Campion, you sanctimonious pissant

The BBQ Pit
61

Oakminster, I like you but I think you have gone overboard with this pitting and in the GQ thread.
**Campion ** is a very polite poster and has provided excellent advice on the Dope for an extended time. She also is more than open to reasoned debate, even with idiots in the pit. The idiot being myself when I was on new to the board. She went out of her way to talk to me instead of just slamming me like a dozen other posters did. I was being a jerk about lawyers.
I really believe you misinterpreted the intentions of her post. You should strongly consider an apology.

Jim

Bricker, what is that funny writing under your name? I guess congrats are in order. :slight_smile:

62

Straight Dope Son of A Bitch?

Congrats Bricker.

63

Who was the one that claimed to be both a lawyer AND have a Ph.d in whatever it is when you study fungus? he said he’s argued cases brfore the Supreme Court. It was right after or right before JDT.

He was my favorite.

64

Yeah, Beryl was a favorite of mine, too. Truly a technicolor meltdown. I particularly liked the part where s/he claimed that s/he’d had her paralegal research a question posted on a messageboard, so it wasn’t his/her fault that it was wrong. (Does anyone remember Beryl’s putative gender? I always assumed female, since Beryl is actually a woman’s name, but others seemed to assume male. Of course, it took me a long time to get Campion’s gender right, since the rabbit in Watership Down was male.)

65

Three things leaped out at me in reading this thread. First, I owe an apology. Second, I should make a comment. Third, I need to make explicit what has been stated implicitly by a number of people in this thread.

First, the apology: I’ve read over the thread linked in the OP and I find my behavior inexcusable. While posters in this thread have belatedly made up for my actions, I still need to apologize. So, here goes: Otto, your joke was really, really funny. I laughed when I read it, I laughed when I re-read it today, and I should have acknowledged it at the time. I hope you can forgive me for that. :slight_smile:

Second, the comment: Bricker, SDSAB? Congratulations; I don’t know why I haven’t noticed sooner, but it’s well-deserved.

Finally, the implicit that should be made explicit. The thread linked in the OP asked Oakminster to provide a citation for his or her assertion that in some (unknown and unidentified) state, it is legal to fire a worker for filing a workers comp claim. Others in this thread have again asked for a citation for that claim. None has been forthcoming.

Instead, we have an ever-increasing attempt to deflect from that failure. There’s the “Campion hurt my feelings” diversion; the “you find a cite to prove me wrong” diversion; and the “you can’t tell me what I can post” diversion. Were someone to parse Oakminster’s posts, I suspect a fair number of additional diversions would be apparent.

Intriguingly, based on the tenor of the posts in this thread, these appear to have been, in the main, successful diversions. With the exception of a few posters, who have reiterated the request for a citation, most everyone instead has focused on a diversion.

So I can’t help but wonder whether this pit thread was born out of true umbrage or merely to cover up the fact that Oakminster messed up. Bottom line, we all deserve either a proper cite to back up the opinions expressed in GQ, or we deserve an apology from Oakminster.

Me? I’m not holding my breath for either one.

66

Note that **Campion ** made that remark after Oakminster had already posted these comments:

Oakminster had already been far ruder to Campion than Campion’s initial response merited. It’s remarkable that **Campion’s ** response was so restrained after these.

All I can say is that I’m glad that Board consensus as expressed here seems to be in favor of standards more rigorous than the ones you advocate.

PS. Congrats to Bricker. Now maybe we’ll get some of that huge pile of unanswered legal questions in the Mailbag sorted out.

67

I laughed… I cried… Soda came out my nose…

68

You had me worried there for a moment, until I read the second paragraph of your post with its “apology” to Otto. Brava! It was a good joke.

Assuming that it’s based purely on the previous thread, this is a lame pitting indeed – it immediately raises the already-high stock of the pittee. When I see a pit thread backfire so clearly, it always makes me wonder if it isn’t a setup. I’m sure it doesn’t apply here, but the conspiracy-theorist in me always has to ask “Cui bono”? :stuck_out_tongue:

Congratulations, Bricker! When do we get to see the fruits of your SDSAB labors?

69

Hey, Check it out: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mgrandjury.html
Campion, excellent and funny reply.

Jim

70

Er, let’s review that “snippy tone,” shall we:

Snippy? Anyone who can’t cope with that mild level of criticism isn’t even going to survive their first Socractic dialogue in Introductory Civil Procedure. Instead of a) deferring or directing the question to a specific authority or b) providing a citation to the relevant statutes or caselaw, Oakminster provides a vague, poorly written article on Wikipedia which provides neither a definitive answer nor addresses the jurisdiction in question. Far from being “snippy” or “sanctimonious”, Campion’s response reserves judgement of the individual in question or the level of legal knowledge possessed therefrom in favor of merely demonstrating the insufficiency of information provided in determining the validity and consequences of the claim.

If Oakminster were to provide a similarly vague and unsubstantiated claim on the topic of, say, evolutionary biology, I can imagine a poster like Blake would make short work of said statement and leave a quivering pile of protoplasm in his wake. And an equivilenty poorly-conceptualized assertion regarding flow over an airfoil or misapprehensions over how electricity is conducted via a copper wire would result in such a mass of pointed, eviscerating corrections as to leave the claimant without the ability to use the fingers of his right hand for at least a fortnight. I shudder to even think of what SDSAB samclem would do to him if he bogged a claim on pop etymology or numismatics. On the whole, I’d say he got off pretty lightly for having offered such a vague, potentially misleading, and ultimately useless citation in GQ, and would have done well just to cool his heels rather than spit up in The Pit.

Oh, and if it hasn’t been made adequately clear by now, Campion is a chick.

Stranger

71

I conducted a bit of searching tonight, and made a clarifying post in the GQ thread.

Still say Campion was unnecessarily rude, and I was offended by her tone.

72

So, you were wrong (or, as you put it, your claim was “based on outdated information”), the cite you provided misleading, and due for correction.

With skin that thin one wonders how you survived through second year. Given stories I’ve heard about the vicissitudes of legal practice and coping with irate judges, abusive opposing council, and issues-laden senior associates and partners, I find it incredible that you are so enervated at being pointedly (but far from rudely) corrected on a message board.

Stranger

73

Campions statement struck me as well, literate. It wasn’t glossed over, softened up or ambiguous. Language serves a purpose. If I choose to say “Cell phone use is prohibited at the table.” rather than “Excuse me sir, We do not allow people to use their cell phones at the table.” then I am essentially saying the same thing (which I would expect a lawyer to rip to shreds, me implying they are the same). Language is meant to impart information. Her statement imparted knowledge in a direct manner. Because she failed to fluff it up or paint rainbows on the statement doesn’t change what she said. Nor does it make what she said any less true. Nor does it make her condescending. I’m actually shocked that a lawyer could make a point in less than 5 billable pages. :stuck_out_tongue:

MS Word rates that quote as 0% passivity, Flesch reading ease 0.7 and Flesch-Kincaid reading level of 12. Reading level of 12 is actually pretty high for an internet message board.

IANAL, but I did break up with a guy the day he passed the bar, he was teetering on asshole anyway, I figured that would just throw him over the edge.
p.s. My post is only grade 7.9 reading ability. I made a coscious decision not to rate Oakminster’s, mostly because that wasn’t the point, but rather a reflection of the standard of language being used by Campion.

74

This board is for fighting ignorance, especially GQ.

Now, I’ve quoted Wikipedia many times in the past. But I consider it an indicator at best, not a real source.

Furthermore, I’d say Oakminster was a heck of a lot more rude than Campion. It’s odd how that trait can go together with a thin skin, but perhaps not surprising.
I thank all posters who attempt to address questions with greater rigor, rather than lesser.

75

I had never realized how seriously people took themselves here before this thread. Considering GQ is primarily just a place for people too stupid to use one of the multitudes of research tools that anyone who knows how to use the Internet can already use, I find the whole thing a bit ridiculous.

76

And another nice quip from Otto in that thread too :slight_smile:

77

That post would be considered clarifying only to someone fluent in weaselese. Clarification requires clarity, doesn’t it? To clarify, you might have stated that you were talking out your ass and that retaliatory firing is illegal in every state.

If you were offended by Campion’s tone, you must spend most of your time offended. The rudest person in these two threads has been you.

78

Campion, that is the best Pit defense I have ever read. You must be a good lawyer! :smiley:

79

Nonsense. Although there is lots of information on the Internet, as in the case of Wikipedia it can be quite difficult for a non-expert to evaluate technical information and sort out the wheat from the chaff. While there are certainly numerous posters who abuse GQ by asking overly simple questions, there are a good number of legitimate, interesting, and complex questions posted there as well. If there weren’t, I wouldn’t bother with it.

80

I remember when she joined - whatever the topic was, she knocked my socks off. I’m sufficiently daft that I have a lot of trouble keeping posters’ names straight. Hers I remember.