I dunno. My eyes just start to glaze over when I see any thread by december that I suspect is a big mess. Who needs the aggravation of reading such stuff? Not that this excuses any offenses december may or may not have committed, of course.
Also, if it is too difficult for some of you to let your eyes skip over any offensive or upsetting posts by anyone at all, please remember that this board does have an “ignore” feature. (Not that I’ve used it, not that I know how it works, and most importantly, not that I would say who’d I’d “ignored” if I did use the feature (because that can get you seriously reprimanded by a mod, if not worse).
This is a good point. I have noticed that december occasionally posts OPs that are not the inflammitory junk everyone is complaining about. In those threads, however, he is still lambasted and flamed, even though his OP was nothing out of the ordinary. If you really want him to change his ways, you can’t bash him constantly, you have to let the good OPs stand on their own.
It is obvious to me that many of the posters here would rather see december gone than refomed.
When my children were, well, children, they would come home complaining that so-in-so had been teasing them. On inquiry it was pretty obvious that the teasing was solely to get a reaction out of my kid. So it is with out friend December the purpose of his silly, bias, unfair, dishonest, plagiarized, half-truth, hide-the-ball posts is to get a reaction. I told my kids that since they could not go after their teasers with a baseball bat the best answer to their problem was to not react, to ignore it. Let those who have ears listen.
In my work-a-day life I am beset with weasels—the sort of guys who you never take at their word, the sort of guys who, when they submit a brief, you read every case and statute cited and proof read every quotation against the source for completeness and accuracy. Sooner or latter these people have to live with their behavior and reputation for duplicity. Sooner or later they lose credibility and even the people who want a dishonest sleaze-ball in their corner quit dealing with them. Regrettably, for every weasel that disappears another one springs up. Weasels, like the poor are always with us.
That said, our friend’s admission that he deliberately altered the Clinton gifts story does cross a line from weasel, who after all does raid hen houses to keep body and soul together, to wolverine—who just does it for the malicious pleasure of the thing. A guy can live with a weasel in the neighborhood, but the presence of a wolverine is a public danger which the whole township must join together to drive away.
Cite? Assuming you remember correctly, why is a minority of good behavior justification for a majority of bad behavior?
**
What is obvious to me is that many of the posters have given up hope for his reform. Three years and nearly four thousand posts is a solid body of evidence to draw a conclusion from about a person’s jerkl/non-jerk nature. Do you suggest we continue letting him spread his misinformation and deliberatly slanted views? Do you consider it our job to allow him to continue this behavior and continue meekly correcting his lies? Do you think we should let his lies go unchallenged?
I always thought the best way to combat lies and misinofrmation sit with, y’know, the truth and not with banning. You can easily avoid his posts or respond and try and correct his lies and such. You can complain and post your opinion in the Pit, but he should not be banned. There is no reason for that at all. Avoiding his posts, or scrolling past them is really not that hard and is always an option.
Ok, in this thread, december posted his opinion that African-American organizations should not focus their efforts on protesting individual incidents of racism. He felt that their resources could be better spent.
He offered 4 possible reasons why his opinion might be wrong.
He offered 4 possible reasons why his opinion might be right.
A few people decided to debate on the merits of his and other opinions. Others, OTOH:
It did eventually turn into a debate, with cites and facts and such, but there sure as hell was a lot of unwarranted nasty crap thrown his way. What I’m saying is, treat the thread on it’s merit, not on who posted it. If it’s a good topic, presented reasonably, treat it nice. If it’s crap, beat the hell out of him.
I did notice, as i was going through the threads, a number of december OPs that were reasonable, and did not result in december bashing. This particular thread stuck with me, though, since I got involved in the debate, and thought the tone was unreasonable.
I disagree. The truth is the best way to combat ignorance. Banning is a better way to combat lies and willful misinformation.
**
I think this is a poor approach to the problem for several reasons. [list=1]
[li]It’s unfair to newbies who do not know december spreads lies and misinformation. They may get suckered into replying to him believing he would actually debate some points.[/li][li]It doesn’t explicitly refute his lies and misinformation, leading people to believe his views are valid. This makes the board a source of ignorance, not a place that fights it.[/li][li]Hi Opal![/li][li]It breaks the flow of threads or even whole forums to ignore someone who IS contributing. Things are said by the poster, replied to by other posters, it’s harder to ignore someone who says something(even if you’re sure they’re spewing nonsense) because it disjoints the conversation.[/li][/list=1]
I’m all for free speech and you won’t find very many people who are as anti-censorship as I am. I happen to believe that december crossed the line when he began intentionally misrepresenting the sources he cites. We’re not dealing with someone who is propounding a controversial view here. december’s behavior is closer to yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded theater.
Cheesesteak: As you’ve seen, people DO leave december’s past in the past and debate only the issue he raised. But far too often it takes goading on the part of the participants to get him to debate honestly. In my time here I’ve seen more december OPs that stated some wild, crazy thing, posters would discredit the wild, crazy assertion, then re-phrase what they felt was a real issue somewhat related to december’s point and then debate would ensue. I posit that debate happens IN SPITE OF december’s effort*, as opposed to debate happening because he raised a debatable point.
Enjoy,
Steven
Meaning most of his posts are inflammatory drivel designed to denigrate/irritate views/persons he objects to instead of actually putting forth debatable points and supporting them with evidence.
Let me point out, please, that simply refraining from saying “You fucking idiot” isn’t necessarily polite.
We’ve attempted, before to try and explain to fundementalists who say stuff like “I don’t hate homesexuals, I merely believe they’re going to rot in hell for all eternity for their perversions”, that, all by itself, isn’t polite, even if you don’t say ‘fuck’.
and, misquoting, deliberate mischaracterizations of other posters statements **isn’t ** polite, either.
in one of the more recent trainwrecks (the “are democrats allowed to run homophobic ads”), I put out several points regarding it , he later claimed that my objections was only one of the several and mischaracterized that one as well.
that’s patently dishonest. and it is** not ** polite.
If you take each thread individually, then yes, this is true. But when thread after thread after thread employs the exact same approach – an inflammatory title, cherry-picked cites, and a calm, smug refusal to admit that the subsequent backpedaling is, in fact, backpedaling – then it’s no longer politeness: It’s a modus operandi.
I defended december in a previous Pit thread on the grounds that he represents the ignorance we’re all trying to fight, and that, after all, the ignorance must be brought to us if we’re to fight it.
After the latest round of idiocy in GD, I’m finding it rather difficult to stick with that justification.
I used to read posts like the ones mentioned above and get all het up about the inaccuracies/preconceptions/agendas they contained. Nowadays, I tend to just skim the threads and ignore the ones that are yesterday’s (skewed) news.
But I have to say that, if december’s behavior results in posts like DDG’s analysis of the Lott pictures and El_Kabong’s summary of his typical reasoning, it’s worth the server space.
Newbies should also be warned that if you criticize Democrats and liberals, some posters will start Pit threads, calling you dishonest, insane and idiotic, and recommending that you be banned.
December, your defense of “I’m just persecuted because I’m right wing” has become extremely worn out. It’s irrelevant whether someone is criticizing Democrats, Republicans or whatever else- if the poster in question is a lying troll then people are going to start pit threads about them no matter what.
Hey december, how many Pit threads have been started in the last month for Sam Stone, IzzyR, Dewey Cheatem, etc., solely for their ideological stance? Hmmm?
Well, if you’re dishonest, spread misinformation, cite Op-Ed pieces as reliable news sources, and have been pitted by those on your end of the political spectrum…
True. Neither do you. You start threads to criticize * imaginary * Democratic homophobia, and whine about anything you can think of having to do with Bill Clinton, even if it’s old news. I fully expect you to start a thread one of these days JUST to bitch and moan about Monica.
The ad was also criticized by the nation’s largest gay and lesbian organization.
It was a new report in the New York Times the very day I posted it.
Airman Doors – You are probably right in suggesting that I let it go. I suppose there are two reasons for those posts:[ol][li]Over the years, Democrats and liberals have taken the position that Republicans and conservatives not only support bad policies, but that they are bad people. In other words, Dems and liberals often claim to be morally superior. There are plenty of threads on SDMB attacking Reps and conservatives. Recent ones include:[/li]-- Paul Harvey…wait for it…FUCK YOU!
– Jerry Falwell calls Prophet Muhammad a “terrorist”
– Bush administration teams up with Islamic extremists
– Excuse me, Mr. President?
– Republicans 2002, Or: How They Would Drop The Bomb And Learn To Start Worrying
– Answer this War/Bush/Oil question
– Shouldn’t George W. Wait Till After the Midterms, Like His Father Did? [/ol]