“An excellent man: he has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
Attrib. Wilde, regarding that little bitch G.B. Shaw.
meow…
The Socratic method may have limited use outside of classrooms, but you know what sucks even more? Condescending scolding lectures from people without relevant experience. Motes and beams, dude.
This is incredibly silly.
Bricker is posting in a debate forum. His typical approach, when he identifies a point or argument with which he does not agree, is to question the specific point posted. Rather than simply attacking a poster or attacking the views that he believes a poster holds, he asserts his actual challenge (if the post is clear) or he seeks to have the poster explain the actual statement in the poster’s own words, without relying on his own assumptions regarding what he believes the poster meant.
This, of course, differs from the approach taken by a very large number of other posters, (perhaps the majority), who generally assume that they “know” what another poster “really” meant and who then attack the beliefs that they ascribe to the author of the original remark.
Many posters find Bricker’s style to be irritating, even infuriating. However, he has been employing the same style for his entire life on the SDMB. Unlike a number of posters, he has been known to actually change his own opinions (“War on Christmas,” "Same Sex Marriage) when presented with facts or logic that contradict his own initial assumptions. Of course, unlike a number of posters who simply judge all discussions based on their own beliefs regarding what is “bad” or “good,” he will periodically challenge arguments that he regards as flawed, even when they support a position that he actually holds. Those who judge all debate on whether one is on the “good” or “bad” side of a question will especially finds his discussions infuriating.
That said, his username appears at the beginning of every post he submits and people who simply cannot deal with his style are perfectly free to ignore his posts.
Whining about his style while clearly failing to understand both his style and his motivation is silly and simply indicates that one has not been paying attention for the last 17 years, or however many years one has been encountering his posts.
I may be guilty of doing that once or twice myself. But there is nothing more annoying, to me, than someone telling me what I really think or mean.
There’s having a style, and then there’s being an obtuse, incredibly stupid motherfucker. Yes, I get that this is what Bricker does. A lot of the time, it’s a sensible, reasonable approach. The rest of the time, you want to shake him and scream “DO YOU EVER TURN OFF LAWYER MODE” while slapping the stupid out of him. This is one of those cases.
IIRC, it’s ixnay on the otherfuckermay even in the Pit.
After reading the many Pittings of Bricker over the years, and the fact he stays around and doesn’t change tells me it’s a compulsion he’s unable to control. If there wasn’t already a perfect job for a smug asshole in love w/ his own perceived superior intellect, his guidance counselors would have had to prepare him to starve. I pity all his classmates, must have been miserable to grow up around that.
Do you disagree with what I said, or not? It seems you don’t, but just wanted an excuse to use that outdated meme to attack me.
I haven’t condescended about stuff I don’t have experience with in a long, long time–years even. It’s that, because so many of you know about my mental illness, you ASSUME I don’t have the experience.
It’s extremely frustrating, and is why I typically don’t reveal my mental illness to people. Because I know it will be used against me. You won’t listen to what I say based on my arguments. I can say the exact same thing as someone else, and I still get crap while the other people don’t.
I’m not going to sit here and go through everything I’ve ever said to show how I have experience in what I’m talking about. I clearly have enough experience for what I said about the Socratic Method, and that’s what’s relevant to this thread.
I will admit to being condescending at times, though. And, no, it’s not the best method to convince people. I just have a hard time with it when I’m frustrated. I’d work on it more, but I get crapped on anyways, so sometimes it just feels like “What’s the point?” Plus, well, it’s not like I’m remotely the only one, and people do listen to them.
It’s not even easy doing what I’m doing now. Obviously my post stands no matter what you think of my attitude in other threads. But, rather than just say that, I’m being patient and trying to explain how I feel about the whole thing.
I guess we’ll see if it works.
Bricker is by far the most intelligent right-winger on the Board. I’ve no idea who’s in second place, but it would be a distant second. It’s easy to put a clinical moron like Shodan on Ignore, but Bricker’s behavior and ignorances attract interest! For example, consider one of the bizarre ignorances that provoked this zombie to be bumped:
[QUOTE=Bricker]
Right. They [N.Y. Times] are less biased [than FoxNews], but I don’t agree the difference is significant.
[/QUOTE]
Is there any other sentient humanoid that would make this claim? There’s no way to cope with such nonsense outside the Pit. To assert such a thing is to be awash with right-wing blather, but to debate Bricker on his own terms would be legalistic masturbation. Bricker would alternate among (1) complaining about comma placement and other minutiae, (2) pseudo-Socratic sophistry, (3) a never-ending string of Tu Quoque’s. MaxTheVool summed up some of Bricker’s asinine style in this post:
Especially sad is that such an intelligent man is incapable of learning anything new. I still recall vividly a thread I started, in which OP documented, with citations, some of the malicious, probably-criminal, shenanigans of the GOP top fraudster Karl Rove. Bricker entered the thread defending Karl Rove. I was confused and kept quiet — was Bricker playing some semantic trick? Was it just the legal truism that nobody is “criminal” unless convicted of a “crime”? But eventually it came out that Bricker knew nothing whatsoever about Karl Rove and had just dropped into the thread like a Pavlov’s dog eager to salivate for one of the GOP stars, without even bothering to read the OP. Before that I had thought of him as an intelligent right-winger — as rare as a four-leaf clover and capable of benefit to the SDMB. I was stunned to find out that, whatever his expertise on legal issues unrelated to politics, once U.S. partisan politics were involved he was as willfully ignorant as any Yahoo blogger.
AFAIK, Bricker has never deigned to educate himself on Karl Rove’s record and continues to venerate him as a key Republican icon.
No matter what the facts, Bricker is always ready to jump in with a Tu Quoque, whether factual or imagined. In one recent thread he insisted we Google Joanna Broderick or such. Heavens. Dennis Hastert (once 2 heartbeats away from the Presidency) is in federal prison right now for charges related to molesting an underage boy, while Clinton has never been convicted of a crime. Can you imagine Bricker’s squealing were the party alignments reversed here?
I offered an opinion earlier in this thread which still synopsizes why I find Bricker’s rhetoric hypocritical.
Recall that Trump used to be a moderate, and it was partly on this basis that Bricker declined to support him. Now that he has populated his cabinet and inner circle with right-wing scum and anti-government incompetents like Steve Bannon, Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, Scott Pruitt, Jeff Sessions, etc. Bricker is as delighted with Trump as a pig wallowing in shit.
What you really mean is, there’s nothing more embarrassing to you than someone who understands exactly what you mean when you’re pretending to say what you really think. Just admit it!
Ah the old victim card. People are attacking you because of your mental illness. That’s terrible and a big no-no these days. Let’s all rally to your side.
But if people attacked you over your mental illness you would see some reference - at least a sort of semi-hint to it - in their posts. I’ve never seen that.
What people are saying is that as a practical matter you have no experience dealing with issues that you pontificate on. Whether this is the result of your mental illness or not is completely immaterial. You still don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing easier than a guy who doesn’t actually deal with the real world to come up with a high-minded righteous approach to situations that he knows nothing about. And when the guy persists in doing it anyway, many people find it annoying.
If you wanted to be a doctor but couldn’t deal with medical school because of some mental illness, you are probably not an authority on medical issues, and people who object to your posing as one are not using your mental issues against you. Similarly, if you wanted to become an auto mechanic and did not because of physical issues you probably don’t have auto-mechanic experience with car issues, and people who object to your posing as one are not using your physical handicap against you.
Note that in my own case, my primary objection to you is not related to the above, but rather to the fact that I believe you’re pretty much a moron (who can crib some superficially intelligent-seeming jargon, by virtue of the enormous time spent absorbing it from other sources). But there are many who object to your constant lecturing despite a lack of life experience, and it’s misleading to portray that as using your mental illness against you.
I have a lot of respect for Bricker and I always read his arguments. He knows a lot about criminal law and he has a keen debater’s mind.
However he has huge moral/ethical blind spots and the one that I find the most dismaying is his absolute support for voter disenfranchisement based on his purely partisan bias and ridiculously justified by the idea that legal voter suppression is needed to assure the voting public that there is no cheating going on, despite the fact that the fear of such cheating was entirely manufactured for this purpose.
Yeah, he’s the only Doper possibly guilty of this. :rolleyes:
No, it’s that so many Internet people take the lazy way out and argue against what they wish their opponent said, rather than what they actually said.
(post shortened)
Just to be clear, you are the one who repeatedly mentions your mental illness. Is that considered typical?
Your just sayin’ that 'cause your stupid.
Slee
I’m personally driven by deep seated compulsions to be hilariously witty at all times.
It’s exhausting.
You are the Mike Trout of wit 
Nobody gives a shit about your mental illness – you’re the one who keeps bringing it up, every time someone criticizes you, or says something you disagree with it. Your illness isn’t an excuse to be a douchebag. You’re not the only one here who’s every had a mental illness, and nobody else expects special treatment for it. Suck it up, buttercup.