‘Big Dog’ turns out to be 100% ass

The most instructive thing about watching the wingnut blogs is the consistently poor reasoning skills on display. Read enough of the claptrap these bozos put out, and you get a comprehensive education on how not to construct an argument.

Take ‘Big Dog’ (who is affectionately known as Dogmeat round these parts) and his latest burbling. he appears to be trying to make some sort of point about the high cost of prescription drugs. But he finds a remarkable explanation for the problem:

For the first time in quite some time Democrats are getting more money from the drug companies than are Republicans. Barack Obama has received $639,124 from drug and medical device companies and that is the highest amount given to any of the three… Have we heard anyone suggest that Obama is the reason drug prices are high?

Well, no, we haven’t. Golly willikers, why do you suppose that is?

Maybe we should look at all the numbers involved. According to the Pharmaceutical Industry Profile 2006 released by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, total domestic sales of member companies was $164.2 billion (page 49, table 6). If we do the math, we find that Obama’s putative contribution to the price of prescription drugs was something like 639,124/164,200,000,000 = 0.00000386, or about .0004 percent. Oh yeah, the high cost of my blood pressure medication is definitely all Obama’s fault.

I should feel guilty about thinking rings around Dogmeat like this — it is so akin to taking candy from the proverbial baby. But this baby is so willfully, joyfully pig-ignorant that I just can’t work up any remorse.

UPDATE 05/23/08 8:35 AM EDT: I’m a big enough man to admit when I’m wrong. It turns out that, in fact, Big Dog is 200% ass.

In a pathetically incompetent attempt to smear me, he spews:

If you look at the quote at Meathead’s (if you must go there) and look what I wrote you can see that he omitted part of the quote without indicating there was a middle piece. He must have learned that from the MSM. In context and given what the post was about, it is clear except to those who abuse drugs, like Meathead. He admitted it on his site when he said:

I should feel guilty about taking drugs. But I just can’t work up any remorse.

That came right from the post he wrote about me and I did not change a word of it. I only left out some of the ones in between.

Context makes a difference.

The utter mendacity of this garbage is hard to overstate. Let’s start with Dogmeat’s claim that I “omitted part of the quote without indicating there was a middle piece”. What did I actually quote from Big Dog’s post?

For the first time in quite some time Democrats are getting more money from the drug companies than are Republicans. Barack Obama has received $639,124 from drug and medical device companies and that is the highest amount given to any of the three… Have we heard anyone suggest that Obama is the reason drug prices are high?

What’s that after the phrase “to any of the three”? Why, it’s an ellipsis! What do we use an ellipsis for?

Ellipsis (plural ellipses; from Greek ἔλλειψις ‘omission’) in printing and writing refers to a mark or series of marks that usually indicate an intentional omission of a word or a phrase from the original text.

So: Big Dog claims I gave no indication of the omission, when in fact I did just that.

Big Dog is a fucking liar. No surprise there.

Turning now to Dogmeat the Fucking Liar’s claim that he can made the sentence “I should feel guilty about taking drugs” out of my post above simply by ”[leaving] out some of the [words] in between”: Let’s look at the text he claims to have altered:

I should feel guilty about thinking rings around Dogmeat like this — it is so akin to taking candy from the proverbial baby. But this baby is so willfully, joyfully pig-ignorant that I just can’t work up any remorse.

Do you see the word ‘drugs’ in that paragraph? Nope. Neither do I. So Big Dog’s claim that he “did not change a word of it” and “only left out some of the ones in between” is utterly false. He added a word to completely change my meaning, all for the sake of a juvenile smear.

Big Dog is a fucking liar. No surprise there.

Oh, and a special message to Big Dog the Fucking Liar: Honesty makes a difference. Unfortunately, you’ll never find out for yourself what kind of a difference it makes, because you are absolutely incapable of being honest.