You keep ignoring this point, but I’ll try it one last time:
Again you’re making a false comparison. Unlike the Free Republic, the SDMB is not a parochial, North American conservative message board. It mirrors genuine international opinion, or at least international opinion within the English-speaking world (wouldn’t it be nice to have more non-English voices here). Sure, the SDMB is still dominated by North Americans but it does represent a ‘truer’ international spectrum of opinion.
How many non-American, English-speakers are remotely interested in discussing the validity of the wrap-yourself-in-the-flag, self-serving agenda of Free Republic (see last paragraph below) – not only is it right at the very end of the international spectrum - and sometimes beyond sensible - in the wider ‘world’ context, but we see it *in effect *every single day on our front pages. And the ‘world’ pretty much hates it.
Thus, the balance of opinion you see on this board is commensurate with opinion in the wider English -speaking world on issues pertaining to this Administrations policies.
The mindset you share with those Free Republic types is also, imho, entirely a product of sons of empire – it’s Kipling for the electronic age. Non-North Americans are not sons of empire, and don’t want to be.
Hence, in the widest English-speaking context, you and the likes of december are a small minority. The SDMB, in that sense, represents the real world.
Finally - and this is a point not so far mentioned - the only reason I would post on the Free Republic board in the way december did here (and I don’t think you’re any where near as extreme in the context I’m about to suggest) would be because I became addicted to the SDMD and, more importantly still, addicted to the notoriety/attention - given his tactics here and the sheer quantity of OP’s taken wholly from sources like Andrew Sullivan’s blog, the Little Green Apples blog and HonestReporting, nothing else makes rational sense (to me).
I’ve seen liberal posters being called out for posting BS as well. Someone like Dewey for example is very good at pointing out flaws and factual mistakes in liberal posts. There are other valuable conservative posters who do the same, but the names won’t come to me just now, sorry.
I’m more of a liberal myself, but I still find it a good thing that liberals don’t get away unchallenged with posting incorrect information or misguided opinions here. It makes it harder to maintain a knee-jerk position, but in the end you should gain by getting a factually informed and properly argumented opinion on things. I don’t think that liberals have it easier in this sense than conservatives solely on their partisan viewpoints.
Of course, if your only reason for entering debates is to voice your opinion without allowing for even the possibility that it is wrong, you shouldn’t be surprised that you will only encounter criticism. One thing this board doesn’t like is missionaries. In the end, december seemed to be mostly unable to acknowledge whenever he was proven wrong in his ‘facts’, which was very often the case. That’s not conducive to debate.
If it your contention that people with such a mindset are more common among conservatives, then yes, you will think that they have a harder time here. But frankly, I think that is an insult to the thoughtful, well-informed conservatives I’ve seen posting around here. While I don’t agree with their viewpoints, I value their contribution to the debates around here, and I hope this feeling is mutual. As hard as it is for me to accept, you can be intelligent and well-informed and still be a conservative.
Making mistakes in your posts and assumptions is simply human, but being unable to own up to them when these are pointed out is bad form. And intentionally being misleading is a big no-no. I don’t see any partisan politics in that.
To those he debated with he wasn’t polite. You cant politely insinuate people are anti-semitic pro-terrorist treasonous stooges. He was highly offensive to many people.
I almost never agreed with december, but I will miss him. To me he was a useful barometer. A look at his latest OPs and you could figure out what nonsense was currently making the rounds in conservative media/blogs.
december would regurgitate the Republican party line here, where it could be publicly dissected by the thoughtful posters of the Straight Dope. That was a good thing, IMO.
He deserved it. He was a jerk and a troll. If someone is consistently being an asshole, as he was, I am not going to waste my time engaging them seriously. They don’t deserve it. Lately I mostly just ignored his threads and his posts. He had no intention of engaging in any real exchange. He just posted outrageous stuff to get a reaction. He was a jerk and a troll and he needed banning.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a troll – it seems that he really did believe the stuff he posted. Based upon the explanation posted in this thread, I suppose I agree with his banning, although it seems like a close call to me.
No no, not at all brother GIGObuster. I’m still in the denial phase – e.g. I haven’t seen the true light of left wing utopia under the loving, if stern gaze, of BB (or Big Sister, hmmm… Above Average Size Sister). But I’m sure you have a liberal rat ready to set about eating my brain. :eek:
Hmm… who’ll be BB? … dare I say …. Naaa I think I’ll not.
I never got this about december’s defenders. It seems to me that december was pretty consistantly impolite. He was patronizing, dismissive. Rather than insulting an individual, he skirted the rules simply by insulting the entire class the individual belonged to. (Shodan, I may not agree with you, but I’ve never felt you were anything but polite. I always walked away from an exchange with december feeling like someone had just splashed mud all over my dress on purpose).
We know that december had been warned recently on two points - trollery and his intolerant rants on the subject of Palastines and anyone not supporting Isreal to be “anti-semetic.” IIRC, he had been the subject of discussion by the moderators on previous occations and had been warned previously. He’d been given warnings and chose to ignore them.
I’ve stayed pretty much out of GD for two years now for a number of reasons, but having fallen for december’s trolling one too many times appears someplace on that list.
I think that some of decembers threads were interesting topics - I’m hoping that his leaving will allow room for those topics to be explored rationally.
I think banning december was one of the stupidest things I’ve seen the SDMB do.
I’ve remarked in debates about gay marriage that it’s actually good that homophobes participate so that everyone can see how ugly and wrong they are. The same is true of december.
Jodi, as a stopgap measure, I direct your attention toward Sam Stone’s and Weirddave’s posts in this thread. THIS is the kind of defense of december’s outrages that I’m talking about.
It may be that you consider this a defense of december himself, not a defense of december’s outrages; or you may consider it not so much a defense of december as an attack on the people attacking december. I’m fine by such characterizations; the fact remains that I don’t see anyone, liberal OR conservative, coming to Reeder’s defense (or, previously, to Chumpsky’s defense) under similar circumstances.
It may be because many conservatives here really do believe they’re vastly outnumbered, and so some of them believe they must stick together at any cost. I don’t know. It’s just a curious phenomenon I’ve observed.
(and dave, I know you call yourself a moderate. I’ve not seen anything to convince me that you fit my definition of moderate; we’ll have to agree to use the word differently).
Regarding the Orson Scott Card reference: OSC thanked “CK DEXTER HAVEN” in the afterward of one of his books, but he wasn’t referring to our Dex; he was referring to someone else using that as a username on his board on his site.
Hey gigobuster, where’s that cite, huh? I’m not going to back down from what I say simply because you say I should.
Jodi, you wanted to know when you joined the cabal of idiots? Congratulations, you’re in. Yes, I am flat out calling Dex a liar for saying that december was banned for trolling. Trolls don’t stay with their thread and defend their position ( however awkwardly ). Trolls don’t post for 4 years without major incident and then suddenly decide to simply do nothing but cause trouble. December was not a troll by any accepted definition of that term except that he “caused trouble” by disagreeing with things people on the left hold most dear. It’s cute that you throw “put up or shut up” back at me, but that’s not how it works. * you* are the one making claims ( that december is a troll ) you ( and Dex )are the one required to prove it. Really, if the proof is as blatent as you say, it should be the work of mere moments to produce it. Here we are almost 50 posts after I first asked for proof and nobody has even attempted to provide any.
Daniel
I’m intrigued. Other than the fact that I support the war in Iraq, when have you ever heard me espousing policies that agree with the conservative point of view?
Erislover
It’s sad because the essence of reasoned discourse is to deal with what people say, not who they are. I don’t see that much around here anymore.
I have seen many conservitive members get banned. At the straight dope you are at the mercy of the left of Stalin moderators. Anything right of total left wingers dissapear like they did in the solviet union. Let’s rename it the good commie liberal agreement board.
December was a troll whether he stayed with the thread or not and many times he did not. He often just ignored posts that didn’t suit him and just kept posting his drivel. His posting style was clearly intended to be inflamatory.
And, in any case, he was a jerk and that was enough to ban him.
Logic and integrity with regard to facts are important to me. Both were often lacking in December’s posts. The SDMB, and GD in particular, will be better off without him, for more effort can be put in honest debates rather than firefighting.
Weirddave, you want me to satisfy your curiosity, name me some nonconservative positions you’ve taken and I’ll take a look. I don’t care enough otherwise.
This is harsher than I intended. Let me ammend it to say that the stated reasons for december being banned do not match the observable facts. Sorry, got carried away a bit.
Than as far as I can tell, you’ve accused me of being a conservative without anything to back that statement up. I’m not going to expend a lot of effort trying to disprove your statement, you said “Weirddave is a conservative”, now you have to provide cites to prove it.
