking engagement, I would agree that the outright mocking seen there was uncouth.

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This is what we call an "Ad Hominem Tu Quoque.” How does it validate or invalidate his words?

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raganwald is agreeing with Dave Winer in arguing against the personal ridiculing of RMS. The validity of this argument does not hinge on whether Dave Winer is being hypocritical in making it or not; one can be a hypocrite and still be correct.

In other words, if you want to argue against raganwald and Dave Winer, that RMS should be ridiculed, you need to come up with something that logically supports that, not just assert "Dave Winer is a bully also". This assertion does not advance your argument.

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Thank you for your feedback. You may find the following interesting:

http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

I used the expression specifically because it has been much discussed here on Hacker News. Another of historical interest is:

А у вас негров линчуют

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes

Ignorance is not a sufficient excuse to feel "bullied and ridiculed". If you can't be bothered to educate yourself, then why are you worth talking to? If the timing is poor for looking it up, politely stating that you don't understand the jargon and would like an explanation is a fair response. Saying, "I don't know this information, and the fact that you have it is offensive to me," is the very essence of anti-intellectualism.

I'm allergic to Latin when used to impress, but you should understand (and accept) that a lot of the prior work around rhetoric and argumentation comes from Greek and Latin sources. See also: modus ponens, QED, reductio ad absurdum, a fortiori. All commonly used.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Ad+Hominem+Tu+Quoque

[edit] This relates to your point because you are literally one click away from knowing the definition of such phrases. It is no great burden to ask that you occasionally Google phrases that people use, especially when there is not better way of saying it.

we -from the future of the universe- also stand up for stallman http://www.augmentedmadness.com/we-from-the-future-also-stan...

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