There was a thread in General Questions called The Latest Bush Ad. Normally, we retract the claws in GQ, because it’s not the place for politics. However, there was a link posted to the ad in the RNC website itself. The ad is an attack ad, and it distorts the facts of the matters referred to in the attack. Because Senator Kerry had clearly been attacked and lied about in General Questions with no reaction from the moderators, I replied to the distortions in the Bush ad.
Samclem closed the thread a few hours later. Did he chide the Bushies for linking to an attack ad in GQ? No, he gave me a warning. I tried to email samclem, but apparently I can’t do that. No private messages either. I have no choice but to talk to him here. I’m not here to call samclem names, but the Pit seems to be the only option. Here I am, one step from being banned, simply for making factual corrections to the GWB attack ad. I don’t think it’s fair.
I am not a member of any organized political party. I am, to quote Will Rogers, a Democrat. We’re not very organized at all. The Republicans, by contrast, are highly organized. A smear appears in The Drudge Report, and within hours it appears in the mouths of a half dozen right wing columnists and radio hosts. If you don’t think it extends to internet message boards, think again. Samclem seems to believe that linking to a Bush attack ad is not sneaky, but my factual reply is “gratuitously political.”
It seems to me that the link was provided to allow anyone to see for themselves if there was a phone ringing or not. Duhbya’s misrepresentations in the cited political ad had nothing to do with the OP.
Not to label people, but Revtim doesn’t seem to me to be a “Bushie”. He linked to the ad in question. I think this could actually be helpful since the OP gave only a vague description and the answer was based on a guess as to which ad he was talking about. I find it useful when people link because the question was about a sound which can’t be adequately described. It’s better to hear it.
If Reeder had linked to the ad in his OP would that have been “sneaky”? I don’t see a problem with what samclem did. I think you were itching to make a political statement.
link AskNott, you might perhaps want to glance at other posts by the Bushies in question. They’re(particularly Reeder) so sneaky that a moderator really can’t be expected to detect their Bushiness, so, cut Samclem some slack here.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, you mean this thread?? The thread where **Reeder[/b[ (a devout Bushie if ever there was one) asks about what a specific sound in a Bush ad is supposed to represent, someone answered him, he thanks them, and then someone links to the ad for other people’s reference before you start sermonizing? That one?
Easy, AskNott. Its’ an election year and things are even more tense than usual around here. The mods are overworked and they might be a little quicker to the lock button than usual. You have a right to ask Samclem for an explanation, but count me in with the group that feels that you are in the wrong here. Your post was a GD or even a Pit post, not a GQ post. It would have been a good OP in either of the former forums, but not in GQ.
Someone help me out here because I’m confused. Is this a Liberal message board the discriminates against Conservatives or the other way around. I just can’t keep it straight for some reason.
AskNot, I totally agree with you about the shittiness of the Bush ad.
“You oppose the Laci Peterson law? You’re against protecting pregnant women!”
The deceit is blatant, and it chaps my ass, but politicking in GQ is against the rules, so I didn’t say anything, and stuck to answering the question.
In my unedited reply, my little joke about the teletype effect was that it was “150 baud, to subliminably remind the viewer of the good old days of the Reagan years,” but I thought that was a little too close to (and possibly over) the line into the realm of the political, so I redacted it into something neutral.
Conservatives aren’t allowed to inject politics into GQs, and nobody else is, either. The OP was a factual question about a political ad, and it was framed and answered without political comment.
Your reply was pure politics, and in no way addressed the General Question about the purpose of the sound effect. It was a violation of the rules. While I (and I suspect more people than not) agree with the politics you injected into the thread, we all agree on the rules too.
You’ve just got to suck it up, I’m afraid.
You’d be wise to admit you broke the rules, acknowledge that no-one else did, apologize, and ask this thread to be closed. It’s even more ill-advised than your original faux pas.
I did break the rules, but only after the opposition did, with distortions of the facts. I remember history. I remember how, after the damage of the Willie Horton ads had been done, George The First proclaimed he was going to be “kinder and gentler.” Any Democratic attack ads after that would seem vicious. I’m not ready to repeat that history.
I can’t email a mod when somebody links to a smear ad in GQ. Am I supposed to let a distorted slam fester, and not comment? That’s hogwash.
What opposition? What are you talking about? Kindler and gentler? Are you nuts?
Again, here is a recap of what happened in that thread, as read by a very liberal, very disinterested bystander:
OP: Why is there a phone ringing in a Bush ad?
Poster #2: It’s not a phone, it’s a teletype.
OP: I see. Thanks.
Poster #3: Here’s a link to the ad, for people who don’t know what the OP is talking about.
AskNott: [goes nuts]
To repeat, no one posted anything political, except a link to the ad being discussed, until you went nuts. You’re acting like a lunatic. If you’re going to continue, I’ll have to ask that you switch over to the Republicans and stop making us look bad.
No, **Giraffe, ** you’re off by one. There was nothing political until poster #3 linked to the distorted attack ad from Mr. Bush. Then I pointed out the factual errors, and samclem locked down the thread and issued a warning.
After attempts to reply to samclem, I took it here, where Giraffe twice practiced psychiatry without a license, declaring me “off your rocker” and “nuts.”
Giraffe, I may be chronically depressed, but more qualified practitioners than you have deemed me sane. So, sniff my socks, you clanger.
You sick fuck-knuckle, the question was about a sound in said ad. Nobody was commenting on the ad either way, except for you. It was a purely technical matter.
Nobody distorted any facts in the thread. It was a factual question about a non-political aspect of a campaign ad. The campaign ad contained some politically (and factually) dubious statements.
Nobody participating in the thread endorsed or condemned those statements for two reasons:[ol][li]They were not the subject of the OP’s question.[*]They were political in nature and off-limits for discussion.[/ol][/li]
In GQ, it is quite common to discuss factual elements of politically charged subjects, and it is possible (and we have all agreed) to discuss them without bringing our political views into it.
Likely everyone who participated in these threads had political opinions beyond what they posted, but you’ll note that everyone limits their contributions to attempts to answer the factual questions posed, and you can’t discern their politics from their responses. That’s because they’re all observing the rules of GQ.
Similarly, everyone in the “Latest Bush Ad” thread (except you) kept their politics to themselves. They did such a good job of this that you hallucinated the presence of “Bushies” in the thread, when I am quite certain from previous observations that everyone participating would like to see GWB out of a job in November.
Yes, RevTim provided a link to the ad under discussion. He did so because it was helpful with respect to question under discussion, and he did so without comment because comment was both irrelevent to the GQ and impossible without breaking the rules of the board.
Have you shown them that thread? They might want to re-evaluate their diagnosis.
Seriously, dude, you’re calling Revtim, Larry Mudd and fuckin’ Reeder “Bushies”? Have you ever read any other posts by any one of the three of them? I think Larry Mudd is probably the farthest right of the bunch, and I’m pretty sure he still self-identifies as liberal and anti-Bush (apologies if I’m wrong on that, Larry). Calling Reeder or Revtim “Bushies” would be like calling Polycarp a gay-baiting atheist. It’s such a wildly inaccurate characterization that it’s laughable.
Basic fact: you tried to start a debate in a non-debate forum. Linking to the ad to better illustrate a factual question is not a debate. Yes, the ad is full of lies. Yes, the ad was linked to in that thread. You still don’t get to turn a GQ thread into a political debate. Them’s the rules.
You also aren’t earning yourself any extra points by wildly exagerating the nature of the rebuke you got from samclem, which was exceedingly mild. Helpful hint: when you really are “one step from being banned,” there won’t be any smilies in the warning.
Are you under the impression I’m the “opposition”, and I “distorted the facts” by linking to the ad?
You are gravely mistaken. As others have speculated, I linked to it so that people could hear for themselves the sound in question. It was not a claim that what was in the ad was true. I guess I could have explicitely stated that, but I would have hoped that it was obvious it was in reference to the subject clearly stated in the OP. And it should have been obvious simply by the fact that it was GQ.
Am I actually the “Bushie” referenced in the title of this thread? That’s beyond funny. I agree with Kerry on about 80 percent or so of the issues, and Bush at maybe 10 percent or so. I’m also a registered Democrat. Unless the video of children being raped in Iraq is released and it’s clearly shown to be Kerry and Edwards doing it, they have my vote.
I’m socially liberal, and fiscally conservative. Bush is a tool of the Christian far-right who spends money like a drunken sailor; he’s the LAST politician I’d support. And that’s not even taking into account him getting us into an unnecessary war where thousands have died by (at best) his incompetence or (at worst) his lies.
I’m about as much a “Bushie” as Reeder is. (Well, OK, maybe compared to him I am a Bushie. Hell, John Kerry is a Bushie compared to Reeder! )
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