You ridicule me for my valuation of personal honour.  Yours is an attitude endemic in modern times.  Well, given that we are each respectively accused of being “wordy-men”, let’s try some wordy-man words:


(I generally disagree with Lewis’ worldview; but sometimes, he hit the nail on the head.  I highly recommend “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment” (1949).)


You ridicule honour as a concrete thing that some people treat as valuable.  As quoted above.  Honour would be ridiculed only by a jaded cynic who knows only venal motives.

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You came within a hair’s breadth of accusing me of lying.  That would be defamatory.  You also somehow imputed to me motives that are pure fantasy on your part.

Now, you are backpedalling while trying to turn it around on me.

Any ordinary reasonable person who actually reads this entire discussion will see why I described your post as a “bizarre outburst”.  Indeed, it was.  The problem is that I think very few people will read the discussion.  Many may simply see your post, and take it within its four corners as “JayJuanGee said...”.


Any ordinary reasonable person would read the situation “like that”.  Take some responsibility for your own words and behaviour, instead of trying to turn everything into a matter of me “taking it personally” or “getting emotional”.

I say it so firmly, for you have been doing much of that lately.


It is good that you admit a lack of knowledge.  But beyond that, you are strawmanning me there.  What you describe as my “poverty status” was not mentioned in the post to which you replied, or anywhere even close to it.  You made some remark about that earlier, to which I too exception; here, the context is quite different.

You replied to a post in which I discussed financial losses proximately caused by exchange errors.  The subject was on my mind, because I was thinking about how best to seek recourse for that, or at least for some part of it.  Where, in that context, did I mention my so-called “poverty status”?

You also grossly mischaracterize how much I have mentioned my so-called “poverty status”—oh, you have no idea.  Financially and otherwise, the overall reality of my life would be the biggest grand tragedy (or the worst sob story) that this forum has ever seen.  It is nobody’s business.  As it is, here and there, I have barely leaked little bits about that at the tip of the iceberg—where it was contextually appropriate.  For example:  When I am discussing my financial situation in a thread where many people discuss their finances, should I lie and pretend to have more money than I have?

The tiny bit I leaked about the reality of my life is too much for me to be comfortable revealing.  And I am no longer discussing my current financial straits; I have turned to other topics.  Now, you are bringing it up.  Why?


Absolutely not.  It is ridiculous for you to ask that as a serious question:  You are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill, even as you pretend that I am doing that.

I have a demonstrated habit of poetical allusions, historical musings, and the like.  I correctly predicted that you would dismiss and ridicule my mention of honour.  Therefore, I underscored the point that once upon a time, men took such matters with life-and-death seriousness:  That’s not “just me”.  You read that as my maybe challenging you over the Internet to a real-life duel?

I think that I shall henceforth nickname you “Hamilton”.  It is ironic, given that Hamilton was, in effect, post-revolutionary America’s first central banker.  Although I dislike Wikipedia, this description makes a neat analogy for our discussion hereby:


Now, some people would call Burr a big meanie.  (He was.)  Perhaps you would accuse him of taking things too personally, and of being overly emotional.  (That would say more about you.)  Men of that era—particularly, gentlemen of that era better understood.