| is there a tagible example that you could show to illustrate your point? just to be clear i understand what you're saying...
would this be what you're talking about - a bush supporter (i.e. someone who supports cutting constitutional rights, enlarging government, heavy federal spending, etc.) starts a thread calling himself a "conservative". and then as the thread progresses, the responses simply challenge whether/not that bush supporter is truly "conservative" - a debate that revolves about how you define the term... ?
those sorts of debates occur pretty frequently here, and you can usually spot them by reading the thread's title.. (or from the thread's 1st post.) i usually avoid them like the plague, because to me, semantical debates are pointless and boring.
i also tend to believe that if the underlying concept is identical and shared between the people engaged in debate, then the semantical issues are irrelevant. i also disagree that semantics are the heart of debate - there're solely an onerus hurdle that must occassionally be overcome in order to get to the actual issue being debated. |