Hey lsusr, I notice that you quoted something I wrote, but that

• you deleted the bit where I put "(steven0461 suggests)", to make it look as if I was endorsing a position that I was only describing
• neither steven0461's comments which I was trying to clarify, nor what I said about them, are in any way examples of the process you describe immediately before quoting me without further comment
• your argument suddenly goes a bit weird just before the quotation, as if you had to warp it a bit to shoehorn the quotation in and make it look superficially as if it applies

Now on the one hand this is a lovely example of the point you go on to make next -- how something can be strictly accurate (I did write the words you attributed to me in the order in which you gave them) but still be dishonest propaganda (I was describing, not endorsing, and in any case none of what I said is an example of the harmful, irrational, intellectually corrupting processes you are describing at the point where you drop in a quotation from me).

But on the other hand, could we maybe _not_ do that sort of thing here?

(An earlier draft of this comment went into more detail about why I think what you did is dishonest, why I don't think what you quoted is in any way a good illustration of what you're writing about immediately before you quote it, etc., but it was long and boring and angrier than I think is conducive to productive discussion, and on reflection I think that you will likely not have any difficulty understanding what I am objecting to. But if somehow you actually think, on looking again, that what you did was honest and/or that what you quoted really is an example of the processes you describe, let me know and I'll try to clarify.)

[EDITED to fix formatting; no changes in actual content]

Nice! Bryan Caplan did a "Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism Book Club" which I enjoyed as well:

https://www.econlib.org/the-theory-and-practice-of-oligarchical-collectivism-book-club-round-up/

Ha! This is a good one!

Human thought is symbiotic with language. An impoverished language makes heresy impossible not just to to say but even in thought.

This is one place where science has evolved since the 1940s - we now know that this is pretty much not how humans work. It slightly is on the margin (Russians are slightly better at differentiating blues compared to Americans since Russian has two primary blue-ish colors), but for anything more intense than that it’s just false.