I’ve noticed one sentence that gets used and abused more than the 35 peso whores in Luneta.
I’m entitled to my opinion.
It doesn’t really matter if it’s here or abroad. This is a line that gets thrown around the blogosphere at least a couple of hundred times a day. Apparently, just because somebody contests the validity of an opinion, it’s already an attack against the right of an individual to have an opinion. If you would look at it closely, digression to a certain opinion is also an opinion – albeit a corollary of a constructive case for another personal opinion.
Therefore, a reaction to an opinion is still an opinion.
This is why it puzzles me why people keep on invoking the I’m-entitled-to-my-opinion defense. The entitlement to an opinion is universal and it is not something that terminates with the original opinion. A person who wishes to react to another idea is just as entitled to say his piece as long as he’s aware that the entitlement to an opinion was not invented solely for him.
At the end of the day, all opinions are fair game and that is why there is impetus on people to make sure of the logical foundations of their positions on a particular issues. Knowing that their ideas and claims are subject to the adjudication of the other people who will read it, they must make sure that their stance in unshakable against most if not all rebuttals that could be used for their case.
If your case was constructed poorly, then don’t be mad if people start exposing how poorly argued your case was. If you were clutching straws all along, be prepared for the piece meal dissection of logical shortcomings.
I think what Adrian said fits this fairly well – the rebuttal should be equal in substance with the actual case. If you construct your case well – i.e. a case that is free from assertions and poorly-researched assumptions — the rebuttals will never be enough to weaken your case. Do otherwise and you’ll self-destruct in your self-contradicting glory.
Yes, you are entitled to your opinion.
So is everybody else.
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Wait. There are 35-peso whores in Luneta? :-p
Yes Eugene, blow-in-the-dark. (My History teacher, 2002) haha
Haha, I have to agree after reading this.
Nice argument. People use that "I'm entitled to my own opinion" because these are narrow minded. They do not want to admit that perhaps in other people's point of view, there's something wrong with his own point of view. ^_^
35-peso whores? Really? Di ko alam yun ah..
Here's an opinion: stupid people shouldn't be allowed to express their opinions. hee.
[...] The Opinion “Defense” – Are you always using the quote, “I’m entitled to my own opinion” as an excuse to your critics? [...]
I'm not stupid, but I'm not articulate. It's hard to defend your opinions and beliefs sometimes. I wish I had your gift of debating. I'm just good at mockery. lol
Hahahaha. I wish I've read this entry of yours before I was able to talk to an old friend who digressed on my questions about his convictions using this effing excuse.
[quote]If your case was constructed poorly, then don’t be mad if people start exposing how poorly argued your case was. If you were clutching straws all along, be prepared for the piece meal dissection of logical shortcomings.[/quote]
Well said.
Well said. Everyone is indeed entitled to their own opinions. If people attack your ideas, it means they have their own opinion on the same topic.
Well said; it speaks to the egocentricity of the human being that such ideas rarely seem to occur.
Have you read John Stuart Mill's On Liberty? It seems like you have and it is quite possibly the most important work on the subject of freedoms and limitations of individual and social rights. We STILL aren't anywhere near the sort of liberty he suggests in it and that I believe is essential for the future of modern nations.