Comment by wwweston

> Perhaps you can start with the ones stated in the memo.

You could have done that in response to the person who asked you what reasons they had not considered. That would have been one reasonable way to engage, it would have mildly trespassed the bounding attempt in their statement that they had considered the memo, but it would have introduced substance backing up your claim and let you interrogate their claim that they had in fact evaluated the reasons given in the memo.

You didn't do that, though. For some reason you instead chose "I don't support the policy" which, as stated, is a non-sequitur in response to the question ""what reasons have I failed to consider?"

If you'd like to talk about the reasons in the memo or other reasons not in the memo, no one has been stopping you.

> > So saying "I don't support the policy" is a non-sequitur.

> No it isn't. It's not an argument. It's just a statement of fact.

A non-sequitur can be entirely factual. This means affirming something as a statement of fact is not an adequate defense against the charge of non-sequitur, it is actually a further non-sequitur.

> my argument here which is "don't just call people liars."

This may be the argument you intended to make. But because you also asserted that legitimate reasons for the policy existed and then refused to defend that assertion with a reasonable response to the question "what reasons have I failed to consider?" (including "the reasons in the memo" up until this level of the discussion) and also appear determined to avoid that quality of engagement, you've ended up engaging in a way that works against a general ethos of better discussion and the micro-dynamics which support it.

There's also the fact that it's reductive to assert anyone has "just" called the administration liars. Given that the federal judiciary has retreated from traditional presumption of regularity when fulfilling their judicial responsibility[0] (ie, that the executive is acting in good faith), that's compelling reason to believe the judiciary has found a pattern of admin dishonesty in the social/institutional setting where honesty is most critical. Retreating from the presumption of honesty in lay discussion is a pretty reasonable step. This in addition to my previous argument that dishonesty certainly exists in general and reckoning with that should not simply be reduced to "screaming liar."

I can also see how someone may nevertheless feel that calling the memo transparent pretext is not adequate. The productive response to such a failure where you feel it has occurred would be to bring the official reasons from the memo into the discussion, then ask people what they specifically think is wrong with those reasons.

I didn't engage your comments to defend or attack the policy -- I probably could do that, but it certainly didn't seem to be where you've focused. Instead you've focused on the quality of the discussion, and seem to be confused about why people have been critical and even hostile towards your engagement. It seemed like if you wanted better discourse, explaining how some of your engagement draws that criticism would help. It's strange if you're not interested in that, given that your stated position is about policing the quality of engagement in general, but no one can make you focus on what you don't want to, only point out the contradiction in that as well as the problems of your engagement.

[0] https://www.justsecurity.org/120547/presumption-regularity-t...