Rejecting the nonsense from 'check my ip' / part 1

In case you didn't notice all the excitement in the comments, someone calling himself 'check my ip' typed lots of words and posted them in reply to my last post. I summarized his disorganized ideas into 5 general themes, which I posted in those comments. The purpose of this entry is to respond to point #1. Perhaps I'll have 5 posts eventually, or maybe I'll get bored with this.

I asked him if it would be fair to say that one of his main points is "1.) adspar can't handle when people have different ideas than him and he attacks anyone who disagrees with him. One should have respect for the beliefs of others, and adspar clearly doesn't."

His response was that this is "clearly true."

The following quotes from his comments supported this idea. I don't believe any of these quotes are being taken out of context, [I've added contextual helpers in brackets] but feel free to read the original and decide:

“You can't even stand when someone thinks different than you. It frustrates you. I saddens you. It angers you. It drives you crazy.

I am not playing the underdog in some big attention-desiring battle to tell everyone what I believe and why I think it is the right thing to believe. [... unlike adspar]


Why is the lack of respect for any arguments to your contrary necessary?

You have zero respect for any ideas other than your own

You have to have respect for what other people believe [;] you clearly do not.

Other beliefs drive you nuts.

My response to this line of criticism it that it simply isn't true. I certainly can handle it when other people have different ideas than me. I don't attack anyone who disagrees with me. And I reject the notion that one simply must have respect for the beliefs of others.

It isn't that someone thinks differently than me that frustrates me, saddens me, angers me, or drives me crazy. To the contrary, I'm eager to hear from people who have different views from me. I like to be exposed to new perspectives.

What I can't stand is dishonesty. What drives me crazy is hypocrisy. What frustrates me is irrationality. What saddens me is ignorance. What angers me is when someone actually takes pride in their dishonesty, hypocrisy, irrationality, or ignorance. And what drives me crazy is when all of that comes from my friends or family.

I don't attack anyone who disagrees with me, though I might challenge their views. I see nothing disrespectful about this.

Except for using the word in the sense of "acknowledgement of their existence" I see no reason why I have to "respect" beliefs that are not worthy of respect. (Belief that the world was created from nothing 6,000 years ago is an example of a belief for which I have no respect. Belief that someone who rejects Islam should be beheaded is another example of a belief for which I have no respect.) Respect for someone's belief is a separate matter from respect for the person who holds a belief. I'm more than willing to respect someone who holds an un-respectable belief, until they start to be dishonest. Then I start to have less respect for them. If they're hypocritical, or if they make irrational arguments, they'll lose a little more of my respect. Ignorance by itself doesn't necessarily mean they'll lose my respect, but if they're proud of they're ignorance that's tough to overcome.

For the record, I also have disdain for when these same faults are demonstrated in those whose views I share. If I start to see a pattern of dishonesty, or irrationality, or hypocrisy in people who share my ideas, that makes me start to question my ideas. In fact this is precisely what happened over the last year or two as I gradually shifted from a position of moderate support for Bush and the Iraq war to an extremely critical view of Bush and the Iraq war. Similarly, if you took the time to search through my archives for all my comments about Bill O'Reilly you'd see a graduate trend from general respect, to "usually I agree with him, but..." to generally disliking him and disagreeing with his views now, all because I saw increasing evidence of O'Reilly's dishonesty, hypocrisy, and irrationality.
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I find it revealing that 'check your ip' was so eager and enthusiastic (at least 6 different statements on the matter, not to mention the emphatic "clearly" true) to conclude that my attacks and my scorn and my ridicule is aimed at anyone who disagrees with me. He seems quite anxious to cast me as someone who cannot tolerate disagreement.

I would think it should be obvious to any objective observer that my frustration in the specific post (involving the exchange between Prager and Harris) was with Prager's illogic, his dishonesty, his hypocrisy. I would think that anyone who follows this blog generally would be hard-pressed to cite an example where I "attack" someone who disagrees with me who hasn't demonstrated one of the negative traits I've mentioned.

One might perhaps dispute that the subject of my ridicule has been hypocritical, dishonest, or whatever. But I don't think it is difficult to realize that I think those flaws are there, and that is why I'm being harsh in a criticism. One might argue that I'm only claiming hypocrisy or dishonesty because these people have beliefs that I don't share. First, there are examples of posts where I've been quite respectful of differing views. Even if one found many more examples of negative posts than respectful, all that would demonstrate is that I'm more inclined to write about negative things I encounter, not that I react negatively to all opposing views. Even if I saw hypocrisy or ignorance in every single opposing view I've every written about, I generally explain how their words or actions are worthy of ridicule, how they're being irrational or ignorant. And furthermore, if I've slipped into a pattern of just presenting someone's rejection-worthiness as self-evident, I'd always be willing to discuss the matter if someone were to say for example that Prager wasn't dishonest in his responses. The bottom line is that I react negatively to things that deserve negative reactions, and that this should be obvious to any reasonable reader of my blog, or to anyone who knows me fairly well.

So, why would 'check your ip' be so quick to conclude that I shut out all opposing views? Could it be because he himself shuts out all opposing views and so assumes everyone else does? Could it be that he has some psychological defense mechanism where he won't have to confront ideas that challenge his sacred cows if he can find a way to discredit those who voice such ideas? Could it be that he's so deep into the confrontational "us versus them" mentality that is fostered by religion, partisan politics, and even team sports that he's unable to see any disagreement in any other terms?

Perhaps those questions will be further addressed if I respond to his other 4 criticisms.