Starving Artist: Totally Insane? Or Just Almost? [Archive]

Rubystreak

10-13-2008, 12:18 AM

Starving Artist is insane. My cite, from the last time I bothered reading anything he wrote, sums up his irrational and totally groundless hatred for liberals. Check out this diatribe outlining how liberals have destroyed America (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10197255&postcount=211):

You want to hold up 4,000 American deaths as evidence I'm evil? I'll hold up millions of deaths over the last 40 years due to the permissive society you champion from drugs and drug-related crimes, not to mention many millions more whose lives have been ruined when someone in their family becomes a drug addict or is killed in a drug-related murder; from people raped and killed by criminals and murderers set loose on society by liberal judges and correctional systems; from drive-by shootings in gang-related killings caused by gangs that have been allowed to flourish, grow and propogate by liberal resistance to having them outlawed because to do so would be 'racist'; from AIDS...deaths that are directly attributable to widespread homosexual promiscuity condoned and even encouraged by liberals in the early eighties; by second and third term abortion of perfectly sentient little babies who, with a little care and stabilization in the hospital, could have survived and been taken home way prematurely just like a full-term baby, and who instead are subjected to some of the most horrific deaths imaginable by the very same people who wail that using drugs on torturing, raping murderers is cruel because, who knows, they might feel something before they die.

Etc., etc., etc....ad fucking nauseum!

So yeah, I think if anybody in this country could be called evil it would be you guys, because millions upon millions of people in this country have suffered and died over the last 40 years because of you!

The list of things he blames on liberals, from rape to AIDS to the drug problem to gangs, to baby killing, to the Republicans' inability to find a classy dame to run for VP-- all the fault of liberals. Anyone else care to take on this vomit of idiocy? I sure don't. And it wouldn't do any good anyway.

elucidator

10-13-2008, 12:19 AM

lissener

10-13-2008, 12:22 AM

To be ruthlessly fair, those opinions are unreasonable, but they are not irrational.

Its unreasonable, but not irrational, to believe in a vast conspiracy. Such things have happened, they are not unknown.

Believing so because your dog told you so.....now that's insane!

I disagree, because the points that he holds up as having formed his worldview are utterly imaginary; i.e., irrational. That's the charitable view; on a bad day I call it simple dishonesty. But his blubbery sincerity makes it seem more like crazy than mendacious. Although they're certainly not mutually exclusive.

Rubystreak

10-13-2008, 12:22 AM

To be ruthlessly fair, those opinions are unreasonable, but they are not irrational.

Its unreasonable, but not irrational, to believe in a vast conspiracy. Such things have happened, they are not unknown.

Believing so because your dog told you so.....now that's insane!

I don't know... saying that, because of the Democrats, women cannot be fashionable, classy, and sophisticated anymore is... it's crazy. Saying that liberals encouraged gays to spread AIDS? Crazy. I'm sure there are more examples of the crazy, if you can hold your gorge down long enough to read that crap.

Sophistry and Illusion

10-13-2008, 12:24 AM

Wow, he's like the conservative Der Trihs.

askeptic

10-13-2008, 12:25 AM

Revenant Threshold

10-13-2008, 12:29 AM

xtisme is an example of insanity? I think your nutbar detector may be a bit too strongly tuned.

I would tend to say that Starving Artist is politer than Der Trihs. But that would be it, really. It is but a surface difference.

BMax

10-13-2008, 12:35 AM

He's not just talking about one person, He's talking about everybody. He's talking about form. He's talking about content. He's talking about interrelationships. He's talking about God, the devil, Hell, Heaven. Do you understand... FINALLY?

I hear the same things S.A. says coming from the mouth of my Reagan-worshipping dad, who believes that Jesus is literally coming back to fix everything and right all wrongs, and that the Democratic party is a Communist front and Bill Clinton is posessed by Satan, that Barack Obama is a crypto-islamist terrorist and possibly the Antichrist.

I'm not saying that S.A. believes these things, but that I hear the same things he says coming from people who do.

elucidator

10-13-2008, 12:39 AM

I'm just guessing here, but I see a guy married to a lefty feminist for twenty years, and has yet to win an argument.

The Second Stone

10-13-2008, 12:40 AM

The quote in question being:
No, Democrats are responsible for the fact that there are so few classy women (and men, for that matter) these days to begin with.

Democracy, since it's invention in ancient Greece, has coincided with the steady decline of civilization ever since. People who aren't Democrats are far more classy, as evidenced by Saddam Hussein and Kim Il Jong. If it weren't for us misbegotten Democrats, everyone alive would be really classy in military uniforms. Like those non-Democrats, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Mao and Stalin.

jayjay

10-13-2008, 12:43 AM

I'm just guessing here, but I see a guy married to a lefty feminist for twenty years, and has yet to win an argument.

Oh. So his batting average at home is the same as his batting average here, then?

jayjay

10-13-2008, 12:46 AM

Every time I see SA go off on his "Liberals ruined the whole world!" rant, I see him as either being 80 years old or having been raised by his John Birch Society grandparents. It's just such an...old-fashioned way of thinking. Prior to encountering SA on here, I'd thought those accusations had gone extinct as the dinosaurs who believed them died of old age and related infirmities.

Starving Artist

10-13-2008, 01:25 AM

Starving Artist: Totally Insane? Or Just Almost?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can someone please explain this post to me?

Kthx. I admit I erred when I said that. I was responding to Terrifel's characterization of my previous post and used his term by way of response. I apologize. I should have said liberals are responsible for the fact that there are so few classy women (and men, for that matter) these days to begin with. :D

Is there really doubt in anyone's mind that today's society is much more crass, impolite and vulgar than it was prior to the cultural revolution that began in the late sixties? Hell, many liberals readily acknowledge it themselves but claim it was necessary to eliminate racism, or sexism, or whatever othere 'ism' they're using to excuse it that day.

And on preview, not a conspiracy luci, just likemindedness.

And Ruby, you're pissin' me off! And not only that, you're lying out your ass! Nowhere did I say 'liberals encouraged gays to spread AIDS', and nowhere did I say that because of Democrats, women 'cannot' be classy. Rather, they are, exactly as I said, repercussions of the influence that leftie ideology has had on this country.

And I stand by every word of that post, and the next person who tries to claim I'm EVIL because I'm gonna vote Republican, is very likely gonna get more of the same.

And Revenant Threshold, I'm not only more polite than Der Trihs, I'm nowhere near as murderous either. You won't see me hypothetically claiming I'd use whatever superpowers I might gain to kill every liberal I could find. (In fact, in my offscreen life most of my friends are liberals...they're just not the wacko version that is de riguer around here.)

And jayjay (who believe it or not, I find to be one of the most intellectually honest of leftie posters around here) I would point out that the 'rant' Rubystreak posted was my repsponse to being called evil one time too many because of my intention to vote Republican. The thoughts I expressed in that post are mostly thoughts I've not expressed around here because I thought that, even though AIDS, drugs, crime, et al. have been the result of liberal influence on society these last few decades, they were, in my mind, the unintentional but inevitable (barring AIDS, that is) consequences of that liberal influence. Basically, I've felt that airing them would be hitting below the belt. However, I got hit with this 'evil' shit for being a Republican one time too many and thought it would be a good idea to point out the tremendous and very real amount of pain, misery and death that has resulted from liberal influence on this country over the years.

Further, it doesn't bother me a bit that you find my way of thinking old-fashioned, because it isn't. You only think so because (media rant follows) people who think as I do get virtually no exposure from the country's news and entertainment media. But believe me, there are many, many millions out there who feel just as I do. (And you might be surprised to find that many more than you would ever think are college-age or just out of high school. I know a surprising number of them myself. Heartening, it is.) So I wouldn't be feeling too smug and secure in my belief that anyone who recognizes and resents what liberals have done to this country is just an old fogey. This is that liberal eliteism that right-wing radio guys love to attack. You think that your way of thinking is the only way, save for a few right-wing crackpots. Then you're astonished when you lose elections or barely win squeakers.

Now, I'm tired of fighting these timeouts so I'll leave the rest of you to pat yourselves on the back and congratulate each other over the wonderful changes you've wrought lo these many decades...or what I like to refer to as 'The Trailer-Parking of America!' Good job, guys.

Revenant Threshold

10-13-2008, 01:42 AM

And Revenant Threshold, I'm not only more polite than Der Trihs, I'm nowhere near as murderous either. You won't see me hypothetically claiming I'd use whatever superpowers I might gain to kill every liberal I could find. (In fact, in my offscreen life most of my friends are liberals...they're just not the wacko version that is de riguer around here.) I was under the impression that Der Trihs has said he would like to murder quite a number of people, but that he wouldn't if he had the chance. Either way, you're right, it is a difference, and I apologise for inadvertently calling you murderous.

As for your rant, I think i'd tend to draw a difference between most Republicans and yourself. I don't think you share all the same ideas, and I don't think that disagree with you is necessarily disagreeing with the entirety of conservative thought. By disagreeing with you i'm not saying that all who aren't liberal are crackpots. I think also that to dismiss people who believe your way of thinking is old-fashioned because they're only hearing their side from the news media is a self-congratulatory view of quite massive proportions - you argue that liberals on the board think of their way of thinking as being the only way, while at the same time claiming that the same liberals do not think for themselves and only think what they do because of the media - so if they did not, they'd obviously agree with you to a greater extent, because your way is the only way.

You seem to be pretty smug yourself. I don't believe that that charge applies to all who think like you, nor all conservatives, nor all Republicans.

Starving Artist

10-13-2008, 02:21 AM

I was under the impression that Der Trihs has said he would like to murder quite a number of people, but that he wouldn't if he had the chance. Either way, you're right, it is a difference, and I apologise for inadvertently calling you murderous. Okay, one more post and then I'm out of here.

Thanks for your apology, though to be honest I never felt that you thought of me as a would-be murderous person. I just wanted to point out the extent to which it's a grievous accusation to say someone is like Der Trihs. :D

As for your rant, I think i'd tend to draw a difference between most Republicans and yourself. I don't think you share all the same ideas, and I don't think that disagree with you is necessarily disagreeing with the entirety of conservative thought. You are undoubtedly correct. By disagreeing with you i'm not saying that all who aren't liberal are crackpots. I think also that to dismiss people who believe your way of thinking is old-fashioned because they're only hearing their side from the news media is a self-congratulatory view of quite massive proportions...How so? I think you're making a bigger deal out of that statement than it is. I'm merely saying that there are millions of people out there who very likely agree with much of what I'm saying, but people like jayjay are unaware of that because they never (or at least very rarely) see our point of view or our beliefs being aired in the news and entertainment media...or if they do it's only to portray us as a small coterie of knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers that nobody pays much attention to.

...you argue that liberals on the board think of their way of thinking as being the only way, while at the same time claiming that the same liberals do not think for themselves and only think what they do because of the media - so if they did not, they'd obviously agree with you to a greater extent, because your way is the only way.Not so. I've never said, nor even thought, that liberals don't think for themselves. I don't know where you got that idea. Again, what I'm saying is that liberals tend to think their way is the only way because it seems, based on what they see from the news and entertainment media, that most everyone thinks the same way they do. That's what I mean by their thinking their way is the only way (at least in terms of this discussion. ;)). In other words, I'm not saying they think their way is the only way a person should think...only that they get the impression from news and entertainment media that their way is how everybody thinks.

You seem to be pretty smug yourself. I don't believe that that charge applies to all who think like you, nor all conservatives, nor all Republicans.Hopefully you don't feel I'm so smug now that I've explained what I meant by my comments.

And now I'm out. Goodnight, all.

Revenant Threshold

10-13-2008, 02:55 AM

Okay, one more post and then I'm out of here.

Thanks for your apology, though to be honest I never felt that you thought of me as a would-be murderous person. I just wanted to point out the extent to which it's a grievous accusation to say someone is like Der Trihs. :D It is at that. How so? I think you're making a bigger deal out of that statement than it is. I'm merely saying that there are millions of people out there who very likely agree with much of what I'm saying, but people like jayjay are unaware of that because they never (or at least very rarely) see our point of view or our beliefs being aired in the news and entertainment media...or if they do it's only to portray us as a small coterie of knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers that nobody pays much attention to. Well, my first point was that I don't think there are that many who'd agree with you - on your general ideals, undoubtedly so, but not on that drug-related deaths are the sole fault of permissive standards set out by liberals, for example. Comparing you to Der Trihs was sort of along those lines; Der Trihs may certainly find there are many people who agree with atheism, but not for labelling of practically all of the American right as racists. It's possible for someone to disagree with him yet not be slandering all liberals, and disagree with you yet not be slandering all conservatives. Not so. I've never said, nor even thought, that liberals don't think for themselves. I don't know where you got that idea. Again, what I'm saying is that liberals tend to think their way is the only way because it seems, based on what they see from the news and entertainment media, that most everyone thinks the same way they do. That's what I mean by their thinking their way is the only way (at least in terms of this discussion. ;)). In other words, I'm not saying they think their way is the only way a person should think...only that they get the impression from news and entertainment media that their way is how everybody thinks. Let me put it this way. If the mainstream media over yonder has a great bias, it's not likely to report this. So you must have got your information that it is from elsewhere - perhaps from alternate media, from personal experience, perhaps from unbiased information sources (to the extent that's possible). Taking all of those together, it's your opinion that the MSM is strongly biased. However, it is likewise your opinion that liberals don't get to hear any other viewpoints because they only get their news from the MSM - yet they surely have access to the same alternate sources as you do, at least to some extent. And yet they are, according to you, content to listen only to the MSM, it seemingly never crossing their minds to look for these things nor purposefully not seeking them out. That's where I got my accusation from; not from their only getting information from one place alone, but from your idea that they aren't looking at other sources for whatever reason. Hopefully you don't feel I'm so smug now that I've explained what I meant by my comments. I'm afraid I still do. It's not what you believe that makes me think it, but more that while you're certainly willing to admit your own ideals may not be the one true way, you're certain in what you see as the flaws of others and seemingly putting yourself above and without them. If it helps at all, i'm guilty of smugness too.

Goodnight, anyway. Although it's morning here. Bleurgh.

Banquet Bear

10-13-2008, 03:23 AM

...my biggest problem with Starving Artist? The bastard still owes me a beer! :mad:

Zoe

10-13-2008, 03:48 AM

Scissorjack

10-13-2008, 04:57 AM

Is there really doubt in anyone's mind that today's society is much more crass, impolite and vulgar than it was prior to the cultural revolution that began in the late sixties?

Ooh! Ooh! Post hoc ergo propter hoc plus probably selection bias. Forgive my excitement; I don't usually hang out in Great Debates so I don't get the chance to do this much.

Sophistry and Illusion

10-13-2008, 05:58 AM

Ooh! Ooh! Post hoc ergo propter hoc plus probably selection bias. Forgive my excitement; I don't usually hang out in Great Debates so I don't get the chance to do this much.

And yet strangely, he doesn't find correlations like "The religious, conservative south has higher STD rates than other parts of the country" significant. Go figure.

DianaG

10-13-2008, 06:00 AM

Well, he tends to sound quite a bit like my grandpa after the Alzheimers took hold, so make of that what you will.

Hentor the Barbarian

10-13-2008, 07:06 AM

SA is not insane. He's just a fucking tool. He's not particularly bright, but he's nowhere near as dumb as xtisme. SA He knows what he's saying is complete bullshit.

Having just watched Stripes again, here's how the aforementioned SDMB'ers fall into their Stripes roles:

Starving for Attention is Stillman, incompetent and blaming everyone else for his mistakes.

xtisme is Cruiser, who joined the Army to avoid the draft, and who has to have poker explained to him in the midst of playing against someone else, by showing him his cards.

Clothahump is Francis. Nuff said.

Hentor the Barbarian

10-13-2008, 07:11 AM

Okay, one more post and then I'm out of here.

[...]

And now I'm out. Goodnight, all.Here's the great thing about Starving for Attention: He thinks you care about where he's going and what he's doing away from the boards, and will always give you the John Boy "Goodnight Mary Ellen."

With that, I'm off to the restroom to urinate. I'll be back in five minutes. Unless I stop for some coffee. Then it may be more like 10 to 12 minutes.

eleanorigby

10-13-2008, 07:17 AM

Huh. I thought Starving Artist was female. :confused:

Since he's a he, maybe he'd like to know that this liberal also deplores the raunch that pervades our culture now. But I don't blame it on liberalism--I have yet to see any real liberalism at work on a cultural level. We live in a very conservative country.
I don't know much about computers or the internet, but I'm fairly sure that it's not just Dems who are responsible for internet porn. It's not just pinko loving fags who buy smutty magazines and smoke that evil marijuana.

Fact is, as our society got wealthier and wealthier, we ALL became hedonistic and entitled. I think he is mistaking coincidence with causality. I confess I am at a loss re the whole "I can't find a decent woman" or whatever. That seems odd in this day and age. And a little crazy.

Clothahump

10-13-2008, 07:18 AM

Don't forget xtisme and good ol' humpy. It's sort of funny how these guys are just starting to realize that Obama may just pull this one out and they are getting more shrill by the minute. The great ACORN conspiracy and Obama the Marxist, indeed.

Shrill?

ROTFLMAO! Thanks for the laugh, I needed one this morning.

Oh, and btw......if you think our finances are fucked up now, wait until BO has been in office for a while and rammed his tax increases up our collective asses. That is why I have said repeatedly that this is the first Presidential election ever where I am voting for someone to keep the other guy out - literally, the lesser of two evils.

Jackmannii

10-13-2008, 07:25 AM

...this is the first Presidential election ever where I am voting for someone to keep the other guy out - literally, the lesser of two evils.Haven't voted in many Presidential elections, have you?

Gyrate

10-13-2008, 07:49 AM

Is there really doubt in anyone's mind that today's society is much more crass, impolite and vulgar than it was prior to the cultural revolution that began in the late sixties? You obviously haven't studied much cultural history. Society has always been crass, impolite and vulgar - they were complaining about moral decay in ancient Greece, in the Middle Ages, in Enlightenment Europe...you name it. People always think the world is going to hell in a handcart and that things were better in the "old days", yet this Golden Age never seems to have existed in reality.

OTOH I'm not sure whether a VPOTUS ever previously told a Senator to go f**k himself on the Senate floor before, so perhaps courtesy and restraint has declined somewhat of late...

Clothahump: if taxes don't increase, who's going to pay all those bills Bush has run up over the past 8 years?

Hentor the Barbarian

10-13-2008, 08:13 AM

Just to tie a couple of these things together, and give a shout out to Paul Krugman, who just won the Nobel Prize for economics, I'll note that Krugman agrees (in a very limited sense) with our pal Starving for Attention. The 50's were a great period of productivity and stability for our country. They were so because FDR's New Deal rapidly ushered in a period of the lowest income inequality in our country's history. He makes the point that economic policy can make very clear and very dramatic changes in the economy of the country and the prosperity of the people in a very clear way. This is in stark contrast to the shrugging off of responsibility for economic outcomes that the people who just want to give all the money to the wealthy generally respond to.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/introducing-this-blog/

Here's what Krugman has to say about that period in our nation's history: Middle class America: That’s the country I grew up in. It was a society without extremes of wealth or poverty, a society of broadly shared prosperity, partly because strong unions, a high minimum wage, and a progressive tax system helped limit inequality. It was also a society in which political bipartisanship meant something: in spite of all the turmoil of Vietnam and the civil rights movement, in spite of the sinister machinations of Nixon and his henchmen, it was an era in which Democrats and Republicans agreed on basic values and could cooperate across party lines.

So, congrats to Nobel Prize Winner Paul Krugman. To Clothahumper, what you understand about tax policy would overflow a thimble, and to SA, I have to go down the hallway and talk to someone for a little while. I'll be back in 15 minutes or so.

Clothahump

10-13-2008, 08:24 AM

Clothahump

10-13-2008, 08:26 AM

Haven't voted in many Presidential elections, have you?

Probably more than you.

RTFirefly

10-13-2008, 08:44 AM

SA is...not particularly bright, but he's nowhere near as dumb as xtisme. I've never understood what the problem is that some of you guys have with xtisme. Lord knows I disagree with him on a regular basis, but I've found him to be intellectually honest. I've rarely seen him bring up the sort of bullshit arguments that Sam Stone all too often does, let alone to the degree that losers like Shodan, Starving Artist, Clothahump, and magellan01 do.

Phatlewt

10-13-2008, 08:45 AM

Sorry for being on your lawn, Clothahump, Starving Artist.

El_Kabong

10-13-2008, 08:47 AM

Shrill?

ROTFLMAO! Thanks for the laugh, I needed one this morning.

Dude, in a current GD thread, you, apparently in all seriousness, referred to Barack Obama as "barking mad" and a "Marxist". If that wasn't shrill, I don't know what is.

As for the subject of this thread, maybe, like I did, Starving Artist had just rewatched North by Northwest for the umpteenth time and was feeling grumpy because life isn't as elegant and glamourous for him as it seemed to be for Roger Thornhill. Try and remember, it's only a movie.

As for being polite compared to some of the other nutters around here, I don't care how polite someone is: if they are trying to blame all of society's ills on on something as general as liberalism, that person is either an asshole or has a shaky grip on reality.

Hentor the Barbarian

10-13-2008, 09:00 AM

I've never understood what the problem is that some of you guys have with xtisme. Lord knows I disagree with him on a regular basis, but I've found him to be intellectually honest. I've rarely seen him bring up the sort of bullshit arguments that Sam Stone all too often does, let alone to the degree that losers like Shodan, Starving Artist, Clothahump, and magellan01 do.I just think he can't or won't think through things very clearly. His recent offering on the rising faction of anti-capitalists Democrats (with a hat tip to Sam Stone) and his fears about what the Democrats will do (economically, I assume) when they take office are good examples. Of course, he's not able to provide any evidence to suggest who these anti-capitalist Democrats are (even though they are coming out of the woodwork), it's just that Sam Stone said that they were.

Little Nemo

10-13-2008, 09:18 AM

Democracy isn't classy. It's loud and rude while a bunch of people with major differences of opinion all argue their views.

Classy was back when a small group of like-minded people ran everything and everyone knew their place and kept quiet. Or else.

I think we're better off for having abandoned classiness.

tagos

10-13-2008, 09:20 AM

I just think he can't or won't think through things very clearly. His recent offering on the rising faction of anti-capitalists Democrats (with a hat tip to Sam Stone) and his fears about what the Democrats will do (economically, I assume) when they take office are good examples. Of course, he's not able to provide any evidence to suggest who these anti-capitalist Democrats are (even though they are coming out of the woodwork), it's just that Sam Stone said that they were.

I can't conceive how these mythical 'anti-capitalist' democrats could have possibly done a worse job than capitalists and their political enablers have done so far.

Little Nemo

10-13-2008, 09:23 AM

Also I want to step in and defend a couple of people who've been mentioned here.

I've met Clothahump. We sharply disagree on our political views and I've argued that with him but on every other subject he's a great guy.

I also have a lot of respect for xtisme (who I've never met in person). I have sometimes disagreed with him but I've never found him to be irrational or stupid or unwilling to listen to what someone with an opposing view is saying.

Hentor the Barbarian

10-13-2008, 09:38 AM

Perhaps I'm being too hard on xtisme. I do think that he listens. My problem is that despite listening, his thinking never seems to change. Also, the things I've notice from him recently are things like the above, as well as the assertion at the time that McCain's campaign suspension was a brilliant move, and that Palin is not a drag on the ticket. Each of these offerings, like most of his posts, come with a line or two about how we might not understand them because the SDMB is so darn liberal - not that it was plainly foolish for McCain to suspend his campaign, or because any empirical evidence shows that Palin is a drag on the McCain ticket.

However, I do accept that I might have been too harsh in my earlier characterizations of him.

Terrifel

10-13-2008, 10:54 AM

I admit I erred when I said that. I was responding to Terrifel's characterization of my previous post and used his term by way of response. I apologize. I should have said liberals are responsible for the fact that there are so few classy women (and men, for that matter) these days to begin with. :DAnd Terrifel is responsible for the fact that Starving Artist can't express himself accurately, I guess.

No doubt Starving Artist's inability to accept full responsibility for his own words is also the fault of liberals, somehow. "I may have used the wrong term, but society is to blame."

I, of course, used the term "Republican" because the topic at hand was the Republican VP (technically, a Photoshopped image of the Republican VP's kid). I am entirely open to the possibility that classy, dignified women can still be readily found among other groups of conservatives-- perhaps in other countries, or among the Amish. I would not have imagined that the millions upon millions of registered American Republicans somehow can't find a single classy dame among their ranks, but apparently it is so.

Remember, folks: conservatives have no control over their own ability to express values such as class and sophistication. So the next time a conservative dons that Klan hood and rallies the crowd to kill for Jesus, ask yourself: how did liberals cause this?

Onomatopoeia

10-13-2008, 11:16 AM

askeptic

10-13-2008, 11:19 AM

To be completely fair, didn't xtisme recently state he was considering voting for Obama (too tired to look it up right now)? If so, that, to me, seems to be someone willing to change.
(bolding mine)

Get back to me when he stops ranting about the Great ACORN Conspiracy.

Onomatopoeia

10-13-2008, 11:21 AM

Get back to me when he stops ranting about the Great ACORN Conspiracy.I thought that was Bricker. ;)

askeptic

10-13-2008, 11:25 AM

I thought that was Bricker. ;)

Bricker fumbled and xt picked up the ball.

woodstockbirdybird

10-13-2008, 12:11 PM

Voyager

10-13-2008, 12:23 PM

Oh, and btw......if you think our finances are fucked up now, wait until BO has been in office for a while and rammed his tax increases up our collective asses. That is why I have said repeatedly that this is the first Presidential election ever where I am voting for someone to keep the other guy out - literally, the lesser of two evils.

See what happens when all you do is read Republican talking points? If Obama does raise taxes on those making over $250K, back to where they were, maybe we'd *gasp* go back to that Depression we suffered through in the '90s.

Polycarp

10-13-2008, 12:56 PM

Some of Starving Artist's allegations about American society over the years have bothered me. But I've arrived at the point where I simply (a) ignore them most of the time, and (b) if I have the background information to refute one, provide it, for the benefit of any third parties that may be interested/swayed by it -- having given up hope of changing SA's opinions by any arguments I can advance.

But in reference to others who have entered the fray here and who are common Pittees themselves, I want to say something that I think hasn't been said and should be.

Do you know what Clothahump and lissener have in common? Socially and politically they appear to be at opposite extremes, but there is a valid and positive answer. While both are men seemingly convinced of the rightness of their own views to the point that almost any argument to the contrary is simply ignored by them, both men have devoted extensive volunteer time to work with young people at risk. That's not something I've seen others mention doing, and I think it's extremely laudable. And a piece of what makes this place special -- two men, representing opposite extremes of the fractured American social milieu, are each doing something badly needed and which a lot of people decide is "someone else's job." Well, they've decided they're the "someone else" whose job it is. Kudos, both of you!

jayjay

10-13-2008, 01:00 PM

Do you know what Clothahump and lissener have in common? Socially and politically they appear to be at opposite extremes, but there is a valid and positive answer. While both are men seemingly convinced of the rightness of their own views to the point that almost any argument to the contrary is simply ignored by them, both men have devoted extensive volunteer time to work with young people at risk. That's not something I've seen others mention doing, and I think it's extremely laudable. And a piece of what makes this place special -- two men, representing opposite extremes of the fractured American social milieu, are each doing something badly needed and which a lot of people decide is "someone else's job." Well, they've decided they're the "someone else" whose job it is. Kudos, both of you!

I had no idea about that, for Clothahump, at least (though I do remember now, vaguely, lissener mentioning an LGBT youth center literally years ago). That does kind of edge the old turtle out of the "Complete Tool" column for me.

Kudos to you, Clothahump, and I mean that sincerely.

Gatopescado

10-13-2008, 01:10 PM

Barack Obama is a crypto-islamist terrorist and possibly the Antichrist.

I KNEW IT!

You read it here first, folks!

RickJay

10-13-2008, 02:00 PM

Is there really doubt in anyone's mind that today's society is much more crass, impolite and vulgar than it was prior to the cultural revolution that began in the late sixties?
It's nonsense, and only an uneducated fool would believe it. You clearly have no knowledge at all of what society was like before that time.

Ignorance isn't a valid point of view; your opinions on this matter are wholly based in ignorance.

askeptic

10-13-2008, 02:13 PM

Ignorance isn't a valid point of view...
:D

If I had a sig line I would ask your permission to use this.

Voyager

10-13-2008, 03:18 PM

It's nonsense, and only an uneducated fool would believe it. You clearly have no knowledge at all of what society was like before that time.

Ignorance isn't a valid point of view; your opinions on this matter are wholly based in ignorance.

Too true. People were very polite to you if you were a white male. Not so much if you were black or looked a bit different. I won't speak for women, but I don't think wolf whistling is considered proper any more.

Don't fight the hypothetical

10-13-2008, 03:19 PM

Oh, and btw......if you think our finances are fucked up now, wait until BO has been in office for a while and rammed his tax increases up our collective asses. That is why I have said repeatedly that this is the first Presidential election ever where I am voting for someone to keep the other guy out - literally, the lesser of two evils.

Here is a cool site. (http://www.futureme.org/) I've just used it to email myself your quote 3 years from now. So you've time to think up your excuses.

RedFury

10-13-2008, 04:18 PM

Here's the great thing about Starving for Attention: He thinks you care about where he's going and what he's doing away from the boards, and will always give you the John Boy "Goodnight Mary Ellen."

With that, I'm off to the restroom to urinate. I'll be back in five minutes. Unless I stop for some coffee. Then it may be more like 10 to 12 minutes.

Yep. Glad I'm not the only to notice. Overweening asshole makes sure he gets in his "I have a real life in meatspace" asinine dig in just about every fuckin' dropping he regales us with -- over 6,000 of them and counting.

Like anyone gives a flying fuck.

As for that little self-loathing righteous prick, xt, give him a turd-sundae with a "Made In The USA" label on it, and he'll not only eat but love it and ask for seconds...

Bryan Ekers

10-13-2008, 04:44 PM

Having just watched Stripes again, here's how the aforementioned SDMB'ers fall into their Stripes roles:

Starving for Attention is Stillman, incompetent and blaming everyone else for his mistakes.

xtisme is Cruiser, who joined the Army to avoid the draft, and who has to have poker explained to him in the midst of playing against someone else, by showing him his cards.

Clothahump is Francis. Nuff said.

Can I be Ziskey?

Hentor the Barbarian

10-13-2008, 06:12 PM

Can I be Ziskey?You're Canadian, right? I think you oughta be Dewey Oxenberger.

Besides, I haven't decided if I'm Russell or John Winger, and I get first dibs.

eleanorigby

10-13-2008, 06:20 PM

C'n I have the Aunt Jemima treatment?
:D

mhendo

10-13-2008, 06:24 PM

It's nonsense, and only an uneducated fool would believe it. You clearly have no knowledge at all of what society was like before that time.Actually, he does have a certain type of knowledge, and it forms the core of his worldview. He has his own experience to go by. For Starving Artist, history is not comprised of large, complicated, multi-faceted forces and events; it is, rather, reducible to his own experiences, and to his own interpretation of those experiences.

Argue with him about racism, about crime, and social and cultural mores, about anything you like, and the foundation of his argument is always rooted in nothing more than personal experience, with no consideration of statistics, or historical research, or even of logical debate. It is a rigorously and explicitly subjective worldview, rooted in anti-intellectualism and wilful ignorance. It doesn't help that his ignorance is filtered through an ultra-conservative political stance, as well as a good measure of conspiracy theory ideology.

To SA's credit, he has, at times, been very open and honest about his narrow-mindedness. He has stated on numerous occasions that arguments based on research and evidence and historical analysis are less important and less relevant to him than arguments rooted in personal experience. He is the living epitome of the belief that the plural of anecdote is data.

Guinastasia

10-13-2008, 06:37 PM

I don't know... saying that, because of the Democrats, women cannot be fashionable, classy, and sophisticated anymore is... it's crazy.

Well duh-I think it all started with that one woman, what's her name-Jackie O?

Yeah, her. ;)

OTOH I'm not sure whether a VPOTUS ever previously told a Senator to go f**k himself on the Senate floor before, so perhaps courtesy and restraint has declined somewhat of late...

Oh, I don't know about THAT... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sumner#Antebellum_career_and_attack_by_Preston_Brooks)

jsgoddess

10-13-2008, 06:37 PM

It's nonsense, and only an uneducated fool would believe it. You clearly have no knowledge at all of what society was like before that time.

He knows what it was like for people like him. It's those scary "others" that he never takes into account. Jesus, the man said once that black people were very happy before the Civil Rights Movement.

Really Not All That Bright

10-13-2008, 07:10 PM

Starving Artist, like many on the right, wants to bring America back to a golden age which never actually existed.
I admit I erred when I said that. I was responding to Terrifel's characterization of my previous post and used his term by way of response. I apologize. I should have said liberals are responsible for the fact that there are so few classy women (and men, for that matter) these days to begin with.

Is there really doubt in anyone's mind that today's society is much more crass, impolite and vulgar than it was prior to the cultural revolution that began in the late sixties? Hell, many liberals readily acknowledge it themselves but claim it was necessary to eliminate racism, or sexism, or whatever othere 'ism' they're using to excuse it that day.
Yep, I for one vote women all go back to the kitchen and blacks go back to knowing their role.
And I stand by every word of that post, and the next person who tries to claim I'm EVIL because I'm gonna vote Republican, is very likely gonna get more of the same.
You're not evil because you're voting Republican. You're voting Republican because you're evil. ;)

jsgoddess

10-13-2008, 07:22 PM

You're not evil because you're voting Republican. You're voting Republican because you're evil. ;)

If he's evil, it's for putting his own social comfort ahead of other people's basic human rights. There are Democrats who would do the same.

(I know you're joking, but I wanted to address it nevertheless.)

sailor

10-13-2008, 07:42 PM

Starving Artist is not insane at all, just mistaken if he really believes all that he says he believes. He's also very talented and his interests indicate an intelligence that doesn't spend all of its time asleep or at the computer. I strongly disagree. He is one industrial strength idiot.
Exhibit 1 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10280784#post10280784)
He went into that thread claiming something totally idotic. He insisted on his claim until there was enough people telling him there was no way that could be so. And then he disappeared without a word. Too small to admit he was talking out of his ass. I had to restrain myself from pitting him then. Now is a good time to tell him he is a frucking idiot.

Biffy the Elephant Shrew

10-13-2008, 07:47 PM

I strongly disagree. He is one industrial strength idiot.
Exhibit 1 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10280784#post10280784)

Starving Artist ≠ Smiling Bandit.

pulykamell

10-13-2008, 07:48 PM

I strongly disagree. He is one industrial strength idiot.
Exhibit 1 (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10280784#post10280784)
He went into that thread claiming something totally idotic. He insisted on his claim until there was enough people telling him there was no way that could be so. And then he disappeared without a word. Too small to admit he was talking out of his ass. I had to restrain myself from pitting him then. Now is a good time to tell him he is a frucking idiot.

Either I'm confused, I'm being wooshed, or you linked to the wrong thread, but I don't see Starving Artist in that thread.

Really Not All That Bright

10-13-2008, 07:54 PM

Either I'm confused, I'm being wooshed, or you linked to the wrong thread, but I don't see Starving Artist in that thread.
sailor got Starving Artist and Smiling Bandit confused. They're both conservative. One isn't crazy.

Starving Artist

10-13-2008, 08:31 PM

sailor got Starving Artist and Smiling Bandit confused. They're both conservative. One isn't crazy.Yeah, Polycarp can't tell us apart either. Makes me a little less inclined to take either one seriously.

Hey, Banquet Bear! How the hell are ya? Long time, no see. :) Email me a forwarding address and I'll send you a whole case. :D

Hi, darling Zoe! thanks for the kind words. As I've said before, if all liberals were like you this country would be a much better place.

As for the numerous (and predictable) misstatements about what I've said, what I believe and what I allegedly want, they'll have to wait until I have sufficient time to address them as given the sheer number of them composing responses will likely take hours.

Or on the other hand, I might choose to adopt the position that if you can't argue against the things I've actually said and you have to misrepresent them instead, I've already won anyway.

We'll see.

sailor

10-13-2008, 08:42 PM

sailor got Starving Artist and Smiling Bandit confused. They're both conservative. One isn't crazy.Oh shit. I'm sorry. Please disregard my post and accept my apologies.

Starving Artist

10-13-2008, 08:54 PM

Oh shit. I'm sorry. Please disregard my post and accept my apologies.Done, and done. Thanks very much for the apology. :)

RickJay

10-13-2008, 09:27 PM

Too true. People were very polite to you if you were a white male. Not so much if you were black or looked a bit different. I won't speak for women, but I don't think wolf whistling is considered proper any more.
The point about being black (or Chinese, or whatever) is of course a good one. Life for a black man prior to the Civil Rights movement could be hellish. It's stupid and preposterous to suggest society was more civil because it was more civil just for white folks.

But to be honest, it's not true for white people, either. Prior to WWII - even before the Depression - a lot of things went on in common society we'd consider appalling today. Open fistfights between grown men were commonplace. Drunkenness was extremely rampant, vastly more so than now - there is a reason Prohibition was a popular movement - and as destructive, if not more so, than all narcotics are today combined. Child abuse, teenaged pregnancy, child abandonment and the like were all commonplace, albeit not spoken of. Workers were treated poorly and subjected to hazardous working conditions as a matter of course. And of course, if you didn't like a black guy in your store, you told the "nigger" to get the hell out. That trumps a lot of rap lyrics, in my opinion.

The idea that manners and politeness are on the decline is an idea people have beleived since before Starving Artist's great-grandparents were born; indeed, it likely goes back to before Columbus discovered America. If it had been true all this time by now we'd be setting each other on fire with flamethrowers every time two people met.

Rubystreak

10-13-2008, 09:45 PM

The point about being black (or Chinese, or whatever) is of course a good one. Life for a black man prior to the Civil Rights movement could be hellish. It's stupid and preposterous to suggest society was more civil because it was more civil just for white folks.

White men. I think that any woman who didn't keep to her "place" found society less than civil.

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 01:32 AM

If he's evil, it's for putting his own social comfort ahead of other people's basic human rights. There are Democrats who would do the same.
This is utter nonsense. Nobody's basic human rights have to suffer in order for people to not act like assholes.

Starving Artist, like many on the right, wants to bring America back to a golden age which never actually existed.That "golden age", as you put it, only seems golden when compared with society today.

However, you're wrong that I want to take America back there. I don't waste my time wanting the impossible. What I want is to keep you guys from screwing things up even worse than they are now.

As to your Republican/evil wisecrack, I have only this to say: ;)

He knows what it was like for people like him. It's those scary "others" that he never takes into account. Jesus, the man said once that black people were very happy before the Civil Rights Movement.More dumbassedness from you. You're really on a roll aren't you? When have I ever referred to anyone as either 'scary' or 'others'?

Never, that's when.

And when did I ever say black people were 'very happy' before the Civil Rights Movement?

Again, never!

If you can't attack me honestly, you have no business attacking me at all (though you'll certainly have plenty of company) because then I win the point, you see.

To SA's credit, he has, at times, been very open and honest about his narrow-mindedness. He has stated on numerous occasions that arguments based on research and evidence and historical analysis are less important and less relevant to him than arguments rooted in personal experience. Yeah, who am I gonna believe, you or my lying eyes? :D

And why did you not also include my reasons for making those statements?

You know perfectly well that for any so-called proof, statistics, reports, whatever that someone on one side here presents, the other side can just as easily find proofs, statistics, reports, etc. to support the opposite view. Most of the time around here I simply have to take a look at who's presenting the data to know wheter that data will be suspect...and even if I believe in the integrity of the poster at hand, there's still plenty of room for doubt as to whether his cites are tell the whole story and can be accepted as incontrovertible proof.

I lived for twenty years before all this shit started (and just to nip in the bud any notion that I'm talking about racial and sexual equality, see my comments that Rubystreak posted upthread) and I travelled around the country a fair amount during that time and experienced a lot of different people in a lot of different situations. I know perfectly well how people behaved then, and it was nothing like you've all either been taught or deluded yourselves into believing.

It's nonsense, and only an uneducated fool would believe it. You clearly have no knowledge at all of what society was like before that time.

Ignorance isn't a valid point of view; your opinions on this matter are wholly based in ignorance. No, I'm afraid it's your opinion here that is wholly based in ignorance. See my post to mhendo above. I lived and experienced quite a lot of this country for at least twenty years before you guys started fucking things up, and I've watched with disgust and disdain every step of the way as they've gotten worse and worse.

Remember, folks: conservatives have no control over their own ability to express values such as class and sophistication. So the next time a conservative dons that Klan hood and rallies the crowd to kill for Jesus, ask yourself: how did liberals cause this? And people say I'm the one who's like Der Trihs. :rolleyes:

You're a fucking idiot!

Still, even assuming it's a conservative who dons the Klan hood and rallies the crowd (does anyone even do that anymore) and not a southern Democrat (I know, I know...they are really Republicans at heart), your point is still ridiculous. Do you have any idea how many millions of conservatives live in this country, and how few of them have ever even seen a Klansman?

Your equation of conservatives with lynching Klansmen is dispicable, though not out of the ordinary around here.

And yes I noticed you managed to work Jesus into the equation as well. Big deal.

SA is not insane. He's just a fucking tool. He's not particularly bright, but he's nowhere near as dumb as xtisme.Wow, a compliment from Hector the Librarian. Cool.

Here's the great thing about Starving for Attention: He thinks you care about where he's going and what he's doing away from the boards, and will always give you the John Boy "Goodnight Mary Ellen."

With that, I'm off to the restroom to urinate. I'll be back in five minutes. Unless I stop for some coffee. Then it may be more like 10 to 12 minutes. It's true. We conservatives are a polite and considerate lot. You may have noticed that Revenant Threshold, the poster to whom I directed that comment, politely bade me goodnight as well.

Only on the Dope would someone find himself criticized for being polite. Sort of points out the very thing I've been complaining about regarding lack of class these days, don't you think?

But keep in mind, S.A., that I am one of those Democrat Babes. I bet you are, too. :) Don't hurt me.I would never hurt you. I would protect you!

(Okay, that's only a line from some movie, but it's appropriate nonetheless.) ;)

mhendo

10-14-2008, 01:41 AM

You know perfectly well that for any so-called proof, statistics, reports, whatever that someone on one side here presents, the other side can just as easily find proofs, statistics, reports, etc. to support the opposite view. Most of the time around here I simply have to take a look at who's presenting the data to know wheter that data will be suspect...and even if I believe in the integrity of the poster at hand, there's still plenty of room for doubt as to whether his cites are tell the whole story and can be accepted as incontrovertible proof.

I lived for twenty years before all this shit started (and just to nip in the bud any notion that I'm talking about racial and sexual equality, see my comments that Rubystreak posted upthread) and I travelled around the country a fair amount during that time and experienced a lot of different people in a lot of different situations. I know perfectly well how people behaved then, and it was nothing like you've all either been taught or deluded yourselves into believing.

No, I'm afraid it's your opinion here that is wholly based in ignorance. See my post to mhendo above. I lived and experienced quite a lot of this country for at least twenty years before you guys started fucking things up, and I've watched with disgust and disdain every step of the way as they've gotten worse and worse. The great thing about Starving Artist is that he makes my case for me every time he posts.

elucidator

10-14-2008, 01:51 AM

...It's true. We conservatives are a polite and considerate lot...
Indeed. Your civility and decorum are the stuff of legend.

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 02:17 AM

Fuck you.

bdgr

10-14-2008, 02:21 AM

Indeed. Your civility and decorum are the stuff of legend.

If only he wasn't evil for voting republican.

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 02:39 AM

Fuck you.Though I'm sure luci gets the gag, I should probably point out to the more humor-impaired among you that that was a joke!

Gyrate

10-14-2008, 04:47 AM

Are you saying that you were deliberately acting like a Dick?

Liberal

10-14-2008, 05:58 AM

DianaG

10-14-2008, 06:43 AM

And when did I ever say black people were 'very happy' before the Civil Rights Movement?
Never, to my knowledge. You did say...

So yes, had I been a black man or a woman in the 50s, I might feel that things are better now. But when I look at how little they seemed to feel put upon in the pre-sixties era, and I look at the criminality, widespread use of drugs, filthy, vulgar misogynistic rap music, rampant STDs, and overall decline of societal civility, I'm hard pressed to think things are better now.
... which still stands out in my mind as the single most retarded thing I've ever seen posted here, so congratulations.

It's the perfect encapsulation of mhendo's argument about you. "Well, I didn't know any disgruntled black folk. None of them complained to me."

Hentor the Barbarian

10-14-2008, 06:56 AM

Never, to my knowledge. You did say...

... which still stands out in my mind as the single most retarded thing I've ever seen posted here, so congratulations.

It's the perfect encapsulation of mhendo's argument about you. "Well, I didn't know any disgruntled black folk. None of them complained to me."There was a related comment at one point about how African Americans, or perhaps people whose civil rights were being shat upon more generally, would have themselves preferred a more gradual transition than the sudden and drastic change that the awful liberals imposed upon everyone.

No, not as retarded as the quote you found, but similar. Kind of reminds me of the Dan Quayle quote to people in American Samoa, IIRC, about "happy campers you have been, and happy campers you will be."

Rubystreak

10-14-2008, 07:36 AM

Just for fun, a gem of paranoid, blame-liberals-for-everything hilarity from SA. I will try to find more of these, since there's a Pit thread going, but this is the first one I came across this morning. I'm not even going to comment on them, just post them for your collective amusement and edification.

Liberals are responsible for STD rates (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10186548&postcount=56):

Given the "sexual revolution" that occurred in the late sixties; the premature sexualization of children and teenagers in the drastically more permissible culture (television, movies, music, etc.) that liberals have championed since the cultural revolution of the late sixties; the fact that feminists and magazines such as Cosmopolitan essentially evangelize for sexual promiscuity on the part of females so as to "be the same" as boys; and the almost complete breakdown of reviled "family values" since the counter-culture revolution of the late sixties...I would assert that only the stupid, the deluded or outright liars could assert that 'liberalism' was not responsible for current STD rates.

Really Not All That Bright

10-14-2008, 08:11 AM

However, you're wrong that I want to take America back there. I don't waste my time wanting the impossible. What I want is to keep you guys from screwing things up even worse than they are now.
Here's the problem - you can't have all those things you say you're not against (womens' lib, the Civil Rights era, etc.) without all this other stuff you're railing against.

Anyway, on what possible grounds could you blame liberals for drugs in society?

Terrifel

10-14-2008, 09:00 AM

And people say I'm the one who's like Der Trihs. :rolleyes:They do? That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you think conservatives couldn't find a decent VP candidate because of liberal psychic interference, would it?

You're a fucking idiot!Are you joking again? Or are liberals controlling you right now? I can't tell.
Still, even assuming it's a conservative who dons the Klan hood and rallies the crowd (does anyone even do that anymore) and not a southern Democrat (I know, I know...they are really Republicans at heart), your point is still ridiculous.Oh my god, Starving Artist thinks I've made a ridiculous statement. My credibility is in shambles.

I also notice you've brought political parties back into the discussion, after explicitly disavowing that was ever your point to begin with. Classy. Do you have any idea how many millions of conservatives live in this country, and how few of them have ever even seen a Klansman?Not really, no. I thought that was the purpose of the hood-- so conservatives couldn't be identified in their roles as Klansmen. I freely admit that many conservatives likely don't embrace the Klan. Again, the Amish come to mind.

Your equation of conservatives with lynching Klansmen is dispicable, though not out of the ordinary around here. I admit I erred when I said that. I was responding to your post, and therefore I had no control over my own words. I apologize. :D

And yes I noticed you managed to work Jesus into the equation as well. Big deal.What can I say? He's one of my favorite liberals.

It's true. We conservatives are a polite and considerate lot.But very easily mind-controlled, which is understandably confusing to onlookers. You should look into some form of headgear to screen that effect. Or consider abstaining from politics. No offense intended, but our country sorely needs reliable leaders with demonstrable immunity to malign psychotronic influence. You've seen what the liberals have made Bush do over the past eight years.

Sophistry and Illusion

10-14-2008, 09:31 AM

Ya know, even though I disagree with SA's reasoning about liberalism's responsibility for STDs, etc., I'm inclined to grab the bull by the horns and attack his moral premises rather than his factual ones. Suppose for the sake of argument that liberalism has led to bad consequences for society. Why not just say, So what? If respecting people's rights leads to bad consequences, that is no reason to abridge people's rights. Rights exist to protect individuals from considerations of social utility. Even if the gay rights movement and the corresponding greater tolerance for gays has lead to greater incidence of disease in the gay community, BFD. The state doesn't have the right to restrict what consenting adults do sexually, even if positive consequences would arise from such a restriction.

elucidator

10-14-2008, 10:13 AM

You know, this whole liberal/STD thing is starting to sound a mite personal. Is there something you would like to share with the group? Get it off your, ah, chest?

jsgoddess

10-14-2008, 10:35 AM

RTFirefly

10-14-2008, 12:42 PM

Never, to my knowledge. You did say...
So yes, had I been a black man or a woman in the 50s, I might feel that things are better now. But when I look at how little they seemed to feel put upon in the pre-sixties era, and I look at the criminality, widespread use of drugs, filthy, vulgar misogynistic rap music, rampant STDs, and overall decline of societal civility, I'm hard pressed to think things are better now.
... which still stands out in my mind as the single most retarded thing I've ever seen posted here, so congratulations.

It's the perfect encapsulation of mhendo's argument about you. "Well, I didn't know any disgruntled black folk. None of them complained to me."Damn, that's impressive!

Those of us who grew up in Virginia back in the day, had to take Virginia History in the fourth grade. Maybe they changed the course for the better later, but in the early 1960s, the text portrayed happy slaves before the Civil War, and troublesome, unhappy Negroes afterwards.

SA has managed to shift that portrayal a century forward, to the civil-rights era. Sweet. :)

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 12:59 PM

There was a related comment at one point about how African Americans, or perhaps people whose civil rights were being shat upon more generally, would have themselves preferred a more gradual transition than the sudden and drastic change that the awful liberals imposed upon everyone.Mr. Moto, in the Beeyotches thread, said:

"Well, this view is more widely shared than you might think.

My older black friends often are strangely nostalgic for that era [bolding mine]- and when I asked one of them about that, he mentioned quite sensibly that civil rights marchers in suits and Sunday dresses wanted to share more equally in the decent society that existed then, not share equally in a less decent society that followed."

This crap about how a less decent society was necessary to do away with racism is utter bullshit. There's. no. fucking. correlation.

Never, to my knowledge. Exactly. Which means jsgoddess was lying, just like I said. You did say...

... which still stands out in my mind as the single most retarded thing I've ever seen posted here, so congratulations.Well, one can hardly expect to come onto a board dominated by liberals, point out to them all the ways they've fucked things up, and expect to be showered with bouquets of roses, can one?

Here's the problem - you can't have all those things you say you're not against (womens' lib, the Civil Rights era, etc.) without all this other stuff you're railing against.Sure you can. Black people themselves made terrific strides in achieving equal rights during the early to late-sixties by being polite, well-dressed and civil in their marches. It wasn't until white liberals got into the fray in the late sixties that decency went out the window.

Libs (many anyway) love to get in the face of anyone who they think disagrees with them or isn't moving the way they want fast enough. Even Barack Obama exhorts his followers to "Argue with your friends and neighbors; get in their face". (Something I'm very happy about by the way. For one thing it shows me Obama isn't quite the rare though classy lib I thought he was, and second, if there's anything guaranteed to get somebody to do the opposite of what you want, it's to get in their face and tell them how they should think or vote.

And frankly, it's been my observation that things like decency in society doesn't matter to liberals in the first place...or at least not in the minds of the ones who drive the movement.

Anyway, on what possible grounds could you blame liberals for drugs in society? Well, first of all, remember that I'm talking about people hewing to liberal philosophy, not necessarily the Democrat party. When the cultural revolution began in the late sixties, liberal spokesmen like Timothy Leary, virtually every psychedelic or rock musician in existence, Hollywood, and virtually every leftie I knew at that time, latched onto drugs as if they were manna from heaven. That mindset was also part of the fun of the time...you know, sticking it to the man, not letting society tell you what you can put in your own body, etc., etc.

Leftie drug use became so prevalent that movements were born (vestiges of which remain today) to legalize them, and eventually everyone just came to view and accept them as part of day-to-day life in this country. Then that pro-drug mentality (which hopefully you will admit certainly hasn't emanated from the right) led to more harmful and destructive drugs like cocaine and meth, which has in turn led to the pain, misery, suffering and death that I described in my post which Rubystreak posted above.

It's probably worth noting also that I appreciate your efforts to help get my message out, Rubystreak. :)

They do? That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you think conservatives couldn't find a decent VP candidate because of liberal psychic interference, would it?
Again with the lies! (You guys just can't argue honestly, can you?). :dubious:

I didn't say conservatives 'couldn't' find a decent VP candidate. What I said, in response to the fun that was being made (and appropriately so, IMO :D) of the coat Palin was wearing, that given her hotness and likeability, we conservatives now kind of have our own Jackie Kennedy, or at least to the degree it's possible these days, given the society you people have created in which finding classy, stylish and well-turned out women such as Jackie Kennedy is difficult indeed.

And as I also said, if one should somehow magically appear, she would undoubtedly be reviled by the left as a snooty rich bitch out of touch with everyday Americans and who thinks she's better than everyone else.

Yep, there's no room for class, style or manners in the liberal mindset. Cite (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQalRPQ8stI) :dubious:

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 01:08 PM

You know, this whole liberal/STD thing is starting to sound a mite personal. Is there something you would like to share with the group? Get it off your, ah, chest?Okay, you got me. My teenage girlfriends and I hate condoms! (But since one out of every four has a case of the nasties, what else can ya do but use 'em or go celibate?)

There, happy now?

Sophistry and Illusion

10-14-2008, 01:27 PM

Yep, there's no room for class, style or manners in the liberal mindset. Cite (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQalRPQ8stI) :dubious:
By parity of reasoning, there's no room for class, style or manners in the conservative mindset either. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=487795)

LonesomePolecat

10-14-2008, 01:27 PM

Starving Artist, like many on the right, wants to bring America back to a golden age which never actually existed. As opposed to lefties, who would take us forward into an impossible golden age in the future based on a dumbass hippie philosophy of multiculturalism and the worship of diversity for its own sake. I am extremely leary of anyone who takes golden ages seriously.

jayjay

10-14-2008, 01:35 PM

As opposed to lefties, who would take us forward into an impossible golden age in the future based on a dumbass hippie philosophy of multiculturalism and the worship of diversity for its own sake. I am extremely leary of anyone who takes golden ages seriously.

Just like the right wing to consider xenophobia a virtue, isn't it?

Terrifel

10-14-2008, 01:40 PM

Again with the lies! (You guys just can't argue honestly, can you?). :dubious:What lie? You claimed (proudly!) that Palin was the best you guys could present as a classy and sophisticated representative, and that somehow liberals are directly to blame.
Yep, there's no room for class, style or manners in the liberal mindset. Cite (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQalRPQ8stI) :dubious:Oh my god. McCain supporters marched through a New York street art festival, and people yelled "Boo!" and "No war!" And some people even gave them "the finger!" There may be even more egregious gestures in there, but it's hard to make out some of the details on account of all the superimposed text:FACT: The number of middle fingers in a "progressive" crowd is directly proportional to the number of PhD degrees in the ten-block radius.

Republicans should be lucky New York doesn't have a Coliseum with lions.

FACT: Islamic radicals would be more welcome on the Upper West Side than American patriots.

The "liberals" always extend their sympathy for being bullied and rejected... but to America's enemies.

"Liberal" elites believe that all ideologies are morally equal... except the one that supports capitalism and individual liberties... the only ideology that makes their lavish lifestyle possible... and so they're driving it out of town, tarred and feathered.I'm sorry, you were saying something about how "my side" can't argue honestly?

Gosh, "Coliseum with lions?" "Tarred and feathered?" Yeah, I could sense the atmosphere of violent persecution from the way the marchers were peacefully allowed to complete their demonstration.

By the way, Starving Artist, what is that tune playing on your video clip? It sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't seem to place it. :D

LonesomePolecat

10-14-2008, 01:49 PM

Just like the right wing to consider xenophobia a virtue, isn't it?
Just like a leftie to consider anti-white racism a virture, isn't it?

DianaG

10-14-2008, 01:51 PM

Just like LonesomePolecat to throw the word "racist" around while continuing to profoundly misunderstand what it means.

jayjay

10-14-2008, 01:52 PM

Just like a leftie to consider anti-white racism a virture, isn't it?

Liar. Multiculturalism =/= racism against white people, and only someone who somehow thinks that white people somehow deserve to be considered exceptional among all others would think so. You can't play nice and simply be one part of this collage of immigration and world culture we call the US, perhaps you'd prefer to live in one of the more traditionally monocultural European countries instead.

Terrifel

10-14-2008, 02:00 PM

jayjay, please don't try to unload our problems on Europe. I haven't yet fully given up hope of visiting there someday.

LonesomePolecat

10-14-2008, 02:01 PM

Liar. Multiculturalism =/= racism against white people, and only someone who somehow thinks that white people somehow deserve to be considered exceptional among all others would think so. You can't play nice and simply be one part of this collage of immigration and world culture we call the US, perhaps you'd prefer to live in one of the more traditionally monocultural European countries instead.Aw, fuck that shit, you whiny little pussy. Anti-white racism is the most ubiquitous form of racism today, and multiculturalism is one of its forms. The men who founded this country never intended it to be a beautiful multicultural rainbow, and whites in America never consented to being reduced to a minority in the country their own ancestors founded. Whites have absolutely nothing to gain from giving up their status as the dominant majority, and this "collage of immigration and world culture" is becoming dangerously more unstable with every passing decade.

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 02:04 PM

What lie? You claimed (proudly!) that Palin was the best you guys could present as a classy and sophisticated representative, and that somehow liberals are directly to blame. Well, if I proudly claimed it, you should have no trouble finding it. Kindly post where I did so.

LonesomePolecat

10-14-2008, 02:05 PM

Just like LonesomePolecat to throw the word "racist" around while continuing to profoundly misunderstand what it means. There's a laugh. The left today is motivated by a profound hatred of everything white, Western and Christian. You want to hear some real racism, honey? Go hang out with William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

jayjay

10-14-2008, 02:05 PM

Frankly, I love the fact that I, in this relatively small city of Lancaster, PA, can go out to eat at an Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, (real non-Olive-Garden) Italian, or authentic French restaurant. Or, if I feel like it, simply go down to Central Market and buy an Amish shoofly pie. I like that I can go listen to a barbershop quartet, or the symphony, or an African drumming group, or a jazz ensemble, or to the special appearance of an authentic Indonesian gamelan. I love to see white faces, black faces, Mexican faces, Korean faces. I like to hear European accents, American accents, Pennsylvania Dutch accents, Puerto Rican accents, Russian accents, Vietnamese accents. It's wonderful! I can't imagine how anyone would consider such things wrong-headed or dangerous.

jayjay

10-14-2008, 02:08 PM

Aw, fuck that shit, you whiny little pussy. Anti-white racism is the most ubiquitous form of racism today, and multiculturalism is one of its forms. The men who founded this country never intended it to be a beautiful multicultural rainbow, and whites in America never consented to being reduced to a minority in the country their own ancestors founded. Whites have absolutely nothing to gain from giving up their status as the dominant majority, and this "collage of immigration and world culture" is becoming dangerously more unstable with every passing decade.

At least you're honest about being a xenophobic racist asshole. Good for you. I applaud your attempt to find a corner where you and the other racist xenophobes can be white all by yourselves. I hear there are various paramilitary white supremacist groups in Montana or Idaho who would welcome you.

And personally, I couldn't give a fig what the founding fathers foresaw socially. If I wanted to live like it was 1776, I'd be a live-in guide for colonial Williamsburg.

LonesomePolecat

10-14-2008, 02:09 PM

miss elizabeth

10-14-2008, 02:09 PM

Bambro

10-14-2008, 02:14 PM

LonesomePolecat

10-14-2008, 02:14 PM

At least you're honest about being a xenophobic racist asshole. Good for you. I applaud your attempt to find a corner where you and the other racist xenophobes can be white all by yourselves. I hear there are various paramilitary white supremacist groups in Montana or Idaho who would welcome you.

And personally, I couldn't give a fig what the founding fathers foresaw socially. If I wanted to live like it was 1776, I'd be a live-in guide for colonial Williamsburg. Better a "xenophobic racist asshole" than a simpering little eunuch who thinks it's a noble thing to embrace the decline of his own people.

mhendo

10-14-2008, 02:15 PM

This crap about how a less decent society was necessary to do away with racism is utter bullshit. There's. no. fucking. correlation.For the first time in a long time, you're absolutely right.

Because the only "evidence" we have that society is less decent nowdays is your deluded ramblings, which bear no resemblance to reality.And frankly, it's been my observation...And there it is again. The Starving Artist historical worldview in a nutshell. "If i didn't see it, then it didn't happen." The ne plus ultra of narrow-minded ignorance and parochialism.Well, first of all, remember that I'm talking about people hewing to liberal philosophy, not necessarily the Democrat party. When the cultural revolution began in the late sixties, liberal spokesmen like Timothy Leary, virtually every psychedelic or rock musician in existence, Hollywood, and virtually every leftie I knew at that time, latched onto drugs as if they were manna from heaven. That mindset was also part of the fun of the time...you know, sticking it to the man, not letting society tell you what you can put in your own body, etc., etc.

Leftie drug use became so prevalent that movements were born (vestiges of which remain today) to legalize them, and eventually everyone just came to view and accept them as part of day-to-day life in this country. Then that pro-drug mentality (which hopefully you will admit certainly hasn't emanated from the right) led to more harmful and destructive drugs like cocaine and meth, which has in turn led to the pain, misery, suffering and death that I described in my post which Rubystreak posted above.Actually, if the above-quoted section is what passes for historical understanding, analysis, and chains of causation in your feeble mind, i think you're probably better off simply sticking to personal anecdotes. You're just embarrassing yourself now. You really are just a hair's breadth shy of the loony moon landing and 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

Really Not All That Bright

10-14-2008, 02:17 PM

woodstockbirdybird

10-14-2008, 02:19 PM

Why, yes, I certainly must admit that's excellent compensation for watching my own culture and civilization being displaced by alien races and cultures from around the globe and slowly dying out. :rolleyes:

What culture would that be, you fucking mouth-breather? Maybe if you'd ever traveled to other countries you'd have noticed that American culture is the dominant culture in the world. Watch television or movies or go into a bookstore (or a Starbucks) fucking anywhere and tell me again how your poor precious culture's dying out. Oh, shit, but there are some brown skins opening up an "ethnic" restaurant on the corner! And there are fags on TV now! Fuck if the Christian white man isn't being attacked from all sides!

You utter moron.

DianaG

10-14-2008, 02:21 PM

LonesomePolecat, "lack of white privilege" does not equal "racism".

And don't tell me who the fuck "my people" are, you miserable excuse for a human.

Guinastasia

10-14-2008, 02:24 PM

Revenant Threshold

10-14-2008, 02:27 PM

I suspect "whiny little pussy" certainly matches someone in this thread. But then I don't know how tall LP is.

Terrifel

10-14-2008, 02:31 PM

Well, if I proudly claimed it, you should have no trouble finding it. Kindly post where I did so.What, nothing to say about your little video presentation? You actually watched it this time, didn't you? :D

You expressed your pride here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10307552&postcount=12) and your justification for her lack of classiness here. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10308254&postcount=15)

Although... at first I did think you were expressing pride in Palin; but on second reading, I begin to have doubts. The comparison to Jackie is so forced, that it takes on a patronizing quality, like the sort of compliment one might offer in support of a developmentally disabled child. "Little Sarah is so talented at dressing herself! She's as graceful as an angel, only with several extra malfunctioning chromosomes." I'm genuinely sorry if I misread your veiled disappointment as sincere enthusiasm. Lord knows, your political party isn't the only one that ever fucks up.

Bosstone

10-14-2008, 02:37 PM

Well, we have the answer to the thread title. Starving Artist is only almost insane. LonesomePolecat, on the other hand, is around the fucking bend.

jayjay

10-14-2008, 02:37 PM

Better a "xenophobic racist asshole" than a simpering little eunuch who thinks it's a noble thing to embrace the decline of his own people.

There are at least 200 fellow fegelahs who would dispute the "eunuch" designation.

And I don't HAVE a "my own people", other than humanity. I'm half Italian, the other half being Welsh, German, Iroquois and Irish. "My people" are mutts. Just like American culture.

And this whole thing about "your" culture disappearing. Duh. Cultures change. They're human constructs, not some kind of natural constant. Culture changes every day. The American culture of the 1950s (back before all of those "impure" influences were coming in) was very different from the American culture of the 1850s, which was vastly different from the American culture of the 1750s, which was quite different from the American culture of the 1650s. A Jamestown cavalier in Federal Philadelphia would feel like he was some kind of foreigner. And Boston abolitionist would be a complete stranger if he showed up in the Boston of 1953.

Trying to keep culture from changing is like trying to hold back the tide. At least Canute knew it was futile and only did it to prove that to his courtiers.

Hentor the Barbarian

10-14-2008, 02:45 PM

Mr. Moto, in the Beeyotches thread, said:

"Well, this view is more widely shared than you might think.

My older black friends often are strangely nostalgic for that era [bolding mine]- and when I asked one of them about that, he mentioned quite sensibly that civil rights marchers in suits and Sunday dresses wanted to share more equally in the decent society that existed then, not share equally in a less decent society that followed."

This crap about how a less decent society was necessary to do away with racism is utter bullshit. There's. no. fucking. correlation.OH! I didn't realize that you had empirical evidence. Mr. Moto says that he has some black friends who agreed!

Well, fucking QED.

I take back what I said before - you are dumb as a post. You are The Cruiser!

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 02:47 PM

What, nothing to say about your little video presentation? You actually watched it this time, didn't you? :D

You expressed your pride here (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10307552&postcount=12).And yet nowhere did I even hint that the Republican party was trying to find a classy, stylish VP candidate, did I?

No, I merely expressed happiness that we have an attractive, Jackie-esque personality on our side for a change, and then lamented the fact that, given today's liberal-driven society, women of Jackie's style, class and sophistication are in such very short supply these days.

Lord knows, your political party isn't the only one that ever fucks up. On this we can agree. :D

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 02:52 PM

OH! I didn't realize that you had empirical evidence. Mr. Moto says that he has some black friends who agreed!

Well, fucking QED.

I take back what I said before - you are dumb as a post. You are The Cruiser!And again Hector the Librarian shows his ass.

You are the one that brought up Mr. Moto's post, albeit in a fucked up way. I then post his actual comments for clarity and accuracy and it's proof that I'm dumb?

This is like shooting fish in a barrel.

jsgoddess

10-14-2008, 02:55 PM

OH! I didn't realize that you had empirical evidence. Mr. Moto says that he has some black friends who agreed!

That changes everything.

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 02:56 PM

And there it is again. The Starving Artist historical worldview in a nutshell. "If i didn't see it, then it didn't happen."You're getting to be a one-note Johnny. It won't be long until everyone else begins to skip over your posts too.

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 02:59 PM

Okay, Hector, the time has come...that time when I politely explain that real life beckons and must bid everyone a fond adeiu. So, take care all, and though I'm not sure how long it will be, I'll look forward to seeing you all later.

Hi, Zoe!

;)

Revenant Threshold

10-14-2008, 03:02 PM

It's true. We conservatives are a polite and considerate lot. You may have noticed that Revenant Threshold, the poster to whom I directed that comment, politely bade me goodnight as well. I'm actually a liberal, and being a liberal in Europe practically makes me a communist as far as American standards go. ;)

Hentor the Barbarian

10-14-2008, 03:04 PM

Okay, Hector, the time has come...that time when politely explain that real life beckons and must bid everyone a fond adeiu. So, take care all, and though I'm not sure how long it will be, I'll look forward to seeing you all later.

Hi, Zoe!

;)Ooo! Oooo! Goodbye, goodbye! I also have to run to the copier, which explains why I'll be away from my postings for a moment.

Thanks for letting me know why there will be no answer for a while when I ring you on the internet.

Dumbass.

jayjay

10-14-2008, 03:07 PM

Dumbass.

Hey! You're not promoting classiness there, you liberal!

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 03:07 PM

I'm actually a liberal...;)I know. I was merely pointing out that I was being genuinely polite and not doing so as a gig to liberals around here like Hector suggested. I mentioned you in order to illustrate that my politeness was taken by you in the spirit in which it was offered.

You're actually not a bad guy...even for a commie! ;)

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 03:09 PM

Ooo! Oooo! Goodbye, goodbye! I also have to run to the copier, which explains why I'll be away from my postings for a moment.

Thanks for letting me know why there will be no answer for a while when I ring you on the internet.

Dumbass.:D :D :D

Like I said, shooting fish in a barrel.

jayjay

10-14-2008, 03:12 PM

SA, I have to admit that, despite the fact that I think your Theory of Liberal Responsibility for the Decline and Fall of Civility and Grace is bunk, I do sometimes catch a glimmer of genuine humor in your posting demeanor. And I like that.

Unlike some of your starboard-side-of-the-aisle compatriots, you're not actually crazy, I don't think... (*coughlonesomepolecatcough*)

You're still wrong, though. :D

Rubystreak

10-14-2008, 03:16 PM

Why, yes, I certainly must admit that's excellent compensation for watching my own culture and civilization being displaced by alien races and cultures from around the globe and slowly dying out. :rolleyes:

Please define for us what exactly is this "American culture and civilization" you speak of, and offer evidence of its decline.

I personally thought the Statue of Liberty summed it up-- the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. All the white people came here on boats and mixed together with the other folks who came here in various ways in the proverbial and much vaunted "melting pot" to make American culture. It's a hybrid of everything the world has to offer, which is what makes it so damn potent, chaotic, and often contentious. I don't think it's dying at all. It's mutating, as it has been since its inception. That's why I am inquiring as to what you think our culture is, and why you think it's in decline. We must be operating from different definitions.

Carl Corey

10-14-2008, 03:20 PM

I think that Lonesome Polecat is jealous and wants his very own pitting.

Revenant Threshold

10-14-2008, 03:20 PM

I know. I was merely pointing out that I was being genuinely polite and not doing so as a gig to liberals around here like Hector suggested. I mentioned you in order to illustrate that my politeness was taken by you in the spirit in which it was offered.

You're actually not a bad guy...even for a commie! ;) Hmm. I think perhaps you shall be among the last to be put up againt the wall when your country is overrun in the name of the people. But it'll be a very polite shooting, I promise you.

jayjay

10-14-2008, 03:25 PM

Why, yes, I certainly must admit that's excellent compensation for watching my own culture and civilization being displaced by alien races and cultures from around the globe and slowly dying out. :rolleyes:

Do you know what you're actually saying here? You're saying that Western culture is a hothouse flower that cannot compete against encroachment from these supposedly "lesser" cultures and must be protected in a bubble of racial and cultural purity lest it be contaminated.

Doesn't say much for your opinion of the robustness of Western culture, does it?

Of course, "Western culture" is a dogwhistle for "white exceptionalism", so I really shouldn't expect any logical construct from you on that.

And, amazingly, I actually AM kind of disappointed, because while I knew he was a right-wing semi-kook, I never really thought Lonesome Polecat was a racist. I feel like someone told me the Easter Bunny smoked marijuana or something.

Tamerlane

10-14-2008, 03:28 PM

Why, yes, I certainly must admit that's excellent compensation for watching my own culture and civilization being displaced by alien races and cultures from around the globe and slowly dying out. :rolleyes:

Putting to one side your arguments against multiculturism and what our society should best be, arguments I personally disagree with, you do realize that no society remains static forever, yes?

All cultures "die" ( or more usually, evolve ) eventually. Even the most isolated, durable and long-lasting of cultures, say ancient Egypt, eventually changes for one reason or another. It is just a fact of history. And the more mobile humanity has become, both physically and in terms of communication, the faster the face of societies has changed around the world. You cannot halt the movement away from the dominant paradigm of 1950's USA ( itself an arguably atypical and anomalous period even by normal American standards ) anymore than you could have prevented the indutrial revolution and the growth of urbanization. The Founders undoubtedly didn't envision the decline of the "gentlemen farmer" agrarian model either. Doesn't mean anybody could have stopped it.

And railing bitterly against something that is as inevitable as death and taxes is just an exercise in frustration.

Terrifel

10-14-2008, 03:46 PM

And yet nowhere did I even hint that the Republican party was trying to find a classy, stylish VP candidate, did I? Ah, good point; when you put it that way, it does sound unlikely.
No, I merely expressed happiness that we have an attractive, Jackie-esque personality on our side for a change, and then lamented the fact that, given today's liberal-driven society, women of Jackie's style, class and sophistication are in such very short supply these days.I'm still having a hard time making that elusive connection between "Palin" and "Jackie-esque personality." Yes, she's "Jackie-esque" insofar as she is a woman; and arguably she also has a personality. But it's kind of a non sequitur otherwise.

If one were to embrace the "Camelot" metaphor, then I suppose Palin could be Guinevak. But I seem to recall that she was ultimately beaten to death, so maybe that's not a good idea either.

Kamino Neko

10-14-2008, 03:57 PM

Well, we have the answer to the thread title. Starving Artist is only almost insane. LonesomePolecat, on the other hand, is around the fucking bend.

He's not just round the bend...he's so far round the bend, he's on his third lap of the Crazyinapolis 500.

jsgoddess

10-14-2008, 04:01 PM

Ah, good point; when you put it that way, it does sound unlikely.

*snerk*

elucidator

10-14-2008, 04:10 PM

Starving Cher performs one more definitely last no this time I mean it encore for her Posolutely Absitively Final Farewell Tour, and then is finally coaxed out to sing Don't Cry for Me, Argentina....

Forgotten, but not gone...

Nancarrow

10-14-2008, 04:17 PM

Gosh, I recall that Lonesome Polecat was one of the board's right-wingers, but I didn't actually realise he was a white-power style racist.

LP, you'll be glad to know a (very) few British people (http://www.bnp.org.uk/) feel the same way you do! Enjoy reading the views of your soulmates.

Starving Artist, surely you must understand that when you proudly declare you will ignore reason, logic and inference from evidence as tools to determine what to think, in favour of sticking to your preconceptions... and when you show so little understanding of the idea that people can interpret their experiences erroneously and that's why we need science, statistics and reasoned debate... you are basically proclaiming to everyone around you that there is no reason whatsoever for them to believe anything you say! If the sole "arguments" you have for your beliefs are 'my experience tells me' and 'no one can seriously deny that', why should anyone pay attention to you?

Just because reasoned argument CAN be used to come to erroneous conclusions, it neither follows that

a) reasoned argument NECESSARILY ALWAYS comes to erroneous conclusions, nor that

b) fallacious reasoning and appeal to beliefs and unverifiable personal experience, are the smart alternative.

Look at the board's motto again. Are you sure you're on the right side?

Bambro

10-14-2008, 04:22 PM

I've been reading these boards for over 3 years now and LP's posts today are the very first time I have seen openly racists remarks.

Really Not All That Bright

10-14-2008, 04:27 PM

elucidator

10-14-2008, 04:28 PM

I've been reading these boards for over 3 years now and LP's posts today are the very first time I have seen openly racists remarks.

We usually keep him locked in the attic, but he gnawed through the leather straps again, and got loose....

Bambro

10-14-2008, 04:36 PM

We usually keep him locked in the attic, but he gnawed through the leather straps again, and got loose....

Bless his heart

DianaG

10-14-2008, 04:41 PM

This is the most explicit I've ever seen him be about his beliefs, but I don't think it's been a secret to anyone who's paid attention (not that I blame anyone for NOT paying attention). He's usually a bit more circumspect, but IME, people who are constantly crying about "anti-white racism" are generally racist.

Merijeek

10-14-2008, 04:43 PM

I've been reading these boards for over 3 years now and LP's posts today are the very first time I have seen openly racists remarks.

Yeah, be he's always been a right-wing tool. Unfortunately, his name is too close IMO to dancewithcats, who is a perfectly reasonable poster.

Sometimes I get them mixed up, and then I feel guilty towards dwc...

-Joe

Captain Carrot

10-14-2008, 04:49 PM

I'm betting we won't be very far into the next page before someone pits LonesomePolecat.

Bambro

10-14-2008, 04:56 PM

I normally like to stay in the pit because excellent debates grow here without the rules required in GD (also, I'm not as smart as all those guys). I was wondering, has LP ever posted his thoughts on this subject in GD?

I ask because I would be interested in seeing him attempt to build a valid case along these lines and try to defend it. I find the views he has expressed in this thread to be absolutely despicable, but I would like to see him try to defend it and get more detail on it beyond the few posts he has "contributed" to this thread.

I like to know my enemies.

Rubystreak

10-14-2008, 05:10 PM

I'm betting we won't be very far into the next page before someone pits LonesomePolecat.

Oh, why bother? Have you ever considered that he knows his POV irritates the shit out of people, and that's why he spouts it? I'm interested in hearing his side in a rational discourse if possible, just because people who think so differently from me having something novel to offer. But Pitting him? It will accomplish nothing but giving him lots of attention and turning otherwise nice folks into shrill scolds. Why waste the energy?

tomndebb

10-14-2008, 05:16 PM

[Sure you can. Black people themselves made terrific strides in achieving equal rights during the early to late-sixties by being polite, well-dressed and civil in their marches. It wasn't until white liberals got into the fray in the late sixties that decency went out the window.Having lived through the same era, I would be very interested in an exact timeline from you that supportsd any of this contention. And by exact timeline, I would like to see specific events and specific dates that demonstrate your claims, not some vague "50s = good, 70s = bad, ergo, 60s caused problems and the changes were all from liberals."

Libs (many anyway) love to get in the face of anyone who they think disagrees with them or isn't moving the way they want fast enough. Even Barack Obama exhorts his followers to "Argue with your friends and neighbors; get in their face". (Something I'm very happy about by the way. For one thing it shows me Obama isn't quite the rare though classy lib I thought he was, and second, if there's anything guaranteed to get somebody to do the opposite of what you want, it's to get in their face and tell them how they should think or vote.Right. There were no folks on the Right screaming "love it or leave it" in the 60s, no folks on the Right hurling stones and eggs and rotten fruit at those pacific marchers, no houses (and churches) being vandalized or burned (or bombed) when a person of "the wrong sort" tried to buy a house in a white neighborhood, no adults standing around screaming racial epithets at school kids for having the temerity to have been sent to schools closer to their homes or trying to get an education at a state supported college. There were no kids being expelled from school (politely I'm sure :rolleyes:) for being brazen enough to wear their hair as long as their collars. No one was ever challenged or ridiculed in public for suggesting that civil rights should be the birth right of every U.S. citizen. No one was ever harrassed for wearing odd clothing or for dancing to Rock and Roll.
The idea that civilty was only lost by and violence only encouraged from the Left has no bearing on reality. Whatever loss of civility we have suffered, (and I would agree that we have lost some), it arose from the general confusion of the times and trying to blame the Left (or trying to blame the Right), for that loss is little more than partisan revisionist history.

Guinastasia

10-14-2008, 05:16 PM

No, I merely expressed happiness that we have an attractive, Jackie-esque personality on our side for a change, and then lamented the fact that, given today's liberal-driven society, women of Jackie's style, class and sophistication are in such very short supply these days.

You're not serious, right?

As for LonesomePolecat, I'd like to know exactly WHICH "culture" he's talking about. New York? San Franscisco? Atlanta? Pittsburgh? *shudder*Cleveland*shudder*

magellan01

10-14-2008, 06:07 PM

Having lived through the same era, I would be very interested in an exact timeline from you that supportsd any of this contention. And by exact timeline, I would like to see specific events and specific dates that demonstrate your claims, not some vague "50s = good, 70s = bad, ergo, 60s caused problems and the changes were all from liberals."

Right. There were no folks on the Right screaming "love it or leave it" in the 60s, no folks on the Right hurling stones and eggs and rotten fruit at those pacific marchers, no houses (and churches) being vandalized or burned (or bombed) when a person of "the wrong sort" tried to buy a house in a white neighborhood, no adults standing around screaming racial epithets at school kids for having the temerity to have been sent to schools closer to their homes or trying to get an education at a state supported college. There were no kids being expelled from school (politely I'm sure :rolleyes:) for being brazen enough to wear their hair as long as their collars. No one was ever challenged or ridiculed in public for suggesting that civil rights should be the birth right of every U.S. citizen. No one was ever harrassed for wearing odd clothing or for dancing to Rock and Roll.
The idea that civilty was only lost by and violence only encouraged from the Left has no bearing on reality. Whatever loss of civility we have suffered, (and I would agree that we have lost some), it arose from the general confusion of the times and trying to blame the Left (or trying to blame the Right), for that loss is little more than partisan revisionist history.

I don't think this is correct. I think that the left is unquestionably responsible for the majority of change—for both good and ill. Conservatives are/were generally content with the status quo and change was instigated from the left. Again, there is good and bad to this. But I don't see what's wrong with hoping for the good, positive change while wishing we could avoid the increased crassness of society. Now, it may very well be that the two are inseparable, that you can't do away with one without sacrificing the other. But that also might NOT be the case.

And this doesn't address your post, but some of the others: there seems to be a notion that America is this neutral medium into which all these other cultures are free to change and alter. What I don't think is appreciated is that we are a culture unto ourselves, one worthy of protecting. I think the proof of this is that so many people from around the world want to come here. I do think that the old analogy of a melting pot is apt. But today there seems to be an idea that it is more of a paella (or substitute any similar ethnic dish). In the old analogy, everyone became an American, as it was defined before they came her. The new way is that new people coming here needn't do that. In fact, that their retaining their own culture makes ours better. I don't buy that argument at all. This is not to say that even the old analogy kept things pure. and that is not the goal. But it slowed the change so the whatever got added took affect slowly, allowing the underlying culture to slightly redefine itself with nuance, to the degree that the change was usually imperceptible.

I'd ask those who disagree with me two questions" 1) Is the American culture worth preserving? And 2) If it is, who will do it if not ourselves?

And one final note to jayjay regarding his hothouse analogy: gardens need tending. If you want a rose garden or a flower garden to thrive, you have to pull weeds, etc. The ability of one thing to withstand another on its own is not necessarily metric of worthiness or goodness. If so, their would be weeds and kudzu dominating every garden and farm..

Siege

10-14-2008, 06:10 PM

Why, yes, I certainly must admit that's excellent compensation for watching my own culture and civilization being displaced by alien races and cultures from around the globe and slowly dying out. :rolleyes:

Excuse me. Weren't Americans saying pretty much that exact same thing about 100 years ago? Only then, the "alien races" where the Irish, the Italians, and the Eastern Europeans. As I recall, Catholicism was seen as a large threat to America's Protestant culture and Catholics were a dangerous threat to America's culture.

I can't resist. If America's culture and civilization is being displaced by alien races and cultures from around the globe and slowly dying out, it certainly has been taking longer than we thought.

That or perhaps these things aren't the threat some folks think they are.

Rubystreak

10-14-2008, 06:23 PM

I don't think this is correct. I think that the left is unquestionably responsible for the majority of change—for both good and ill. Conservatives are/were generally content with the status quo and change was instigated from the left. Again, there is good and bad to this. But I don't see what's wrong with hoping for the good, positive change while wishing we could avoid the increased crassness of society. Now, it may very well be that the two are inseparable, that you can't do away with one without sacrificing the other. But that also might NOT be the case.

You are basing this on the assumption that society is more crass now. In some ways, it is. Sexuality and drug use are more overt, language is more colorful. But sex, drugs, and cussing were all around before the 60's, they were just dirty things that people did (and suffered for) in secret. The way people of color, gays, people of different religions, and women were treated was much crasser than now; attempts are at least made now to acknowledge equality and strive for it where it's not present. Children have more rights than they did then.

Thus, it really depends on what you choose to define as crass. Generally, it's what makes YOU uncomfortable (the general you, not you specifically, magellan), ignoring the crassness others suffer out of your line of sight. I'd say the net crassness of society is the same, it's just distributed differently. That's why people who whine about the loss of decorum, to me, seem to be whining that they are no longer being treated with kid gloves. Too bad. Change is messy.

Really Not All That Bright

10-14-2008, 06:27 PM

I'd ask those who disagree with me two questions" 1) Is the American culture worth preserving? And 2) If it is, who will do it if not ourselves?
What is "the American culture"? Baseball? Hot dogs? I don't think either is in imminent or even foreseeable danger of being displaced... by squash and calamari, perhaps?

There's no such thing as "the American culture".

If you define "American culture" as "things which are American", then by any reasonable definition, American culture is displacing the indigenous cultures of the rest of the world. Coca-Cola is the global icon of the soft drink. McDonald's is the world's best known restaurant. Hollywood makes the movies that the rest of the world watches. Rock and roll and hip hop dominate the airwaves. The legs of the human race are encased in Levis.

So tell me, what is American culture, and where is it going?

In some respects, Lonesome Polecat's screed makes a little bit of sense. As an Englishman of Indian descent, I considered it reasonable for others to expect that I adopt English customs. Since I didn't like Indian food anyway and was never asked to learn Hindi by my parents, that suited me just fine. I believe, generally, that immigrants to any country should do their best to learn the language and customs.

The problem with this position is that I've never met any local (white American or Briton) who said things like that and didn't follow up with "but if it were up to me they'd all be sent home".

woodstockbirdybird

10-14-2008, 06:50 PM

I'd ask those who disagree with me two questions" 1) Is the American culture worth preserving? And 2) If it is, who will do it if not ourselves?

I'll answer your two questions with two of my own:

1) How is American culture in danger of not being "preserved"? Give concrete examples.

2) Who do you mean by "ourselves"? Only those who were born here more than 2 generations ago?

Robot Arm

10-14-2008, 06:54 PM

What is "the American culture"? Baseball? Hot dogs? I don't think either is in imminent or even foreseeable danger of being displaced... by squash and calamari, perhaps?

There's no such thing as "the American culture".

If you define "American culture" as "things which are American", then by any reasonable definition, American culture is displacing the indigenous cultures of the rest of the world. Coca-Cola is the global icon of the soft drink. McDonald's is the world's best known restaurant. Hollywood makes the movies that the rest of the world watches. Rock and roll and hip hop dominate the airwaves. The legs of the human race are encased in Levis.I can't tell you how many New York Yankees hats I saw in Germany. I think there were more KFC's in Prague than there are in Boston. (It works the other way around, too; I see Swarovski crystal shops in every mall, now.) But, chances are that whatever eventually replaces rock and roll and hip hop will get its start here, too.

Starving Artist, have you seen the movie Pleasantville? Two modern teens (except it's a ten-year-old movie) are transported into a black-and-white, 50's sitcom. Everyone goes about their lives without asking questions; without even the vocabulary to ask them. Where does the road out of town lead? to the other side of town; where else is there?

And the interlopers expand their horizons. They bring knowlege of art, travel, pleasure; questions, imperfections, challenges. A student misses a shot at basketball practice and everyone avoids that ball like a live grenade (not that they'd know what that is). There is great turmoil, and the local bigwigs resist the changes.

Just a movie, I know, but I always thought it was very well done; and rather daring to make such a statement about the joys and benefits of being corrupted by knowlege.

tomndebb

10-14-2008, 08:04 PM

I don't think this is correct. I think that the left is unquestionably responsible for the majority of change—for both good and ill. Conservatives are/were generally content with the status quo and change was instigated from the left. Again, there is good and bad to this. But I don't see what's wrong with hoping for the good, positive change while wishing we could avoid the increased crassness of society. Now, it may very well be that the two are inseparable, that you can't do away with one without sacrificing the other. But that also might NOT be the case.There is a reason that the standard epithet hurled at the Right from 1968 to 1973 was "reactionary." It may be a "liberal" thrust that initiates some change, but the direction and energy of the change can easily be propelled or even controlled by the reactions to it.

A pop music group began wearing their hair longer and over their eyes. Their popularity led others to emulate or expand on that style. So far, all we have is people choosing hair styles--no violence.
In reaction, school authorities declared draconian rules that prohibited the styles (based on no good reason except that "change is bad") and began expelling students who adopted the styles, occasionally forcibly cutting or shaving the hair off, and setting a tone that encouraged some fellow students (typically associated with the "jocks," although hardly found exclusively among athletes or among all athletes) to begin to pick fights and harrass students with longer hair.
So a simple hair style sets in motion excessive and arbitrary rules and violence, but it is the "changes" of the "liberals" that has caused society to implode.

Nope. Don't buy it. Won't even rent it. Can't make me accept it as a gift.

magellan01

10-14-2008, 08:14 PM

There is a reason that the standard epithet hurled at the Right from 1968 to 1973 was "reactionary." It may be a "liberal" thrust that initiates some change, but the direction and energy of the change can easily be propelled or even controlled by the reactions to it.

A pop music group began wearing their hair longer and over their eyes. Their popularity led others to emulate or expand on that style. So far, all we have is people choosing hair styles--no violence.
In reaction, school authorities declared draconian rules that prohibited the styles (based on no good reason except that "change is bad") and began expelling students who adopted the styles, occasionally forcibly cutting or shaving the hair off, and setting a tone that encouraged some fellow students (typically associated with the "jocks," although hardly found exclusively among athletes or among all athletes) to begin to pick fights and harrass students with longer hair.
So a simple hair style sets in motion excessive and arbitrary rules and violence, but it is the "changes" of the "liberals" that has caused society to implode.

Nope. Don't buy it. Won't even rent it. Can't make me accept it as a gift.

What?!! How can you deny that the left—the liberal, theprogressives—are the ones that initiated change? That was the point of my post which you seemed to have contorted into...well, something else. And I'm not sure what. That the left is responsible for most change is a non-partisan statement, because, as I said, they have initiated change both good and bad. Were not, are not, the conservatives usually the ones resistant to change? If so, where where does this force for change come from?

Camus

10-14-2008, 08:56 PM

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 09:49 PM

Regarding Lonesome Polecat's anger, I'm going to risk raising an uproar that I don't have time to deal with, but I think it's something that needs to be said if we're all going to be open and honest here.

I may be wrong, and I hope he will correct me if so and I will apologize, but I think the burr under his saddle is illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Time and time again I've seen and heard conservatives accused of racism because they object to the utterly unprecedented influx of illegal Mexican immigrants into this country. And what is the reason for this conservative objection? It's illegal!!! But no, not according to the left. Predictably, they contend that conservative objection to the illegality of it is simply a mask to cover racism, just like any other conservative objection to anything involving non-whites is called racism.

I don't know of any country in the world that allows people to flood willy-nilly and almost totally unchecked through its borders. Passports and visas exist for a reason, and that is to control immigration. Every country does it.

But not here. At least not when it comes to Mexico. No, we allow them to flood into the country, and thanks to the left we have movements afoot to give them drivers' licenses, health care paid for with U.S. tax dollars, legislation to require Spanish language alongside English in government offices (and undoubtedly required of private business soon, if the typical slippery slope kicks in).

Now, how in the hell liberals can look people in the eye and claim this is all okay and call people who object to it racist is a complete mystery to me. These people are breaking the law! They are not supposed to be here! This is just more of the same PC bullying that the left has engaged in for the last forty years or more. The objection has nothing to do with race! Period! My next door neighbor is from Mexico and she came here legally. She applied, went through the waiting period, got approved and is now the supervisor of three McDonald's stores. She is pissed off as hell that all these people are being allowed to come here illegally and get away with it. She is also pissed that the left in this country is agitating for citizenship and government assistance for them.

I'm with jayjay regarding the benefits and enjoyment to be derived from a multi-cultural society, but I'm adamantly opposed to illegal immigration and the would-be social programs and benefits related to it.

tomndebb

10-14-2008, 10:00 PM

What?!! How can you deny that the left—the liberal, theprogressives—are the ones that initiated change? That was the point of my post which you seemed to have contorted into...well, something else. And I'm not sure what. That the left is responsible for most change is a non-partisan statement, because, as I said, they have initiated change both good and bad. Were not, are not, the conservatives usually the ones resistant to change? If so, where where does this force for change come from?Let's see. You opened the post to which I responded with the statement I don't think this is correct. I think that the left is unquestionably responsible for the majority of change—for both good and ill.Now, I had not actually made any statements regarding who had initiated changes. I simply noted that the actions of moving toward incivility arose as much from the Right as from the Left. Starting out a post by saying my statement is incorrect and then attacking a point I had not made seems to be a bit contorted, itself.

My response to your post does not even deny that the initial change might have come from the Left. I simply note that once a change is initiated, it is quite possible that the force of the change and the direction of the change can be driven by reaction to the change. (And unlike you, I did not even claim that your statement was incorreect; I simply put the discussion into the context of the earlier exchange with Starving Artist.)

So let's review:
I made a statement challenging a claim by Starving Artist.
You posted to say that you thought my statement was incorrect, but did not actually address any error I might have made, making a different point altogether.
I responded without contradicting the point you felt was so important, but with additional information to explain my earlier comment.
You stormed back, demanding to know how I could say something I had not said and then complaining that I had "contorted" your statement even though I did not actually address your hijack, merely clarifying the point I had made earlier.Go drink some camomile tea and rest your fevered brow on a cool ice pack.
Come back and read our exchange after a night's sleep and try to understand exactly what has been posted.
Please do not burn any straw men in my honor and pay attention to what I have said, not what you want me to have said. :D

RickJay

10-14-2008, 10:08 PM

There's a laugh. The left today is motivated by a profound hatred of everything white, Western and Christian. You want to hear some real racism, honey? Go hang out with William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.
It's funny how you think William Ayers is black.

Please don't deny you thought that, because you did.

askeptic

10-14-2008, 10:13 PM

The left today is motivated by a profound hatred of everything white, Western and Christian.

Dude just admit it you're a plant for some radical left wing group to make conservatives look bad. Nobody could really be as stupid as you sound.

tomndebb

10-14-2008, 10:14 PM

Time and time again I've seen and heard conservatives accused of racism because they object to the utterly unprecedented influx of illegal Mexican immigrants into this country. And what is the reason for this conservative objection? It's illegal!!! But no, not according to the left. Predictably, they contend that conservative objection to the illegality of it is simply a mask to cover racism, just like any other conservative objection to anything involving non-whites is called racism.Well, there are a few other aspects of the situation. (I do not agree with the notion of accusing everyone who opposes illegal immigration of racism.) The reason that so many illegals come to the U.S. is that they can find work, here. They tend to find work from businesses--often dominated by individuals on the Right, from meat packers to small construction outfits.
Therefore, while the leap to accusations of racism might be hasty and ultimately unsupported, it does tend to look a bit odd to see one side of the political divide both attacking and supporting the illegal immigration and, while I consider it unfortunate, i think it is understandable that some folks on the Left would see that as hypocrisy and wonder aloud if the motivation has more to do with skin color than law. (It does not help the position of those opposing the illegals to have such luminaries as Pat Buchanan and John Tanton (founder of the principle organizations promoting the curtailment of immigration and the estblishment of English as a national language) making snide comments about being overrun by brown people or making outright racist remarks. I do not think that everyone who opposes illegal immigration must be fellow traveler of those two, but I have certainly seen fewer efforts among the people opposing illegal immigration to distance themselves from or condemn their racist comments than I have seen Muslim leaders trying to distance themselves from or condemn al Qaida or Hezbollah.)

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 10:52 PM

You raise good points, Tom...or Debb, I never know who I'm talking to when it comes to you two. :)

However, now that you mention it I can see how it might look odd to see conservatives lambasting illegal immigration while at the same time some are taking advantage of it.

I suspect that many of these employers are against illegal immigration philosophically, but since not hiring them wouldn't do anything to correct the situation, they feel they might as well go ahead and hire them and enjoy the benefits of having these generally highly dependable, hard working people working for their companies.

As far as your not seeing people trying to distance themselves from racist comments made by some right-wing agitator, my guess would be that first of all they don't have much of a platform to do so.

Princhester

10-14-2008, 10:55 PM

At a decisive moment in the run up to an election here a few years ago there was an incident in which some Iraqi refugees attempted to get into Australia by boat. The incumbent's strong and harsh reaction to exclude them is credited with him winning the election.

It was as you can imagine a very hot button issue at the time and I spoke to many Australians about it. Many that I spoke to (and indeed debated with here) said that the issue was illegality, pure and simple. They just didn't like the fact that these Iraqis were said to be coming here illegally. Those on the right particularly got the epithet "illegals" to stick as the standard way to describe these people. They denied any element of racism.

Yet without fail, if I said: "so if these people were white folks escaping a dictatorship who turned up on our shores without going through the correct channels, you'd be OK with treating them as we are treating the Iraqis?"

There was not a single person who didn't duck the question or go silent.

"Illegality" is a bullshit excuse.

woodstockbirdybird

10-14-2008, 11:00 PM

Princhester

10-14-2008, 11:03 PM

I suspect that many of these employers are against illegal immigration philosophically, but since not hiring them wouldn't do anything to correct the situation, they feel they might as well go ahead and hire them and enjoy the benefits of having these generally highly dependable, hard working people working for their companies.

Which is kind of like paying huge sums of money to your dealer for your drugs, while wondering why drugrunners keep flouting harsh penalties for bringing drugs into the country.

If every right wing business owner (and let's face it that's most business owners) stopped hiring them, that would do something to "correct the situation". Why the fuck do you think they come?

The reason the right is both for and against illegal immigration is that the right comprises both rednecks and business interests. The latter control the party, but they pay lip service to policies that appeal to the former.

Starving Artist

10-14-2008, 11:06 PM

Hardly an analogous situation. People weren't flooding into Australia from a next-door neighbor with no end in sight. People weren't agitating for citizenship, language laws, and taxpayer supported health care, child care, etc.

There may well have been concern over whether or not at least some of the Iraqis were anti-west agitators, but not being the incumbent I wouldn't know.

I would certainly have favored giving them asylum if it could be determined that their plight was as innocent and genuine as your post implies.

"Illegality" is a bullshit excuse. Thanks for proving my point. :rolleyes:

ETA: Thanks jayjay for your comments on the preceeding page. It's nice to know that someone picks up on my little tidbits of humor. I've wondered from time to time if anyone does. :p

Starving Artist

10-15-2008, 12:44 AM

Starving Artist, surely you must understand that when you proudly declare you will ignore reason, logic and inference from evidence as tools to determine what to think, in favour of sticking to your preconceptions... and when you show so little understanding of the idea that people can interpret their experiences erroneously and that's why we need science, statistics and reasoned debate... you are basically proclaiming to everyone around you that there is no reason whatsoever for them to believe anything you say! If the sole "arguments" you have for your beliefs are 'my experience tells me' and 'no one can seriously deny that', why should anyone pay attention to you?I haven't declared anything proudly. I've stated unequivocally and in no uncertain terms that since no so-called facts can possibly be presented to settle any of the numerous points that come up in these subjective discussions, and since whatever so-call facts presented can invariably be contested with facts asserting the opposite, I will not waste my time quibbling over them.

I don't do that out of a sense of pride; I do it to make my position and the reasons for it perfectly clear. It saves a lot of time, and keeps people from trying to obfuscate things with facts that ultimately prove nothing.

As far as forming opinions based on personal experience, we all do it. People have neither the time nor resources to verify the veracity of every opinion they form. If someone posts something that I think has legs, and I trust their integrity as a poster, I will look at it and if I find it convincing I will accept it. But just because someone posts something that he alleges to be probative in regard to this issue or that, if I can see that it will only lead to obfuscation or misdirection, I will disregard it. People around here love to go Googling for something to support their position and come up with this or that piece of 'evidence' and slap it down and act as though it should settle the issue. More often than not, Googling in an effort to support the opposite can be found just as easily, so what's the point?

Just because reasoned argument CAN be used to come to erroneous conclusions, it neither follows that

a) reasoned argument NECESSARILY ALWAYS comes to erroneous conclusions, nor that You're correct; it doesn't. And if I find someone's argument or point persuasive, as I did with tomndebb's point regarding illegal immigrants upthread, I will accept it and respond accordingly.

b) fallacious reasoning and appeal to beliefs and unverifiable personal experience, are the smart alternative.Fallacious reasoning? Ignoring reason? I don't suppose it will come as much of a surprise to you that I disagree quite heartily with these assessments.

Look at the board's motto again. Are you sure you're on the right side?Frankly, outside the Cecil page and GQ, and given the utter, utter bullshit I routinely see posted around here about conservatives that invariably go uncontested by the board's legion of so-called ignorance-fighters, I've come to find that the notion that this board fights ignorance is utterly laughable. This board - and I mean this sincerely - doesn't fight ignorance, it promotes it!

mhendo

10-15-2008, 02:18 AM

Revenant Threshold

10-15-2008, 02:26 AM

I haven't declared anything proudly. I've stated unequivocally and in no uncertain terms that since no so-called facts can possibly be presented to settle any of the numerous points that come up in these subjective discussions, and since whatever so-call facts presented can invariably be contested with facts asserting the opposite, I will not waste my time quibbling over them.

I don't do that out of a sense of pride; I do it to make my position and the reasons for it perfectly clear. It saves a lot of time, and keeps people from trying to obfuscate things with facts that ultimately prove nothing.

As far as forming opinions based on personal experience, we all do it. People have neither the time nor resources to verify the veracity of every opinion they form. If someone posts something that I think has legs, and I trust their integrity as a poster, I will look at it and if I find it convincing I will accept it. But just because someone posts something that he alleges to be probative in regard to this issue or that, if I can see that it will only lead to obfuscation or misdirection, I will disregard it. People around here love to go Googling for something to support their position and come up with this or that piece of 'evidence' and slap it down and act as though it should settle the issue. More often than not, Googling in an effort to support the opposite can be found just as easily, so what's the point? But surely if the problem with, and reason to dismiss, statistical evidence is that it is just as easy to find stats that say exactly the opposite, then personal experience should be doubly dismissable, the number of people with differing personal experiences being considerably larger than the number of studies on a subject? That's the problem with judging by personal experience; studies can be biased, mistaken, wrongly designed or implemented, reported wrongly, or misinterpreted. But personal experience can be all those things much more easily.

I'm concerned because it seems to me it's all too easy to seperate integrity of posters by viewpoint. Earlier in the thread you've used your own personal experience, and cited Mr. Moto's, as good evidence. But you've also suggested that people on the left believe what they believe because of what they've been erroneously taught or told, suggesting that their personal experience is not to be trusted. That can be reasonable, as you've pointed out above; why trust what people say if they have no integrity? The problem lies in how you determine they have no integrity; it seems to me that if your view of integrity divides strongly by left/right lines, it could be that difference that leads you to understand integrity. So-and-so is clearly misled or lying, because they believe differently than I do, and they couldn't have come to that honestly.

This is of course a worst-case scenario. So if I may, i'll ask; how do you judge whether a poster has integrity? Who on the left on this board would you consider to have it, to the extent you would be willing to trust what they say about their personal experiences?

Equipoise

10-15-2008, 02:36 AM

Aw, fuck that shit, you whiny little pussy. Anti-white racism is the most ubiquitous form of racism today, and multiculturalism is one of its forms. The men who founded this country never intended it to be a beautiful multicultural rainbow, and whites in America never consented to being reduced to a minority in the country their own ancestors founded. Whites have absolutely nothing to gain from giving up their status as the dominant majority, and this "collage of immigration and world culture" is becoming dangerously more unstable with every passing decade.

Regarding Lonesome Polecat's anger, I'm going to risk raising an uproar that I don't have time to deal with, but I think it's something that needs to be said if we're all going to be open and honest here.

I may be wrong, and I hope he will correct me if so and I will apologize, but I think the burr under his saddle is illegal immigrants from Mexico.

...

As far as your not seeing people trying to distance themselves from racist comments made by some right-wing agitator, my guess would be that first of all they don't have much of a platform to do so.

You just had a platform. You blew it.

Princhester

10-15-2008, 03:10 AM

People weren't flooding into Australia from a next-door neighbor with no end in sight. People weren't agitating for citizenship, language laws, and taxpayer supported health care, child care, etc.

Ironically, if you had made this point in Australia at the time you would have been one of the very few right wing people to have been doing so, and you would have been contradicting the very way that the incumbent right wing admin was portraying the situation.

And speaking of "making my point for me" if you check up thread you will find that you started this tangent off by saying that conservative objection to immigration was "illegality". Yet you only have to touch the surface and you find suddenly it's not about that at all. It's suddenly about people wanting citizenship, language laws etc.

I appreciate that my story about an Australian incident is not directly comparable, but what it does show (like your swift change of direction just noted) is that when it comes to immigration, the sudden deep and abiding concern for the letter of the law is usually a front for what lies underneath.

magellan01

10-15-2008, 03:13 AM

I think what tomndebb was pointing out is that you're ascribing political motives to changes that may not have been political at all (at least, when they first started). The left isn't some monolithic entity in which everyone who wanted change had to become some sort of card-carrying member of before-hand. Saying that anyone who initiated social/political change in the '60s or '70s is a liberal begs the question of why anyone who initiated change before then wouldn't be a liberal too. The Mormons in the 1820s-30s started massive social changes within their group until forced into exile in Utah weren't liberals. The Founding Fathers changed both the entire political and social order (relatively speaking for the time) by breaking away and declaring that all (white, land-owning) men were considered political equals and entitled to a vote. Change is created by those with vision, whether considered good or bad at the time or by posterity - not just by liberals.

I do think he and I were talking past each other, but I was not ascribing as much credit as I was blame. In fact, my comment was non judgmental. I only was making the point that change In modern times) starts from the left. But I appreciate you helping to shed light. Thank you.

magellan01

10-15-2008, 03:26 AM

Let's see. You opened the post to which I responded with the statement Now, I had not actually made any statements regarding who had initiated changes. I simply noted that the actions of moving toward incivility arose as much from the Right as from the Left. Starting out a post by saying my statement is incorrect and then attacking a point I had not made seems to be a bit contorted, itself.

My response to your post does not even deny that the initial change might have come from the Left. I simply note that once a change is initiated, it is quite possible that the force of the change and the direction of the change can be driven by reaction to the change. (And unlike you, I did not even claim that your statement was incorreect; I simply put the discussion into the context of the earlier exchange with Starving Artist.)

So let's review:
[list] I made a statement challenging a claim by Starving Artist.
You posted to say that you thought my statement was incorrect, but did not actually address any error I might have made, making a different point altogether.

I thought it was clear. I very politely said I thought you were incorrect. I thought that your response sought to counter SA's claim about change being initiated from the left. I reread your response and still get that impression. And I think the current post of yours (first bullet) admits that.

I responded without contradicting the point you felt was so important, but with additional information to explain my earlier comment.

You were free to contradict it. I now think, from the post by Camus, that you were not necessarily disagreeing with SA, just adding to it. Is that right? If so, my apologies for missing it. But on the other hand, you just said above that your statement was, in fact "challenging" SA's claim. Hence, my confusion.

Sophistry and Illusion

10-15-2008, 03:36 AM

you whiny little pussy.
Damn straight our white American culture is under attack! Why, you can't even go into Applebee's anymore without being offered a margarita or some fajitas! And whenever I set foot on US soil, it is only to be greeted by incessant anti-white racism.

You, sir, are also so right that in this thread there is at least one whiny pussy who cries like a little bitch at the drop of a hat.

Gyrate

10-15-2008, 05:06 AM

I must confess that Lonesome Polecat's outburst against multiculturalism disappointed me greatly as I hadn't realized his views were quite so extreme.

But no, alas, LP is turning into these people (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hfVYRHHSt0U).

<sigh>

Starving Artist

10-15-2008, 10:11 AM

et you only have to touch the surface and you find suddenly it's not about that at all. It's suddenly about people wanting citizenship, language laws etc.I swear if it weren't for the fact that I know better, I'd think people like you are from Mars.

Of course we have a problem with their wanting citizenship, language laws and welfare. They're here illegally!

What the fuck is wrong with you?

P.S. - And actually, it doesn't seem to be the illegal immigrants themselves who want all these things; they seem happy to fly under the radar and hope no one notices them. It seems to be their relatives who are here legally and white liberals (plus Democrat politicians wanting to pander to those two groups for votes) who do most of the agitating for citizenship and taxpayer-funded benefits for them.

P.P.S. - Revenant Threshold, you bring up good points and ask questions that will take a while to answer. I'll try to answer them later in the day when I have more time.

Hentor the Barbarian

10-15-2008, 10:13 AM

P.P.S. - Revenant Threshold, you bring up good points and ask questions that will take a while to answer. I'll try to answer them later in the day when I have more time.Whatcha gonna do in the meantime? Can I tag along?

Bambro

10-15-2008, 10:14 AM

I swear if it weren't for the fact that I know better, I'd think people like you are from Mars.

Of course we have a problem with their wanting citizenship, language laws and welfare. They're here illegally!

What the fuck is wrong with you?

P.S. - And actually, it doesn't seem to be the illegal immigrants themselves who want all these things; they seem happy to fly under the radar and hope no one notices them. It seems to be their relatives who are here legally and white liberals (plus Democrat politicians wanting to pander to those two groups for votes) who do most of the agitating for citizenship and taxpayer-funded benefits for them.

P.P.S. - Revenant Threshold, you bring up good points and ask questions that will take a while to answer. I'll try to answer them later in the day when I have more time.

What is wrong with them wanting citizenship so that they are no longer here illegally?

Starving Artist

10-15-2008, 10:27 AM

What is wrong with them wanting citizenship so that they are no longer here illegally?:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: and :smack:!

The same thing that would be wrong with my breaking into your house and then wanting you to make me a member of your family so that I'll no longer be there illegally.

SteveG1

10-15-2008, 11:03 AM

What is wrong with them wanting citizenship so that they are no longer here illegally?
They are a threat to the American Culture and will change everything - the "culture" that is really bits and pieces of other cultures. Society will break down. The end of civilization. Crime in the streets. Rioting. Foreign allegiances. Funny languages. The wrong color. Zombies eating our brains. The end of all life on this planet.

Ya know, the usual stuff. :rolleyes:

Gyrate

10-15-2008, 11:14 AM

Of course we have a problem with their wanting citizenship, language laws and welfare. They're here illegally!

What the fuck is wrong with you? I think the point is that the illegality itself is initially cited as the problem but when probed it is the other issues (usually pertaining to using public resources) that seem to be the actual problem.

P.S. - And actually, it doesn't seem to be the illegal immigrants themselves who want all these things; they seem happy to fly under the radar and hope no one notices them. It seems to be their relatives who are here legally and white liberals (plus Democrat politicians wanting to pander to those two groups for votes) who do most of the agitating for citizenship and taxpayer-funded benefits for them. Strangely I almost agree with you.

Frankly I'd rather we had a group of legal immigrant workers who were both eligible for public services and covered by employment law (specifically minimum wage and health and safety laws) and also paid income taxes and were a part of the communities, rather than a bunch of illegals bussed in, housed separately, exploited to the hilt and then shipped back home. The best way to avoid the problem of illegal migrant workers is for them not to have any jobs - but then we'd have to prosecute the businesses hiring them rather than the funny dark-skinned people themselves.

Which is not to say I want indiscriminate immigration, blanket amnesties and no deportation. I just want a sensible migrant worker visa system and the employers of illegals hit harder to reduce the demand. Illegal migrant workers are like drugs - we blame the suppliers but if we weren't buying them they wouldn't be coming into the country.

As for granting some of them citizenship - whether you agree with it in principle it might nevertheless be a pragmatic solution. We need the cheap labor and they're already here. Let's draft 'em and shut the door behind them.

Bambro

10-15-2008, 11:18 AM

:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: and :smack:!

The same thing that would be wrong with my breaking into your house and then wanting you to make me a member of your family so that I'll no longer be there illegally.

You're fuckin with me, right?

One of these things is not like the other.

How do you personally feel about loosening up the restrictions on coming to the country lawfully so as to accommodate the number of people already coming into the country? If the laws were changed so that we had just as many aliens coming into the country, but they were actually coming in legally, would that be OK with you?

*spell check changed OK to uppercase. I am not trying to stress the term in any way.

Bambro

10-15-2008, 11:32 AM

You're fuckin with me, right?

One of these things is not like the other.

How do you personally feel about loosening up the restrictions on coming to the country lawfully so as to accommodate the number of people already coming into the country? If the laws were changed so that we had just as many aliens coming into the country, but they were actually coming in legally, would that be OK with you?

*spell check changed OK to uppercase. I am not trying to stress the term in any way.

Missed the edit window....Upon rereading my post the underline portion sounds unnecessarily condescending. Please disregard.

I would appreciate you answering the rest of the post though.

Starving Artist

10-15-2008, 12:06 PM

GIGObuster

10-15-2008, 12:25 PM

If they were here legally on work visas, paying taxes on their earnings, and subject to the same conditions and limitations as any other immigrant, I would have no problem with that. I would not support a wholesale restructuring of the law to make them suddenly legal because they knowingly broke the law to get here in the first place.

P.S. - Thanks for the apology, though it wasn't needed as I didn't find the underlined comments condescending at all. They struck me as pretty much the standard type of reponse one can expect when talking with someone who has a completely different way of looking at things than they do.

But anyway, thanks again. I do appreciate it. :)
I had to escape the civil war in El Salvador and be an illegal for some years in the USA. Thanks to the amnesty (and the current immigration changes proposed lately are not amnesty) of the 80's I became a legal resident and now I'm a US Citizen, as a guy who still had to pay taxes and never filed to get a refund when I was an illegal, I have to say that you are just a certified ignorant with inhuman ideals regarding this subject.

Bambro

10-15-2008, 12:33 PM

SA,

So assuming that we have exactly the same number and type of aliens in America, only they were here on work visas, that would be acceptable. No decline in the number who didn't speak english, didn't have insurance, and had government welfare programs more readily available to them...that would suit you just fine?

I just want to be clear that as long as they were here legally and paying taxes that it wouldn't matter the number (even if that number were to increase), or their ability or willingness to acclimate to our customs and language, in your view? If all that our current bunch of illegal immigrants needed to do was walk back across the border, get a work visa and then come back to the U.S. legally, that would be OK? If the price of products, whose manufacturers rely on illegal immigration for cost effective production were to go up due to the increase in pay needed to cover the taxation of these immigrants, that would be agreeable to you?

If so, I may not agree with that view but I can't really claim hypocrisy on your part.

That is not how LP's posts read though (which is how we got started on this). He spoke to the downfall of white, Christian culture. That sounds like a totally different kettle of fish to me.

On Preview: GIGO, I had no idea that illegal immigrant wages are still taxed. Ignorance fought...But how do illegals continue to stay under the federal radar if they are being taxed? Or does the federal government simply have more important things to worry about besides an illegal immigrant who works hard and breaks no other laws besides immigration laws?

Really Not All That Bright

10-15-2008, 12:45 PM

:smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: :smack: and :smack:!

The same thing that would be wrong with my breaking into your house and then wanting you to make me a member of your family so that I'll no longer be there illegally.
Right, because America is privately owned, just like his house. Makes perfect sense.

I can't believe you haven't heard this before, but it should be pretty freaking obvious by now that restricting illegal immigration with the usual policy of "guard the borders and deport" doesn't work.

If you have a problem with bears getting into your trash, you can deal with it two ways: 1) shoot the bears (guess what? there are always more bears!), or 2) Keep your trash out of the bears' reach. Similarly, you can either 1) keep spending money rounding up illegals, or you can 2) start working with the other people who benefit from illegal immigration - employers.

Since 1) doesn't work, and Republicans will never allow 2) - wonder why - illegal immigrants are here to stay - so us filthy hippie liberals will continue to work to get these people protected and educated.

GIGObuster

10-15-2008, 12:50 PM

On Preview: GIGO, I had no idea that illegal immigrant wages are still taxed. Ignorance fought...But how do illegals continue to stay under the federal radar if they are being taxed? Or does the federal government simply have more important things to worry about besides an illegal immigrant who works hard and breaks no other laws besides immigration laws?
This was circa 1981, it was easier to use a false number and the company still deduced federal and local taxes from your pay, never saw a penny of a return since I did not dare to file a return then, I do not think the government had or has any priority in investigating why some people do not request refunds. Now I'm a citizen but before I never had even a parking ticket, the only direct encounter with the law was after becoming a citizen, I had to serve twice on jury duty and had to take a bastard US native roommate to court to evict him from my apartment. That has remained a worse crime to me than what anything the anti immigrant people assume the current illegals are committing just by being here.

Really Not All That Bright

10-15-2008, 12:58 PM

WF Tomba

10-15-2008, 02:03 PM

The men who founded this country never intended it to be a beautiful multicultural rainbow, and whites in America never consented to being reduced to a minority in the country their own ancestors founded.
For the record, as a white American man, I consent to it. And my solution to the illegal immigration issue is to make it legal. Forget work visas; let everyone in except criminals and terrorists. Let them all settle here and become naturalized citizens as long as they obey the law and pay their taxes. And let them speak their own languages as much as they please, just like the Italians and the Pennsylvania Dutch and my father's ancestors who probably showed up here speaking some weird combination of Russian and Yiddish, and my brother-in-law's ancestors who came here speaking Chinese. They'll all learn English within a few generations, because English is the international language anyway.

Anyone who thinks that American "white culture" is somehow in danger of dying out is hallucinating.

Edit: To answer the OP, yes, Starving Artist is bonkers. I am thinking of a thread where he mentioned that based on his own observations, it was evident that blacks were happier in the 50s.

Equipoise

10-15-2008, 03:38 PM

The men who founded this country never intended it to be a beautiful multicultural rainbow, and whites in America never consented to being reduced to a minority in the country their own ancestors founded.

For the record, as a white American man, I consent to it. As a white American, I consent to it too. Of course, I'm a white American female, which the founding fathers never assumed would have equal rights with men, but, hey, accident of birth, you know? In fact, accident of birth is why I consent. I was born in America though no doing of my own. I wouldn't exist had not white immigrants from Ireland and Germany decided that they wanted to live in America, came here, forged a union, and one of their ancestors popped me out. I think I'm lucky to have been born here. I don't claim any superiority because of something I had nothing to do with. People who were not born here, if they want to be here bad enough that they would go through the physical, financial, psychological hoops to get here as an illegal alien, more power to them!

jayjay

10-15-2008, 03:49 PM

I wouldn't exist had not white immigrants from Ireland and Germany decided that they wanted to live in America, came here, forged a union, and one of their ancestors popped me out.

Descendants. Sorry, that's a pet peeve of mine. They are your ancestors. You are their descendant.

Equipoise

10-15-2008, 03:51 PM

Ooops, sorry. Thanks.

Frank

10-15-2008, 03:53 PM

Descendants. Sorry, that's a pet peeve of mine. They are your ancestors. You are their descendant.
Look, just because time travel hasn't been invented yet doesn't mean she can't be her own grandma.

Equipoise

10-15-2008, 03:56 PM

I loved my grandpa, but...ew, not like that!

lissener

10-15-2008, 06:50 PM

It's the perfect encapsulation of mhendo's argument about you. "Well, I didn't know any disgruntled black folk. None of them complained to me."
Starving Artist, you're not stupid. So how is it you can continue to refuse to understand that this is the gist of what's wrong with your worldview? You seem to have decided that solipsism is a virtue; that anything that hasn't happened right in front of you hasn't happened at all. Is that, for you, the essence of conservatism? refusal to educate oneself? Insistence on drawing your own conclusions from the limited world immediately around you, without any attempt at validation? Like, for instance, observing the changing of the days and assuming, quite logically, that the sun travels around the earth? Do you really believe that you, as an individual human being, are capable of--not only understanding everything in the universe--but of understanding it all from scratch, without context?

How can that possibly make sense to you?

Starving Artist

10-16-2008, 12:33 AM

I'm afraid you've taken mhendo's assessment, born of long-standing animosity between us, too much to heart. Of course I don't think that the only answer to the questions that arise around here can only be found if I personally experienced/witnessed them. I read CNN, Fox and Drudge daily, I read a variety of magazines, plus, when the notion strikes me, various local and big city newspapers online. I have pretty much done this since early adulthood. I feel that I am probably good deal more well-read and tuned in to politics and the issues of the day than probably 90% of the populace, and my opinions about things can be and sometimes are formed or altered by what I learn.

I have also had a fair amount of experience over the years with people in different parts of the country and a wide variety of work experience and income levels. These experiences also have taught me much.

Now, occasionally people around here, if they are being sincere and I trust them enought to believe what they say, can alter the beliefs I've developed. A rather minor example but one which comes quickly to mind is the question of whether Democratic politicians should be referred to a 'Democratic' or 'Democrat'. Based on my mistrust of liberal politicians and liberal politics in general, I came to hold the belief that politicians who were Democrats referred to themselves as Democratic because they were trying to subliminally portray themselves as being more democratic (in a founding fathers sense) than their opponents, that their way was the democratic way, and I said so.

This lead to the predictable accusations of dittoheadism, stupidity, ignorance, moronity and most of the other buzzwords that liberal posters around here fling at every conservative poster on this board who expresses a political opinion.

Finally, someone (it may have been tomndebb, he's one of the posters around here who can occasionally get me to take a second look at something I believe) convinced me with persuasive evidence that 'Democratic Party' and 'Democratic politician' was indeed the correct term and had been since the party was born. I immediately acknowledged this, and I have referred to Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party in that way ever since.

The real problem isn't that I believe my own opinion to be infallible or my own experiences to be unquestionably definitive; the problem is that most of the so-called evidence I'm presented with to the contrary is first of all presented in an insulting way, and then offers virtually nothing in the way of proof that I am wrong.

Take for example my recent criticism of the 25% STD rate among American teenagers. I pointed out that for some reason this wasn't going on fifty years ago and stated my belief that liberal influence on society since that time was responsible.

Amid the predictable howls protesting liberal innocence came information that Manhattan had high STD rates at the beginning of the 20th century; that people had STDs in the fifties; and finally, the brilliant observation that people fuck. This was all met with great approval and accepted as proof that I was as full of shit as everyone said and high-fives abounded. It was further considered to be evidence of my intractibility because this information did not cause me to change my mind. (This is quite typical around here, anyway. Time after time I've seen a conservative poster's intelligence or stupidity measured by his willingness or unwillingness to change his mind and come around to the liberal POV. :rolleyes: But I digress.)

The problem was, none of that meant anything with regard to what I said. The fact that people fuck proved nothing. High STD rates in Manhattan fifty years before proved nothing. And the fact that STDs existed in the fifties proved nothing. The fact remains that STD rates have gone through the roof over the last fifty years, and someone is going to have to come up with some pretty persuasive proof to convince me that it hasn't been the result of liberal permissiveness which has come to pervade society since that time.

So, what is the result of all this? I'm accused of provincialism, of being a stodgy old asshole who doesn't want people to fuck (I would elaborate on how wrong that is but I have relatives who read this board :p), and that I'm someone who's mind is made up and doesn't want to be bothered with 'facts'.

Hopefully you can see that the problem wasn't that I turned a blind eye to the facts, but that the so-called facts presented didn't prove anything.

Then there are the cases where the alleged proof I encounter has lots of room for error. Take the question of crime today as opposed to fifty years ago. I say it's worse and place the blame on liberal permissiveness which has led to drug problems and their concomitant criminality; liberal abhorrence for condemning rap music and movies that glamorize gangs and the thug life; and liberal judiciaries and corrections systems that can't seem to turn criminals out on the streets quickly enough. Along with the predictable insults, I get presented with facts and statistics that say the crime rate is down compared with some point in the past. So, bearing in mind that while figures don't lie, liars still figure and that things can be and often are presented in such a way as to make them appear different than they really are. (Perhaps you remember Democrats and liberals wailing about a potential incoming administration's proposed budget cuts which turned out to be really just a reduction in the amount benefits were going up.) Maybe someone is saying crime is down since the eighties, but that doesn't take into account that it could still be higher than it was before the eighties; maybe things counted in the crime statistics have changed; maybe the study that came up with the statistics was biased and had an agenda which influenced the results they came up with; etc., etc.

Then we have the numerous cases where people misunderstand or misrepresent what I said, or extrapolate from it things that are erroneous, and then become incensed when I either don't respond to the facts they present to counter their own misconceptions, or find fault with the facts themselves. I get really tired of having to deal with things around here that I'm alleged to say or think that are not so.

Now these are just a few of the ways in which the so-called facts around here have failed to persuade me to change my mind and resulted in my being called stupid, blind, ignorant, refusing to acknowledge reality, etc., and while I really don't expect much good to come of it, your post seemed sincere so I thought I'd take the time to respond in kind.

lissener

10-16-2008, 01:16 AM

Wow. You must have a pretty low opinion of our intelligence dude.

elucidator

10-16-2008, 01:25 AM

Its not that its not a pretty good Wilford Brimley impression, it is. Its just that I've read Bork's Slouching Towards Gommorah, and really, that's the pink Peruvian flake when it comes to pissing and moaning about how the hippies and the liberals destroyed Western Civ.

Don't get me wrong, you're pretty good for an amateur! But any time I feel down, I can just open him to any page, and his bitter venom and resentment pours over me like a shower of joy, golden and musical. It reminds me that mine is a life well lived, and a worthy purpose met.

Plus, it was one hell of a lot of fun!

Starving Artist

10-16-2008, 01:29 AM

Wow. You must have a pretty low opinion of our intelligence dude.Well, now that you mention it...

One of these days I'll learn that no matter how sincere you sound you're reallly just looking for more ammo. My bad. :rolleyes:

But any time I feel down, I can just open him to any page, and his bitter venom and resentment pours over me like a shower of joy, golden and musical. ::grabs crotch:: Yeah, I got yer golden shower, right heah.

elucidator

10-16-2008, 01:37 AM

Really? I heard the pipes were rusted out.

Starving Artist

10-16-2008, 01:43 AM

Nah...just dust.

DianaG

10-16-2008, 05:27 AM

Starving Artist, I just read your post on the last page, and what I'm getting from that is still "my facts prove something, and yours don't". And so I'll ask again... how is that inconsistent with the the "it's only true if I believe it" thought process you've been accused of?

The problem was, none of that meant anything with regard to what I said. The fact that people fuck proved nothing. High STD rates in Manhattan fifty years before proved nothing. And the fact that STDs existed in the fifties proved nothing. The fact remains that STD rates have gone through the roof over the last fifty years, and someone is going to have to come up with some pretty persuasive proof to convince me that it hasn't been the result of liberal permissiveness which has come to pervade society since that time.
Conversely, you'll have to come up with some pretty persuasive evidence that STDs were adequately reported fifty years ago to convince me that their incidence has "gone through the roof" since then. I'm pretty sure, for instance, that women were not routinely screened for HPV in 1958.

Rubystreak

10-16-2008, 07:36 AM

I don't know how anyone can claim to possess an acute critical faculty or an ability to see situations with clear objectivity and then accuse a monolithic "liberal" movement of being solely to blame for such ills as STDs, gangs, drugs, broken families, poor economy, etc. Social dynamics are far more complicated than that and to lay the blame at the feet of one particular group is just absurd. How could it possibly work that way? Liberals may have said, on this board and elsewhere, that conservatives are evil, but I don't hear them blaming them for everything short of the Great Flood. It takes two to tango, and then some. This overly simplified worldview makes it hard to take a person seriously. It's not just black and white. The liberals are not dismantling a perfect society despite the best defense of the noble conservatives, and such a characterization only casts doubt on the intelligence of a person who would paint so distorted and oversimplified a picture.

Tamerlane

10-16-2008, 07:57 AM

Take for example my recent criticism of the 25% STD rate among American teenagers. I pointed out that for some reason this wasn't going on fifty years ago and stated my belief that liberal influence on society since that time was responsible.

Amid the predictable howls protesting liberal innocence came information that Manhattan had high STD rates at the beginning of the 20th century; that people had STDs in the fifties; and finally, the brilliant observation that people fuck. This was all met with great approval and accepted as proof that I was as full of shit as everyone said and high-fives abounded. It was further considered to be evidence of my intractibility because this information did not cause me to change my mind. (This is quite typical around here, anyway. Time after time I've seen a conservative poster's intelligence or stupidity measured by his willingness or unwillingness to change his mind and come around to the liberal POV. :rolleyes: But I digress.)

The problem was, none of that meant anything with regard to what I said. The fact that people fuck proved nothing. High STD rates in Manhattan fifty years before proved nothing. And the fact that STDs existed in the fifties proved nothing. The fact remains that STD rates have gone through the roof over the last fifty years, and someone is going to have to come up with some pretty persuasive proof to convince me that it hasn't been the result of liberal permissiveness which has come to pervade society since that time.

Hmmm...I think you are referring in part to me. What I actually posted was a) a partial factual rebuttal to the notion of sky-rocketing STDs, pointing out that in fact some STD rates have been shrinking for 50 years and b) a criticism of the reported factoid that 25% of female teenagers have an std - as I pointed out that was misreported, the actual number is significantly lower ( how much lower is hard to say, but it is not 25% ) and the use of HPV in the study made the claim even more problematic.

It was not an attempt by me to bludgeon you with the above. In fact I don't believe I ever posted to that thread afterwards. Nor was it even an attempt to try to disprove your thesis per se. It was just that you were using imprecise language ( your claim on STD rates was and is not not across the boards true ) and flawed numbers ( the problems with that quoted 25% ). Sorry to be a pedant, but such is my nature - I tend to nitpick when people post something factually challengeable. I'd do the same thing if you argued that dry cat food is unequivocally better than wet cat food or that 17th century Polish military technology was inherently inferior to that of western Europe - both of those are highly equivocal and very challengeable statements. It's what I do.

Now if you ask me has "liberal permissiveness" starting in the 1960's resulted in increased rates of STD transmission as compared to the 1940's and 1950's, I'd say, yeah, I guess. To some degree anyway. There are confounding factors like for example the Vietnam war - large deployments of troops overseas seems to equal a spike in STD rates, we get one in the late 1940's as well. But sure - the sexual revolution, as limited as it may have been in actuality, undoubtedly increased some base STD rates in some fashion. Though I'll note that modern correspondance between STD rates and "liberalness" doesn't necessarily seem to be 1:1 - for example the current highest per capita rates of chlamydia transmission seem to be in Alaska, Mississippi and South Carolina.

I could also that the above is an unfortunate unintended side effect of a psychologically healthier view of sexuality ( IMO ) that can be mitigated by proper precautions and education. Further some conservatives could be seen to be currently making matters worse by digging in their heels on that education part :).

Society is what society is and it perplexes me when both conservatives and liberals, however defined, rage against the "other side" as if that "other side" is the source of all woes. The fact of the matter Starving Artist is that your very conservatism is in some way to "blame" - generations are reactive and the conservatism of your generation bred the liberalism of that which followed it. You know all those radical 1960's kids didn't come from broken homes - they came from your house. My, what awful parents you must have been ;). Similarily I'm more conservative than my "permissive" parents. No doubt my father wonders what went wrong that I never became a good Marxist.

You can rail against the liberalization ( or from the other side, the conservatism ) of our society as much as you want. But however much you may want to deny it, you ( the generic you and ALL of you ) had a hand in creating it. And you can't unmake that omelet.

tagos

10-16-2008, 08:54 AM

Starving Artist, I just read your post on the last page, and what I'm getting from that is still "my facts prove something, and yours don't". And so I'll ask again... how is that inconsistent with the the "it's only true if I believe it" thought process you've been accused of?

Conversely, you'll have to come up with some pretty persuasive evidence that STDs were adequately reported fifty years ago to convince me that their incidence has "gone through the roof" since then. I'm pretty sure, for instance, that women were not routinely screened for HPV in 1958.

I already provided all the cites and info needed to disprove his hypothesis. The facts show that std rates were a lot higher in the past and then in the fifties with new drugs the public health budget was cut back and the rates rose.

Nothing whatsoever to do with 'liberalism', which is a self-evidently absurd belief that can only be held if you are irredeemably stupid.

Starving is a fact and sense-free zone. He appears not to have the intellectual capacity to understand let alone put forth a reasoned argument. It's all just ideological hatred stripped of the understanding that, like anyone with an IQ above room temperature understands, correlation does not equal causality.

He is simply someone who has literally been rendered stupid by his own ideological hatred.

Starving Artist

10-16-2008, 12:48 PM

Nothing whatsoever to do with 'liberalism', which is a self-evidently absurd belief that can only be held if you are irredeemably stupid.Perhaps you don't recall (or are too young to have known about in the first place): "Make love, not war" and the sexual revolution that took root in the late sixties when lefties decided to champion sexual openness and freedom; the wrong-headed notions among many supporters of the women's movement that since men were free to be promiscuous, women should be as well; sex-education taken over by the educational system, and, in the wake of AIDS, condoms being passed out in schools, which of course, when combined with the attitude that people are gonna fuck anyway, gave tacit approval to teenagers who lack both the emotional and practical discipline to handle sex properly; a music, movie and television invironment in which sexual messages are constant; etc., etc., etc.

My guess is you either don't recall these things or you view them as perfectly reasonable and find them a source of pride.

Still, there can be no question that these things most certainly did not emanate from the right, and there can be no question that they didn't 'just happen', thus it's obvious that the left is responsible. The left is therefore also responsible for the huge increase in sexual activity among teenagers, which, when combined with their aforementioned lack of maturity and discipline, has led inexorably to the spread of STDs (not to mention millions of abortions, which I have a big problem with if done in the second or third trimesters) among the country's teenagers.

Now I'm sure all of this is just fine and dandy with you. It's evidence of your 'progressiveness' and 'enlightenment' and that you know better than uptight righties how society should behave.

It probably also seems anachronistic because things have been fucked up for so long that many people now just view them as normal.

But, like it or not, things are what they are, and for these problems the left is clearly responsible.

Starving is a fact and sense-free zone. He appears not to have the intellectual capacity to understand let alone put forth a reasoned argument. It's all just ideological hatred stripped of the understanding that, like anyone with an IQ above room temperature understands, correlation does not equal causality.

Like I said before, one can hardly expect to come onto a board dominated by liberals and point out to them how they've fucked things up and expect to be met with bouquets of roses. The attitudes and insults that you and other posters sling my way are both predictable and expected.

Further, in this case correlation is the result of causality.

He is simply someone who has literally been rendered stupid by his own ideological hatred.Nah, my stupidity is genetically encoded.

However, whatever hatred I may occasionally come to feel is reserved for people who hurt little children, people who are bullies and pick on the weak, viscious criminals, and dipshits who think the way to make a political statement is to kill innocent people. My feelings in regard to liberalism are merely contempt, resentment and disgust...and probably in that order.

DianaG

10-16-2008, 12:51 PM

So, still no evidence aside from your rose colored memories of better days, then?

Starving Artist

10-16-2008, 12:56 PM

Sure. Newspapers, magazines, movies, and television news and entertainment programs from the last forty years abound. It's all quite well chronicled. Knock yourself out.

DianaG

10-16-2008, 12:58 PM

Yes, I'm quite well read, thank you. That is one of the reasons I question your assertions.

Hentor the Barbarian

10-16-2008, 01:05 PM

So, still no evidence aside from your rose colored memories of better days, then?No, didn't you read? "Make love, not war." Then, AIDS. What more evidence do you need? How could a more compelling case be constructed? If you don't get it, you must just be proud of it.

And with that, I'm off like a liberal prom dress. See you later Zoe!

Starving Artist

10-16-2008, 01:25 PM

No, didn't you read? "Make love, not war." Then, AIDS. What more evidence do you need?You guys are just constitutionally incable of honesty, aren't you? It was the mindless homosexual promiscuity (cheered on by the left) that took place in the early eighties that was responsible for the spread of AIDS, not the 'make love, not war' movement fifteen years beforehand. They're interrelated and there's some overlap, but the AIDS epidemic was not a direct or predictable result of make love, not war...unlike most the other problems I mentioned which were easily predictable.

And with that, I'm off like a liberal prom dress. See you later Zoe!

And now I'm off to work. Bye, Hector, bye Zoe, bye everybody else...have a nice day!

;)

DianaG

10-16-2008, 01:28 PM

It was the mindless homosexual promiscuity (cheered on by the left) that took place in the early eighties that was responsible for the spread of AIDS
And I will ask you, for the very last time, before I finally write you off as a completely worthless individual...

Cite?

Hentor the Barbarian

10-16-2008, 01:41 PM

You guys are just constitutionally incable of honesty, aren't you? It was the mindless homosexual promiscuity (cheered on by the left) that took place in the early eighties that was responsible for the spread of AIDS, not the 'make love, not war' movement fifteen years beforehand. They're interrelated and there's some overlap, but the AIDS epidemic was not a direct or predictable result of make love, not war...unlike most the other problems I mentioned which were easily predictable.

And now I'm off to work. Bye, Hector, bye Zoe, bye everybody else...have a nice day!

;)Jeez, no. There was nothing about the homos in your prior post, but now that you mention it, of course promoting the homos and their rampant homo promiscuity that should be part of the laundry list of things that the left is to blame for. I remember that it wasn't too long after the paint dried on the "Make love, not war" signs that we all worked up our "Homos should have lots of homo sex with lots of different other homos" signs.

You really can connect the dots. I thank you for opening my eyes to everything that we've wrought.

Shodan

10-16-2008, 02:25 PM

And I will ask you, for the very last time, before I finally write you off as a completely worthless individual...

Cite?Well, in spite of the fact that I know perfectly well you don't mean it you will instantly dismiss any and all cites provided and basically, you are just trolling
Cite (pdf) (http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/77/5/578.pdf), etc. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABtan_Dugas#cite_note-5), etc. (http://www.homosexinfo.org/AIDS/Bathhouses)

Now, are you going to dismiss them out of hand and then go to abuse, or skip the dismissal part?

Regards,
Shodan

Rubystreak

10-16-2008, 02:36 PM

I know that I, personally, stand by bathhouse doors and next to gay people's beds with pompoms and literally CHEER them on while they have unprotected gay sex and spread teh AIDS. Of course, handing them condoms is also not OK, because that also promotes sexual promiscuity so... yeah. Can't win for losing, eh?

jayjay

10-16-2008, 02:41 PM

I know that I, personally, stand by bathhouse doors and next to gay people's beds with pompoms and literally CHEER them on while they have unprotected gay sex and spread teh AIDS.

That was you?!

RickJay

10-16-2008, 02:50 PM

The left is therefore also responsible for the huge increase in sexual activity among teenagers,
Wow, you really ARE living in a fact-free world. You really think kids in your day were less sexually active?

Maybe YOU weren't. But then, you only saw blacks who were content to be second class citizens and maybe occasionally have a relative lynched. So your subjective opinions don't seem to be entirely reliable.

jsgoddess

10-16-2008, 03:06 PM

But then, you only saw blacks who were content to be second class citizens and maybe occasionally have a relative lynched.

If we got to pick the relatives (and if in-laws count), this might not be such a bad deal.

mhendo

10-16-2008, 03:24 PM

Well, in spite of the fact that I know perfectly well you don't mean it you will instantly dismiss any and all cites provided and basically, you are just trolling
Cite (pdf) (http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/77/5/578.pdf), etc. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABtan_Dugas#cite_note-5), etc. (http://www.homosexinfo.org/AIDS/Bathhouses)

Now, are you going to dismiss them out of hand and then go to abuse, or skip the dismissal part?There are, it seems to me, a few issues that arise from your post.

First, there's the question of the relationship between homosexual promiscuity and the spread of HIV/AIDS. I think it would be silly to deny that the rate of HIV transmission was assisted by the relaxed attitude to casual sex within the gay community during the 1980s. Authors have written about the permissive and open bathhouse culture, and other venues for anonymous casual sex within the gay community in cities like San Francisco and New York. Even now, years later, authors like Dan Savage still sometimes take to task some gay men for the cavalier attitude they exhibit towards protection in their sex lives.

But it's not like gay sex was the only thing responsible for spreading HIV, as Starving Artist seems to believe. According to one study of HIV/AIDS in New York, published in 1993:
Overall, 49 percent of adult cases were
attributed to sexual transmission (heterosexual
or male homosexual), 44 percent to injection
drug use, and 1 percent to contaminated
blood or blood products; 2 percent
were in people from Pattern II countries,
and for 5 percent, risk had not yet been
ascertained.

Pauline A. Thomas, Isaac B. Weisfuse, Alan E. Greenberg, Godwin A. Bernard, Alex Tytun, Steven D. Stellman, and New York City Department of Health AIDS Surveillance Team, "Trends in the First Ten Years of AIDS in New York City," American Journal of Epidemiology 1993 137: 121-133.So according to this study, slightly less than half of all cases were attributable to sexual transmission, and even less than that was due to homosexual transmission (because there was also some heterosexual transmission).

Of course, Starving Artist would still see these figures as supporting his overall argument, because in his mind liberals are also responsible for the rise of illicit drugs in America. But i'm not directing my argument at him, because i've concluded he's too deluded to discuss the issue rationally. I'm simply pointing out that saying:It was the mindless homosexual promiscuity (cheered on by the left) that took place in the early eighties that was responsible for the spread of AIDSIs a dramatic oversimplification, at best.

Also, Shodan, one of your own citations actually helps to refute Starving Artist's assertion about "mindless homosexual promiscuity." Your first citation, the American Journal of Public Health article, concludes:
To summarize, these results indicate that major changes
in most all aspects of sexual behavior have occurred in the
New York City gay male community since men became
aware of the AIDS epidemic. Measured in terms of the
number of different sexual partners, sexual activity in domestic
and extra-domestic locations combined has declined
by approximately 78 per cent. The frequency of sexual
episodes involving the exchange of body fluids and mucous
membrane contact has declined by an average of 70 per cent.
There appears to be an increase, from approximately 1.5 to
20 per cent, in the frequency of condom use during anal
intercourse. The rate of abstinence from gay sex by gay men
does not appear to have changed at all, over the first five years
of the epidemic.That knowledge of the AIDS epidemic wrought such dramatic changes in sexual practices over such a short time suggests that homosexual promiscuity was far from mindless. Once the risks of unprotected sex were known, many gay men responded in a responsible and health-conscious fashion.

While i recognize that issues of sexual promiscuity, and of homosexuality, are viewed by many people as important moral issues, i think it's problematic to draw direct connections between one's moral position and one's conclusions regarding epidemiology. Despite the fact that Starving Artist chose to use the epithet "mindless" specifically to describe homosexual promiscuity, the fact is that heterosexuals have, as RickJay notes, been sexually active for a long time. It's not just some post-1960s phenomenon.

A key reason that HIV spread more quickly through the gay than the straight community was not just promiscuity, but was, as one of your own citations acknowledges, a result of the fact that gay sex more often involves particular behaviors that are more conducive to the spread of the virus. The fact that the virus spreads more easily this way, and is also hard to treat and impossible to get rid of altogether, is unfortunate, but does not constitute some moral indictment of the gay community, or of liberalism.

DianaG

10-16-2008, 03:39 PM

Revenant Threshold

10-16-2008, 04:01 PM

Still, there can be no question that these things most certainly did not emanate from the right, and there can be no question that they didn't 'just happen', thus it's obvious that the left is responsible. The left is therefore also responsible for the huge increase in sexual activity among teenagers, which, when combined with their aforementioned lack of maturity and discipline, has led inexorably to the spread of STDs (not to mention millions of abortions, which I have a big problem with if done in the second or third trimesters) among the country's teenagers. See, i'd tend to disagree with this one. I'll certainly agree that permissive emanated from liberality and the left - but the mistake you're making is to assume that to not be motivated by the right means there is no responsibility to be laid at their door. I would argue that the right may be judged by their response to this intial motivation, and I think in many cases they've fallen as short as liberals. The culture of permissiveness certainly did some considerable harm - but the intial reaction of the right itself constituted something of a culture of demonisation or denouncement, and at times a closing of eyes. The attempt at defeating increased sexual activity oftentimes solely by calls for abstinence reflected neither the reality of what was happening nor helped provide information for those who would have sex, in all meanings of safety, also tending to lead to millions of abortions. Those that failed were again often not treated as having a mere lack of maturity or discipline, but total failures on those terms. AIDs being denounced as a homosexual disease meant that those who caught it found themselves unable to admit it, let alone admit their homosexuality, leading to further infections; those who were having sex were warned only not to, not given the full advice that they too were at risk. Add onto that that the epidemic of AIDs and HIV in Africa (rather not something that can be blamed on the left) is not helped by conservative groups again calling for abstinence rather than providing condoms or other preventative measures. A culture in which sexual messages are constant are responded to by protests, bannings, and attempts to censor, suggesting that for some that while the government seeking to take the responsibility for sex education is a no-no, parents other than themselves taking that responsibility is likewise as bad.

The left may take a good deal of responsibility for the push, but the right takes its share from how it dealt with it; and quite often it did not (and still does not) deal with it well. You've brought up the importance of family values; if the left can be analogised as an unruly teenager, interested in new things and easily affected by outside influences, they may make mistakes, often severe ones. But the right as parent, if their actions helped promulgate these problems, take some share in the blame as well.

Rubystreak

10-16-2008, 05:37 PM

That was you?!

G-A-Y
you don't need no alibi
You're homos
You go-go
That virus may be retro
Yay team!
*shakes pompoms*

Guinastasia

10-16-2008, 05:48 PM

Revenant Threshold, that was beautiful-but sadly, I fear, it will go right over Starving Artist's head, and he'll dismiss it as so much "liberal twaddle".

lissener

10-16-2008, 06:00 PM

Starving Artist, I just read your post on the last page, and what I'm getting from that is still "my facts prove something, and yours don't".
This is closer to what I meant with my cryptic post above.

Equipoise

10-16-2008, 06:46 PM

Starving Artist, I'd love to hear your answers to a couple of questions. Of course you don't have to participate, but my curiousity compells me to ask.

For the sake of the questions, let's say that everything you say is true. I know you believe it, and many of us don't, but I'm willing to see your side of it for the moment.

First, "reality-based" question:

What do you think can be done about the rampant [insert all the things you mentioned that were caused by liberalism]? Obviously you think that a McCain/Palin victory would help. What do you think they, or Palin if she succeeds McCain, can do that Obama would never do? What could/would they continue that Bush started in his 8 years in the White House, and/or what c/would they do that Bush has not done?

Btw, reality is in quotes there because of course no one can tell the future. I mean the question to be, what would you like to see done that could realistically be done.

Second, "fantasy-based" question:

This is out there, but if you were appointed King of the Universe and given magical powers to go back to various points in time and change any thing you want in any way that you want, what would you do? Let's say you could only go back to, mmm, 1950 (so no changes to the New Deal or popping Hitler or anything). In your wildest fantasies, kid in a candy store freedom, what would do you to re-make the world through the years so that the world of today would be the one you would want to see in your heart of hearts? What would the world of today look like if you had your way? Go to town, get as in-depth as you want. You've written much about what you think went wrong and who caused it. How would you fix it?

Rubystreak

10-16-2008, 07:00 PM

This is closer to what I meant with my cryptic post above.

When confronted with facts about Obama's foreign policy experience, which he at first claimed was non-existent, Starving Artist said (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10190841&postcount=62):

Facts are meaningless in this type of discussion.

Seriously.

This is all you need to know about debating with Starving Artist. He will ask you questions, and when you answer them with facts, he will tell you flat-out that the facts don't matter, that nothing you can say would ever make him vote for anyone other than his candidate, which is whomever was chosen by his party. He admits that, if Obama were a conservative with the exact same resume, he'd defend him, lack of executive experience and all. (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10185629&postcount=63)

I think Obama is a good guy and that his accomplishments are stellar. I'd love it if he was a conservative instead. But he's not.

His attacks on Obama's experience stem only from a desire to degrade his enemy The Liberal, not by any desire for actual debate or critical, objective examination of an individual candidate's qualifications or merits. All that matters to him is that conservatives control everything and liberals are disenfranchised. Period. The particulars of who's in charge do not actually matter to him. End of story.

His motivation for spewing his diatribes? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10190660&postcount=52)

The stuff we're arguing around here would just be verbal masturbation were it not for the possibility that we might be reaching lurkers whose political philosophies have not yet gelled.

Not interested in a genuine exchange of ideas or debate of issues. No, he's arguing and talking smack and spouting distortions and bullshit because he thinks he's changing the hearts and minds of undecided voters lurking on the Dope. Wow.

lissener

10-16-2008, 07:54 PM

This is out there, but if you were appointed King of the Universe and given magical powers to go back to various points in time and change any thing you want in any way that you want, what would you do? Let's say you could only go back to, mmm, 1950 (so no changes to the New Deal or popping Hitler or anything). In your wildest fantasies, kid in a candy store freedom, what would do you to re-make the world through the years so that the world of today would be the one you would want to see in your heart of hearts? What would the world of today look like if you had your way? Go to town, get as in-depth as you want. You've written much about what you think went wrong and who caused it. How would you fix it?

Seriously, it would help me understand your viewpoint a great deal, SA, if I understood more explicitly what your ideals are, rather than just what you think is wrong.

Bambro

10-16-2008, 09:59 PM

LonesomePolecat

10-17-2008, 08:55 AM

And I will ask you, for the very last time, before I finally write you off as a completely worthless individual...

Cite? And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts. But really, this is just another bullshit demand for an unnecessary cite. Which seems to be your whole debating style.

DianaG

10-17-2008, 09:04 AM

LP, you are not fit to defend the worthless. You're actually toxic. The only good thing about you is that you're so clearly stupid that you discredit your own ideas by attempting to articulate them.

LonesomePolecat

10-17-2008, 09:06 AM

LP, you are not fit to defend the worthless. You're actually toxic. The only good thing about you is that you're so clearly stupid that you discredit your own ideas by attempting to articulate them.Diana, you're a dumb pussy who's mistaken herself for an intellectual.

ivan astikov

10-17-2008, 09:10 AM

LP, your claim to intellectual superiority went out the window the second you spouted your racist claptrap!

RickJay

10-17-2008, 09:11 AM

Diana, you're a dumb pussy who's mistaken herself for an intellectual.
And you're a dumb racist who's mistaken himself for a man.

DianaG

10-17-2008, 09:13 AM

Diana, you're a dumb pussy who's mistaken herself for an intellectual.
Thank you! I wear the distaste of racists as a badge of honor.

Really Not All That Bright

10-17-2008, 09:14 AM

And you're a dumb racist who's mistaken himself for a man.
Doubtful. Funhouse mirror technology isn't that advanced yet.

LonesomePolecat

10-17-2008, 09:16 AM

Thank you! I wear the distaste of racists as a badge of honor.But you're still a dumb pussy.

LonesomePolecat

10-17-2008, 09:24 AM

LP, your claim to intellectual superiority went out the window the second you spouted your racist claptrap! (shrug) The United States is turning into a third world country and will eventually collapse much like the Soviet Union, quite possibly within my lifetime. The bizarre racial doctrines of the left, which is waging a political and cultural war against middle and working class whites, are a critical component of our decline and fall. If you consider that "racial claptrap," you are badly out of touch with reality.

LonesomePolecat

10-17-2008, 09:25 AM

And you're a dumb racist who's mistaken himself for a man.What would a simpering little eunuch like you know about manhood? Go back to sipping your white wine and walking your poodle, and quit bothering the grownups.

LonesomePolecat

10-17-2008, 09:27 AM

Doubtful. Funhouse mirror technology isn't that advanced yet.Rarely has a screen name been chosen so appropriately.

ivan astikov

10-17-2008, 09:28 AM

Revenant Threshold

10-17-2008, 09:32 AM

I'm immensely offended.

There are insults other than pussy and eunuch. Crack a thesaurus! I don't know who else can continue to stand this lacklustre wordsmithery. ;)

Gyrate

10-17-2008, 11:30 AM

(shrug) The United States is turning into a third world country and will eventually collapse much like the Soviet Union, quite possibly within my lifetime. The bizarre racial doctrines of the left, which is waging a political and cultural war against middle and working class whites, are a critical component of our decline and fall. If you consider that "racial claptrap," you are badly out of touch with reality.As has been pointed out elsewhere such claims have been made for over a century about various immigrant groups (Irish, Chinese, Italians, Eastern Europeans/Jews, etc) and the US has failed to collapse from cultural apoplexy (unless you're suggesting that Lehman Brothers was run by migrant workers).

Only paranoid people see themselves as under attack. For everyone else it's the way the world works - immigrant populations move for various reasons, they eventually assimilate whilst adding new things to the culture and life goes on. Sure, Phoenix and El Paso may get a few more taco stands but give those Latinos a generation or two and they'll all be speaking incomprehensible English and paying too much for Starbucks mochas just like all the white kids.

The Tooth

10-17-2008, 11:51 AM

Frank

10-17-2008, 03:08 PM

I don't know who else can continue to stand this lacklustre wordsmithery.
What's wrong with pussy and eunuch, thou pox-ridden hind end of a mangy and flea-infested hyena?

Starving Artist

10-17-2008, 03:21 PM

Starving Artist, I'd love to hear your answers to a couple of questions. Of course you don't have to participate, but my curiousity compells me to ask...

Honestly, SA, please answer these questions in depth and in the spirit of open dialog that they were asked in. Sorry, I'm having to deal with an odd flurry of things, work and otherwise, that are taking up an unusual amount of my time right now. I saw your posts last night and I've been giving them a lot of thought, but I don't have time to address them right now. I'm also unsure if it's even worthwhile in terms of practicality, the time it would require, and dealing with the fallout that would most surely result (misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, false/erroneous attributions of motive and belief, insults and so on).

But even more importantly, these are questions that require a great deal of thought and call for reasoning and answers that are far more complex than you may have realized when you asked them (No. 1, anyway; I could answer No. 2 fairly easily, though due to its simplicity you likely wouldn't find it very satisfying), and again I'm not sure the time required would be worth whatever might be accomplished by delving into such complex issues that are, after all, an impossibility to begin with.

So I'll think about it some more, and give my answer(s) when I can find the time.