So if Carol Stream is underground and Peter Morris finds her, will James Randi give him a million bucks?
May I have your babies?
As long as you don’t make noise while you’re doing it. 
May I have teen angst as long as it’s silent?
For the record, Carol reminds me, strongly, of a troll that shit all over another message board I occasionally posted to. If Carol ever starts claiming to be European royalty, I’m running for the hills.
Can’t be teen angst if there’s no slamming doors and tearful outbursts.
Bottom line to me is, Carol Stream is more than welcome to argue the “Middle American Republican values” that appear to be her debating stock in trade, all she wants and in any civil way she wants. She is not free to make an estimated 70% of her posts nothing but near-content-free snark and the turning of productive debate into hijacks on irrelevant issues (such as whether Gore or Clinton ever did anything remotely resembling what any Republican being accused of anything short of sainthood is being, usually justly, taken to task for, or, even worse, her own obnoxious snarky style of posting.
If she cares to defend Bush, Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, or any of the other Usual Suspects against accusations, that’s fine. If Cheney is being accused of helping a business while VP and Gore was likewise accused of helping a business, bringing up Gore is fine. But when the debate is about, say, whether Bush whitewashed the failures of Katrina relief, bringing up Whitewater, Kerry’s Vietnam service, Monicagate, Hilary’s stiff public attitude, or John Tyler’s fecundity is not on topic. And throwing a snarky remark about either Clinton, Gore, Kerry, that has little or nothing to do with the topic at hand, and then spending the next 30 posts arguing about whether she was justified in drawing the comparison, with additional snarkiness, is trollish behavior.
I’ve come to have immense respect for our thoughtful conservatives, simply because they do not demean themselves to indulge in this sort of bullshit, even under provocation. (Shodan being an exception – there was a time when I avidly read his posts as having sensible points I probably disagreed with, but could engage him in debate about. Today he seems content to throw in driveby snarks – a true shame IMO.)
But Carol seems, in general, inclined to emulate the worst of Shodan without any of the redeeming qualities that make me still like the man a lot.
She may have some sensible, valid points to make. But she’s poisoned the well as far as getting anyone who didn’t agree with her already to listen to them goes, AFAIAC.
I take it you did not actually read what I posted. Here it is again, with the pertinent part bolded.
What about my post was “nationalistic”? Where did I suggest that you should love it here or leave? I simply asked why you would choose to stay somewhere if you did not enjoy it there. Are you here (and voicing displeasure) because you enjoy some parts of this board, and want to see it get better? Or are you enjoying the act of complaining? Or is there some other scenario I have yet to envision? I can’t tell from your response. Perhaps you’ll honor my question with a non-flippant answer this time.
And, as **kaylasdad99 **has already pointed out, it’s “our” board. When I posted last, I had 4 more posts than you. As I prepare this one, you are ahead by 18. That’s 22 posts in a day. You must like something here.
To get back on topic, Carol Stream seems to take pleasure in causing strife and discontent, and in having arguments. She’s either trolling or unable to distinguish between jerkish and non-jerkish behavior, and thus, not someone who adds value to our community. Unlike someone who actually seems to be interested in contributing something besides vitriol – you, for example.
Braniac, I’ve been getting the impression lately that some people feel obligated to keep these boards as nasty as possible. It’s almost like Larry David is hovering over their shoulder, admonishing, “No hugging, no learning!” Except, I can assure them that SDMB is never going to (d)evolve into a fluffy pink unicorns and sparkly rainbows enclave. There’s plenty of natural dissent and friction; no need to manufacture it.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. If you post a thread in the Pit, esp. on a personal topic, someone will definitely come into it and turn it around on you. If you Pit someone or something because it pisses you off, or upset you, expect it to turn into an indictment of you, regardless of how valid you thought it was when you posted it. It’s happened to me (not recently-- I’ve learned my lesson) and I’ve seen it happen over and over again to others, most recently in **myskepticsight’s ** Black Friday thread.
I’m not saying all Pit threads should be ruled by the OP’s POV; obviously not, as some of them are out of line or ridiculous. But the OP in this case seemed to have a valid beef, expressed it thoughtfully, and wasn’t really obnoxious in any way. I was not surprised, however, to see her knocked around. It’s inevitable.
Why bother posting an OP in the Pit if you’re upset about something? You will only be made to feel worse by people who seem to enjoy derailing Pit threads into pile-ons of the OP. Blog it instead, and block all comments. JMO.
FinnAgain, would that, by any chance, be a website named for a Romanov residence? And would the poster you’re thinking of be an American woman who lives near D.C. and writes schlock bios of long-dead royals?
Without giving away too much and/or possibly starting a ‘board war’… no. The person I’m thinking of claimed, alternately, to be a doctor, writer, painter, marksman, swordsman, a Polish-born member of the Russian aristocracy, a lover of fascism, and a globe-trotting lesbian with big tits… and I’m sure that there are a few others in there as well.
It didn’t use the word “mirage” in its username, did it?
No, FinnAgain, the site I’m thinking of didn’t have “mirage” in its title - although a number of the members had mirages in their heads. The board I was referring to started out as a site for serious discussions of the art, music and culture of the Russian ancienne regime. Unfortunately, the whackos soon took over. One of them claimed that Anna Anderson really was Anastasia (the DNA test was rigged by Prince Phillip, dontcha know) and that she herself (the poster) was Anna Anderson’s grandddaughter and therefore the rightful heir to the Russian imperial throne. We had other crazies who claimed to be descended from the Tsarevich, who survived the massacre in the Ekaterinberg cellar because he wasn’t really a bleeder - the hemophilia story was a merely a malign rumor started by Lenin to discredit the Imperial family.
It seems that an obsession with being royal is a common delusion. I guess there really is something to the lunatic asylum cliche about the inmate who thinks he’s Napoleon. I left the other board because the mods there didn’t have the backbone to keep the would-be royals in check and before long, the whackos had taken over.
Anyway, I apologize to the OP for this hijack.