Der Trihs Suspension Discussion Thread

[Measure_for_Measure]

Warning number 1, Jan 2015: Der characterizes this claim…

@Sage_Rat

Yes, maybe a large number people will die of starvation. But let’s take the example of inoculation. When you give someone a shot to immunize them against a virus, some percentage of the people who get the shot actually contract the virus from the shot (since inoculation is a weak version of the virus), and some of those people die. By inoculating, you are actively and knowingly killing people. But you still do it because you know that the alternative would be that an even greater number of people die.

and this claim

@Sage_Rat

Let’s say, for example, that you are dealing with a deadbeat dad. You can either argue that he should go to jail, or that he should stay free. If he goes to jail, the mom will have to work and the five children will be cramped into a single room, with poor light, insufficient nourishment, and they’ll grow up stunted, with poor health, and a shortened lifespan. If the dad stays with the family, he will spend all the money he can, gambling, getting drunk, etc.

…as follows:

@Der_Trihs

I’m not; austerity saves no one and helps no one.

That scenario has nothing at all to do with austerity. It’s a way of demonizing the Greeks so you can justify your stated desire for them to starve.

Der presented a straightforward attack on a fact-free argument via analogy. The “Stated desire for them to starve”, is referenced above. I should post the moderator POV though:

@Jonathan_Chance

That’s enough, Der Trihs. I’m giving you a warning for insults, here. While SageRat has indicated that ‘maybe’ such things will happen, you seem to be indicating that he actively desires them out of some sort of blood lust or somesuch.

Knock it off. Calm down and come back to the argument without such over-the-top rhetoric. It accomplishes nothing.

Warning 2, Oct 2013:This one is more interesting, as JC states his POV:

@Jonathan_Chance

Der Trihs, you should know better than this.

In effect, your need to cast those with whom you disagree in the worst possible light can be extremely detrimental to any form of discussion and distracts from reasonable debate.

In the above post, you characterize a group of people with beliefs differing from yours as bullies (by your repeated use of the word ‘aggression’) and bigots. Instead of dealing with people as individuals you seem to prefer to treat them as classes of beings. This is no different than a true bigot holding erroneous beliefs about ‘all jews’ or ‘all blacks’. It is offensive and makes you a lightning rod for those who would - whether intentionally or not - alter the course of what could be a reasonable debate.

And that I will not permit.

Over-the-top comments - which seem to come from you on a regular basis - are out of line. You should think hard before you again accuse an entire group of people of ‘punishing the slut’ or being bigots when they simply disagree with you. Barring direct evidence in posts or public statements such statements as yours serve no purpose. Hell, you equate - in the post above - those who oppose birth control with a straw man that goes around murdering - through the secret denial of life-saving drugs - HIV positive persons. There is no means by which you can justify that statement on a rational basis.

The sad thing is that I - and those paying attention - know that you CAN post in a reasonable manner. You do so in other fora on the boards. You do so the majority of the time in Great Debates. You must learn to control your posting style so that you - the intelligent and passionate man you appear to be - will be taken seriously and stop racking up warnings.

It is not hard to find ways to express disagreement with the viewpoints of others that does not lead to the insult direct or over-the-top accusations. I encourage you to expand your linguistic horizons. In time, I believe you’ll enjoy debate more when you find you don’t need to resort to bomb throwing accusations that mean little and, honestly, only serve to make others - even those who might agree with your politics for the most part - take you less seriously than you might hope.

Of course, if you must do so, the BBQ Pit is one click away. There you may attack and accuse other posters and groups to your hearts content. But in Great Debates you may not.

Warning issued. Don’t do it again.

What’s interesting is that no SDMB poster was mentioned in the post. Basically Der was called out because of presentation:

@Der_Trihs

Denying a woman access to birth control (and yes, that’s what abortion is) is an act of bigotry and aggression. Providing the state with poison to kill someone is also an act of aggression. And both undercut trust and respect of the profession; if someone is willing to forbid a woman contraception to “punish the slut”, why wouldn’t they be willing to quietly replace an AIDS patients antiviral drugs with something that doesn’t work to punish them? They’ve already demonstrated that what matters to them is their bigotry, not their profession.

People in a medical profession shouldn’t use their position to harm people; it undercuts the trust that lets the institution of medicine function. Therefore, pharmacists should neither provide poison to kill the victims of the death penalty, nor should they be allowed to torment women because some book of Iron Age mythology tells them to.

---

@John_Mace

I don’t get this idea that he “skates just up to the line”. He has skated far over the line many, many times.

And since we all know exactly where that line is, we must all agree!

Not so.

I’ve accepted for a while that Der was on a ban-train. But he typically doesn’t engage in direct insults, which is why he has been here for so long. What he usually does is put the motives of conservatives and theists in a bad light. And he occasionally does the same for individual posters. This isn’t a case of stepping over bright lines. It’s a case of, well, overheated rhetoric x300.

Hey, the standard here is jerkitude: attack the post and not the poster is just a helpful guideline. Personally I’d rather have Der around for longer rather than shorter given that he’s generally stayed close to the line rather than over it. But hey again, he’s been here for almost 10 years. Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment/amusement.

More:

1. OBTW: A time out isn’t going to work. Der has basically always been this way, though to be fair he’s dialed it back some in response to moderator instruction.

2. Grey? What is this thing you call grey?

3. Clearly the jackboots have it in for staunch liberals.

4. FTR, Der has 7 warnings over a number of years. Generally speaking, suspensions last 1 month. Then it’s one strike and you’re out. This policy bums me, but I don’t make the calls and frankly I can understand the basis for it. I just prefer rinse and repeat. Or maybe round numbers: 10 sounds ok for consistently borderline calls. To me, not to TPTB.