"It's a stupid idea. Just as retiring Robinson's number throughout baseball was, to be frank, a stupid idea.
Retiring numbers in general is a stupid idea. Like a lot of things about baseball that don't have anything to do with baseball.
Here's my message to baseball: stay out of politics; keep your fucking mouths shut;"
To assume that the last of these three sentences refers to the first two is not at all illogical.
That would have been quite logical, but that's not what you assumed.
Let's look at those two crucial sentences: I said retiring Robinson's number was, frankly, a stupid idea. Then I said that retiring numbers in general was a stupid idea.
You didn't assume the "third" sentence (actually the fourth) referred to the first two; you assumed it referred to the first sentence only. The first and second sentences say two different things. There's nothing logical about assuming they convey only the first sentence's meaning - yet that's essentially what you're claiming they do. You simply ignored my opposition to retiring numbers generally, and chose to focus on my opposition to Robinson's retirement in particular - that was juicier fodder for you even if it mistated the case.
Had you treated those two statements as being of equal value, you could only have inferred that one was the specific and one was the general. You could only have concluded that I opposed Robinson's retirement because I oppose retirements categorically. Certainly you are not going to claim you thought it was the other way round: that I oppose all number retirements
because I oppose Robinson's or that I oppose Ruth's retirement because I oppose integration? That surely wouldn't be logical.
(Since you allegedly were so eager to see the first two sentences as predicate, I'm intrigued as to why it never occurred to you that the second sentence might be a predicate to the first - the first sentence being the only possible example of the general principle stated by the second sentence. If this was not implicit, then the idea that those two sentences, which clearly say two different things, somehow communicated only one message between them is less implicit.)
In other words, I don't buy the "logical" excuse for a second. Logic is not on your side here.
Beginning with this assumption, it is also logical to conclude that your basis for opposing the retirement of #42 is because it involves MLB making a statement on a "political issue", which you feel they should keep their "fucking mouth shut" about.
No, it is not logical to conclude that. It's not even good reading comprehension to conclude that.
Please take the quotes off "political issue," because I didn't say "political issue." You said "issue;" in putting quotes around "issue" you are quoting yourself, or someone else who is not me. I said "politics." Baseball should stay out of politics. This is what I said.
An
issue, political or otherwise, is a
substantive question of more or less defined scope, the answer to which is in dispute.
Politics is a deliberative
process by which a society makes decisions (for the whole of that society or for a significant part of it) about ethics and the distribution of power. This process, in my opinion, is something baseball should stay out of; that does not mean, nor can it be presumed to mean, that baseball should not cure its substantive ills. There is no logical basis for assuming that I intended the unwritten term "political issue" and its meaning instead of the meaning of "politics," which is the word I did write.
What was the political issue involved in the #42 retirement? Segregation. Why would you feel they should not get involved in this, and why would it make you so angry that they did? I don't think you make that clear which unfortunately allows your angry response to be seen as implying some disagreement with the political stance that MLB took.
Listen, I now understand that that was not at all what you were trying to say, and I apologize. I do feel though that your first post was neither clear nor careful and unfortunately this left it open to misinterpretation.
Horseplop.
First of all: that the tone of my intial response may be considered "angry," I am willing to concede. That's actually my normal tone, and my posts are generally direct - but you and I have not run across each other before so you have no way of knowing what my normal posting style is.
Secondly: I dispute that my post was unclear and open to misinterpretation. Misinterpretation would be one thing; accusation is another. Surely you are familiar with the concept of
burden of proof. It's the obligation each side in a dispute has to prove its argument up to a prescribed standard of certainty The most common of these standards is "preponderance of evidence" - proof that something is more likely true than not.
You essentially accused me of holding, and indeed of
arguing, a morally reprehensible viewpoint: opposition to racial integration of Major League Baseball. Because you are the one accusing, you are the one who bears the burden of proof. I think 1) that such an accusation must rest on something stronger than your arbitrary "assumption," and 2) that the standard of proof for the accusation ought to be higher than "not at all illogical."
This disagreement is not the result of my failure to foreclose on your every possible reading of ill motivation into a viewpoint you don't like. You have no right to misconstrue accuse other posters whenever you can conjure a way to do so; nor is any other poster burdened with absolute precision of expression in order to prevent you from doing so. You're no better than anyone else here.
The only thing you've actually proven to a preponderance standard in this thread is that you were inordinately presumptuous. I think it more likely than not that you inferred what you wanted to infer from my post, and used that inference as ballast for an argument you had already decided upon. I think it more likely than not that you had had such an accusation stored in the back of your mind before I even posted, and were just looking for someone to use it on.
