Exactly. I used to think that Lib was irritating and kind of nutty but basically a decent guy who sometimes posted something interesting. I don’t know if he changed or if he just wore through my patience, but I have since decided that he’s probably not very bright after all and clearly incapable of recognizing the many beams in his own eye.
He seems to want people to think of him as some sort of expert on philosophy, but I can’t recall that he’s done anything more impressive than copy out the ontological proof for the existence of god. His use of formal logic appears limited to trying to intimidate other posters who never studied the topic and can thus neither decipher nor respond to a formal proof. I can think of several times I’ve seen him do things like harp on some minor writing error commited by another poster and claim that he can’t understand what they mean, but anyone who can’t work out the intent behind his sometimes hideously convoluted prose gets called an idiot.
It wasn’t these ordinary insults but his tendency to compare others to Satan (not the former poster, but the actual Devil) that led me to conclude that he’s probably just crazy. But even if he’s not, I no longer believe he has anything worthwhile to say. I can’t recall the last time I saw a post of his that looked like a sincere attempt at some kind of discussion rather than a thinly veiled boast about how much smarter, wiser, kinder, humbler, holier, more successful, more understanding, more rational, more tolerant, more apologetic, or all-around better he is than everyone else.
Sometimes, I think Liberal can be a genuinely interesting and funny poster to have around. However, where I take issue with him is that he constantly highjacks threads into HIS pet topics. Start a thread complaining about the actions at your local schools? He’ll yank the thread into a place for him to rant about public education. Mention the His4ever types who go around insulting and hurting people who don’t believe as they do? He’ll be there whining that we’re all just a bunch of “Hand stabbers.”
He seems to have no tolerance for anyone else’s beliefs, but we all must respect his. Someone once made a joke about “Jumped up Jesus in a rhinestone bikini!” based on a figurine they saw, and he freaked out and talked about how we were “disrespectful to his religion.”
That’s why I dread seeing him in any topic-because he has to make it all about HIM. And if you ask him to please start another topic so he doesn’t highjack this one, he accuses you of persecuting him, or just showing off or what have you.
In other words-he can dish it out like crazy, but he can’t stand it when it turns back on him.
Exactly! Liberal and our now-departed Roland Deschain share the obnoxious habit of making an irrelevant reference to a philosopher/philosophical concept/what-have-you in every response in an attempt to sound smarter. With Roland it was more obvious and pathetic, since he’s such an intellectual trainwreck, but Liberal does it constantly - he’s smart enough to make it less obvious, though - except when he blatantly misuses whatever concept he’s referencing.
But I’d be fine with Liberal, all-in-all, if he wasn’t so irritatingly smug and self-superior all the time. If he would refrain from giving patronizing lectures to the rest of us about how the moral course of action (or, alternatively, if he would stop betraying his own principles during his sudden rages) I’d be able to just ignore his pretentious, silly little self.
I’ve seen it a lot of times, too - it seems that a goodly number of Dopers fall for his act; I’ve become so cynical after his displays of hypocrisy that I can hardly credit the possible (few) instances of genuine human compassion and caring that he shows. I can see how posters with a limited grounding in logic could be fooled by his proclamations, but I don’t see why people are taken in by his moralizing.
I like Liberal! Quite a lot, actually. Always have. I like the often succinct way he cuts through superfluous bullshit. I like the fact that he’s…well…let’s face it…smarter than most of us. He has a better vocabulary, too. I like the way you never know how he’s going to come down on any particular issue. And I find his posts in general to be more insightful, accurate, unemotional, and intellectually superior (or at least more intellectually mature) than those of most of us around here.
I tend to just ignore him. I might read the first paragraph of one of his posts but usually just skim over what he has to say and keep reading unless I see people starting to quote and reply to him in which case, I close the thread and don’t open it again. If you’ve read one of his self-aggrandizing hijacks, you’ve read them all.
He’s a damn attention whore who loves to be purposefully obtuse. Every post has to stir the pot and spring a irrelavant tangent. The unpredictable, unwarranted nastinessness he routinely shows starkly contrasts with his supposed spirituality and the “gentle” side he shows towards certain posters. (He’s one of those annoying posters who only seem to respect people who kiss his ass before disagreeing with him. In the heat of an argument, he has no time for posters who don’t give a shit about his post count or his reputed “passion”). He has posted apologetic, eating-humble-pie kinds of threads, but after a while you start wondering whether his public self-flagellation is just another childish way to grab attention and stroke his inflated ego.
There are a lot of Dopers who’s political persuasions are incompatible with mine and who may piss me off occassionally, but I can at least respect them for being fair debaters with reasonable temperments. I can’t say the same for Liberal. He works a nerve.
That’s the sad part of all this. He ruins otherwise perfectly enjoyable discussions, not by introducing interesting lines of argument, but instead by showering down little balls of defecate derision on his bewildered adversaries. This behavior destroys thread after thread after thread. That’s not what the message board is about.
For most Dopers, I think, we’re willing to respect and like those we disagree with, as long as they’re fair, decent people, are willing to debate honestly, and don’t condemn everyone who disagrees. I certainly like a number of those with opposing views.
Liberal is the opposite of that, and frankly, he’s made me feel a lot less warm towards libertarianism. Perhaps it’s unfair, but frankly, he makes me think the libertarians deserve to be fringe players in politics and intellectual circles.
This is what pisses me off the most. Here I am, reading a perfectly good thread, when Lib shows up with some obscure secret agenda. There’s a direction he’d like the thread to go to so he uses every nit-picking, thick-headed trick in his Book of Ca–raaazy to get it there. I actually used “deliberately obtuse” in this thread.
I like having you around, Lib. That doesn’t mean I like or approve of all your behavior or opinions, but then, when has such an expression ever meant that.
I’ve been madder at Lib than at any almost other poster on the board, and oftener too. I’ve also gotten more out of arguing with him than anyone else; certainly more than I have with others I argue with here.
I’ve never met Lib in person, and likely never will. I unequivocably respect and feel friendship with him nonetheless.
I opened this thread with a sinking feeling, knowing I’d have to come to Lib’s defense.
Now I don’t. Tris said it all. Thank you kindly, sir.
I will simply add that Lib’s positions are held both intellectually and emotionally, that he lives out what he says, and that I have outstandingly good reason to know this personally, daily, in real life. He knows what I’m talking about, as do one or two others. But he lives his words. If he is a trifle nitpicky at times, well, so are many of us, for one reason or another. But when it’s time to get down and dirty, there’s no one I’d rather have on my side.
I hesitate to post in threads like this but maybe Liberal will take some of the gentler criticism to heart.
At first I found Lib interesting. It was almost like a word a day dictionary as he doesn’t seem able to resist dropping jargon in his posts. I say almost because he is generally in such an attack rush he’ll misuse terms or make obscure use of them about 25% of the time.
IMHO, Lib you should chill the frig out and quit arguing purely for argument’s sake. You always seem to “put it all on the line” every argument you join - quit overinvesting yourself.
