🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <UNCLE.91Jul12091841@milton.milton.u.washington.edu> uncle@milton.milton.u.washington.edu (Uncle Miltie) writes:
>   >To further demonstrate their hostility to our principles, consider
>   >the manipulation of the media during the recent massacre.  The media
>   >was only given information that suited the government.  The military
>   >even boasted of purposeful misinformation regarding amphibious
>   >activities.
>	   Trying to make some sort of connection between the Gulf War
>   and FSF/GNU is reprehensible in the extreme and quite frankly unutterable
>   bullshit. One is a political/military issue of foreign policy, the other
>   is a domestic economic/political issue of copyright. They are related by
>   only the most absurdly tenuous of connections.
>The US propaganda war on its citizens is not the same thing as its attack on
>Iraq and Kuwait.  The propaganda generated in connection with the attack is
>merely a good example of the ever increasing power of the government to
>control the media.  The connection is between two propaganda campaigns, not
>between the bloody massacre and the government suppression of programmer
>freedom.

I think you're missing something here.

If there are two issues, and they're "connected", but only people who take
a specific side on the "connected" issue actually claim there's a connection,
then those two issues should not be treated as connected.

You see, your argument is "my issue is similar to your issue, so you should
accept my side of my issue".  In order for this argument to convince someone
to accept your side, they must accept the premise (the similarity)--but if the
only people accepting that premise are people who already agree with you,
your argument convinces only those who are already convinced.

Responding "But they really _are_ similar", as you are responding, is
irrelevant.
--
"What is your name?"
    "Vicki."
"For what purpose are the arms needed?"
    "Revolution!"

Kenneth Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@cs.jhu.edu)