Oh bullshit, Sam. His so-called cites were nothing more than random blogs and opinion pieces that he usually chopped up and quote out of context. Often, when we would go and read them, they would be saying the OPPOSITE of what he was trying to say.
So he was “polite.” Yeah, he was very polite when he implied that anyone who criticizced Israel was violently anti-semitic. Yet it was okay for him to criticize the Pope for his stance on Iraq, and say that the pontiff was in league with Saddam.
It was so polite when he said that by disagreeing with Bush, we are aiding terrorism.
Oh my god, you mean someone actually posted a cite that wasn’t a peer reviewed journal? I’ve never seen that happen before in Great Debates!
Once again, I’ll repeat myself: A) if you don’t like the cite, refute it. If you’re retired of refuting them, don’t read his damned threads. B) The bias part comes in when evaluating his cites. A cite from National Review gets you ridiculed on this board, while a cite from The Nation is just and good.
Gee, that’s a nice post, Jodi. I specifically avoided Dex’s prevecations, and you embrace them. Let’s see if I can use the bold tag too.
When I see a specific december post that is against the rules of this board, I will gladly change my stance. Until then, you are simply blowing smoke. Prove me wrong. It’s easy, all you have to do is quote the violation of board rules. Dex danced like a chicken on a hot plate. I, for one, am not simply going to sit back and admire his steps. What I ask is simple, and I don’t think you can do it: Show where december violated the rules of the board. Put up or shut up.
The fetid ideological fumes emanating from this thread were enough to warrant a Homeland Security Orange Alert. For that alone I’d like to thank, Jodi for bringing in a sorely needed breath of fresh air. And for the soundness of her response, kudos as well.
***Originally posted by Sam Stone *** Oh my god, you mean someone actually posted a cite that wasn’t a peer reviewed journal? I’ve never seen that happen before in Great Debates!
-My cat’s breath smells like a 1920’s style death ray.
Once again, I’ll repeat myself: A) if you don’t like the cite, refute it.
-One should assume all the previous rebuttals did not exist?
**If you’re retired of refuting them, don’t read his damned threads. **
-It’s time to retire! Good night december! His threads cried out for action! That is: the “fighting against ignorance” kind of action.
** The bias part comes in when evaluating his cites. A cite from National Review gets you ridiculed on this board, while a cite from The Nation is just and good.**
-I wish whathisname had used National Review for his cites.
Well that’s all well and good, Sam, but you’ll remember this is a site dedicated to fighting ignorance, not promoting it as December did regularly, as you do from time to time.
December was a troll, and he got banned – at last! Many of us have have been arguing that he was a troll for years. It’s been explained to the point of exhaustion how not only he was trolling, but also how he was promoting viewpoints that could only be called ignorant and intolerant, in spite of the fact that they were carefully packaged to skirt the rules.
December’s departure makes the fight against ignorance a whole lot easier. Perhaps he will now dedicate himself full-time to his favourite past-time, Ann Coulter.
Late for the funeral as always (hope I’ll be late for my own as well ).
Troll:
You may have another definition of troll, but troll for me is one who post inflammatory remarks or OPs for the sole purpose of watching the enraged replies. Does anybody here think December didn’t honestly believe in the.OPs he posted? Further, he always stayed to defend his views in all the threads I’ve seen. And he provided cites. I’m sorry but December does not match any definition of troll I know of.
Partisanship:
Can’t see how he differed from many many other posters in this regard. I was just in a thread were Ann Coulter was considered a Nazi willing, given the slightest pretext, to start a new holocaust. This without much of any protest from the rest of the posters in the thread.
I’m on these boards because there’re a lot of posters with views radical different from my own. I’m sorry to see that many of people apparently would prefer the boards to politically one sided.
Personal insults:
I’ve never read a single insult or ad hominem attack from December, a thing I sadly cannot say for many other so called respected posters here. In fact, I think he kept remarkable cool given the kinds of very offensive insults that were routinely howled at him. Just reading the first half of the first page in the thread December last was involved in gives you these small nuggets of wisdom (there are many more where they come from): essve: “december, you are so full of shit it’s coming out your ears. Why don’t you go down to the senior center and bother them every once in a while?”
Tars Tarkars: “december, why do you hate freedom?”
And of course rjungs incessant: “Tell me again why Collunsbury was banned but december isn’t?”
Well tell me again why rjung hasn’t been banned? I must be ripe for banning for I can’t seem to remember one good thing rjung has brought to the boards?
And December got all this shit for raising a very valid point in a somewhat clumsy way.
I think it’s regrettable the Administration choose to ban him, and I think SDMB is poorer for his going, and I’m sorry to say I think less of the SDMB community for the constant calls for banning.
To December:
You put up a feisty fight! See you in another Avatar in another galaxy.
Good lord. December was a fucking troll! He’s always been a troll, and his trollitude finally got his irritating troll ass banned. Bitching that his ideology was the reason for his banning makes no sense at all, unless you can point to all the other righties teetering on the edge of banning as well.
When someone claims that something is a cite, it is the accuracy of the cite that we should be disputing. But all too often, december’s cites were themselves not what he purported them to be. Oftentimes simply reading the cite refuted december’s own presentation. Other times, the information was from sources who very obviously and consistently misrepresented the facts and issues.
That can happen, and people ought to have patience when it does. But when it characterizes one’s usage of cites over and over, that suggests a real problem. Certainly not a bannable problem, but it’s silly to pretend that patterns don’t emerge, and frustration doesn’t sink in. Fool me once, shame on me…
Ah bullcrap. This you vs. the monolithic SD board of strict liberalism song is getting old, old, old. No vaunted authority here is sacrosanct, and you know it. If the facts are good, they’ll weather the board no matter what source they come from. If all we’re talking about is opinions, then we don’t have much of a cite anyway, and regardless, no one gives worshipful defference to either publication. There are inteligent people here on every end of the political spectrum, and plenty of people that do not tolerate bullplop just because its their “side”'s bullplop.
To a degree, yes. He obviously gave the points he was making very little regard, because he would defend them vehemently, and when they were decisively refuted, he would barely register the impact, if at all, moving quickly on to other matters as if all that mattered was the dance. He very obviously was more inflamatory in his thread titles than he was in his posts (in later days often to the point of actually rejecting the thesis his thread title posed, begging the question of why the thread was started in the first place), and very often he would quickly moderate his stance when it was clear he came on too strong… without acknowledging the moderation or suggesting that he had given up some important belief.
In addition, most of the subjects discussed weren’t exactly broad things you’d “believe” in, i.e. a cause, or an issue. They were always about specific events and matters, this or that person has done this or that evil thing, and here’s a blog that says so. They were lists of charges he was making against some individual or group, and the outcome was somewhat irrelevant. Even if the person wasn’t guilty of what he claimed, they were still bad people in the end, so what does it matter.
He “danced like a chicken on a hot plate”? He fucking SAID DECEMBER was banned for trolling? Shit fire, man, can’t your read?? Again, you disregard the post in which he directly addressed DECEMBER’s banning and concentrate on a post in which, if you bother to read the very language you’ve chosen to quote, you’ll see he’s not even talking about DECEMBER. He said SOME of the cases were fuzzy; he didn’t say this one was. He lists the goals the Reader tries to achieve; that doesn’t contradict his earlier statement that DECEMBER was banned for trolling. So do you want to at least attempt to address the first, explanatory post of DEX’s, or do you want to continue to infer wishi-washiness from posts in which he’s not even talking about DECEMBER at all?
“It’s easy, all I have to do is quote a violation of Board rules?” HE WAS FUCKING TROLLING! THAT’S AGAINST THE BOARD RULES! Hello??
DEX already told us all that, and based on my experience with DECEMBER’s behavior, I believe him, and so do a hell of a lot of other non-hysterical people, not all of whom are part of some liberal mob with torches. So if YOU have proof that DEX’s call was wrong – beyond your unworthy and weaselly accusations that he’s “dancing around” or bowing to the “liberal cabal” – then trot it out. It’s easy, but I don’t think you can do it. Put up or shut up.
And if you’re just one more martyred whiner who can’t see that an administrator might truly have acted for exactly the same reasons he claims to have acted and not some other reasons cooked up in your own fevered brain, then no doubt you, like all the rest of those martyrs, will have to think long and hard about whether you want to stay at a Board so biased and unfair. And if you, like so many others, decide you just can’t stand the injustice – don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.
And in case my anger has escaped you – don’t fucking tell me to put up or shut up when it is you who are rejecting out of hand the explanation of someone who has no known reason to lie about his motivations or his actions.
Yes, but one man’s trolling is another’s pointed OP.
Tell you what - go over to Free Republic and post a few OPs that say something like, “Should Bush be impeached?” or “Gore won the election”, and back it up with some cites from a few lefty news organizations. See if you don’t get the same treatment December got here. Your cites will be rejected out of hand as biased crap, you’ll get sneered at, and accused of baiting people.
See, there’s closed minds over there too.
I have posted cites from NR on this board, and had them rejected out of hand as ‘Neocon wet dreams’, or ‘Neocon bullshit’ without evidence being offered to show that it was so. This has happened enough tmes that I no longer bother. I have learned to go directly to source material or sites like the NY times. Anything else gets shot down out of hand. The same is not true of left-wing cites, unless they are truly out there. An article cited in The Nation gets serious attention. An article cited in the Washington Post is considered reasonable. One cited from the Washington Times is rejected out of hand as being conservative Moony bullshit. That’s just the way it is here. December should have figured that out long ago and saved himself a lot of hassle.
This place isn’t about fighting ignorance any more. It’s about fighting ignorant conservatives, because the default assumption of many here is that the fight for ignorance necessarily means adopting liberal positions. People said exactly that in a thread a couple of days ago. Minds are closed, and people like December who don’t know when to quit trying to open them are slammed and run out of dodge.
We put up with insults and crap constantly, and the mods let it go. They should have stomped on the December pile-on parties a long time ago. Perhaps if they had, he would have moderated his behaviour a bit. As it was, it just got out of hand. And in the end, December was the one that got banned.
Damnit, this whole episode really sticks in my craw. December was treated like shit by a lot of you for having the audacity to disagree with you and refusing to back down. He pushed, and pushed, and got kicked out of the place. This whole episode smacks of bull-headed behaviour by a lot of you (including December), intolerance, and in the end an injustice was done to the guy. That’s my opinion, and frankly I don’t give a rat’s ass if you disagree with me.
I haven’t read this thread all the way through, but put me in the December was a troll camp. A polite troll, but nonetheless a troll. He started out with posting crap from some oped piece and saying “debate” without ever making a point or his position known.
Then he would start threads based on a blog or some other so-called source. He would often provide multiple cites to the same rumor mongering so-called source. He rarely conceded a point even in the face of overwhelming common sense and real cites.
Collounsbury got banned (and prehaps rightfully) for using foul language in the great debates. December rarely let a fact enter into his threads and rarely IMHO actually engaged in real debate.
Shit, man, I tried debating with him on many occaisions but it was like debating in a vacume.
For a guy that went to Berkeley in the 60’s (unless he was lying about that), he had an amazingly one sided view of the world. He won’t be missed.
His threads cried out for action! That is: the “fighting against ignorance” kind of action.