Personally, I would interpret any forehead tattoo as a sign of poor impulse control…
The second, if you’re a being a literalist.
It’s hyperbole.
Yes. The hyperbole is meant to suggest that you have this reaction more often than some might consider appropriate.
I think you are focussing literalistically, and completely missing the point.
If it is a point of honor for you to point out the fact that you don’t actually attack literally everybody who disagrees with you and that characterization is false, then I will so stipulate, but I think we both know that I didn’t literally mean “everybody,” so I don’t know what is being proved.
You have a reputation for losing your cool and going off when you feel you’ve been slighted. IMO, that reputation is earned. You’ve been pitted and piled on, and you know what it feels like to be attacked by people who simply have fun attacking others.
I would hope that would create some empathy, but it hasn’t that I can see, as you also participate and initiate character assassination type pittings and pile ons.
Your point seems to be that you don’t do it to literally everybody, only when you feel you’ve been insulted and disrespected. This seems to happen to you with an unusually high frequency.
My point is that it doesn’t matter. Bad behavior is bad behavior and there is no excuse.
The only useful thing I’ve learned from ten years plus on these boards is that it’s never justified.
My point is that that is the meme, promulgated by dishonest posts like yours. My point is that I do NOT in fact attack those who disagree with me. I NEVER HAVE.
If you want to hide behind your claim to “hyperbole” and dismiss me for being “literalist” instead of acknowledging that at the very best, you misspoke, fine. That’s cowardly.
Words have meaning. If you use them to attack another person, saying you didn’t mean what your words said you mean–that it’s somehow my fault for assuming you were using them according to their actual meaning–you’re a coward.
I’m not hiding behind the split hair of saying “Well, it’s not really *quite *everybody,” as your response suggests.
I’m saying I don’t do it at all. No one has ever found a cite to the contrary, only repetitions of the meme, like a Dope-specific urban legend. “Everybody” isn’t a slight exaggeration, as you suggest. It’s patently untrue.
And how can you have read this thread, and my posts in this thread, and spout further bullshit about lack of empathy? Who’s the only person in this thread who has attempted to address the OP directly, candidly, empathetically, and try to explain the culture of the Dope to him and why he’s getting this response?
Have you actually read this thread? You’re just piling one lie on top of another.
The funny thing is that what you’re doing here is exactly what you accuse me of doing. You had absolutely no reason to pull a personal attack on me out of your ass in this thread. You’re doing nothing but carrying old grudges, and inventing entirely new situations to poke me with a stick, simply because over the past 10 years you and I have had disagreements in the past. You are a grudge sniper.
Again, cowardly.
Read the thread. I’ll expect an apology for your mischaracterization of my level of empathy in this thread, and apology for repeating the wholly unfounded and unsupported lie that I attack everyone–or even anyone–simply for disagreeing with me.
The fact that I lose my temper sometimes tends to obscure certain things, I know, but I have–privately, never expressed till now–a very strong code of honor that I keep myself to when I come here. I try never to bring up old disagreements as ammunition in an unrelated thread; I try very hard to engage respectfully with someone who is engaging in good faith, no matter the disagreement (you can see I love to argue; 90% of my exchanges around here are disagreements by definition); I try very hard not to talk out of my ass, and only to make claims or state positions that I firmly believe in. I don’t play stealth devil’s advocate, as some do, just to roil things up. I’m very proud of my personal record on those counts, so yeah, it’s infuriating to see someone categorically state that I *always *break one of those personal rules that is very important to me and that I am always, always conscious of. (True, if I were more conscious of my temper, these other misunderstandings might not happen as much. But it is a separate issue, and has nothing to do–has NEVER had anything to do–with whether I simply disagreed with someone.)
Dismiss it as “hyperbole.” It’s simply not true. It’s even almost true, within the margin of error allowed by “hyperbole.” And your refusal to withdraw it, or show some evidence, or even apologize for creating this out of nowhere in a thread in which I haven’t lost my temper, and in which I’ve been NOTHING but empathetic to the OP, is outrageous. And cowardly.
Well that was odd.
No, wait.
Come to think of it, has lissener ever came out and said he didn’t rape and murder Glenn Beck in the 1990s?
Sigh. Edit window.
Sorry. For years I thought that if I just ignored it, eventually it would go away. But then someone like Scylla shows up and freshens up the meme again, with absolutely no justification. It’s bad enough dealing with a reputation that’s honestly earned, but this particular bit of bullshit I’m done letting pass.
You want to take issue with what I’m saying this thread, fine. You want to pull quotes from past threads and take issue with them, fine. But these vague and never supported rumors that have been repeated frequently enough to take on the smell of fact, no. Back it up or withdraw it.
Lissener, we are now having a discussion and a disagreement. The topic of this discussion is whether or not you are especially prone to character attacks. I maintain that you are. You, that you aren’t This discussion has led you to call me “dishonest,” and “cowardly.”
The argument that you do not attack people you disagree with and “NEVER HAVE” would have been a lot stronger, had you not proved it wrong in both the previous and the following sentence you made the claim in, no? :dubious:
Semantics aren’t that interesting. I’ve already conceded the literal meaning and reiterated the intended meaning. I feel that my meaning is clear, so I’ll move on.
I’m saying I don’t do it at all. No one has ever found a cite to the contrary, only repetitions of the meme, like a Dope-specific urban legend. “Everybody” isn’t a slight exaggeration, as you suggest. It’s patently untrue.
[/quote]
Ok. It’s an important point to you that you don’t attack unless you feel that you or your views have been insulted or disrespected. You feel that nobody has ever produced a cite that contradicts this, and that that’s meaningful in some way. It’s really not. You feeling that you or your views have been insulted or disrepected is subjective to you and you alone. Nobody else can intuit what you will consider insulting or disrepectful. Not everybody will agree with you over what constitutes “insulting or disrespectful.” Why are your personal views more important than anybody else’s? Why should anybody else feel that that’s a valid criteria?
I personally don’t feel that I’ve been insulting or disrepectful to you here to justify being called “cowardly” and “dishonest.” Apparently you do. You seem to think this is meaningful, but it’s not.
Your problem is this:
What you call “insulting or disrepectful” is measured by your personal feelings. Of course nobody produces a cite that contradicts your internal barometer. Based on this, you claim the meme that you are especially hostile and disagreeable is wrong.
But it’s not. The true barometer is not how you perceive and rationalize your actions, but how the larger group perceives and reacts to them. Your discounting the feedback of the larger group and inserting your own personal more favorable interpretation.
It’s even further off topic, but I interpret that post not to be directed so much at the OP as at the board in general, and to be something of a self-justification for your hostility.
A “lie?” I thought you didn’t attack people for disagreeing? Why must I interpretation be a “lie,” if you disagree with it?
No. Lissener, I’m not grudge sniping. I am suggesting that you are very quick to attack when you feel you’ve been slighted, and that it rationalizes your hostility and general bad behavior because by your special internal barometer it’s always justified.
It’s not coming.
I appreciate that. My honest suggestion is to revisit your criteria for what constitutes “good faith,” “an insult,” and “disrespect.,” It’s a poor rationalization, IMO.
We’ve had a disagreement here because of my admittedly cheap shot, busting your balls for being prickly and disagreeable (which you seem to have recognized is an issue, your rep and might have some justification.) Out of that, you’ve called me cowardly and dishonest multiple times. You know me to be neither.
The OP is describing what I believe to be a flaw that your posting history also demonstrates… Knee jerk, disproportionate, hostile reactions. I’m sure you sympathize with the OP. I think you’re wrong to.
Scylla, your disconnect is so total and so anti-sensical that it lifts a huge burden off my shoulders. You’re not worth engaging. At all. You say I attack people simply for disagreeing with me. I prove that this is not true. In doing so, I get a little angry. You now move the goalposts, and paint me as denying that I have ever lost me temper with people THAT I disagree with. Somehow, your take the fact that I lose my temper AT ALL as proof that I personally attack EVERYBODY who disagrees with me.
First you say it was BECAUSE I disagreed with them, which paints me as a psychotic megalomaniac. You tell lies about me, defend those lies, and then when I get angry, you take this as proof that I attack people simply BECAUSE they disagree with me. No, Scylla, I’m angry at you because you lie about me and then defend it. According to your standards, the only way this exchange could have happened outside of your accusation, was for me to let you tell lies about me, and not be angered by it.
I never said (I don’t find myself saying “I never said” with any other poster as much as with you, Scylla, because you dishonestly reframe what I say to fit your argument)–I never said I never get angry at people. Who never gets angry? I said that your accusation that I launch personal attacks on people merely for the sin of disagreeing with me is not true. I have never, ever done this. Ever.
I am angry you, not because we disagree on a movie or politics or even on this thread, but because you promulgate a lie about me and refuse to acknowledge that. Who WOULDN’T be angered by that?
You have proven my point by moving the goalposts in order to make a dishonest point. Thank you for clarifying for me once and for all how completely dismissable you are.
Your dumbass argument has ruined a thread that could have been a chance to talk about how stupid the OP was.
Gah! I hate the Internet!
“Know you to be neither”? Scylla, random stranger stops me on the street, says “Quick, Scylla, two words!”
Me: “Liar and coward.”
“Know you to be neither”? Bullshit. YOU know, on some level, when you move goalposts, when you attack based on rumor, when you “hyperbolize” and then blame another for being “literal” rather than taking responsibility for your words–all of those acts–ALL of them–are equal parts cowardice and mendacity.
Clear enough? Scylla: You are a coward. Scylla: You are a liar.
Questions?
What really sucks is that 90 posts have gone by and no one’s mentioned Illinois.
That’s three words. Anyway, wouldn’t the correct response be, “I’m not Scylla”?
Thanks, now I have a stupid country music song in my head.
Shrug. I would guess some of them do it just to piss people off and mess with their heads. In that case, the two morons were successful. If they really were Nazis, then they were Nazis. The OP had thoughts about ummmmm smashing them. So what? Did he? No. Did he shoot them or stab them? No.
There’s nothing that says you have to have nice feelings toward skin heads or Nazis. Nothing. There have been people I wanted to smash. So what? I wager everyone here has met, or seen someone somewhere they wanted to smash. Again, so what? It’s what you do, not what stray thoughts you have that matters.
This from a man who has been banned and begged his way back in - was it once, or twice?
I knew the instant I read these words that you would be engaging within twenty minutes, without even scrolling down. And you are the one giving thirteen year olds advice on how to comport themselves.
Don’t ever change, lissener. Not that you ever could.
Regards,
Shodan
Oh, yeah, if they’re buying there’s a hell of a lot they can be forgiven for! Harleys? Shit yeah! - Just keep 'em coming! :p.
As it is, I’ve got an interest in bikes, I just never got around to getting a license.
Yeah, I got over my adolescent violence, too. I clicked on to the empathy thing a whole lot more than I did as a teen, and now I’m pretty pacifistic.
My logic with skinheads and Aryans is that when somebody’s life and circumstances are so pathetic they resort to tattoos of highly inflammatory insulting racist symbols on their skin* the best thing you can do for yourself and the worst thing you can do to them is ignore them. Reinforce the whole “You don’t matter and nobody gives a damn” feeling that drove them there in the first place- perhaps it will take them one step closer to getting meaning in their life or failing that offing themselves.
If they start something with you, that’s different— you’re free to defend yourself, but until then, just ignore them. And if they do, they may rethink the wisdom of wearing swastikas when their trial comes around.
Imagine that you dye your hair blue and wearing a Star Trek uniform with a tutu into public: are you probably going to be more upset if somebody makes a comment or if somebody just seems to neither notice nor care?
*It’s always been a great irony to me that the people most proud of being white are the ones who’ve failed in and been outcast by the white community; it’s kind of like a guy who failed out of State University wearing a State University sweatshirt everywhere he goes.
That’s how I always feel when when watching those documentaries on the KKK and the neo-Nazi movement here in the US. It’s like, if these people are representative of the “Master Race”, then that’s pretty damned pathetic.
I’ve always found that the best way to deal with people who put things on themselves that are meant mostly to attract attention and raise eyebrows–nowadays, my recent retail experience, it was more likely to be hipsters than NNs–when you must deal with them, that is–is to treat them as if they were dressed in the most innocuous, uninteresting fashion. Just make eye contact and give them an empty retail smile. They’re more pissed off if you DON’T notice their every-day-is-Halloween look than if you do.h
Everyone has a desire once in a while to kill someone who doesn’t deserve it and I’m only too human.