(Bolding mine)
Stagnation shouldn’t be a problem for you then… 
I’m sorry Manny won’t be around. Best wishes.
I hope he reconsiders.
manhattan is a class act. In resigning he has left a parting message to the posters of the SDMB that I can only hope will result in a little more respect for posters whose views differ from that of the vast majority.
He will be missed! This board needs people like manhattan, those who can intelligently articulate their views and back them up with credible information.
Grooooooan! 
I just meant that a marketplace of ideology is a good thing. Sure, the viewpoint of the right is underrepresented here, but then again, so are those of libertarians, evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, and those outside of the United States. The SDMB would be a far less interesting place if most members were liberal white agnostic Americans.
I wish manhattan well, and hope he’ll find the sense of community online that he seeks.
[QUOTE=elmwood The SDMB would be a far less interesting place if most members were liberal white agnostic Americans.
I wish manhattan well, and hope he’ll find the sense of community online that he seeks.[/QUOTE]
Hmmm
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most members are white
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most members are liberal
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most members are American
I’m not sure about the agnostic part. It would suggest to me therefore that you wouldn’t want to see more agnostics represented on the board for fear that the SDMB would become “a far less interesting place”.
Best wishes manhattan.
Thank you for your outstanding service and for your posts, manhattan .
I wish him the best too.
But, how do you retire from a message board? And why would you?
In the statement it says that he didn’t feel it was a comfortable place for conservative posters. True, but him leaving makes it all the more unbalanced and less comfortable. This is the wrong move on his part.
Like Elmwood said, do you really want to be in a place where everyone shares your views?
Manhattan, IRL, works in the financial world. Those terms mean something along those lines.
I’ll miss Manhattan. I didn’t always agree with him and I thought he presented his cases well.
I didn’t always agree with him, but he usually had good, solid arguments. He helped keep some of us goddless liberals in line.
His contributions shall be missed.
I know very well what you meant. But what you actually wrote; who could resist?
Dang. You’re a class act, G. Best of luck to you. Please don’t give up on non-virtual meetings–the beer is always cold at the Ace Bar, and the bagels always warm in the Village.
It is indeed a difficult place for minority views, not minority in the general population, but just here. There is a certain avalanche effect to the pile-ons. After sufficient repetition of tired mantras, perceptions are built out of nothing until sometimes even moderators join in, pacifying the screaming crowds with advice and admonitions to the overwhelmed poster. It is underhanded, really — the tactic of saying that someone is posting an opinion for the purpose of stirring up shit, or to nitpick, or to take over the thread, whatever. It comes to the point where no matter how he responds, he will be attacked: even if all he is doing is drawing attention to the attackers, he is now an attention whore, has a martyr complex, or is hijacking the thread. There is a distinct tendency here to take offense easily but to dish it out readily. I still like the idea I offered sometime back of one-on-one debates. Nobody wins then just by sheer numbers. I wouldn’t be at all surprised this post will be met with exactly what I’m describing here, not because it is a reasonable expectation, but because it is a typical response. I’d like to state my opnion and move on, just like everyone else. Sometimes, I feel a lot like Manhattan. But I hang around anyway in the hopes that opposing views might be heard. But the more the place becomes one-sided, and the more there is of the “don’t let the door” sentiment, the less appealing it becomes.
I’m sorry to hear this. Catch ya on the flip side, manhattan.
It’s an attractive thought - and one that’s lately crossed my mind a few times, truthfully.
Hmm. Most of his contributions cointained a few good facts and intelligent arguments, and a whole lot of invective, nearly always along the lines of “liberals are morons”. I suppose if you’re in a minority, and you find your moron accusation being echoed by a crowd back at you, it’s going to feel lonely. But uncomfortable? Seems Manny’s experience here was a comfortable as he wanted to make it, and rebuttals to his arguments no less personalized than his arguments themselves.
Not that I’m suggesting Manny acted “inappropriately”. I’d be the last to criticize him for insulting invective. Looks as if he likes to dish it out, but got tired of it being thrown back at him.
He’ll be missed by me. But I don’t understand the bit about not being “comfortable”. It’s hard to imagine an internet MB that doesn’t have a high noise to signal ratio. You just gotta have a good filter. I hope he reconsiders and comes back.
Every time a conservative poster leaves, the Baby Jesus cries. Good on ya manhattan-you’ll be missed.
God forbid - don’t leave me here by myself (almost)!
But, again, I can see the attraction. Calm, rational, intelligent conservatives - like Bricker and Mr. Moto and Sam Stone and others - get exactly the same treatment as any other conservatives. You get sniped at and snarked at and insulted and piled on and misrepresented and trolled at. And any complaint gets exactly what Liberal mentioned.
The assholes win again.