Saturday, April 15, 2017

She's BAAACK!!!!

Chris Rodda that is. Doing what she does best. See here. A taste:
The problem with Barton’s so-called Jefferson quote? Well, Jefferson wasn’t talking about immigrants. He wasn’t even talking about ships coming to America from other countries. He was talking about the exact opposite — ships that were sailing from America to Europe!

The quote that Barton butchers so completely to make it say the exact opposite of what Jefferson was actually talking about comes from Jefferson’s 1805 message to Congress (what we today call the State of the Union address).
At the time there was an intense fear of yellow fever in Europe, with recent yellow fever epidemics, particularly devastating in Spain, having killed thousands of people. The obsessive fear of the disease among Europeans, which was causing ships sailing into European ports to be quarantined and their crews and passengers to be subjected to absurd medical tests, was described by Washington Irving in his Notes and journal of travel in Europe, 1804-1805, in which he recounted what he experienced upon his arrival at the Sicilian port of Messina in early 1805:

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13 comments:

Tom Van Dyke said...

Chris is as pathetic as ever, throwing any dirt she can think of--even from 20 years ago--at minor league Republican David Barton. By the time her rant gets to her actual point, any sane reader had long since stopped reading.

jimmiraybob said...

Good for Chris and her continued attempts to keep political evangelical leaders honest. Of course using the Bible as a political weapon is very effective and I assume that Chris' efforts will have minimum impact on the power liars but at least she helps maintain the integrity of the historical record for those who care about such things.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Actually her point is weak--Barton is substantively correct that the public health is and was first and foremost a state matter--the federal gov't is only charged with preserving interstate [or international] commerce. Not that polemicists such as Chris Rodda care anything of the truth of these matters--it's all the gotcha game.

Barton is a crappy arguer, but he argues affirmatively. The Roddas do not care about the argument; they only care about getting Barton and the Republicans.

jimmiraybob said...

"...but he argues affirmatively."

An affirmative liar.

"...getting Barton and the Republicans."

They could easily disarm her if they'd stop lying. Easy peasy.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Actually I just did disarm her because she does not argue affirmatively, she simply litigates vulnerable factoids and ignores the rest.

Polemicists have no interest in truth, only in winning. Their value is severely limited.

As for Barton, he's strictly minor league, but at least he turns a buck off it. Trolling him on factoids without a thesis of one's own is a uniquely pathetic enterprise.

jimmiraybob said...

Her affirmative message is that one can always choose to be truthful and honest.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Anyone can cry foul. That doesn't put the ball in the basket.

jimmiraybob said...

I take it that you're not into basketball. Try watching the last three minutes of any pro game that's close.

Switching to another sport, when a pitcher continually brushes back opposing hitters or keeps lobbing the ball at their heads everyone but the opposing team wants the ump to step in and call the foul.

Switching to another sport, rigging the financial system and insider trading is an assault on everyone playing fairly. Everyone playing fairly wants rules to protect the integrity of the market.

There are fouls. Only the scoundrels doing the fouling don't want them called.

Tom Van Dyke said...

You're boring me. The point is anyone can whine about the other fellow--that does not make an argument, let alone win it.

Try the substance. Barton got the better of it--under the Founders' federalist philosophy, public health was first a state matter, only a federal one when past the state's capacity.

I don't think it's a dispositive argument either way, though. It just shows Barton's incompetence and Rodda's trollish pettiness. Next.

jimmiraybob said...

"The point is anyone can whine about the other fellow..."

Kinda like continually whining about Rodda pointing out the truth.

jimmiraybob said...

OK, ok, I'll let it go. You can have the last dig. But I'm sad you didn't even welcome me back.

Tom Van Dyke said...

"The point is anyone can whine about the other fellow..."

Kinda like continually whining about Rodda pointing out the truth.



Only when Jonathan darkens our front page with her. Her jihad on fish-in-a-barrel Barton is pathetic. She does not seek truth, only error, and she even lost to the fish on this one.


Oh, and welcome back. ;-)

Anonymous said...

I would say that pointing out errors is just as important in searching out the truth as attempting to express it. Just as in science a failed experiment may be as important as a successful one in new scientific discoveries.