You are not paying attention.
You used a specific phrase that tied your insults to a specific Moderator comment in a way that directly tied your insults to other posters.
You do not need to agree with me, but you do need to refrain from posting in a way that directly insults other posters.
I do not care about the “sensitivities” of anyone–except to the point where one poster insults another poster (or group of posters), thus risking a flame war.
Calling a “generalized group” “losers” means taking care that one does not use language that directly ties those being insulted to posters on this board.
I also deny that you are capable of accurately identifying “racists” based solely on positions taken regarding the “state’s rights” vs. “slavery” origins of the U.S. Civil War. Thus, you are simply employing your own prejudices, here, to contrinue insulting other posters for no reaon that I can determine except to give yourself the smug satisfaction of believing you hold some sort of moral superiority that you have failed to actually demonstrate.
Rather than continue this discussion until you reach the point where you are Warned by ATMB Mods for insulting other posters, I will simply note that I have made my position known and that my ruling stands.
Those are your own words from Post #1. See how easy it is to make ourselves misunderstood? It’s a good thing not to jump to conclusions, brandish labels, and react as if these labels are the set-in-stone truth. That is the very template for developing prejudices ourselves.
Just to set the record straight, you later said this, which is what I think that you meant to say:
It must be very frustrating for Tomndebb to be accused of favoring the liberals one minute and then favoring conservatives the next. (How dare you be so even-handed, Tom!)
You do not seem to understand the difference between direct and indirect when moderating. When posting, you do actually seem to understand the difference. “you are a smurf” is a direct statement. “you have blue skin and smurfs have blue skin” is an indirect statement. An example would be: Poster Ayn Rand is scum. Not allowed. Libertarians are scum. Allowed. All posters who are libertarians are scum, not allowed.
The fact that I used “moral turpitude” is what seems to be pushing your abuse of power button. You did not invent the phrase, you just applied it in a perfect way that demanded adopting in a general sense.
First of all, I am not morally superior to anyone, even racists. I don’t frankly, think that Hitler was any more of a monster than I am capable of being. He/I was/am both sinners and humans and capable of great evil. I try to avoid doing evil. I am not always successful. He is one of my warnings. Second, you are being obtuse in the technical sense. Slavery supporters and individual posters are categorically not the same. I use categorically in the technical sense.* Racists need to be denounced and educated, not coddled. Third, you have the power to warn and do anything you want. That doesn’t make it non-abused. Fourth, you have made up the rule about tying language and applied it when a liberal generally denounces conservatives. You do not do that the other way around, in threads on abortion where liberals are called baby killers in general, and it generally insults every liberal posting in the thread.
You are welcome to say that I am incorrectly identifying racists and employing my own prejudices. That is your opinion, it is not an insult and it is on topic. I deny that I am incorrectly identifying racists, however I accept that I am applying my pre-judgments, because I am. Whether it be states rights crowd or people opposed to the 64 civil rights act, they are supporting a racist view and their personal acceptance of that is irrelevant to my conclusion of the result of their “philosophy” on principle or otherwise: responsibility for the consequences of action or inaction or silence exists. In short, you are using the word prejudice correctly, but not the dichotomy between direct and indirect. But do not mistake that my prejudices, my pre-judgments, are not based in rationality. They are. Those who argue for a racist result indirectly (like Rand Paul) are supporting racism and are racist. Whatever semantic or philosophic tricks they employ to sound respectable to themselves or others are rejected by my rules: show me results. Another example: Chief Justice John Roberts always (up till last year, I haven’t checked since) rules in favor of corporations against individuals. It is entirely fair of me based on this sample of hundreds of rulings to conclude that he is a fascist in judicial philosophy, meaning that he rules for corporations and the state and submerges individual rights. That is my prejudgment. He can pettifog all he wants in his judicial opinions, but my heuristic is going to be a better predictor of his behavior in future cases than his legal reasoning. It is the same with concluding that the states rights supporters are racists if they are aware of the actual secession statutes. (People who have not read the secession statutes and are just parroting what they mis-learned in grade school are excepted, as I have stated almost every time.)
Lastly, you are not obliged to participate in this discussion at all. My points have been made and your “defense” of them is pathetic, an appeal to pathos: it is an appeal to your power, and *ipse dixit.[/I ] I have done nothing in this thread violating any rules so I am in no danger of being “warned”, unless the mods are going to make up other rules. Or are you and the other mods snarking on your private mod board about me? The fact is, if you guys want to change the rules, I am all in favor of that. Rules I can understand. This pull stuff out of a hat is exactly what I am objecting to. (Well, that and the intellectual dishonesty of saying the Civil War was not fought over slavery.)
When I first joined, we were engaged in a similar discussion about Confederate heritage and slavery. I made the “mistake” of saying that Confederate apologists were racists. Our dear Liberal decided to say something to the effect people with my opinion were idiots, implying that I was an idiot. The import was unmistakable. But it sure as hell wasn’t direct. Now y’all claim that the rules were not different for Liberal, which is another matter entirely, but I checked very carefully, and indeed, he had not violated the rules, as that was allowed. Now, I conceded that I was in fact an idiot, and Liberal being the wise man that he is, engaged in no further argument with me. He understood the difference between direct and indirect and so do I.
I don’t want this to stop or be swept under the rug. I want the rules to be clear. If in fact it isn’t allowed, I would like that in writing: no direct or indirect insults (although I do not concede I was insulting, as moral turpitude was denouncing behavior and why it was the perfect phrase.) I want my opponents to stop having a technique that I cannot use. Applied to the abortion debate, if this rule were adopted, it would be against the rules to call pro-choice people baby killers. Applied to Liberal, it would have meant that he had broken the rules.
*Categorically is a perfect example of why I am using the word obtuse. Tomndebb, you, of all people, know that direct and indirect and categories are in rhetoric. It was perfectly within SDMB rules for Reagan, in the Reagan/Carter debates to slam Democrats. It was outside the rules of that debate (and probably within the rules here) to say “There you go again.” Notwithstanding that it was a prepared phrase based on the use of stolen prep books.
Please pay attention Zoe. I don’t charge TnD with favoring liberals, but rather as being a liberal himself, bending over backwards and being extra fair to conservatives. That requires an examination of the facts of the particular incident, which in this case does not involve any charge of favoring any liberals. I gather that you are implying that because he gets grief from both sides that must mean he is doing his job right, the old newspaperman’s saw that if the left and right both accuse you of bias, you must be perfect. Well, be suspicious of that. We have a specific case where all people of the following view: “states rights was the issue, not slavery” who have read the secession statutes are being accused of “moral turpitude” (that is intellectual dishonesty on the morality of slavery). It is a perfectly cromulent argument and charge.
Sorry. I am on record as saying that I find that sort of “rules” lawyering to be counterproductive and I am pretty sure that I have the support of the rest of the staff in that regard. You were not Warned for having broken a rule. You were not Warned at all. You were simly told to back off on your deliberate association of an insult with posters in a particualr thread. You are perfectly free to make your case for “racism,” providing you are exceptionally clear that you are not directing your comments at your fellow posters. You have now spent four times the time and energy with your special pleading to be allowed to insult other posters than you have spent actually defending your absolutist stance on morality.
A, a barracks judge. As long as you are aware that you pulled a previously non-existent rule out of thin air, applied it and generally abused your authority as a moderator and that I am not letting you get away with it without mentioning it.
You are not officially warned either. But you are unofficially cautioned that you should learn the difference between direct and indirect and when somebody has violated the rules and not.
I never insulted any other individual poster and to the extent that you say so, say the name and make the quote. You made that up, and it is low and I’d say beneath you, but in your moderating capacity, it is your standard procedure. I ask for no special pleading, only that I be treated the same as everybody else, and that you treat everyone equally. Which you do not do.
You too, enjoy yourself. Discussion suspended until the next time.
There are two issues (at least) in discussion here. I will separate my discussions.
The Second Stone’s primary complaint in this thread is interpretation of his remarks as attacks on posters rather than attacks on a general class or group of people.
tomndebb said:
Point of order: is it unacceptable to bash a general class of people who happen to include members of this board?
The Second Stone cited a specific class of people:
I agree that ed malin’s diatribe was directed at posters in this thread. I agree that The Second Stone took your phrase to cast his arguement. I do not agree that by taking your wording The Second Stone was inherently directing his attack at specific or collective board members, but at the general class of educated people advocating the Civil War was about states rights rather than about slavery.
Now I don’t think he has made his case, but that is not relevant to the intent of the remark as made. My take is that you appear to be reading into his remark an intent based upon feelings carried in from ed malin’s post, not based upon anything The Second Stone actually said.
An analogy is he stated “All Republicans are engaged in moral turpitude”. Whether that is factual is irrelevant. He can be harried in the thread in question or some other thread for the validity of that remark. But here the issue is about you giving him a moderator admonishment for attacking other posters in the thread. But he didn’t attack other posters in the thread except by virtue of them being a part of the larger class of people “Republicans”.
tomndebb said:
I don’t follow your line of reasoning. Because he copied use of your phrase “moral turpitude”, he has automatically become guilty of attacking specific posters on this board? I will note that your specific use of moral turpitude appears to be framed around the broader class of people
. You yourself appear to be discussing the larger group of people than just people on this board who argue the states’ rights position.
tomndebb said:
The Second Stone does not appear to me to be trying to manipulate or twist the rules in any way. He has pointed out a situation where you appear to be citing him for doing something when other posters do it all the time and it is apparently acceptable. I think it is wholely appropriate to ask for clarification of what he is doing wrong that others are not doing wrong, to clarify the rules.
If this is true, then I believe you are mistaken in your interpretation of The Second Stone’s comments. I suppose one could think when he said “people who argue X” he meant “posters who argue X” and not “people in general who argue X”, but it is just as fair to say he meant the latter as the former. There doesn’t appear to be any justification for arguing he meant the former.
Wait, if you wish to make this about the specifics of this one event, then you shouldn’t have started with the accusation
and
And you have repeated the accusation a couple more times in this thread, declaring that tomndebb is biased in his moderation against liberals by giving conservatives more leeway. That won’t fly. You have not made the case.
In fact, if you ask conservatives on this board who gets the most leeway, they will undoubtedly and universally say Der Trihs - known for being so provacatively liberal that he is practically a curse word. Since you made the argument that this is a pattern of behavior and not a one-off case, it is totally appropriate for Zoe to examine tomndebb’s complete reputation, and on that matter you fail to make your case.
Now I grant you that I don’t really read GD, so you might have some actual evidence to present. But be warned that the standard of comparison is going to be Der Trihs.
And no, I’m not happy to bring Der Trihs into this. I would prefer not to bring this up yet again, because now this thread is almost certainly going to derail into a whinefest about why he gets special treatment. And that’s not my goal at all!
And really, this point is unnecessary for your main issue - the specific incident in question.
I was paying very close attention to what was written, The Second Stone. I didn’t say that you charged Tomndebb with favoring liberals! Heavens no! It’s just that that happens so often in other threads. I recognize that you were accusing him of favoring conservatives (or of being “extra fair” to them as you put it.)
Sorry, but this path is leading far from home. I give you credit for kindly taking the time to respond to my comments. But I am much more logical than you give me credit for.
I agree with you that slavery was by far the main issue and that at that time even issues of states’ rights were mainly or at least indirectly about slavery. No bones about it.
There are people today who support states’ rights because of other issues than racism. The one that comes to my mins is abortion rights. Some people support states’ rights so that they can make laws concerning abortion that make it more and more difficult for a woman to have abortion on demand. Some states already have these laws inacted. Another issue for states’ rights is the right to marry.
I am a supporter of a strong Federal government and a liberal from a very left wing family. There are more of us than you might think in the South. Nashville is a symbol of all things Southern and the city voted in support of Obama. Don’t make the mistake of being prejudiced against Southerners. That just leads to such silliness as people changing their accents and dialects to disguise their backgrounds (ala Stephen Colbert of Charleston, South Carolina, closet Southerner).
Irishman, you have stated exactly what I have been trying to say with respect to the general class of confederate apologists. Amen. But that isn’t what is going on here. Tomndebb is not looking at the written evidence, the only evidence here, and presumably off in moderator land of their private snark board are making things up and imputing motives that are non-existent in their effort to circle the moderator wagon because you cannot say that “states rights” apologists are morally and intellectually bankrupt slavery apologists because it will offend the sensibilities of posters who happen to fall within that group of apologists, even though I am clearly and unequivocally including the blowhards on pundit radio and TV who push the states rights crap (presumably as I don’t listen to that stuff) and teach it in schools.
With respect to accusation against Tomndebb bending over backwards to protect the sensibilities of the Sean Hannity’s of the world because it might include posters, I’ll concede that it is a bare accusation without a long offer of evidence. My evidence is basically the utterly illogical rebuke against me and the ignore all facts defense of that rebuke along with my long experience and interpretation of seeing Tomndebb doing this over and over again. Just my word, I haven’t conducted a search. Now, Tomndebb is usually quite rational when defending his points of view. But when defending his moderating, he frequently abandons all logical thinking and says, because I say so. People do that sort of thing. But let’s not pretend that it is anything more than a raw assertion of authority from a person who when not personally involved would never do such a thing in an argument. Nor would I do it without admitting it. If something is just my opinion I have no qualms in saying so.
Now, Irishman, I have to say thank you and my apologies. I’m not supposed to waver in my steadfastness when something is in my opinion indisputably correct, and normally, if Tomndebb is only posting as a moderator, I assume that he is right and I am wrong and I go double and triple check. But you are going to get on the moderator eyeroll list for “encouraging” me. But when Tomndebb is moderating, he is as wrong as often as he is right when posting as a poster, so much so that I wonder if I am just developing a salivating response to seeing his wackiness in making up rules as he goes along.
The rule at SDMB is clear that there are no direct personal insults in GD. And it is a good rule. It is the rule of civilized debate. But indirectly attacking a noxious general public opinion like “states rights” is not a violation of that rule in letter or spirit. In rhetoric rules, it is an ad hominem, but it is not an improper or fallacious ad hominem because the disgustingness of states rights apology and its moral character is the subject of the debate.
No. However, it is not permitted to bash a class of people in such a way that that the poster links that class directly to posters with whom he or she is engaged.
What I am doing is reading the thread from the perspective of a poster who happens to hold the states rights argument who sees, first, an attack upon his person, followed by a Mod’s intervention to prevent that from occurring further, followed by one more attack that would most likely be construed as a further attack upon his or her person.
Note the construction of The Second Stone’s post. Following my introduction of the phrase “moral turpitude” to paraphrase ed malin’s attack on other posters, The Second Stone specifically says that
In the context of the three posts in question, **The Second Stone **has specifically selected a phrase that was used in conjunction with an attack on other posters and insisted that the phrase does apply to someone without making any effort to distance his remarks from the posters on the board.
All that I sought at that point was a shift in emphasis to ensure that no poster was attacked. Such a shift could have taken the form of highlighting specific historians that had made the argument and demonstrating their pro-slavery views. It could have been as simple as a comment that The Second Stone had not intended to attack another poster or even simply making sure that all further posts clearly indicated he was not including other posters in his remarks. It could even have amounted to simply not posting that view, again, if that sub-thread died out on its own.
If The Second Stone insists on coming in here and playing barracks lawyer on a matter of “rules” when there is a long and explicit tradition that this board is not Moderated in that fashion, he is simply going to be disappointed.
I did not invent a rule. I did not employ a rule–real or imagined–to impose a Warning on a poster.
I moderated the discourse with a note that statements that could easily be construed as personal attacks were to be posted in the BBQ Pit.
I think you are talking about a different topic than The Second Stone. I believe he is arguing only about people who claim the cause, reason, justification, whatever of the Civil War was about the larger issue of State’s Rights rather than the issue of Slavery and the States’ desire to maintain that economic policy (talk about euphamism). I don’t believe The Second Stone has anything to say about people who are currently unsettled with the government and the current administration and who are lobbying to make more local decisions rather than being stuck with the centralized ones with which they disagree.
To be fair, his schtick is pretending to be other than he is, so that’s just par for his course.
The Second Stone said:
Now you are making further unfounded accusations: (a) that the moderator private board is for snarking and has no legitimate function; (b) that the moderators (especially tomndebb) are intentionally misrepresenting your position so that they can pick on you (apparently)? I see no other reason for intentionally misrepresenting your intent in order to have cause to comment against you other than to pick on you; why would they need to manufacture a charge against you to defend other board members?
You have no idea what lists I am on. I stand by my posting history. tomndebb said:
Okay, that is interesting. I suppose an example of that might be
poster 1: “I’m a tax collector.”
poster 2: “Yeah, well all tax collectors suck ass.”
That’s almost certainly a deliberate attack against poster 1 veiled under a convenient group label. I can see why that is not allowed. But that certainly does make the rule a little fuzzier in how to interpret.
Thank you for the response. Is that really the rule? So someone posting “all conservatives suck ass” is going to get a moderator note because some posters on this board are conservatives? They would have to say “All conservatives suck ass (except for the conservatives on this board)”?
I’m asking the question because I don’t go hurling near insults enough to know where the lines break down. Obviously I don’t hang out enough in GD.
Yes, I intended to comment that the repercussions of the moderating were pretty slim. I mean, it’s not like you even gave him a warning, just a comment to watch his tone.
No, it is not the rule that “all smurfs suck” is against the rules because there are smurfs on the board. If that were the case I wouldn’t have started this thread (in the Pit) and I would have acknowledged a mistake, apologized and moved on. I will still do that if there is a cite to a rule. But there hasn’t been. This is a rule being made up on the spot.
Nice of you to finally get around to admitting that it is not a rule and is only a “tradition”. And I thought that you had washed your hands of this thread?
Can we only assume that you have come back to undermine your previous assertions? The reason that you are undermining your assertions that this isn’t allowed is that you have finally invented that it is a “tradition”, not a rule. Had that been the case, you could have done it right off the bat. But because this is being made up as it is going forward, because yet another person agreed that I was not insulting an individual poster and because you are incapable of admitting you were wrong about moderating, you keep making your inventions more elaborate and more preposterous.
So rather than post a rule, or a reminder that we have a “tradition” around here of not criticizing despicable practices that some posters may secretly support, (Are there really any posters here who have read the secession statutes who still support the “states rights” lies?) it is a good practice to pull this “tradition” we now call it out of a hat (and if this weren’t moved from the pit I wouldn’t be using “hat”) and say it is a “tradition”. Well, I’ve been a poster for two years now and I was unaware of this “tradition”. I was aware that Tomndebb had a personal moderating tradition of bending over backwards to see that the conservative movement is less insulted than the liberal movement, which I object to.
I would like to know where this explicit tradition is written down. That is what explicit means. I will happily abide by the rule if it is written down and retract everything I have criticized you over if it is an existing written rule. That is what explicit means.
Second, I did rise to your “barracks lawyer” bait earlier and called you a “barracks judge”, which was an insult, and against the rules. I apologize for that. I was in the wrong. You have twice called me a “barracks lawyer” or “rules lawyer”. I note for purposes of the discussion of the thread that those are in fact, direct and explicit insults.
I would like the rules to be applied in the same way for all. If that happens, I will not be disappointed.
It is not true that saying “all conservatives/liberals/atheists/believers/whatevers suck ass” gets a Warning in GD. (And the Mods receive a fair amount of mail in complaints by conservatives/liberals/atheists/believers/whatevers that we do not enforce the rule in that way. A strict enorcement of that interpretation of the rule would mean that no negative comment could be posted by anyone at any time in GD, because we really do have posters representing just about every possible philosophical position.) However, as I have noted in several posts in this thread, there was a direct link between the language employed by The Second Stone and a Mod’s response to an attack on other posters. The language employed created a much closer connection to other posters than simply saying “some vaguely identified group that holds a certain philosophical opinion.”
Well, I am not seeing it. Just because he lifted the phrase “moral turpitude” does not to my eye connect his claim directly against board posters. He specifically said “person” not “poster”.
Oh, and he also said
Does that not speak to distancing the statement from an attack against board members?
This appears to be the root of your perspective. While I certainly understand that in principle, I’m not sure it follows that this case applies. But thank you for responding.
So now there isn’t a rule except in a “direct link”. And you still are being obtuse as to the meaning of “direct”. It is only direct in your imagination, an imagination that is bending over backwards for the propaganda about the “wah between the states”. You are basically saying that when you personally interpret it to be so, you will change the normal meaning of “direct” to suit your bending over backwards modding.
Moreover, you have no trademark on the phrase “moral turpitude”.
Do you think it does? I read that as typical CYA. Poster HypotheticalA opens with everyone on the other side is a scoundrel then closes with but I am not trying to insult anyone on the other side. Do you believe that a poster who believed states rights was a significant issue would be mollified by the little disclaimer?
If a poster wishes to avoid stirring up fights and raising emotional flashpoints, I expect to see a bit more effort put into the text to reduce personal conflict.
I think that it is utterly dishonest not to read the secession statutes. I truly would like every American who spouts “states rights” crap to read them so that they are disabused of the notion. If this is where your frankly paranoid statements are coming from, you should read my earlier posts in the thread, and even earlier posts in other threads on the subject.
The invention that I came late to the “I want people to read secession statutes” is your weakest argument yet, unless I have the magical ability to travel back in time and alter old threads.
And by the way, nice to see that you don’t back down from your own direct personal insults against me in this thread. If you figure out how I “covered my ass” by going back in time and posting consistent statements in other threads, you might want to patent it. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=539336&highlight=secession&page=2
The above is a thread that is remarkably the same in my treatment of slavery and states rights apologists. I re-read my posts, and frankly, I couldn’t have written them more in matching context to my current posts then if I had completely forged them and inserted them into the SDMB database. The idea that I made up anything new for the current thread smacks of … well, I’ll let others read and come to their own conclusion. I’ve got posts starting on the second page going to the last. (Okay, just a little hint: it looks like I’m plagiarizing myself.)
And here is another thread on the confederate naval battle flag. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=516017&highlight=secession
Now an ordinary person not abusing their authority might read those threads, realize his/her mistake and disappoint me by reading those threads, realizing he/she were 100% wrong and apologizing. Certainly that is what I as the aggrieved insultee of “barracks lawyer” would do that. But since I am regularly wrong, I’m used to admitting error and moving on. When I’m wrong. Not when I’m right.
Underlining added. To me, that is exactly what that sentence says.
Look, I understand and accept that you’re trying to keep the tone of the thread in control, and I agree that the level of sanction is pretty mild. And I personally feel that The Second Stone is getting all worked up over an imaginary problem - at least he has yet to post the supporting evidence to show you have a pattern of defending conservatives more than you defend liberals or any other board posters. But I want you to consider that the situation is not as clear cut as you think it is.
To me, The Second Stone was not attacking any particular poster, he was aiming his complaint against anyone who has studied the history and still tries to argue that the Civil War was about broader states rights than the right of the states to continue slavery. The fact that he followed on the heels of your moderation of ed malin for going overboard and the fact that he coopted your turn of phrase does not mean he was directly attacking board members.
Would you have said anything if, instead of using the phrase “moral turpitude” he had said “an educated person who continues to make the argument that the Civil War was about states rights is being disengenuous.”? Is disengenous a polite enough word that you would have accepted it?