December banning

The BBQ Pit
121

The most powerful army in the world was neutralized by little ole North Vietnam as the most powerful people in the world who indirectly control that army begged off the war objective as a result of daily viewing of bloodshed. If , God forbid, the TV only showed mass demonstrations of Americans in support of the war, shooting off guns in the air and bareing there teeth, any terrorist opposition would eventually be regarded as futile.

Relentlessly pursue the terrorists ?

Except I support dissent in general as neccessary desirable function of democracy and just as a decision to go to war is going to take innocent lives on both sides, war protesters expressing their legitimate concerns will cause additional bloodshed through encouragement to the enemy. War protesters have nothing to apologize for.

122

Despite how it may seem here, I have very mixed feelings about December’s banning, reflecting my mixed feelings about Collounsbury’s. Except that I think the latter often made positive and informative contributions to the board. I think both were eloquent, and both skirted very close to the edge of breaking the rules.

Mostly, my problem with banning december is an ACLU-style problem: I don’t give much of a shit about him personally, but I worry about how his treatment will influence the behavior of other people. If you don’t stand up for the rights of scumbags, those rights can get taken away from good people too.

That said, I recognize that nobody has a “right” to post on these boards at all; at best, I can say that were I a mod, I might have decided the matter differently. I’m not a mod, however, so I don’t get a say in the decision. On that, my ACLU analogy fails.

Daniel

123

These are just a few selections from **vibrotronica’s ** post. Damn, I wish we had more posters like that!

124

Have to disagree here. In terms of foreign policy Coll seemed ( and still seems ) more a pragmatist than anything else and his economic views were decidely conservative in tone. There are many, many more posters who are more left on this board than Coll ever was. He was just abrasive as hell when someone got his dander up and he tended to argue most heavily on a topic where he happened to largely disagree with the current conservative administration.

That said, I agree that the idea that december was banned primarily for his conservatism doesn’t pass the logic test, far as I’m concerned. He lasted four years with views that do not seem to have altered appreciably in that span. It’s hard for me to buy that all of a sudden the liberal cabal decided to make their move. Nor do I think any of the more thoughtful conservatives on this board have anything to fear.

I was not, by the way, ever in favor of his being banned, though I was clearly never a fan. I neither mourn, nor rejoice at his departure.

  • Tamerlane
125

I don’t know, DanielWithrow, I am at a loss to see what december and his posting style stand for that we are losing; if he’s being martyred for a cause, what is that cause?

Incidentally, I can’t believe I forgot to mention Scylla. Ah well, can’t name all the posters who present themselves well, that list is far too long.

126

I happen to think there are quite a few posters that you’re casting your blanky o’ revulsion over, so let’s not pretend I’ve in some way distorted your presentation of absolute truth. You didn’t just say that they were wrong about the “liberal conspiracy”, you said that they were “reviled” for their “reprehensible behaviour” here. That’s quite a charge, based on nothing more than their support for december.

No, I don’t believe there is a liberal conspiracy. I believe this is ludicrous. I’m also surprised that the content of the offending december threads was defended, as opposed to his right to post. But if you toss out junk insults like the above into an already heated situation, you can’t really act all surprised when people think they’re being victimised. Exactly who reviles these people? And exactly who is being reviled, and why?

127

By the way, I agree strongly with Trion - these “so-and-so was banned, why hasn’t so-and-so who is obviously a million times worse” threads and comments are tiresome and don’t seem terribly productive. I didn’t like it when Collounsbury was banned and everybody was using december as an example of someone who deserved to get booted more and I don’t like it any better now when the focus has now become reeder.

  • Tamerlane
128

There are people on this board (and in this thread, for that matter) who have behaved more offensively than december. But for long-term consistent baiting in the guise of debate, he will likely never be equaled.

Whether or not he eventually makes a comeback, we can probably use the break.

Which is why I sort of hope he’ll return. After awhile, Mrs. december will need a break.

129

December started/instigated pretty much every fight he fought here. That’s pretty far from henpecked. I’ve seen several conservative posters get henpecked until they exploded… but they didn’t get banned. Because while they got angry or frustrated, they still didn’t pull the sorts of things that december pulled. It takes a cool, patient head to do what december does, and I never got the sense from him that he was angry or even all that excited: certainly not exploding.

That said, I still don’t think he should have been banned, and I await word from the mods as to why, because I expect that it involves something of a revision or clarification of board policy, seeing as december has not become noticably worse lately aside from the “President” thing.

Perhaps there were communications or events of which we were unaware. Back when I spent most of my time on a Tolkien board, one of our premiere posters was banned mostly not for his abrasive and abusive posts, but because when the mods told him to cool it, he reportedly told them to fuck off. While I doubt that this was december’s case, maybe there are similarly hidden reasons.

130

I think the case for Reeder stands upon its own merits. At the very least, somebody needs to teach that kid a lesson and give him a stern warning.

131

You’re right Tamerlane… Reeder is about as left as left can get, Collounsbury was more of a moderate, though he was a moderate who attracted a great deal of conservative ire. :slight_smile:

I should have chosen my words better.

132

Seeing we were at best talking about 5 people posting to this and the Bali thread, I believe you were.

As I clearly explained, certain posters were not just “supporting” december, they were claiming that the only reason he was banned was because he was a conservative. That the only reason he was being “henpecked” by the “frothing mouth liberals” who rule the SDMB was his conservative views and not the actual content of posts or his behavior in the Clinton mis-quote and 2 peace demonstrators as terrorist supporters threads, on top of all the other fun he has inspired this year.

If you cannot grasp the position or those who keep tossing it out and the negative reactions they recieve, review this thread and the Bali thread and look for the "contributions of Brutus, Read Neck, Shodan and Tax Guy et al.

Bali thread: hold your nose and click:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=207575

The Clinton misquote thread is already linked.

133

Of course not. But the mods do respond to protests e-mailed by the dopers, and I’ll bet that in both Collounsbury’s (who is not liberal by the way) case and december’s, the mods were inundated by protests. december aroused the ire of many liberals on this board as he sought to debate what he perceived as the weaknesses of their position. The sheer volume of righteous indignation in reponse directed at him no doubt spawned a lot e-mails hassling the mods.

I can’t think of anyone more conservative than december in this forum at least. I do notice that the popular self described conservatives on this board have excellent people skills and carefully and sparingly present their conservative views.

134

I think a lot of people here are mis-understanding the accusations about december’s conservative leanings being the reason for his banning. This has long been MHO of why he gets in so much trouble.

It’s not that the mods are conscously deciding to ban him because he is conservative, as DtC suggests. I truly believe that if you asked the mods “Did you ban december because of his conservative beliefs?” you would get an honest no. Just like if you asked Dan Rather if he has a liberal bias you would get an honest no.

However, the fact that december is a vocal conservative poster is a large part of his problem on the boards. It’s only natural for mods to cut somone like Colounsbury some slack because they might tend to agree with what he is saying, even if he is breaking the rules a bit. It’s also natural for them to come down hard on december if they disagree with what he stands for.

I also think the fact that dozens of posters hated december has an impact on his treatment by the mods.

The mods may have a very good reason for the banning that we don’t know about yet. I’m not saying that the mods are out to get december. I am just pointing out that it’s silly to think that they are impartial robots incapable of having bias.

135

WHOA!

Jumping to conclusions in the complete absence of evidence is NOT good exercise.

We normally don’t post reasons for banning, out of respect for the privacy of the banee (female: banshee?). In this case, where a long-time member was banned,and since so many people seem to be going in very wrong directions, I am going to break the tradition and explain, briefly.

Banning december has nothing to do with his political stance. It has nothing to do with what he said, but with how he said it.

He has a long consistent history of a dubious behavior pattern: namely, posting quotes to provoke responses, when the quotes are taken out of context, misconstrued, referring to a different topic, out of time-sequence, mis-attributed, etc. The most recent offenses were egregious, but only the latest in a long, long list. These were the last straws that overflowed the cup (to mix a couple metaphors.)

It’s perfectly OK to post a provocative quote to get a discussion or debate rolling. What’s not OK is when those quotes are taken out of context, distorted, misattributed, etc. Don’t misunderstand: anyone might get a quote wrong upon occasion. But when we have a consistent, repeated pattern many many times over many many months, we have to conclude that this is trolling. Classic trolling: dropping a shocking or extreme (usually false) comment solely for the purpose of generating attention.

december was warned about this behavior back in May 2003, and he acknowledged the warning. He was told then that there would not be another warning. We’ve been extremely lenient with him. But now he’s been back at it again, over the last several weeks, and enough was enough.

So, in short, he was banned for a behavior pattern that was indistinguishable from trolling. If it walks like a troll, talks like a troll, quacks like a troll, then it’s a troll.

136

vibrotronica, you are making far too much sense to be a proper participant in this thread. Please note the ramparts to either side of you. You need to choose one and take the appropriate cudgel, sword, or crossbow to smite the eeeevil, eeevil opponent on the other rampart. Don’t worry, we’ve got everything figured out for you, just trust our tried and true blanket assumptions about the shameless bastards on the other side.

-Rav

137

And as I clearly stated, I disagree with them. I don’t know about you though, but personally I don’t think people who have the temerity to disagree with me are guilty of “reprehensible behaviour”. Perhaps you have greater conviction of your opinions than I.

I’ve read the Bali thread, thankyou, and participated in the Clinton one. I’m well aware of what was said. I don’t understand why anyone would have defended either, but am secure enough in myself to be able to withstand differences of opinion without going about reviling people willy-nilly. With the exception of Read_Neck, all the posters you mention and more (e.g. Scylla) are eminently reasonable people. I think they’re wrong about the liberal conspiracy and would like them to reconsider, and my point is that you’re not really helping things very much.

Debaser, I agree with you when you say that it’s silly to assume the mods are infallible robots. I hope you’d agree that it’s equally silly to assume they have a uniform bias in one direction on the evidence of one banning. To me it’s clear they’ve taken a very long time coming to this decision, and have taken it in good faith for the benefit of the boards. This is not the usual behaviour of any sort of conspiracy I’ve ever come across.

138

I think december’s demise is only a reflection of the desperate times the invasion promoters and their acolytes find themselves in.

The constant shifting goals, added to the obvious lies and misrepresentations used to market the naked power-grab have become increasingly harder to defend in light of all the evidence to the contrary. You see that coming more and more from the very top levels of US Gov, where people like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle, while still spinning furiously have had to recognize that not only “mistakes were made” but that the original premise based on WMDs, ties to Al Queda and imminent threat, was at the very least overstated. Sure, as politicians are wont to do, they sugarcoat their speech and add whatever boilerplate arguments they still have left. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that they were full of shit to begin with.

Now, what is an official pom-pom waver to do under these dire circumstances? Well, one obvious answer is what we’ve seen december do more and more of. Bait and switch. Somehow, in fact, no matter how, shift the blame to the other side. His last two threads both a study in the fundamentals of this approach. Honesty and truth, obviously placing a distant second to distraction. And judging from the huge number of replies he got, it worked.

Net gain? A moment’s respite combined with a zealot’s unassailable conviction that the new day will bring forth the smoking gun he so fervently laid all his bets on. And I do mean every single last chip…and then some. Once painted into a corner in said fashion there’s very little room to maneuver. Unless, metaphorically speaking, you’re shown the door. Which is exactly what happened here.

Hopefully, we’ll see a repeat performance in 2004, this time involving the PuppetMasters.

139

Kputt was voluntarily banned
Jersey Diamond wasn’t banned.
His4Ever changed her screen name.

Any others you can think of? Because if you name names it will really help us out. Supporting the President is grounds for revocation of posting privileges. It says so in the FAQ.

140

I can’t disagree. So shouldn’t the Bali thread be locked? Isn’t it the usual procedure to lock the thread of a convicted troll ?