manhattan you chickenshit. If you’re going to continue to live in your “with us or against us” world then you could at least have the courage of your convictions and answer my question.
Enjoy,
Steven
He’s just following the example set by his ideological heroes. You don’t see Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Wolfowitz rushing out to the front lines (of any war), do you?
Well, as someone who would probably be considered a “Saadamite” by Manhattan’s “logic”, I will say that I’m not nearly as annoyed by the term as by his not being willing back up the pile of crap he posted in GD. From what I’ve seen I don’t see why people have any respect for him. While I think the case was borderline, all in all it’s not a big deal.
IMO, Manhattan’s jibe seemed like a direct attack on Stoid to wit:
Let’s see: “Saddamites in this forum” plus Stoid being “a leading indicator of future GD looniness” = calling Stoid a Saadamite and loony to boot. All of this seems perfectly unecessary to get one’s point across.
Furthermore, even if this board had some kind of liberal bias, WHY THE FUCK DO YOU NEED TO INSULT ANYONE!? If you have a case, you can present if without using “Saadamite”. Capiche? Now if you felt that actually presenting rational conservative arguments on this board were not being allowed, then I think you have a real issue. This is just whining. This is like two kids in the back seat: “he hit me first. You always let him get away with stuff!”
I for one am glad that the mods are trying to crack down on the insults in GD. But they DO let a lot of stuff pass, and it does seem to be more on one side than on the other.
My posting frequency in Great Debates has gone way down. Not because I don’t find the threads interesting, but because I often look at the participants and think, “Do I really want to deal with the shitstorm of abuse I’m going to get if I voice an opinion?”
For example, just today this exchange took place between myself and ElvisL1ves:
**Me:***I’ll be happy to give you the laundry list of reasons why Kerry would be a bad president. *
ElvisL1ves: Only if you can be realistic about it, without the partisan fact-filtering and middle-excluding “reasoning” (among other fallacies) that typify your posts, including this one. Go ahead if you like, but you know the consequences - as seen in the intervening posts.
This type of response from about a dozen posters on the left on this board is not unusual - it’s expected. And it goes by dozens of times a day, unremarked on by the Moderators.
Stuff like this may be marginal in terms of rule-breaking, but when you have to wade through message after message full of stuff like this, it makes this board a very unpleasant place to hang out.
Well, Sam, you could just stop the partisan fact-filtering and logical fallacy in your stuff, that’d be a nice change of pace. Though for all I know, you find it easier to play the self-martyr than to try to be truthful for a change…
The problem being that the above, and a dozen responses to the same effect, would get posted in Great Debates, identically worded and aimed at anyone who refuses to join in the Bush-bashing.
It isn’t simply the insults (and double standards) that lower the tone of the debates in GD. It is that there are a dozen or so posters who add nothing to a thread apart from the above gratuitous sniping.
rjung does it all the time. elucidator is a lot more smarmy and long-winded, but posts in the same spirit. ElvisL1ves, Evil Captor, others - nothing to add to a thread besides sniping.
How is Sam supposed to address the above? He is accused of fact-filtering and logical fallacy. No examples, no analysis, no attempt at refutation of any specific point - just a generic “you suck”.
And it usually comes from the Bush-bashers.
Regards,
Shodan
Looks like the Pubbie Pinhead Re-elect Bush Brigade[sup]TM[/sup] is getting upset. Shame on all you Bush-Bashers, with your blind, irrational opposition to torture, murder, corruption and lies. Shame on you all for continually quoting inconvenient facts. Please try not to upset the wingnuts in future. Their mental health is at stake.
Awww, gee, thanks Shoddy! Made my day.
Now is the Winter of our Discontent made glorious Spring
By this Son of Pork.
I’ve got to say that most of these discussions that circle around who is being favored look a lot like an ox fight, to me.
Obviously, if we tallied up all the “bad” posters who contribute more vitriol than discussion, one side or the other would have more examples than the other in any given month.
Of course, to be fair, we need to determine ahead of time whether we weight more heavily the member who only posts five times a week, but whose posts are always irredeemably malevolent and free of content, or pour more condemnation on the poster who contributes five posts a day, two of which are needlessly snarky and three of which contribute to the discussion.
However, I see enough nastiness that goes unremarked by members of all the factions that I don’t really see much favoritism.
Mostly I see that the group with the hot issue in any given week will come past my screen with the highest number of forgettably nasty posts.
Not to hijack, but just to clarify. I am unfamilar with this metaphor. What specifically goes on in an “ox fight”?
I assume you are not talking about an Inuit “Musk Ox Fight”.
I took it to be a reference to Exodus 21.
Relevant chapter online here.
When I watch the complaints of favoritism, I tend to remember Martin Luther’s claim that it depends whose ox is being gored.
Somehow my username got dragged in here. Fer cryin’ out loud, Sam and Shodan, most the details of how the post of yours I was replying to constituted partisan fact-filtering and middle-excluding were already addressed in that thread before I got to it. No go back and read it before you embarrass yourselves further. If you want other examples, just look for Sam’s username in almost any other political thread. Or do you filter out anything that might upset your ideologuism?
Sammy, you did not, because you could not, buttress your “argument” after its exposure, did you? You might have learned and grown from it, as that is how learning and growing is done. But no, you took another of your typical approaches, decided that you were being attacked personally, and came whining here instead. Now look: You are being encouraged, strongly, to actually debate honestly in Great Debates. That means unfiltered use of facts and avoidance of logical fallacies - among other things, but those are your hallmarks. No, honesty isn’t easy, but you rarely even try.
Shodan, if you had an argument either on any of the topics referred, you’d present it, no doubt. If it were capable of withstanding even the mild scrutiny that GD arguments get, it would even be convincing. All you’re convincing anyone of is that you’re just as intellectually dishonest and pathetic a whiner as Sam.
This is a **manhattan ** thread, guys. Try to focus now, m’kay?
LOL. Funny that you accuse them of not backing their arguments up but don’t back up your own accusation. The fact that this occurs in a Pit thread arising from an obvious example of conservative snarkiness hardly helps your point.
I don’t back it up? Bullshit.
Read rjung’s post. What point of substance does it contain?
Or read this thread. . The OP there was an obvious example of exactly the kind of one-sided snarkiness from the left side of the aisle that everyone is talking about. Read Diogenes accusations that Americans are stupid. Read Evil Captor’s stupid thread about how all Republicans are racists.
I cited most of this shit earlier. Try reading before you post.
Regards,
Shodan
The problem is not that the mods are biased - I don’t think they are.
The problem is that the posters on the left on this board are, as a group, much nastier than those on the right. There are no right-wing equivalents of ElvisL1ves or rjung - posters who just troll the board looking for ‘stupid’ comments so they can dive-bomb a thread with insults and leave. Even the most obnoxious right-wing posters can’t hold a candle to Diogenes the Cynic or Aldebaaran or Evil Captor when it comes to spittle-flinging hatred of their opponents.
So even if the mods do their best to apply the rules evenly, the fact that 90% of the vitriol comes from one side of the debate means that after the smoke clears, there’s still going to be more crap from one side than the other.
Apparently you haven’t met Milum, milroyj or Brutus.
What irony. In a thread where the “Bush-bashers” are accused of being Saddamites. You know what, you have done the exact same derogatory name-calling to the “liberals” on this board and as a group, in general.
FTR, I agree with Sam. There’s way too much name-calling and vitriol in GD and the example he gave is perfect. But, it looks like calling each other partisan hacks seems to be allowed in GD. May be we should relax and not get too worked up over this.
Feh… a couple of isolated examples from a message board with hundreds of posts a day does not make the case that one side makes snide remarks more than the other. You claim was quantitative as well as qualitative. You haven’t backed up the quantitative part yet.
Since it seems to have eluded you, Shodan, this is the BBQ Pit, not Great Debates. Merely dinking Sam for his self-martyring bullcrap is sufficient substance.
(Shodan criticizing other Dopers for vapid, partisan posts? Isn’t that like Michael Jackson accusing Jim Carrey of freakish behavior?)
Don’t forget Senggüm, another shining example of the Bill O’Reilly school of Republican Non-Think. :wally