# Bricker fooled me for too long **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 12, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835 "2012-11-12T22:46:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/161 "2012-11-13T23:36:28Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I do agree with those who say if you’re a conservative and post on this board “Conservative” about what exactly? I know I’m picking on your here but seriously, what’s up with people using these terms and assuming they know something about the other persons position. I feel strongly we should have a free market and a strong military, generally against the current form of unions, I think gays should be able to get married and that healthcare should be affordable/available for all. Am I conservative or liberal? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/162 "2012-11-13T23:37:53Z")
We have a very specific forum for sipping tea while murmuring in polite discourse. Called the Great Debates. Then, over here, we have the Pit. Anyone who hasn’t been abused in the Pit probably never said anything very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/163 "2012-11-13T23:38:46Z")
You’re a weirdo. **F-P** was describing _himself_ as a conservative. If you don’t want to be one, you don’t have to. ETA: that was to **RaftPeople**. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/164 "2012-11-13T23:40:28Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > We have a very specific forum for sipping tea while murmuring in polite discourse. Called the Great Debates. Then, over here, we have the Pit. Anyone who hasn’t been abused in the Pit probably never said anything very interesting. Yeah, Bricker says lots of interesting stuff! ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/165 "2012-11-13T23:42:21Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > What evidence do you offer for this ridiculous claim? It’s not a claim. It’s an estimate, aka a best guess. > [@](#): > > A lot of what’s going on is that weak-sauce evidence is brought up for it, and the weak-sauce evidence gets attacked as low-hanging fruit, to mix my metaphors. If I understand you correctly, you think posters to this thread agree that Bricker gets treated differently because he is conservative, but they are arguing so vociferously only about the narrow issue of whether this particular evidence substantiates this claim - even though they agree that the claim is actually true. I guess this would be your response to those who claim they lack intellectual rigor. Myself, I’m sticking to my estimate. > [@RaftPeople](#): > > “Conservative” about what exactly? > > I know I’m picking on your here but seriously, what’s up with people using these terms and assuming they know something about the other persons position. Do you agree that the concept of “conservatives” has meaning in terms of the contemporary political spectrum? If you don’t, we have no room for discussion. If you do, then pick someone who can accurately be described as conservative. That’s a guy that my post applies to. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/166 "2012-11-13T23:44:20Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > …Am I conservative or liberal? No disrespect intended, but maybe you are of no particular stripe. Nothing wrong with that, save that in a democratic republic large collections of people negotiate the government. If you are not aligned with anyone, you are a political gelding. Not knocking it, mind, you go where your mind takes you, and that’s cool. I vote with the Democrats because they are as close as I’m likely to get. I will be disgruntled, but not irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/167 "2012-11-13T23:45:00Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > It’s not a claim. It’s an estimate, aka a best guess.If I understand you correctly, you think posters to this thread agree that Bricker gets treated differently because he is conservative, but they are arguing so vociferously only about the narrow issue of whether this particular evidence substantiates this claim - even though they agree that the claim is actually true. Which claim are you talking about here? The only “vociferous argument” I see is the one over Bricker’s original claim that unions are poopy heads because they wouldn’t let out-of-town work crews operate in Jersey. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/168 "2012-11-13T23:45:52Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Do you agree that the concept of “conservatives” has meaning in terms of the contemporary political spectrum? If you don’t, we have no room for discussion. I don’t know. Give me a definition and I’ll tell you. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/169 "2012-11-13T23:46:39Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > It’s not a claim. It’s an estimate, aka a best guess. I know it’s a guess, but if that’s the best you can do, boy howdy. What evidence do you have that _anyone_ is in denial over this issue? That is, whom can you quote saying anything that denies **Max’s** claim? It’s barely possible that you’re right and that I’m missing something major. But from what I see, it’s not 75% of posters who deny Max’s claim. An estimate for the percentage who are denial of that claims, i.e., a best guess, would be 0%. > [@](#): > > If I understand you correctly, you think posters to this thread agree that Bricker gets treated differently because he is conservative Close, but not quite: rather, I think posters to this thread find the question of whether Bricker gets treated differently because he is conservative to be a boring question that misses the main point, which is that Bricker is behaving in a silly fashion by chastising people for not scolding stupid liberal posts, instead of scolding stupid liberal posts himself. Whether he’s treated differently is a boring question. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/170 "2012-11-13T23:47:28Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Which claim are you talking about here? The only “vociferous argument” I see is the one over Bricker’s original claim that unions are poopy heads because they wouldn’t let out-of-town work crews operate in Jersey. No the vociferous argument is over whether Bricker’s claim about unions was treated differently than BG’s claim about PB due to ideological affinities. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/171 "2012-11-13T23:48:40Z")
Oh. There seems to be general agreement on that. What am I missing? ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/172 "2012-11-13T23:49:15Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > What evidence do you have that _anyone_ is in denial over this issue? That is, whom can you quote saying anything that denies **Max’s** claim? I don’t want to get into a semantic argument over the meaning of the term “evidence”, but the basis of my estimate is in the part of my post that you didn’t quote. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/173 "2012-11-13T23:50:32Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Oh. There seems to be general agreement on that. What am I missing? Most posters to this thread seem very vested in arguing that it was due to other differences. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/174 "2012-11-13T23:50:42Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > You’re a weirdo. **F-P** was describing _himself_ as a conservative. If you don’t want to be one, you don’t have to. > > ETA: that was to **RaftPeople**. Although he might consider himself a conservative, his post was a general statement about posters he classifies as conservative. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/175 "2012-11-13T23:51:43Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > I don’t know. Give me a definition and I’ll tell you. I’m sorry, I don’t want to get into a digression about this issue. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/176 "2012-11-13T23:52:11Z")
How many lives were put at risk by Pat B’s stupidity? Or the bogus story thereof? If this story about the unions were true, they would be responsible for an appalling lack of concern for their fellow citizens lives and property. An accusation that should be examined closely before determination is made. Was it? Pat B might have been guilty of hurting people’s feelings. There is no equivalence worthy of the word. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/177 "2012-11-13T23:53:54Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Most posters to this thread seem very vested in arguing that it was due to other differences. I guess so: > [@elucidator](#): > > How many lives were put at risk by Pat B’s stupidity? Or the bogus story thereof? If this story about the unions were true, they would be responsible for an appalling lack of concern for their fellow citizens lives and property. An accusation that should be examined closely before determination is made. Was it? > > Pat B might have been guilty of hurting people’s feelings. There is no equivalence worthy of the word. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/178 "2012-11-13T23:54:41Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > “Conservative” about what exactly? > > I know I’m picking on your here but seriously, what’s up with people using these terms and assuming they know something about the other persons position. > I feel strongly we should have a free market and a strong military, generally against the current form of unions, I think gays should be able to get married and that healthcare should be affordable/available for all. Am I conservative or liberal? Heck, I can’t be sure where I fall on the American conservative/liberal spectrum, either. Being Canadian, I guess I can assume an automatic leftward adjustment… also pro-choice, atheist, but pro-business and pro-military, with my only objections to capital punishment being boringly pragmatic instead of thunderously moral… Heck, my stance on gay marriage stems from a distrust of the government to regulate the individual (i.e. if a citizen wants to do something and no harm to society can be demonstrated, the government has no business banning it), which I _thought_ was a position that rugged conservative types liked… But when I try to talk to Rand Rover or other board conservatives to try to offer the thoughtful (supposedly) liberal arguments they all claim to so desperately want to debate, they’d rather rail about boogeyman unthinking liberals that sound more cartoon than actual. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/179 "2012-11-14T00:00:48Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Most posters to this thread seem very vested in arguing that it was due to other differences. Sure, but that doesn’t mean that it’s SOLELY due to other differences. Here, let’s make it simple: does anyone in this entire thread believe that if, some day, two issues came up at the same time, one on each side of the aisle, which were LITERALLY IDENTICAL IN ALL WAYS except that one reflected badly on liberals and one on conservatives, and two threads were started, one about each issue, one started by Bricker, and one started by some random liberal poster; that the SDMB is such a preposterously even-handed and objective and reality-based community that the two threads would receive PRECISELY the same number of posts with PRECISELY the same level of emotion? Anyone? Is anyone going to make that claim? Because I’ve never heard anyone make that claim, or anything even vaguely resembling it. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835/180 "2012-11-14T00:44:58Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > Most posters to this thread seem very vested in arguing that it was due to other differences. One night when I was seven, my pet cat was sleeping on our car. We didn’t see it when we got in the car to drive off, and the startled cat leapt off the car and under the wheels, dying instantly. I will tell you that the cat died because it jumped under our car. If you conclude from that story that I deny my cat would eventually have succumbed to old age, you’re an idiot. I will tell you that leftist posters treated Bricker differently because he 1. Posted in the Pit (I think), 2. Stuck to the claim after it was shown to be unsubstantiated, and 3. Used it to claim that large swaths of people were behaving in a despicably partisan manner in a time that cried out for non-partisanship. If you conclude from that story that I deny that leftist posters would have treated him differently because he is conservative, well, we’re back to the situation with the immortal cat. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bricker-fooled-me-for-too-long/640835.md?page=10)