Generally, when an “expert” on a subject being discussed in a forum offers (or is called on) to make a statement, he actually provides insight into that subject via rational discourse and appropriate references, thereby lending credence to the “expert” label. This becomes all the more necessary if you’re a SELF-PROCLAIMED expert.

Ya see, you can refute an argument all you want, and, in so doing, discredit the argument MAKERS, if that’s your ultimate intent. But you can’t do the latter ahead of the former. You can’t say “I read Kant and you guys don’t know Kant” and then leave it at that and walk off in a huff. As an “expert,” you have a job (a “responsibility,” one could say) to enlighten those “less enlightened” by actually talking about the SUBJECT that’s under discussion. Dismissing PEOPLE who YOU say “don’t know what they are talking about” — while failing or, worse, openly refusing, to identify specifics in their arguments that are illogical or otherwise incorrect — is intellectually lazy and actually more “annoying” than those making supposedly “uninformed” arguments (“uninformed,” in your mind, because they haven’t read Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason.”) (Who in this forum, by the way, ever offered a “critique of ‘The Critique of Pure Reason’?)

OK, so it’s rather obvious that by mentioning Kant’s seminal work, you are clearly an expert, despite your refusal to discuss the IDEAS in Kant or in his “Critique.” Just know the name of his most important work, and you’re fine. What you’re actually doing is engaging in a form of “name dropping” — “book dropping,” as the case may be, meaning: “mention the book, but don’t talk about it with any authority.”

As an academic and an “expert” on Kant, you need to work harder at your writing and reasoning skills when discussing Kant. Throwing out invective at those actually making a better effort in logical discourse than you, ironically, makes YOU look “ridiculous,” not them. You say you read Kant for an entire year — “just Kant.” So can’t you present even one paragraph of logical analysis and/or refutation?

No offense, but for a guy who doesn’t know how to spell “likelihood” (http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/10/17/best-pure-hitters/) — or, WORSE, can’t make the effort, while admitting such laziness, to look it up in a dictionary — it’s pretty hard to take your “expert” label very seriously.

btw, I suggest you drop Kant for a spell, if you haven’t already, and read Rene Guenon. Then see how Western philosophy compares with Eastern. You might be pleasantly surprised. Just a friendly suggestion.

I agree with you about feeling insulted by a stupid, bald-faced lie. Whenever someone does that to me, I always flash back to Richard Belzer/John Munsch’s riff from the pilot of Homicide:

Munch: “OK, now I get it, you’re saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I’m just a donut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here. Wait till that big guy comes back. I’m probably just his secretary. I’m just Montel Williams. You want to talk to Larry King.”

Suspect: “I’m telling the truth!”

Munch: “I have been a murder police for ten years. If you’re gonna lie to me, you lie to me with respect. Now what is it, is it my shoes? Is it my haircut? Got a problem with my haircut? Don’t you ever again lie to me like I’m Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams!”

First “literally everyone” is more than a little bit different from “Literally everyone I heard speak.”

Second, it probably doesn’t matter which quote you use in this case because Iraq had biological weapons which had been proven to be used against Iran, the Kurds and the Shiites. Even people virulently opposed to war could not be found to say that there were no wmd’s in Iraq before the war.

As for the UN team looking, they did indeed say they had found none but they also said they had been actively denied the ability to look everywhere they wanted to look, again before the war.

Using only a piece of someone’s quote is not a good thing, whether mine or the UN’s and it is just another form of deception IMO.

However, I realized that there’s a possibility you were trying to make a subtle political comment through exaggeration. Maybe you hate President Obama and think he’s arrogant and doesn’t want people to have discourse or something.

But now I’m sitting here thinking that option 1 is a real possibility and if option 2 is correct, the impact you’ve had isn’t really all that different. Either way, you’re being abrasive for fun.

Well done.