There’s a status for that? Why was I not informed?!
Bryan Ekers - 57,000+ posts
Bricker - 55,500+ posts
Moreover:
Bryan Ekers - 57,000+ posts from Nov 200 - present
Bricker - 55,500+ posts from Dec 1999 - present
Well, what do you expect, given my 1800-year head start?
If I’m being honest, you could have done so much more.
I was too busy not trying to impose my will on others. You know, that thing you’ve accused me of wanting to do on numerous occasions.
With 1800 years of practice, I’d hoped for better self-control.
Heck, with your mere 19 years experience, I’d hope for an ability to craft insults that are not as feeble as “Nuh-uh! I know YOU are, but what am I?”
You’ve falsely accused me numerous times (and not just me, of course; it seems to be one of your go-to moves and can be directed at just about anyone) of something, and your riposte is that you’d hope I wouldn’t do the thing you falsely accuse me of doing?
I remain astonished by people who are impressed by you. Frankly, I’m more inclined to pit them than I ever would be to pit you, but since this thread was started by someone else, why not weigh in?
Oh, goodie–you’re at it again.
Lay off the fuckin booze, or whatever it is that’s making you post such unmitigated horseshit.
Like when Bricker defended the Dred Scott decision?
It’s why this place is dying; the same old men having the same conversation with each other over and over.
Are you going to walk back or revise your “status” claim? I don’t know how the moderators view Bricker, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have any special status to flout rules and troll the board based on my comparably high post count, so if there is a “High Post Count Freak” club, I never got an invite.
As a side note, if I felt the same contempt for the board that Bricker has often expressed - lamenting the hypocrisies of the users and such - I can’t imagine why I’d keep coming back here. I’m not that desperate for that kind of validation.
Other kinds of validation, sure.
Bricker offers useful knowledge of the law and the legal system whether you agree with his politics or not. Bryan Ekers brings no value to a conversation. 59000 or so of his posts are thuddingly unfunny one-line attempts at humor. One supposes he fondly believes himself to be the SDMB’s beloved class clown, but folks believe all sorts of things that just aren’t true.
I don’t know what point you think you made. The other poster starts off by making a point of law, so there is no pivot from moral to legal here. That was the claim. That posters are talking only about the morality of an issue and Bricker tries to pivot to a legal analysis.
But let’s say you found one example. So what? I purposely said “most of the time”, not “all of the time”. It would not surprise me at all if someone with expertise in the law preferred, at times, to focus on the legal rather than the moral issue at hand.
In fact, if you go to the thread this OP is complaining about, you’ll see something similar happening. Bricker is being chided for challenging what appear to be false claims by another poster on the basis that he won’t continually condemn the practice of child separation after having already done so a few times. One continuing problem with this message board is this idea that it’s OK to say anything bad about the other side, whether true or not, because the other side is bad so what does it matter?
I don’t even think it’s that. Look at what happened when a poster described their experience working with child welfare and not seeing parents arrested for shoplifting cases.
This didn’t match Bricker’s experience. He could have ignored that mismatch, because it’s not super-relevant to the thread, of course. Or he could have asked a clarifying question: “Wait, I’m confused–do you mean you don’t see anyone arrested for shoplifting, or don’t see anyone sentenced to jail for it, or something else? Because I saw arrests/jail sentences pretty often for shoplifting when I worked as a public defender.”
But a clarifying question doesn’t let him get his snark on. So he comes up with a really strained interpretation of the post that allows him to mock the poster:
And, predictably, it’s such a ridiculous response that it monopolizes the thread for the next several hours.
I’m gonna walk back what I said earlier: that’s pretty trollish behavior.
I disagree. As noted, other than for a few posters, the main point of the thread is not really debatable. Taking kids from parents is bad, and what Trump is doing is wrong and unnecessary. That’s been stated. But everyone wants to be a legal expert and debate the finer points of the law. Someone (I don’t remember when) brought up the analogy of shoplifting. Others chimed in. An unbelievable claim was made and challenged. If other folks think it’s irrelevant, then just ignore it and let the two posters duke it out.
If you really think he’s trolling, then don’t feed him, or simply report him. Problem solved.
“Not really debatable” should be an appropriate description, but it ain’t: there are plenty of assholes there, and in our country at large, taking the position that it’s okay to tear apart families like this. So yeah, there’s a debate to be had, and Bricker could–I know this idea is shocking–DEBATE THE CONSERVATIVES WHOM HE DISAGREES WITH.
The claim wasn’t unbelievable. Bricker had to paraphrase it as a different, very stupid, claim in order to make it unbelievable.
It was a little ambiguous. Which is why clarifying questions could’ve helped.
OK, I think maybe we can find a point of agreement: This board would be a much better place if folks refrained from parsing each other’s posts in the an unnecessarily unfavorable light. Let’s not accuse folks of making claims they don’t actually make, or give the other guy the benefit of the doubt whenever any doubt exists.
In short, don’t go for the jugular just because you want to score a win for your side. I think most of us are guilty of that to some extent. Some more than others, and since we’re all talking about Bricker here, I’ll agree that he is in the “some more than others” category.
It’s something I try to avoid, but yeah, I know I’m guilty of it too. But this is some pretty extreme gotcha-ing.
And the weirdest part is, IT ISN’T EVEN FOR HIS SIDE. He doesn’t even oppose the overarching point being made! Unless his side is, “I’m smarter than everyone else and I’m the only one who makes honest arguments, so let me mischaracterize someone else’s argument in order to show how dishonest they are,” in which case, sure, he’s scoring points for his side.
Part of the issue is that, if you’re a conservative here, you will see any conservative who makes a false or questionable statement set upon as if by a pack of wolves. If you are a liberal here, you often get a pass. You seem to be pretty receptive to the idea that this place has an atmosphere that is unwelcoming to women. I would say it is as least as unwelcoming, if not more so, to conservatives. So don’t always look at it as “which side am I on regarding this particular issue”, but “which side am I on in the grander scheme of things”.
Anyway, I think we could all do better about trying to not make this be about which tribe you’re on. I think in the case you were talking about here, that’s exactly what it came down to. As far as my understanding of how Bricker perceives this problem, I doubt he’s going to make a change. Besides being on the tribe that gets the most beat up on this MB, he also loves winning in a debate. As I said earlier, fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. And the scorpion is going to sting you if you give him a ride across the river. 
If we don’t embrace conservatives as equals, how will they realize how wrong they are about everything and abandon their conservatism?