Did he really have any doubt going in?
And what would the reaction from the Tighties have been if Clinton had done the same thing to, say, Kim Campbell? We all know, don’t we? “Pervert! Sex fiend! Groper! Can’t keep his hands off even in public! Sexual assault! Impeach him some more!”
Right? :rolleyes:
Oh, look. A hypothetical. I always find them so convincing.
You would if you were a Republican.
Daniel
They do seem to favor them, don’t they? But I’d like our side to stay away from the laughably poor arguing techniques we’re used to seeing on the right.
It’s the fuckin’ Pit, fool.
Maybe if I were being serious, I’d stay away from them. Or if I were a cockatiel.
Daniel
So, what, we’re supposed to somehow induce brain damage before posting here?
Not going to name any names, or anything, but I have frequently thought that several posters could benefit from the judicious application of some of the milder recreational chemicals. Just sayin’.
The truth of the matter is that I’ve learned from experience that I simply can’t debate multiple opponents on the same argument at the same time. We end up with cross-arguing where the whole group answers my initial response to the first person. By the time I craft my next response my previous response has been responded to multiple times, and I end up with four or five people responding to each post.
Unless I want to sit here all day, I can’t answer everybody.
So, if I make a reply to a given party, then I typically ignore all the other responses to that post from other parties so that I don’t get bogged down in multiple branches of multiple arguments.
As a matter of practicality, being a conservative on this board, it’s basically do that or stay out of political discussions, or hang here 24/7.
This doesn’t preclude me from dashing off a quick or sarcastic reply, or picking some low hanging fruit, but I’ve been trying to have only one major detailed discussion at a time per thread.
In this case I was trying to have it with you, as I thought my last discussion with you was interesting.
So, if that’s what you call “cowardice,” that’s cool.
The other thing, I’ve figured out is that once things get to serious personal insults and namecalling, the discussion is over, and there’s really no sense in my wasting my time.
I can sympathize with your overall problem, but the way to handle it is NOT to pick the low-hanging fruit, because it is hard to interpret it as anything but avoiding the more substantive rebuttals offered by other posters.
One path is to wait several hours, or even a day, to respond, to make sure all the overlapping rebuttals have arrived, then respond to the points that have been raised, without having to respond to the same point several times.
I appreciate the thought. Sorry I was off on a weekend hike in the Blue Ridge by the time you responded. But:
Then it was unfortunately ended by your previous post (#209):
That is one path. I’ve found this other path usually works pretty good though.
I had thought to be obviously hyperbolic and facetious and not to be taken seriously. I don’t really think you like to stuff oatmeal up goats’ butts.
Perhaps though, I unwittingly hit a sensitive spot. Hmmmmm. :dubious:
If in fact, I did then I’m sorry and the next time you’re in the area I’ll just remember to hide the livestock and the Quaker oats and not say anything about andy constipated goats I encounter.
(that’s supposed to be facetious.)
Anyhow, my point was simply that your argument depends upon attributing motivations and attitudes to Bush that you can’t support strongly.
To be totally serious, I find this thread to be pretty stupid. Bush made a mistake, a faux pas. It happens all the time, just ask John Fucking Kerry. I don’t think you can worry about it or read too much into it.
If you are dealing with reasonable and intelligent people they usually don’t walk around with chips on their shoulders looking to get offended. What does the women in question have to say about the incident? Ultimately, it is her opinion that matters.
That’s precisely what it is.
There are conservative posters who show up in political threads to make substantive, thought-provoking arguments. Then there’s those like Scylla, who are not capable of anything beyond insulting those who disagree and offering up sarcastic non sequiturs. There’s lots of them, actually. The numerical imbalance between lefties and righties on this board means that there’s always going to be some shortage of good conservative posters. But the disparity isn’t that large, particularly among the crowd that regularly engages in serious political discussion. Frankly, I don’t think Scylla’s the only doctrinaire conservative who can’t really justify his beliefs (in this case, his wacky attempts to believe that Bush’s gaffe was something else) and doesn’t like to engage in real political debate because of it. There’s tons of them, who just appear in threads long enough to drop some worthless turd and then pop out.
It’d at least be nice if they would stop whining and blaming everyone else for their inability or unwillingness to engage in substantive debate.
Interesting. Back that up if you can. Besides the single “oatmeal” insult (which truly was facetious) how many insults have I cast?
How many have I received (feel free to drop RTF’s insults since he misinterpreted my post’s intent and perhaps I was not very good in writing it as facetiousness often doesn’t play well on a message board)
Here. I’ll do it for you:
Insults by Scylla:
“I realize that you’re literally foaming at the mouth here, but “cocksuckers?”
Personally, I view a “cocksucker” in the same way as Lenny Bruce and resent the slam against those nice enough to engage in such a generous and wonderful act, and I find the expression of homophobia sad, but unsurprising from such an unpleasant and hate-filled individual.
“You are a sad small man. You have my pity.”
-Buzz Lightyear”
-post 113. This is a response to Hentor, who is generically calling people who may disagree with his argument “cocksuckers.” I don’t really count this against me. If I wrote “Bush is the bomb! Any of you cocksuckers disagree with me?” I would think I could righteously expect retaliation. In fact, this post of Hentor’s seems to be exactly what you are talking about in terms of “good for nothing but making insults.” I think he deserves some opprobium, scorn, and contempt for his blanket insults. In any event he fired the first shot.
And ummm, other than the “oatmeal” thing I think that’s it for me.
Now let’s look at insults directed towards me:
“I’m also very sorry for you if you, being so literal, assume that cocksucking must be an act of homosexuality. Please, go beg your wife. Maybe she’ll show you, and you’ll lighten up.”
-Hentor’s response, but that hardly counts. Post 117.
"I myself would be embarrassed to be shouting “Mr. President! Mr. President! Over here, please!” upside down between my legs with my pants and undies bunched up around my ankles and my hands spreading out my browneye. Looks good on you though…
…Do we finally have an apologist, folks? Ding ding ding! People said it couldn’t be done, but one should never misunderestimate the right for bootlicking stupidity."
-Hentor, post 194
“You’re a True Believer, Scylla. Let’s hope your rational mind wakes up one day…
…If neither you nor he understands that, then clearly you’re both a lot dumber than I thought.”
-excalibre post 211. Weak but prolly an insult.
“Either you’re a complete moron, or you must think everyone else here is”
-Gorsnak post 212
“Keep the BSD principle in mind when reading Scylla’s posts, and much of what he says vanishes in a puff of hot air. It’s why he’s so quick to pepper his posts with insults:”
-Sublight, post 214. An insulting post but not a direct insult. I include it because it appears this is where you get the “Scylla likes to insult” fabrication from.
“What’s funny to me is that, just as people are rolling their eyes at Bush’s behavior and thinking, “What a self-centered jackass,” they’re rolling their eyes at Scylla’s behavior and thinking the same thing. Neither Bush nor Scylla seems to think there’s any problem with that.”
-Dorkness, 223
“Scylla can do what he likes if it makes him feel like a big man. But if our man-child president is not capable of controlling himself, his handlers need to sedate him to prevent him from hurting our country”
-Excalibre 225
“I’m just trying to compensate for a small penis.”
-Scylla 227 (I insulted myself)
"If you’re going to jump off your pedestal and start insulting everyone who disagrees with you, you could do better than “offenderati”. Seriously, that’s just sad. When it comes down to you reciting dumb slogans from the particularly stupid parts of the right-wing blogosphere, you’re pretty much done, aren’t you? What’s next, are you going to call us all “feminazis”? Or “treehuggers”? “Tax and spend liberals”?
Come on, dude, this is just weak."
-excalibre 229 (not a direct insult, but picking up the meme from sublight)
“Dumbass.”
-Hentor 230
“Like I said, I’m surprised to see Scylla sounding quite as stupid as he does here, but the past has suggested that he is something of a True Believer. You might think he’s trolling, but frankly, if anyone were to believe that Bush’s behavior was appropriate, Scylla would come rather high on the list”
-excalibre 245
And that, appears to be about that. So, where do you come off saying all I do is throw insults around?
It looks to be untrue.
Why do you only find my actions objectionable when I am less of an offender than you?
Well, I could respond with some comment about whining hypocritical lefties running around with gratuitious generalizations, and say something about motes and eyes, but I prefer to maintain the moral high ground.
Actually, what’s interesting is that you omitted the only insult I noted in this thread - though you copied a quote from me referencing it!
I guess we’ll have to add “liar” to your list of sins.
Meanwhile, you seem to have missed the point. Personal insults don’t particularly bother me - after all, that’s why we’re in the pit, eh? The thing that troubles me is the lack of substantive argument. Let’s see - from you we get one rather ridiculous attempt at excusing the president’s behavior, a whole lot of whining, a couple lame jokes about your small penis, the implication that everyone who disagrees with you only does so because they’re “offenderati” - and you wholly ignore substantive responses and whimper and act hurt when people look at your pathetic non-defense of Bush as what it is.
Like I said, I’d like to see reasoned argument. Hell, if there’s someone who really can find some way to justify this behavior on Bush’s part, I’m aching to see it. Or else, hey, you could at least try honesty and describe it as what it is - the nadir of Bush’s revolting performance at the summit. Hey, you can share his politics without having to come up with elaborate fantasies about the man himself being intelligent or capable. But read back through your posts here. Did you say anything of substance, Scylla? You indulged in your fantasies about being macho with some big-man talk about not being afraid of offending people, but you ultimately couldn’t come up with any defense for this guy. Why’d you bother in the first place? At least your compatriots aren’t here trying to invent hypotheticals in which his behavior might possibly have been reasonable. Why show up, if you’re completely incapable of saying anything relevant?
And why are so many of your compatriots similarly incapable?
Which was that, the oatmeal one? I didn’t omit it. I was being facetious and it was a misunderstanding. If you wish, you may reinsert it in there and include the two ones from RTF in response to it. It still leaves me far less of an insulter than you. Now though, you make spurious accusations.
Well, I’m guilty. We make do with what we can. The whole pit thread seems pretty fucking stupid to me, an excuse for Hentor to call people cocksuckers and for the left-wing bush-bashing society to get together for their weekly self-congratulatory mutual masturbation session concerning… a faux pas.
There’s not much meat on this bone.
I honestly beleive it was a faux pas, and not really a big deal. Certainly not worth 6 pages.
I’ll answer this sincerely, and honestly for you. Because it’s an irrelevant and stupid thread, and the people that are making a huge deal about this and going on about what it proves and demonstrates are engaging in elablorate fantasy. It was not worthy of what would, on the face of it be a reasoned response. You can’t reason with people engaging in fantasy. So, I showed the other side of it. You all say it makes him out to be an idiot. I say it makes him out to be a genius. You cannot find the one extreme unreasonable without finding the other one unreasonable.
Again, I felt that this was pretty obvious. Certainly, it was caught by some. So in fact I did make a reasoned and substantive response. You simply didn’t get it. To do so is to inherently recognize the absurdity of the converse.
Because the conclusions being drawn are both absurd and irrelevant and not worthy of a serious response.
He made a social gaffe. Everybody does it from time to time. It happens when you try to be friendly and convivial. Among people of goodwill these social gaffes can sometimes be the cement that builds mutual respect.
For example, I have no idea what happened next, probably nothing. Probably they both just let it go. Maybe though at some time in the future or after the ten second clip was turned off Bush apologized and she laughed about it, and they made a joke of it.
If the gaffe is acknowledged, that’s usually what happens.
You know this is how it works, right? You know this happens, right?
Do you not make social errors?
Give me a break, buddy. The fucking OP is ridiculous. The attempt to psychoanalyze Bush over a faux pas is ridiculous.
Instead of criticizing me over the lack of meat you’ve given me to chew with this incredibly stupid thread, why don’t you engage in substantive debate in a valid topic. Clearly, there is an awful lot to dislike in Bush’s actual overt politics, decisions, and stances.
If you’re focussed on this, I think I am right in thinking little of it.
But that’s just the opinion of this cocksucker.
Oh my gosh, I’ve offended Scylla, using profanities and insults. I did this so badly that I scared him away from making a sound argument. Instead of making a reasonable argument, my profanities and a general insult made him 1) misquote a Toy Story insult and call me a homophobe (while avoiding the topic), 2) make a feint about Bush’s behavior being a calculated sign of dominance, 3) switch over to making jokes about the size of his penis and 4) switch over to dismissively downplaying Bush’s behavior.
Wow, my heart is heavy. What have I done to this once thoughtful and insightful poster to turn him into such a waste of time and a complete bullshitter. Had I known that calling an uspecified group of people cocksuckers would so terribly gnarl this otherwise pillar of balanced and nuanced interpretation of sociopolitical matters, I would never, ever have committed such a greivous wrong. Oh woe! Woe!
Is there anything, anything I might do to set things right again?
Perhaps you actually view calling those who disagree with you (or, in this case, with Bush) “offenderati” as valid debate. Granted, given the general tenor of the right’s political punditry, it’s easy for the limp-witted to become confused. What’s sad, though, is that there’s a strong streak of true intellectualism on the right; in fact, I’ve probably known as many right-wingers with a deep understanding and passionate interest in political science as left-wingers. I like those people a lot; even though I disagree with them, I can learn a lot from them. But someone like you? The righty equivalent of redfury or ElvisL1ves? Meh. Why bother with people like you?
And then the obligatory rightard popping up with “OMG U GUYZ R ALL ID10TZ!!!11! LOLLERZ!!11!” Hey, we may sometimes sit around and talk about how right we are (that’s one of the privileges of being right. :)) But damn, it’s better than popping up to whine and blame everyone else for our inability to string together a coherent argument.
So when you proposed an “explanation”, it wasn’t an honest attempt at argument (one that failed badly)? It was just trolling?
Wow, that’s one bizarre little piece of logic there, innit? Honestly, can you come up with any sort of justification for that little principle you’ve invented? Anything at all? You can’t find one extreme unreasonable without finding the other unreasonable? So, what, if I find the Ku Klux Klan unreasonable, I have to find the concept of racial equality unreasonable as well?
Besides, what’s unreasonable about going with the evidence? Bush did something dimwitted. It was stupid. Under your new logical framework, it’s “unreasonable” to look at the evidence, and then draw a conclusion? It’s “unreasonable” to think that someone who does something moronic might actually be a moron? I’m afraid I simply can’t understand that idea at all.
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Sorry, buddy, but like I said - that don’t fly. Inventing imaginary principles of logic ain’t gonna cut it. If you were trolling, then . . . well . . . that’s sort of sad, because I’ve seen very interesting, thought-provoking pieces of satire on just about any political issue you could name. And this sure as hell wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t even in the same zip code as relevant satire. Your little argument here and cutting, insightful bits of political satire don’t even exchange Christmas cards. It takes light over sixteen hours to travel from your post to real, honest-to-goodness satire!
All the time. I have yet to make one quite that spectacularly dumb, though. I’ll keep you posted.
And thus you leapt into action! The thread was “ridiculous” (though you haven’t quite proven why yet . . . .) And so, never fear, Troll Man is here, to make sure to drag the discourse down to a lower level yet!
Oh, yes, poor, wounded Scylla. Someone used a naughty word, and it cut poor little Scylla right to the core! Oh, dear.
Funny that you’d be so self-righteous about that word. It’s usually used as an anti-gay slur, you know. Wanna leave the self-righteousness to those of us who were actually slurred? (I’ve already written Hentor out of my will and off the list of worthwhile debaters long before now. At any rate, you’ve already done your share of bitching and moaning about the word. We’re done with that now.)
Psst! Hentor! If you’re trying to pretend that “cocksucker” isn’t a slur used against gay men, a bit of hate speech used to keep us homos down, you can, well, shove that right up your ass. Let’s not get too proud of ourselves now.
Um, is it? And is cunt used to keep women down? Is “Jesus H. Christ” intended to blaspheme? Is “shove it up your ass” intended to slander homosexuals as well? Is “prick” a bit of hate speech aimed at keeping men repressed? When someone calls you a “spaz,” do they really mean to say that you are a person with specific developmental delays?
Jesus!
Nah. I’ve used that epithet thousands of times, largely if not entirely on straight men. I used it in many, many connotations but never once with the intent of opressing my bent brethren.