I’m not sure what this actually is worth. Would you care to elaborate?
Oakminster’s post in that thread was a jackass post. He makes those sometimes. But i’m not sure what bearing it has on his argument about Bricker in this thread.
I was responding to Left Hand of Dorkness, and pseudotriton ruber ruber posts directly above mine, whom I should have quoted rather than rely on proximity, for unambiguity’s sake.
For one thing, if Bricker was gone, then Oakie would likely be in for the Reasonable Conservative Guy position. The bench is thin.
Not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings unnecessarily, I will only assure you I hold in contempt several of my fellow left-of-center types on this board for general nonsense-spewing but I simply refrain from commenting when they come under attack rather than piling on. IRL, I doubt many lefties have more contempt than I do for Jesse Jackson, both Clintons, Ed Koch, despite large areas of ideological agreement.
Aw, shucks. Now you’re making me blush.
And with that, the whole “I’m Rubber and You’re Glue” theory is finally disproved. Schoolyard mayhem is bound to ensue.
A better question would be “Are there any conservatives whom you don’t feel are scumbags of some stripe?”. Honestly, the only self-described conservative that comes close is Chomsky and he did say some questionable things about Cambodian survivor testimony.
Chomsky’s a self-described conservative? I’m sure he’ll be interested to learn that.
As for his statements about Cambodia, most people who rant and rave about that are just repeating what the right-wing dittoheads say, and have very little idea of what his argument actually was.
(bolding added)
I suspect that the reference was to an erstwhile poster, here, not the language pundit.
I’d say it means he’s more likely to believe that someone who shares beliefs with someone else will understate how much he dislikes him.
I personally don’t mind his gotcha questions now that I know they are coming. It just means I have to address him in a certain way if I want to be convincing, just like I have to for every other person.
That, in general, a jackass’s opinion that someone else is a nice guy is not really worth much?
(Not necessarily my opinion, mind you. I don’t know what I think of Oakminster. It’s never been relevant.)
I just need to remember that he’s a vocationally impaired being, unlike normal people who can phrase questions seeking information or answers. He, OTOH, typically asks questions to entrap people, and so must have his motives questioned. If he posts an OP querying “Is today Monday?” I must remember not to answer “Yes, it is” before considering which trap the counselor is trying to set. Is he setting a multi-cultural trap, meaning I must answer “In cultures using the Norse gods’ names of the week, yes, but not in cultures using other naming systems.” Or is he setting a International Date Line trap?, meaning I have to figure out what day today is in Polynesia before answering. In any case, **Bricker **can be relied upon not to be asking a straightforward question, but setting out some sort of Liberal-Snare. it’s no big deal but it is a pain in the ass.
So if somebody links to a post where Bricker posts a question with no ulterior motive, will you shut the fuck up?
ETA: This is not a gotcha. I don’t have a specific post in mind that my fingers are eagerly hovering over the keyboard to link to. I’m just fairly certain one exists.
Because if one does exist, then… ?
i]IT’S A TRAP!
And most political extremists of either stripe are doing exactly that, going with their tribe rather than reason/logic.
The other extremists are ones who’ve been through a traumatic event, like Ayn Rand seeing her father’s fortune disappear during the Russian Revolution, or some real estate agents who became more economically liberal after the real estate bubble burst, and they went from $100,000/year to $5,000/year (as an example, those are rough, semi-random income guesses).
I’m not sure which group is harder to deal with, the tribal ones, or the ones with trauma. Probably, in the short run, the traumatized ones…but the tribal ones are worse in the long run, because they simply are immune to reason.
Bricker, the problem with the gotcha analogies is that they add a level of personal defensiveness. It’s like this:
Bricker: What do you all think of red?
Poster: Red sucks! Down with red!
Bricker: But you support pink? What a hypocrite you are!
Poster: Red and pink are totally different.
Bricker: They are different shades of the same color. You are a totally illogical hypocrite driven only by your emotional attachment to a particular ideology.
After that, the poster has to defend themselves in an absolute fashion; they can’t compromise or concede anything because it’s no longer about pink and red, it’s about being a hypocrite, an accusation that most people are very sensitive to.
Bricker, I in no way think you are a troll, and I think you probably use this sort of argument in your own head to check your own positions for integrity. But it makes what should be fairly dispassionate discussions about an issue into emotional, personal attacks where you are defending a position but the other side is defending their character. It makes the discussion unbalanced and prevents any moderating of one’s position. It’s counterproductive, if what you want is to come closer to truth through discussion.
I’m still unconvinced that he wants that.
I’m not saying he’s a troll, and certainly not a troll on every single issue, but…there are certain issues where his lawyerly arguing style makes his strong partisan-ness somewhat irritating. I pitted him as well, just last week.
I’ve seen another lawyer do this online, as well. That guy had been doing it all his life, though, and didn’t know how to stop.
One additional point: Bricker claims that the OP under discussion (hypothetical about Romney and inheritance taxes) was NOT intended as a gotcha, because he says that he was sure that everyone in the thread would recognize what he was referring to. But that’s not good enough… for it to truly lead to open and honest and non-defensive non-gotcha conversation, not only would everyone who read it realize what it was referring to, but they would also have to realize that Bricker intended that they realize what it was referring to.
Which raises the question again, why didn’t he just make the comparison explicit?
The shame is, it’s an interesting discussion. Certainly, my initial response as a liberal was to cheer on what Obama did, but to what extent is it a massive overstep of separation of powers for the prez to arbitrarily limit how the executive branch will enforce certain laws, etc, etc. An interesting topic for discussion and debate, which mostly got lost in yet another argument about hypocrisy, and about arguments about hypocrisy.
:rolleyes: :dubious: As you motherfucking well know, what is dishonest about that thread is that it obviously is about something (Obama’s new immigration policy) entirely different than what it purports to be about (capital gains tax). “Gotcha!”-setup threads are always dishonest.
Can’t prove this, but I strongly suspect that most of the irritation at “gotcha” posts and OPs is simply because they’re so successful.
Most people - here and elsewhere - formulate their opinions about all sorts of ostensibly unrelated principles based on how they practically impact their more important positions and interests. If people see the “gotcha” upfront, then they put some effort into tailoring their “opinions” on thse matters so as to conform to all their more important positions. But if they don’t see it, they don’t get to do this upfront, and their ability to pass off their opinions about these matters as highminded principles is severely compromised.
Quite unpleasant, to be sure.
In sum, I am in favor of “gotcha” type posts/OPs, and think people should stop whining about them.