Brainglutton, I am so tired of your BS

[Spit]

I don’t know about specific posters- but I definitely feel where you are coming from Smiling Bandit. It gets quite boring hearing the same rants over & over. I’m concerned because we do face problems in the U.S.- and constantly railing against the President/Christians/Right Wingers over every little thing makes the arguments lose their power imho.

Of course, I suppose it is Bush’s fault that people are forced to do such things. Bastard.

[Marley23]

@smiling bandit

America is a good country, a strong country, and a beacon of hope in the world.

So this all comes down to “don’t dump on my ideals?” That’s just whiny.

You are not helping.

Are you? Opinions on their own probably don’t help or hurt anybody.

I’m despise Fred Phelps types or machine politicians like the older Republicans. That doesn’t mean your brand of politics has any value. You don’t build up.

What a wonderful set of options: old Republicans, Fred Phelps or “leftists who hate America.” I’m not seeing a lot of nuance here.

You don’t even criticize because you want things better. It’s simply blind dogma that America is bad, anything done in America is bad, and anything vaguely American is bad.

While BrainGlutton could be said to start too many threads and do the long quote-short question thing too often, I never saw him that way. Care to quote a post or something?

America is always becoming a theocracy, a dictatorship, a fascist state, a land of monsters and nightmares and oppression. Funny how these things are always coming to America but actually land somewhere else?

You don’t want to admit that the American system, for all its faults, actually gives people what they want - the very best they can get.

How many people get that?

Because that would mean not pretending that the world would become perfect if we just tossed everything out the window to follow Brainglutton.

More useless, black and white thinking.

That evil men do evil things.

A sterling argument.

And amazingly, BG, despite your continuing belief that every peice of bad news is a disaster, we mostly dealwith it promptly and effectively.

Wanna provide an example?

Your useless chick-littleism is the most fruitless act of talk in history

Oh, come on., the depressing ramblings of a fool who insists on war, perstilence, famine, and death out of sheer morbid hatred of everything of value in the world, of everything not controlled by a Central Party Agency of some sort, and of everything rational human beings might actually want.

In short, you shit on human freedom and the fact people don’t do what you like.

Yeah, and he should stop saying America isn’t a beacon of hope to the world! Because I don’t like that!

[Squink]

@askeptic

Dude, I was refering to people like BG, not pseudo-libertarian faux-liberal godnobbing goofballs.

Hey, to be a strong nation, America needs some of those too!

[vibrotronica]

Shouldn’t the title of this thread be “Brainglutton, I am so tired of losing debates with you”?

[MJinks]

@athelas

Now who’s throwing around straw men?

I’m not attributing any position to him. Yet. I’m simply asking an honest question in light of what I consider nationalistic flag-waving.

[Liberal]

@askeptic

Dude, I was refering to people like BG, not pseudo-libertarian faux-liberal godnobbing goofballs.

Like I said, fuck you.

[Mr.Moto]

@Revenant Threshold

But the next person to use “shit on human freedom” who isn’t talking about, you know, dictators, bastardly legislators, or the like will… well, nothing. But i’ll be annoyed! I may even boo you.

Brainglutton has been one of the more vocal of Hugo Chavez on these boards. Chavez has lost most of these defenders here because of his antidemocratic behavior, and while Brainglutton has expressed mild disappointment in these actions, he hasn’t gone sour on Chavez yet.

Does this annoy you? It annoys me.

[Lobohan]

@smiling bandit

America is a good country, a strong country, and a beacon of hope in the world.

That’s pretty stupid right there. Europeans see US as threat to peace

It doesn’t have to be perfect; it can and is always improving.

Has the US ever done anything wrong, gone in the wrong direction or actually gotten worse at anything?

You are not helping. In fact, your brand of cynicism, in which everything American (except people who agree America is evil, I suppose) is always as bad as it can be and getting worse, is patently ridiculous. I’m despise Fred Phelps types or machine politicians like the older Republicans. That doesn’t mean your brand of politics has any value. You don’t build up. You don’t even criticize because you want things better. It’s simply blind dogma that America is bad, anything done in America is bad, and anything vaguely American is bad. America is always becoming a theocracy, a dictatorship, a fascist state, a land of monsters and nightmares and oppression. Funny how these things are always coming to America but actually land somewhere else?

I’d say you’re not helping. Because useless jingoist flag kissers aren’t patriots. Only a moron loves his country right or wrong. A patriot sees something wrong and works to change it.

Guess what? Europe and Canada don’t actually have awesome health care. Their system sare screwed up as badly as ours - worse, if you count in the possibility for improvement and the opportunities for new medical technology to develop.

Cite please.

There’s a reason why elites around the world come to the U. S. of A. for treatment. And yeah, the poor don’t get as good a care as they might. So what? You’re judging by a standard which arbitrarily includes only what you want it to include. You don’t want to admit that most technologies start out for then elite and move outward as costs come down. You don’t want to admit that the American system, for all its faults, actually gives people what they want - the very best they can get.

Actually a lot of countries would have great healthcare if they ignored a third of their population. :rolleyes:

Because that would mean not pretending that the world would become perfect if we just tossed everything out the window to follow Brainglutton. That evil men do evil things. There aren’t enough resources for everything all the time, and pretty commonly comes down to hard choices, which you seem to pretend don’t exist, or that the choices are all Bush’s fault, or that other countries don’thave hard choices because they’re not evil Amerikkka.

Guess what? I don’t entirely know how to “perfect” American health care. I’ve got some ideas, and they’d probably help. But costs will continue to rise because people want more and more and more and will never accept being told “no.” So they pay. Supply and demand are absolute laws everywhere, and legislating them away only makes their impact more painful. And this holds true in Britain, France, Germany and Canada.

Guess what? Diplomacy always and everywhere involves dealing with people you don’t like. I don’t like the U.N. It’s a squatting disaster, which is spiralling down the tubes as third-rate kleptocracies find they can excercise moral authority (somehow) over western bureaucrats and agencies. It’s also useful, and because we need forums it remains. I don’t like Musharraf that much. I think the Japanese and the Turks still won’t fully admit crimes committed in living memory in the hopes that everyone will soon forget as the victims die off. We deal with them anyway. And amazingly, BG, despite your continuing belief that every peice of bad news is a disaster, we mostly dealwith it promptly and effectively. Your useless chick-littleism is the most fruitless act of talk in history, the depressing ramblings of a fool who insists on war, perstilence, famine, and death out of sheer morbid hatred of everything of value in the world, of everything not controlled by a Central Party Agency of some sort, and of everything rational human beings might actually want.

In short, you shit on human freedom and the fact people don’t do what you like. You can’t stand that people want things you don’t, and like the impotent wanna-be-dictator you are, constantly demand more power over people’s actions.
Oh yeah, finally…

…in every friggin thread you make, you have the obnoxious habit of posting some long, rambling, hard-left source as if it were Holy Writ (it might be to you), then demanding other people actually write something substansive. You never respond to the meat of anyone’s post, instead quibbling over minor side issues or trivialities in roder to avoid actually talking with people.

Assbitch. ( )

Your kind of blind loyalty is the opposite of patriotism. Actually it’s sickening.

Good thing I have healthcare.

[Wee_Bairn]

@smiling bandit

Guess what? Europe and Canada don’t actually have awesome health care. Their system sare screwed up as badly as ours - worse, if you count in the possibility for improvement and the opportunities for new medical technology to develop. There’s a reason why elites around the world come to the U. S. of A. for treatment. And yeah, the poor don’t get as good a care as they might. So what? You’re judging by a standard which arbitrarily includes only what you want it to include. You don’t want to admit that most technologies start out for then elite and move outward as costs come down. You don’t want to admit that the American system, for all its faults, actually gives people what they want - the very best they can get.

I have no idea what the OP is even talking about, but the above is one of the most ridiculous paragraphs I’ve ever read here. Breaking it down or asking for cites would be pointless, but ‘the poor in US and A don’t get good (read any) health care- so what?’ doesn’t really make your point that well, neither does comparing minor quibbles in a countries national health care system to a country without one.

I’ll be sure and tell the friend I know who can’t afford prenatal doctors visits that she’s getting exactly what she wants out of the US system, she’ll be surprised to know that.

[RTFirefly]

@smiling bandit

Assbitch. ( )

If you’re Pitting someone, aren’t you supposed to link to something they said, rather than something you said?

[glee]

@smiling bandit

I’m awful sick of leftists who loudly declare that America is a has-been, or that it’s weak, or that it can’t succeed - who then demand that America attempts the actually impossible with a 100% success rate and that it must come off perfectly immediately, with no downsides at all.

Strangely you don’t give any cites for this. Presumably these are just strawmen?

@smiling bandit

America is a good country, a strong country, and a beacon of hope in the world. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it can and is always improving.

Well your Constitution is pretty good and you certainly have the best armed forces. However it is hard to see why the Bush Administration gives anyone hope, nor what ‘improvements’ have been made by it.

The invasion of Iraq has led to a massive loss of trust in the US; the lack of military resources in Afghanistan (remember Bin Laden? - he’s hiding there) means the Taliban and the drug trade are winning there.
In addition Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay are terrible things for a country to have done.

@smiling bandit

Guess what? Europe and Canada don’t actually have awesome health care.

Actually we do. Everyone in the UK, no matter how poor, can get health care. It’s true that rich people can do very well in the US - is that your standard?

@smiling bandit

Guess what? Diplomacy always and everywhere involves dealing with people you don’t like.

The US regularly makes the mistake of keeping dictatorships in power, provided they have oil or will fight Communism, or will ally with the US.

It would be great to have a US with smart, honest leadership. Having been your allies for centuries, we live in hope you will achieve this.

[What_Exit]

@Dinsdale

I recently read The New Century written by David Halberstam in 1991.
Thought it presented some pretty convincing arguments about what we should have learned in the decades since WWII, and how we had pissed away many advantages we historically enjoyed.
I found it stunning to consider the extent to which in the following 16 years we have continued making the same mistakes - if anything - ramping up the pace.

Yeah, the US is a fine place. But we’re not divinely entitled to an easy life at the top of the heap, and we can’t just assume the rest of the world will keep paying the premiums to allow us to maintain our level of consumption.

I mostly agree. I thought Bush the first and Clinton were doing a fair job of navigating the post cold war reality however and the current Bozo and his evil crew have set us back decades.

Jim

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Mr. Moto

Brainglutton has been one of the more vocal of Hugo Chavez on these boards. Chavez has lost most of these defenders here because of his antidemocratic behavior, and while Brainglutton has expressed mild disappointment in these actions, he hasn’t gone sour on Chavez yet.

Does this annoy you? It annoys me.

I generally don’t tend to post or read those threads (or at least, I can’t remember doing so). I know very little of Chavez. But yes, I imagine if I did, I would indeed be annoyed. If it helps, on a larger scale I am annoyed by BG’s partisanship, though (as I said) I don’t think he’s as bad as smiling bandit makes out.

Why do you ask?

[Shodan]

Pop quiz -

[ul][li]Socialists are morons[]BrainGlutton is a socialist[]therefore [list=A][]If we just jigger the election system to give more third parties a chance, all our problems will disappear[]BUSHSUX![]Chavez is only doing this because he cares about the poor of Venezuela []BUSHSUX!all of the above[/ul][/list][/li]
Show your work.

Regards,
Shodan

[Ludovic]

@Revenant Threshold

I don’t think he’s as bad as smiling bandit makes out.

I’d prefer almost anything over Smiling Bandit making out.

[smiling_bandit]

@Ludovic

I’d prefer almost anything over Smiling Bandit making out.

You get your wish - I don’t get to make out very often lately.

In any case, I’ll probably be back on tommorow to make a more substansive post with cites, but today I am totally drained.

[Maeglin]

@smiling bandit

You get your wish - I don’t get to make out very often lately.

In any case, I’ll probably be back on tommorow to make a more substansive post with cites, but today I am totally drained.

Writing the OP took it all out of you?

[RTFirefly]

@Mr. Moto

Brainglutton has been one of the more vocal of Hugo Chavez on these boards. Chavez has lost most of these defenders here because of his antidemocratic behavior, and while Brainglutton has expressed mild disappointment in these actions, he hasn’t gone sour on Chavez yet.

Does this annoy you? It annoys me.

Oh, good.

What annoys me is that our Administration counts as allies a bunch of nations with human rights records worse than Chavez’, but neither wingnut Dopers nor wingnuts at large think the human rights records of those other nations are worth getting exercised about.

You and your fellow travelers only have a hard-on for Chavez because he’s a left-wing dictator rather than a right-wing dictator. Nothing wrong with that; just don’t pretend his human-rights abuses are the reason you’re upset about him. They’re not.

[MrDibble]

@smiling bandit

America is a good country, a strong country, and a beacon of hope in the world.

I thought joke pittings weren’t allowed anymore. Live and learn.

[Mr.Moto]

@RTFirefly

You and your fellow travelers only have a hard-on for Chavez because he’s a left-wing dictator rather than a right-wing dictator. Nothing wrong with that; just don’t pretend his human-rights abuses are the reason you’re upset about him. They’re not.

So you’re happy to denounce him on his own terms then? I see you are - you called him a dictator.

That in and of itself makes you far more intellectually honest than BrainGlutton, who so far as I know hasn’t done so.

I’m sure we could sit together and argue for hours about the comparative nastiness of various dictators and authoritarians, but Brainglutton would convince himself that various of these (leftists of course) weren’t dictators or authoritarians at all - and that kind of suspension of disbelief can really poison the debate.

If you can find more than mild criticism of Chavez from Brainglutton, please point it out. So far as I can see, he mostly said it was silly for Chavez to attack Halloween celebrations. OTOH, he lavished a lot of praise on Chavez in the past that looks misplaced now.