No Need to Interpret: I Meant What I Said

I wrote a post several years ago that is titled Say What You Mean. Even though I can imagine who inspired the article, it does not apply only to one person or to one incident. There are people who say things that are incorrect, wrong, or both, who, when the error is pointed out to them, say, "You know what I mean." The point of the article is that no one has the duty to interpret an incorrect statement into a correct statement because they know what is meant despite what was said. I stand by what I wrote back then and will provide a link to the article at the end of this one.

This article is for those people who interpret what I say and tell me what I meant rather than accepting that I meant what I said. 

I practice saying and writing my positions clearly. I read what I write and will edit it if I can state something more clearly. I am always willing to change my opinion if I learn something that makes something I've written incorrect. However, there are people who insist on me defending something they have interpreted from what I wrote rather than to accept that I meant what I wrote. There is no need to try to get beyond what I said to know what I meant. I meant what I said.

An article I recently posted to my political blog was about how some of my conservative friends claim to love capitalism while complaining about the effects of capitalism at the same time. Ultimately, the point of the article is contained in this line from it: 

"I don't know what all of the answers are, but I trust the future to people who must live in it more than I trust older people who are conservative and want to preserve their lifestyles for the few years they have left."

It doesn't seem that it would be difficult to take at face value, but I underestimate the ignorance of people who grew up in a world in which "cool" and "hot" meant the same thing provided the definitions had nothing to do with temperature.

A person in one of the groups apparently thought my fifteen-paragraph article included a plan to reduce the price of gas, or something like that. He opened his comment by saying I "must be kidding" because my "plan" would leave "terrorists in control." I wasn't kidding. I offered no plan. The point of the article was to change who is in control. 

He offered me his 310-page e-book in the comment, but he misspelled words in his comment offering it after telling me that he disagrees with me about things I didn't write. I don't like misspelled words in marketing. I am always interested in understanding truth better than I understand it. However, don't come at me as an intellectual who wants me to defend things I did not write while offering me a plan that will save the world.

Another person in another group attacked me as necessarily supporting the Biden crime family from her interpretation of the article. I suppose that she thinks that I am part of a big conspiracy to cover up the shady deals between Joe and Hunter Biden and the Chinese government. She supports her claim that the Bidens are working with the Chinese to take over the world with links to conservative blogs.  She was so angry at me that she commented twice, beginning one of them with, "So, what you are saying . . ." 

No, I am not saying that. I said what I meant. There is no need to interpret what I said.

Here are the questions I asked her in my reply: Do you read? If so, do you comprehend what you read? If so, why don't you prove it by discussing what was written?

Those who know the most know that no one has all the answers. Those who claim to know the answers are those who know the least about things. Both my article, Say What You Mean, and this article were written because of encounters I've had with conservative know-it-alls. They not only didn't have the answers, but they didn't even want to know the questions.

Say What You Mean was to decline the duty to interpret what is said that is not meant into a correct statement when an error is pointed out. It is your duty to say what you mean. 

This article is to decline the obligation to defend what anyone thinks I said that I did not say. I mean what I say.

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This is a link to Say What You Mean.

This is a link to the article that drew the comments, Conservative Friends, Capitalism, and "Getting It" about the Price of Gas.

As a bonus, this is a link to an article titled Poor Conservatives: Compounding Idiocy with Hypocrisy.