December: Blog Spotter Extraordinaire & Tireless Informer on Sins of Liberals, etc

The BBQ Pit
21

Wring:

What you say is true. I apogize if I’ve given the impression that I am arguing otherwise.

I am by no means saying all liberals ignore liberal blather, while all conservatives are ready to jump in on conservative blather.

As you rightly note, you are one of a large minority of liberal minded posters that do consistently object to lunatics arguing liberal viewpoints.

My point is a subjective one, but I believe that it is a correct even though I am a conservative, and it may seem self-serving:

I would say that overrall there is a lot more slack granted to liberals bashing the opposition in egregious and unsupportable fashion than vice-versa.

On this board it seems to me that liberals tend to pull and get away with this kind of thing more than conservatives.

I attribute that to the fact that there seem to be a lot more liberals than conservatives on the board, nothing more than that.

Would you disagree with this asessment?

22

I disagree, Scylla, remember how many times Stoid was dragged in here around the elections?

Chlumpsky was pretty fair left and look where he always ended up?

It doesn’t matter. It’s his ACTIONS that get him pitted, not his beliefs.

After all, I don’t have any beef with you, Scylla, or a lot of other conservative posters.

23

mtgman:

This may be true, but you’ve also described quite a few Bush-bashing threads in GD.

It’s true I find myself between a rock and a hard place here. I find December’s propensity for generalization and drawing broad and irrational conclusions to be indefensible when they occur.

The other part of me gets a little bit mad when I see him attacked so strongly though.

At first I thought that this was my own partisanship. That perhaps it only looks one-sided to me because I share a common political philosophy with December in some way.

However, even after acknowledging and trying to discount this possiblility it seemed quite clear to me that there is a double standard that very often occurs on these boards, and that double standard is why December is so consistently maligned for doing things (wrong things,) that a person with the opposite view can and does get away with.

24

well, let’s see, first of all:

Elvis that crap about suggesting that **december’s ** still not banned 'cause of UncleBeer/manny’s conservatism is absolute bs. and is the sort of thing that makes folks like me wince.

now, back to you, Scylla -

My sense is that the board does indeed have more liberals than conservatives, and also at the moderator/administrator level (usual disclaimer about liberals/conservatives/labeling folks etc.).

what I suspect then happens is that since any particular group is unlikely to post pit threads about their own, it’s more likely that pit threads will get started about a poster w/a conservative viewpoint than a liberal one. hence the proliferation of december/wildest bill pit threads. I’m not assuming that there’s not a similar percentage of lunatic liberals posting idiotic threads, but I don’t often see the conservatives posting pit threads about em (except Stoid during the elections). Maybe that’s another case of selective memory.

Now, if you’re questioning ‘does the administration give more slack to conservatives/liberals re Banning/leeway to post inflamatory stuff’, I’m not certain I agree, but I’m willing to see some comparisons.

problem is, 'cause of our own perception kinds of things, I don’t necessarily remember at first blush which idiotic threads get the pass when it’s liberals. I remember it took a helluva lot for Wildest Bill to get banned, and I think that december nudges that line pretty damned close himself.

so, since I recall conservative transgressions so much better (:D), perhaps you’d be so kind as to give some examples of liberal b/s?

Specifically I’d be looking for threads started by a liberal based on less than steller substance. (since that’s the begining issue for december bashing - that he starts inflamatory style threads w/little evidence or questionable evidence to support the position). and either GD/Pit is fine, I’d think.

I’m not trying to pass the buck - we all have somewhat of selective memory for stuff that annoys I think.

25

Wring:

Well there is Elvis.

Perhaps you should appoint a member of the liberal board of standards to follow him around disclaiming his viewpoints.

Beyond that, I don’t want to go into specific active posters or threads simply to avoid a board war.

I don’t think the Mods offer a double standard. However while there is only one true December, he has 5-6 liberal counterparts who are just as bad. Say what you want about the guy, he’s usually fairly courteous and polite, which is more than you can say about his counterparts who operate with impunity.

Again, I’ve self-evaluated this for selective perception which is always a danger, and still think it’s valid.

I assert without a contention stronger than personal opinion, though. YMMV

26

Looking at GD right now there’s three threads on the front page that he’s started- “Terrorist attacks drop. Is the War on Terror working?”, “Has the UN been good at nation-building and maintaining peace & stability?”, and “Are liberals less interested in the history of foreign countries than conservatives?”. The first two seem reasonable to me, the third is nowhere near being a Grreat Debate and is (IMHO) the cheap-potshot-at-liberals that he’s rightfully been accused of. This seems about right- 1/2 to (getting closer to 2/3rds recently) of the time he does add something of substance, but that other 1/2 is a potshot masquerading as a debate and usually is long on tangentally related cites (usually others opinion pieces) and short on supporting facts.

27

I agree. My own - subjective - view is that the number of moderate conservatives might rival the number of moderate liberals. The huge imbalance is in the number of right-wing conservatives vs. left-wing liberals.

Exactly. Of additional significance is the fact that the “success” of a pile-on thread is dependent on the availability of posters to pile on. And this in turn influences the starting of threads. Once someone has a history of being the victim of successful pile-ons, it encourages other people to start Pit threads about them, as there is a greater chance of success, and less risk of the dreaded “reverse pile-on”. In a similar vein, a person with no history but expressing views not generally tolerated by posters on these boards can be pitted with greater confidence than a person whose views are more in line with the mainstream.

I’ve not seen evidence of this. But what I DO maintain is that being unpopular and the subject of multiple complaints and pit threads will cause the administration to judge your transgressions a lot harsher than they would those of someone who has not been subject to the same. Natural reaction. So the reactions of board members - and hence the political composition of the board - indirectly influences administrative decisions as well, IMHO.

Good balanced post, BTW. :slight_smile:

28

The part which broke my back was when it became clear to me that the distortions are deliberate. It wasn’t a case of him overgeneralizing out of ignorance. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand that the specific case may not apply to the general, it was deliberately overextended. It is a case of him overgeneralizing and distorting in order to demonize. I simply can’t imagine any other motive for turning the dubious “useful idiots” theory into “The Pope supports a regime that murders Jews.”**

I’d draw your attention to i am sparticus and The Ace of Swords. Both highly liberal. Both displayed the same traits of bad faith debate and chronic use of offensive straw men. Both are banned, and I’m sure you remember both of them well. I’d suspect Diogenes the Cynic probably isn’t far from his final warning either. I can’t count the number of times that jerk has been reigned in for his aggressive demonization of his opponents. As a moderate I tend to notice the extremists of both stripes and I’m not above smacking either down. I’ve countered the spin by both december and OliverH in a recent thread in GD. I’m composing(in another window) yet another reply to that thread to chastise OliverH for his poor debate style and misrepresentations.

Overall you may be right that the board is slightly left-of-center in its makeup and ideological tolerances. Still, there comes a point where one is so far out in EITHER direction that it becomes a burden to fight their willful ignorance. IMHO both december and Diogenes the Cynic although on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, are both damn close to being more of a hindrance to the fight against ignorance than a help.

Enjoy,
Steven

29

Yeah, he was really polite when he said that the Pope supported Iraq and that he encouraged the Palestinians to commit terrorism against Israel.

It’s called be disengenious.

I don’t care how “polite” he is-his tone is, but his point is insulting.

If he’s going to insult me, I’d prefer him to do it straight out than weasel around.

30

Rather than say anything else, Shodan, would you care to re-read that thread, come back, and tell us who the “attention seeking twit” is in Collounsbury’s (two) remarks?

31

Hell, Collunsbury was also banned (and reinstated after promising to shape up).

See?

32

<Chevy Chase>
Franco is still dead and december’s still a jerk
</Chevy Chase>

33

impressive list there, mtgman - whadya say, Scylla

tho’ I would disallow the reference to Ace since seems to me that his banning was related more to the whole circle jerk thing he did w/Joe_Cool than his other behavior (just as I’d suggest that Joe’s banning was totally unrelated to his political viewpoint type responses and was more related to the whole being over the top mean to specific posters).

Izzy :wink: we aims to please.

Scylla hey, I call it when I see it, have been avoiding GD of late so can’t help ya there. maybe kimstu??

34

Quite frankly I think Ace belongs in the list because his aggressive strawman usage was, although not always along political lines, certainly present. His final strawman was the “you hate him because he’s honest and won’t cow to your will” and the ever popular “gotta suck up to the mods or you’ll be banned”. His use of straw men and bad faith in debates before that timeframe was pretty liberal as well. As for i am sparticus, well, Scylla no doubt remembers very well the types of straw men, bad faith arguments, and misrepresentations that fool spewed.

Enjoy,
Steven

35

Geeze, always having to try to fight December’s ignorance, a person could end up with close to like fifteen thousand posts…

Oh. Never mind… :wink:

36

ok, fair enough.

So we have one notable conservative banning, and several notable liberal bannings, and another I just remembered, but don’t want to invoke.

Scylla? am I missing a notable conservative??

37

Oh, and both the late, unlamented, Ace and sparticus used their straw men to demonize.

Enjoy,
Steven

38

So december gets picked on because he’s conservative, not because he does so many jerkish things? Interesting hypothesis.

One would suspect that if the hypothesis were true, his conservative defenders in this thread would get Pitted with something approaching the same regularity as december. To test it, let’s apply the same methodology as applied to december and Wildest Bill.

Scylla: Pitted 5 times, including one co-Pitting with Stoid when squeegee wanted you both to shut the fuck up already. (Total does not include 5 self-started attention-seeking threads, 4 joke threads started by other people, and 1 thread by a nutcase whose psychosis had nothing to do with pitting Scylla.)

Shodan: Pitted 2 times. (Total does not include 1 thread started by Arnold Winkelried that was a clarification on Pit rules, not a flame.)

IzzyR (who is not claiming a conservative witch hunt, but who is conservative and therefore someone you would also expect to be frequently pitted if the witch hunt hypothesis were correct): Pitted 1 time.
Conclusion: The You-Guys-Just-Hate-Conservatives hypothesis is bunk.

[sub]Just for comparitive purposes, I’ve been Pitted 4 times, including once by that ratfink Nazi bastard, elucidator.[/sub]

39

wait a sec - you mean to tell me that I"ve been pitted more than Izzy??? (twice).

I’m callin’ my rep!

40

I think the hypothesis is “december gets picked on because he’s a conservative jerk” compared to some liberals who are bigger jerks, but who don’t get pitted with the same frequency/consistency.