As I said, that is intellectually dishonest and rhetorically immature. Me throwing a few harsh words in there might be a bit immature as well, but I promise to do my best focusing on the actual points without being intellectually dishonest about it.

At the end of the day, one should have the testicular fortitude to differentiate between someone trying to honestly represent the situation OR someone trying to advance an agenda where accurate representation of the facts or positions of those involved are only of secondary importance. Tell me where you stand, Michael. If the latter, then there’s not much for us to talk about. We care about different things: You, your ends; me, your means.

It is also time to recognize that the real greed and threat to instability in the Taiwan Strait is from the People’s Republic of China and not the freedom loving people of Taiwan.

Simple question: So what about all the money loving people of Taiwan?

Ideology and aspirations are important, but let’s not pretend pragmatics don’t exist. If nothing else, the Taiwanese as a whole, much like their Chinese counterparts, are a practical sort. Trying to insinuate arbitrary distinctions between the two sides as one being “freedom loving” and the other as “anything but freedom loving” is intellectual dishonesty and even rhetorical immaturity.

I’m disappointed. There are far better appeals to reason than this and I thought a pH.D could’ve done better.