Good point. If I started 5 threads every week dedicated to the proposition that Republicans are stupid and/or evil and Democrats are Beloved of God, I’m pretty sure I’d have at least as many Pit threads as december.
That is both sad and unfortunate as the possibilities it leaves us with are none too good.
First, is the possibility that I communicated so badly that you could not understand me. Since others did rather easily I don’t think we can accept simple misunderstanding.
Second, is the possibility that you are a total idiot, incapable of reason. As satisfying as this might be for me, I simply don’t beleive it to be true, and am incapable of resolving it with what I consider to be consistent signs of a respectable intelligence on your part.
The third possibility, and the only one I see left, is that you think so little of me and my intelligence, that you are comfortable ascribing such a fucking stupid and asinine point of view to me.
Is that basically it?
You may be right, and that is indeed reasonable.
Hmm, I disagree with Scylla, so I’m an asshole acting in bad faith.
Yep, I’ve seen that one before.
By the way, have you ever considered the possibility that you really are a complete and utter asshole? I mean, I know I have assholish tendencies, but you really are a prick.
No. That it is most emphatically not what I said. More importantly, it doesn’t bear resemblance to what I meant.
I am not accusing you of bad faith.
I am asking if you genuinely think that bad of me, both my intelligence and my quality as a person that that is what you think I mean?
And the answer seems to be Yes. You do.
I think you think so badly of me that you are having trouble interpreting or seeing anything that I say in any other than the worst possible fashion. I think it’s causing you to distort my words in your parahrases to conform with your preconceptions.
I think you’re mistaken in this, and hope you’ll see it.
Exactly right. If they banned december, just a couple months after letting Collunsbury back from his ban (admitting that Col isn’t necessarily a mirror of liberal party platforms, but still left of center), it would leave them open to questions of whether they’d be letting their liberal bias affect their decisions. december’s posts aren’t any worse than the perpetual drive-by Bush-bashing non sequiturs that some of the board’s resident ultra-leftists like to drop everywhere.
As a libertarian myself, I’m used to pretty much nobody agreeing with me, so I can stand back and look at the people disagreeing with me and see why. When I see why, it’s clear that this board is overwhelmingly made of people coming from liberal viewpoints. We need at least a handful of conservatives around just to occasionally hold the lefties back from the brink of utter pinko nonsense. If some conservative goes too far, there’s never any worry that there will be plenty of leftists, some well-spoken and some just mindless teenagers and Bush-bashers, to pull the argument back to reality before we’re caught in a time-warp back to the Eisenhower administration.
It’s been said before, it’s worth saying again. We all know exactly what we get from december when we open one of his threads. It’s not trolling, it’s just inviting a critical look at the Democratic party in december’s…unique…way. So if you don’t like it, ignore list him (naturally w/o saying that you’re doing so), and/or just don’t open his threads.
December, I have a clear recollection of this one, the controversy about Jewish school girls in Paris, their parents’ law suit and its dismissal with sanctions. You repeatedly misstated the facts, refused to concede the facts when repeatedly informed of the facts and were generally pilloried for dishonesty and pig headed stubbornness. It was not your best performance and, if I were you, I would not bring it up again.
In fact, let’s review Scylla’s statements in this thread:
Translation: You’re just picking on him because he’s conservative.
Translation: You’re just picking on him because he’s conservative.
Translation: You’re just picking on him because he’s conservative, and it doesn’t matter that conservatives pick on him too.
Translation: You’re just picking on him because he’s conservative.
Translation: Did I say that you’re just picking on him because he’s conservative? I’m sorrry, I didn’t mean that. What I really mean is that you’re just picking on him because he’s conservative.
Translation: You’re only picking on him because he’s conservative because there’s more of you than him.
Translation: His behavior is indefensible, but I get mad because you’re just picking on him because he’s conservative.
Translation: Maybe it’s just my own biases, but I’ve given it some thought, and I’ve decided it’s really that you’re just picking on him because he’s conservative.
Translation: Why doesn’t Elvis get Pitted? It’s because you’re just picking on december because he’s conservative.
Translation: You’re just picking on him because he’s conservative.
Translation: That’s just my opinion, but I think I’m right that you’re just picking on him because he’s conservative. I acknowledge that you may disagree, and that’s okay with me.
Translation: You mean you read my posts as saying people were picking on december because he’s conservative? Perhaps I communicated my points poorly, but are you retarded, or are you a lying piece of shit?
Ummmm, that is a mind-bogglingly huge and slanted oversimplification of what that thread was about.
If you had shown any kind of evidence upfront that a) the attack was undeniably anti-Semitic in nature (you didn’t describe the schoolgirls as French, although they may well have been French citizens; you described them as Arabs/Muslims, which to be fair was how they were described in the article you quoted, which was itself pretty damn slanted and sensationalistic); b) the girls who were attacked were completely blameless; and/or c) school officials, acting intentionally and in their roles as agents of the French government, had wilfully ignored the attack by failing to protect Jewish girls BECAUSE of their race/religion/ethnicity (however you wish to define Jewishness for this purpose), you might have had a leg to stand on.
On top of all that, you suggested that the attack was symptomatic of some sort of French government anti-Semitic conspiracy to rid the country of Jews by failing to protect them from anti-Semites in general, and Arabs/Muslims in particular. Oh, and I almost forgot how you accused the French judge of anti-Semitism when the parents were fined for attempting to try the case in the media.
If that’s how good Jews defend the Chosen People from attack, by skewing the facts to suit their self-serrving ethnocentric agenda, then well, I sure don’t want to be a Jew like that. The whole thread left me pretty disgusted. That’s not a liberal vs. conservative debate; that was a truth vs. bullshit debate.
(If anyone could find that sucker and link to it, I’d appreciate it. My search bar at home has disappeared, and I haven’t been able to retrieve it. Thanks in advance.)
Well damn. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=174789
None of that fancy coding for me.
Minty:
Don’t translate my posts. They’re in English, and I like my words better than yours. They represent what I meant, and they’re the record of what I actually said.
The offense that you’re taking is occuring through your translation, not through my meaning, and not through my words unless you try to put it there.
I don’t think you’re acting in bad faith here, but you are wrong.
I am not giving you the offense you are taking.
I’m not angry and I’m not upset, and I have a good opinion of you, I think well of you. I’m disapointed that you think so badly of me that you believe what you are so obviously putting into my words.
But, since it’s you that is putting that offense into there, and not me, it is your problem not mine.
I really am sorry you feel the way you do. I hope you change your mind.
Wow, getting ugly fast. To cool everyone off, here’s this adorable adoracubby!
Then kidnly apologize for accusing me of posting in bad faith right here:
Oh no, this has been smoldering for months. Scylla shows up in GD every couple of months to complain about liberals, says horrible personal things about the people who disagree with him, then gets offended when anybody calls him on it. Clockwork, man.
A couple of points. First note. I owe you jack shit. Second note. I didn’t pit you.
You made the assertion and when called on it you provided “cites” from unnamed Israeli sources with wild estimates as to Arafat’s wealth and its source. Less biased sources actually indicated that he lives a very modest lifestyle and was from a wealthy background to begin with. Another of your “cites” was some random person on a message board who apparently has the same kind of standards of “proof” as yourself because they repeated allegations from that bastion of journalistic integrity, the New York Post.(Actual New York Post front page headline from Thursday May 1st, 2003 “FAIRY GODFATHER: Mafia boss whacked for being gay”) All the “figures” in that “cite” came from Israeli sources who cited documents seized in raids and their own estimates. Oh wait, there was that unpublished British intelligence report which “allegedly” put a figure of 10 billion on Arafats wealth.
You want people to believe your allegations? Turn these documents over to the EU or the UN and let them see the “proof” that Arafat is funneling aid monies into his own pockets. They’d be very interested in this type of “proof”.
I reject your “proof”. Your cite is rumor-mongering or hearsay at best. Show me an independent verification of the Israeli interpretation of the financial records. Oh wait, they said “The intricate network of numbered bank accounts and hidden assets is believed to be so complex that only Arafat, Rashid and one or two other Palestinians know their extent.” Very convenient that. Nice to be able to say “He’s got tons of cash! He must have been embezzling aid funds!” and when someone says “Point to it. Trace its flow from aid cheques to his coffers.” they say “Well, it’s all over the place, we don’t know where or how much, or where it came from(actually we do, but we’re not going to tell you, just trust us ok?), but it’s all over the place! Really! I’m not lying!”
WHAT THE FUCK kind of “cite” is this? HOW FUCKING GULLIBLE DO YOU THINK I AM?!?
Well, regardless of how “hard” my standards of evidence are I think it’s pretty fucking obvious that this wouldn’t meet them. You want to paint me as some sort of hand-waver on the order of the holocaust deniers that’s fine. It’s bullshit, but you’re entitled to your opinion, no matter how smelly.
Oh, and the WoMD evidence I need is evidence that Saddam posessed covert programs capable of producing WoMD when the first shots were fired in “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Or stockpiles. I’d be ok with either. Not interested in unnamed officials estimates though. Some verification by at least two sources, one of which should be independent of the “coalition of the willing”.
Enjoy,
Steven
That is not what I did. What I said was “You were comfortable ascribing such a stupid and asinine point of view to me.”
Those are the words that I used. And those particular words are the words that I meant.
I believe you were and are comfortable, because you genuinely believe it to be true.
I said that outright: " I think you think so badly of me that you are having trouble interpreting or seeing anything that I say in any other than the worst possible fashion. I think it’s causing you to distort my words in your parahrases to conform with your preconceptions."
If you genuinely believe it to be accurate than it’s not bad faith, is it?
I am not accusing you of bad faith even though what you are saying is very insulting. For now, I see no reason to take offense when I believe you are in genuine error, even though that error is founded on what seems to be a really crappy personal opinion of me.
Apparently it has. I didn’t know it. It has not been smouldering for me. I bear you no ill-will. I have nothing against you.
I have a positive opinion of you, albeit one that is being assaulted and is in danger of crumbling.
Sure. I have said bad things about liberals in general. You have certainly said bad things about Republicans/Conservatives. It happens in GD to some degree all the time. I am neither particularly more nor less guilty of it than you or most anybody else who participates in those threads.
Minty. You’re the guy that’s saying horrible personal things and getting all offended, here.
This is false. You conveniently omitted the opening phrase. The entire sentence was this: “The third possibility, and the only one I see left, is that you think so little of me and my intelligence, that you are comfortable ascribing such a fucking stupid and asinine point of view to me.”
Translation: The only explanation I can think of for why you would interpret my words thusly is that you think I’m stupid and are therefore think you can get away with saying I believe “fucking stupid and asinine” things.
I.e., you’re accusing me of posting in bad faith.
Like clockwork.
Minty:
This is getting really really stupid.
In order for you to construe that I am accusing you of bad faith, you need a “translation” and an “i.e.” The full sentence doesn’t contradict anything I’ve said
In the past I have had no qualms with accusing people of bad faith and lying when I felt that was what they were doing. I have no such qualms now.
Thus far I have reserved offense because I had hoped we had a genuine misunderstanding we could work out.
I’m sorry that doesn’t seem to be possible.
If you change your mind let me know. I won’t hold it against you.