Consider the Blue Groper. It is illegal to take them by hand spear in NSW, but you can take them on a line. These large colourful fish are everywhere and they are not afraid of people. Consequently, it is also 'wrong' to spear them. Even spearfishermen in NSW react badly to the suggestion that the rules should be changed once there are plenty of marine parks established. The fish are territorial and would recieve more than enough protection in marine parks. There would be plenty to keep the scuba divers happy. Yet if you pick any other fish and arbitrarily declared it off limits to one group of fishermen, they would be up in arms. 


I thought you said that it was impossible to catch a fish off the shore FD? The fact that they aren't afraid of people was the problem. These slow moving and inquisitive fish were vulnerable to divers with spearguns and you did a good job of nearly wiping them out. The fact that there numbers are healthy since they have been an angling only species would suggest that the policy is working and there is nothing arbitrary about it. Also no need for marine parks to protect them either.  A further example of your ignorance is that there are several species off limits to anglers for sound conservation reasons and acceptance/ compliance is high, eg estuary cod in NSW, east coast cod, black cod, grey nurse shark to name a few.

If you want to catch one why don't you pick up a rod and reel FD? You might find it more sporting than blasting an easy target with a speargun.

Now you have been caught out as not knowing what your talking about with your statement on blue groper and all you can offer is "strawman" "misses the point" and "red herring".

Yes, I do have some responses to your last criticisms on whaling. But given the above treatment you have given mine and the fact that I am tired after working 9 hours a day this week (plus commuting), they can wait for another day.

freediver wrote on Jan 10^th, 2008 at 9:32pm:



Everything you posted on the blue groper was wrong. You said the spearfishing ban on groper was arbitrary when it was not. It was a ban on method that was too effective. There are plenty of examples of similar bans. You admit that blue groper nos are now healthy - this shows the spearfishing ban was effective.

You said that anglers would never accept a species ban when in fact there are several and accpetance is high.

You say that marine parks will give them enough protection to enable the spearfishing ban to be lifted. This is pure speculation. Given the past history of depletion by divers it is quite likely that such a policy would lead to severe local depletions where spearfishing is allowed. Given the present protection is working you have to come up with something better than that.

Instead of trying to argue these points you do what you did with the whaling debate. Ie use political and rhetorical devices which are a way of avoiding reason and thought. Hence we get slogans and phrases like:

- cultural imperialism
- not a valid argument
- strawman
- red herring
- misses the point

and these are repeated over and over.

A good example of 'Newspeak' I would think:

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

Newspeak is a fictional language in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. In the novel, it is described as being "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year." Orwell included an essay about it in the form of an appendix[1] in which the basic principles of the language are explained. Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar. This suits the totalitarian regime of the Party, whose aim is to make any alternative thinking ("thoughtcrime") or speech impossible by removing any words or possible constructs which describe the ideas of freedom, rebellion and so on. One character says admiringly of the shrinking volume of the new dictionary: "It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words."

The Newspeak term for the English language is Oldspeak. Oldspeak was intended to have been completely eclipsed by Newspeak before 2050.

The genesis of Newspeak can be found in the constructed language Basic English, which Orwell promoted from 1942 to 1944 before emphatically rejecting it in his essay "Politics and the English Language".[2] In this paper he laments the quality of the English of his day, citing examples of dying metaphors, pretentious diction or rhetoric, and meaningless words — all of which contribute to fuzzy ideas and a lack of logical thinking. Towards the end of this essay, having argued his case, Orwell muses:

“ I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words or constructions. ”

Thus forcing the use of Newspeak, according to Orwell, describes a deliberate intent to exploit this degeneration with the aim of oppressing its speakers.

[quote author=freediver link=1168478179/165#170 date=1200185503]You're getting slack pj. So far you've done a reasonable job of quoting me and responding to what I actuially said. Now your just making stuff up. HAve you figured out what a strawman is yet?

I have responded directly to arguments you have made with the blue groper statement - no strawman arguments or misquotes. if you meant something different to my interpretation then its up to you to spell it out. 



Everything you posted on the blue groper was wrong.

Yet you cannot quote anything I actually said and point out why it is wrong.

I did in my last post - its just that you don't want to accept your wrong.



You said the spearfishing ban on groper was arbitrary

No I didn't, which is of course why you didn't quote me.

FD said: "Yet if you pick any other fish and arbitrarily declared it off limits to one group of fishermen, they would be up in arms." Sound like you were calling the spearfishing ban arbitrary to me! 



You said that anglers would never accept a species ban

No I didn't. Again, that's why you didn't quote what I actually said.

Once again the same quote said that we'd up in arms: "Yet if you pick any other fish and arbitrarily declared it off limits to one group of fishermen, they would be up in arms".



You say that marine parks will give them enough protection to enable the spearfishing ban to be lifted. This is pure speculation.

It is common sense.

I'll add that to your other examples of newspeak.



Ie use political and rhetorical devices which are a way of avoiding reason and thought.

No, that's what you did. I pointed out how every single one of your claims was based on flawed logic.

Hence we get slogans and phrases like:

They aren't just 'rhetorical' techniques. Some of them are logical fallacies. That is, they are terms that refer to common errors of logic that you made. Of course, pointing out such basic errors is technically a rhetorical technique - a very good one.

Newspeak is closely based on English but has a greatly reduced and simplified vocabulary and grammar.

I am trying to expand your vocabulary by introducing easy ways to refer to errors of logic without having to explain them to you over and over again. If you aren't sure what they mean, here's another link to some explanations:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/articles/logical-fallacies.html

Perhaps you should try to understand the errors of logic rather than accusing me of censorship when I try to get you to avoid them.


No you do it every time you get into trouble. You have thrown up 'strawman' and 'red  herring' and 'not a valid argument' when I have directly responded to arguments you have made yourself. 

Anyway, back to the whaling. Do you have any valid reasons for supporting the whaling ban? Do you have a response to any of the criticisms I have made of the arguments you have put forward so far, or are you just going to ignore those criticisms and repeat yourself? In case you've forgotten, here is the list of your hollow arguments:

No I haven't forgotten, I'm just a bit more busy than you appear to be. Don't try to make an argument out of how long I take to reply.

I have responded directly to arguments you have made with the blue groper statement - no strawman arguments or misquotes.

Of course they weren't misquotes because you didn't quote anything. They were however strawmen.

I did in my last post - its just that you don't want to accept your wrong.

That wasn't a quote. have you forgotten what a quote is or something?


I put up your whole (short) paragraph on blue groper FD. That wasn't enough for you so I quoted individual sentences.


Using marine parks to protect blue groper to allow spearfishermen to get their kicks hardly a sensible policy. You have admitted that the species is thriving under the present rules. They were being depleted when they were a fair target to every trophy seeker with a speargun. Your just punishing the wrong activity with marine park argument. You have avoided the issue of local depletions where spearfishing would be allowed.   

Uh PJ, you responded to the bits where I summarised your arguments. You did not respond to the criticisms of your arguments. You appear to have missed the point completely. Can you tell the difference between when I describe your argument and when I point out the flaws in it?

I have responded directly to arguments you have made with the blue groper statement - no strawman arguments or misquotes.

Wrong. They were mostly strawmen. I've got no idea where you got it into your head that I had said those things, but if you just read what I actually posted, you should be able to figure it out. You misunderstood what I was saying. The few times you did actually grasp the meainging of a single sentence, you misunderstood my reason for making the argument.

so why don't you drop that condescending tone and actually make a reply that addresses what I have said

Because there is no point. You were effectively agreeing with yourself, and any response would be the same as the criticisms that are already there.

Now, actually I did respond to the arguments section but it was lost when I got the page expired message when I tried to save it.  

If that happens again, try opening notepad and pasting. It may have been saved to your clipboard.

One of your of your sentences was open to different interpretations, ie the vauge one about fishermen being up in arms over a theoretical arbitrary ban.

OK, if a ban was originally justified, but no longer is, then it has in a way become arbitrary. People tend to still support it for mostly cultural reasons. However, if a ban was proposed that was arbitrary from the start, people would reject it. I was trying to show that the whaling thing was part of a trend. Suppose whaling had never become unsustainable and never been banned. If a bunch of hippes said we should ban it because it is cruel, they would get laughed at. But because some countries have adopted the ban as part of their culture, they will hang onto it, even though the reasons for hanging onto it were never sufficient to justify the creation of a ban on a wild harvest for food.

---

Whalers pushed out of hunting grounds

http://news.smh.com.au/whalers-pushed-out-of-hunting-grounds/20080113-1lqf.html

Environment group Greenpeace says it has chased the Japanese whaling fleet out of its Southern Ocean hunting grounds near Antarctica.

Greenpeace said it believed the fleet would soon refuel and offload its whale meat onto the tanker Oriental Bluebird, before returning to the hunting grounds.

---

And here is a recent post from another forum I am on, trying to use the whaling ban to justify forcing veganism upon us all:

Whalers call Australians Hypocrites!

This one is doing the rounds in the Australian mass media at the
moment. The pro whaling community has posted a video on youtube
characterising Australians as racist, xenophobic, nationalistic thugs
who like nothing more than to kill our own animals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8lvep0-Ii0


I think the important point of the video is it demonstrates how easily
a lack of moral consistency can be turned against you. The pro whaling
community is RIGHT when it accuses Australia of hypocrisy, because we
are hypocrites (vegan company excluded). We do kill our native animals,
we do support the live sheep trade and we are working very hard at
destroying our own environment for short term gains.

To make a
distinction between killing a whale and killing a kangaroo places a
person on very shaky moral ground. The only thing the whaling community
is wrong about in this sense, is their conclusion. Killing one thing
doesn't justify killing another. We should be killing neither.

From VeganFreaks.org
written by the member John

---

Greenpeace 'delaying' Japan's whale hunt

http://news.smh.com.au/greenpeace-delaying-japans-whale-hunt/20080114-1lx1.html

Greenpeace says its protest vessel continues to hold up Japan's whale hunt by chasing the fleet's mother ship further from the Antarctic whaling zone.

The whalers counter that rather than fleeing, the fleet is keeping its distance from the protest ship Esperanza in the interest of the Japanese personnel's safety.

Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research said Greenpeace was deluding itself about the Esperanza's impact on the fleet's operations.

"Greenpeace has an over-inflated sense of self-importance if they think the research vessels are running from them," institute spokesman Glenn Inwood said.

"In terms of safety for crew and the scientists, it's best that Japan keeps at a distance from Greenpeace.

The Esperanza can only pursue the Japanese fleet for a limited period because it is unable to refuel. But the Japanese ship is similarly hindered.

Greenpeace says it has failed in attempts to pass on its coordinates to the Oceanic Viking, which the government has sent to monitor the hunt.

The organisation refuses to cooperate with the more radical Sea Shepherd group because of differences over protest tactics.

A Federal Court judge will on Tuesday hand down a decision on the Humane Society International's attempt to have whaling in Australia's Antarctic territorial waters declared illegal.

---

Activists threaten to ram Japanese whalers

http://news.smh.com.au/activists-threaten-to-ram-japanese-whalers/20080115-1lyz.html

The militant environmental group Sea Shepherd said Monday that it had located the Japanese whaling fleet near Antarctica and threatened to ram them if they resumed slaughtering the giant sea creatures.

Paul Watson, captain of the Sea Shepherd's ship, said the leading Japanese vessel, the Nisshin Maru, was now outside the hunting area and had not killed any whales in the past 48 hours.

"I think they're running scared really," he told AFP via telephone from on board the ship.

"When we found them originally they were down by the icebergs and as we were moving in they started running and they've been running ever since."

In response to a question, Watson confirmed he would ram the Japanese fleet if his ship came upon them killing whales.

freediver wrote on Jan 15^th, 2008 at 7:45pm:



Well, has the Jap Fleet disappeared?  They must be trembling in their boots over this.  An Australian Court ordering a Japanese Mob to do its wishes.

I think I'll come out of retirement.  Lawyers love this stuff!

Shite!!