> Yes, but you equated me saying "no normative standard" to "no standards at all."

No, I concluded that from a process of deduction, but fair enough. You're arguing that nobody can be qualified to critique the thing you support.

> You setup a false dichotomy. My larger point was that what's normative is political. And you saying your standard should be the norm is also political.

Yes yes. What's "normative" is now "political" (for some reason), and my standard is also "political" and therefore is not relevant.

It's just another way to try to arrive at the same place through the back door: my standard is wrong, because it's "normative" (or "political", or whatever other word you use in the next post), but your standard is (again, for some reason) not those things.

You don't like what I'm saying, so you reject my ability to say it. And when I catch you in this fallacy, you'll slip back to arguing that all research might be relevant to someone somewhere, and who are we to judge anyway, man, and blah blah blah. You're obviously just being big-brained and magnanimous.

Well, your deduction was unsound. And continues to be unsound. You can critique anything as long as you know you can be wrong too.

> Yes yes. What's "normative" is now "political" (for some reason), and my standard is also "political" and therefore is not relevant.

You're hand-waving. Your stance is political but not irrelevant. Your stance is philosophical (resting on chosen assumptions) and not empirically irrefutable.

Not acknowledging that is why you fail to convince.

You've made this argument about you and your ability to "catch" people. You have no argument that stands on its own construction.