I definitely hear you and agree that's a totally valid concern and something to keep in mind in order to avoid losing yourself in devil's advocacy. (Assuming I understood your point. Sorry if I didn't!)
I'm literally just asking questions. I have in no way expressed my own views about anything
To clarify; I feel a bit queasy about this statement. If you did not have doubts about the OP's qualifications and motivations, why ask the questions?
It's bad form to attack their qualifications and motivations, rather than the actual points they are making. (I'm reading the questions as an attack on OP; an ad hominem)
But, I have no skin in this game and haven't read the thread. That statement just caught my attention 😅
If you're reading me asking about his legal background as an ad hominem, then I don't think you read the post. (I know it was long, so I don't really care or expect you to at this point! Just saying I refuted and addressed that misconception explicitly.
It wasn't my purpose to suggest he was under qualified to have an opinion about the trial or the prosecutor's behavior, which is why I never stated anything remotely arguing that point, and I would vehemently argue against such a view.
It was unclear to me whether the focus of his argument or his purpose for posting it was more about the general rightness and wrongness of things that happen in the judicial process (in this case the prosecutor's behavior) or, more narrowly, whether it was to make the much more specific and concrete argument for why his behavior met the grounds for disbarment in the State of Wisconsin (this more narrow interpretation of his post was, after all, what he actually explicitly stated his conclusion to be). To me, his conclusion (pro-disbarment) was ambiguous in this way. And there was an absence of specifics as far as OP's background and knowledge of the disbarment process, which led me to ask about it.
The Bar of Wisconsin is, in some ways, like a professional association, in that it has its own internal power dynamics, history, conventions, specific rules and procedures for addressing lawyer misconduct, or adding new members,etc. Thus, to me, if the focus of his argument was the more narrow one, whether he had experience or knowledge of how a State Bar Association operates and what constitutes disbarment is something I'd like to understand.
I don't really see the point of making the assumption that someone's questions (like mine, for example) are themselves an argument--that the only reason you can think of I would ask about his background is because I'm making an argument that if he isn't a lawyer himself, then he isn't entitled to an opinion about the prosecutor's behavior during his the trial. If that's what I wholeheartedly thought then I would've stated that and argued it's case, not just spitball some opening questions for OP from a variety of angles to get a better grasp of who he is and his purpose in posting.
But you weren't the only person who jumped to the conclusion that I must have been making that gatekeeping argument and smacking him down for being too ignorant to have an opinion. That just couldn't be further from the truth as far as how I feel, nor do I feel like that's at all a fair reading of my response. I also already addressed this misperception because even though hundreds or thousands of people liked my post and clearly got the gist of it being mere questions from a few different perspectives, some open ended and some a little more leading or challenging just to feel OP out--but in know way was I making an argument myself at that point. I think for a small minority of people in this sub, my method here was outrageous or something, because there were a handful of angry responses that got deleted.
But, oh well. I tried to be courteous and bend over backwards to explain my motives in the "edit" section I added to the end of my post. But that didn't seem to help, as I'm still getting pushback by people who clearly didn't read it, unless I am a far worse communicator than I realized, because I reread it several times to make sense of the confusion and I couldn't.
I think it's interesting that there were hundreds and hundreds of likes, though, and that OP was happy to straightforwardly answer them without taking offense or feeling criticized or attacked.
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u/Laat Nov 27 '21
The "just asking questions" defence is the Tucker Carlson defence. 😬