I used to spend quite a lot of time in every gun control and religion debate that came down the pike. But after months of debunking the same arguments and re-explaining the same things over and over, I’ve gotten pretty bored with both topics, and generally avoid both topics unless there’s something I feel I need to respond to.
I’ve learned a lot and gotten a lot out of GD, but at the moment I’m rather disenamored with it. I feel like posting on certain topics is a waste of my time, as well as those who read my posts, as I’ve already explained and supported my positions on numerous other threads.
The biggest thing that wears on me and takes all the enjoyment out of posting on GD is the tendency of certain people to take statements out of context and exaggerate them into cartoonish caricatures of what I really said, then proceed to beat the strawman to a pulp.
There are a few people who I’ll still pay attention to, respond to, etc, but lately I feel done with something once I’ve explained myself.
minty green’s remark seems to indicate that he thinks this is a “Waaaah, the board is stupid, I’m leaving” thread. It isn’t. I’m certainly not leaving the board, I highly enjoy most of my forays over here, this is pretty much the only site I’ve ever visited every single day for over half a year. I’m not even leaving GD entirely, I’m just dissatisfied with the sort of debates they are having over there lately and will try to stick to those in which I think there is a chance for enlightening dialogue. I like having the chance to reevaluate and maybe change my position to a sounder one, but that’s going to take something new, because if I’ve already heard it then my present opinion takes it into account.
Lib, I admit your list of GD topics appears to be diverse…until you look beneath the surface. Any specific topic in GD runs the constant danger of turning into an old debate that we’ve all seen before. War in the Gulf? I think the hawks and doves are pretty much where they were 20 years ago. Anything about a specific politician is bound to turn into a tired old left-right split. A handful of the things on that list are just the same old thing from the get-go: gun control, nationalized health care, sexism, military spending, wealth distribution, and evolution. Surely we’re all intelligent well-read people here, we must have heard just about everything there is to be said on those topics. Don’t tell me you don’t open those threads pretty much knowing who’s going to say what, and when and why they’re going to say it.
And don’t forget the people who see any thread on religion and drop in just to spout off tired old cliches about “organized religion is oppression” and a litany of hostile remarks. And the people who see any thread on politics and jump in to get a few jabs at Bush that we’ve all heard ad nauseum.
There are some diamonds in the rough, no doubt about it, but there’s alot of junk there. I can understand going through a debate once to see it can’t be resolved, then dropping it. To just recycle the same stuff over and over in painful.
No, my comments were intended to indicate that this is a “Waaaah, Great Debates is stupid” thread. If you don’t like it, fucking leave it. I barely ever step foot in MPSIMS because I don’t like it, but you don’t see me complaining about how mundane and pointless it is, do you?
Oh, and Joe_Cool, if you ever manage to locate where Miller says it’s an individual right, you be sure and drop by one of those threads where I called bullshit on you for that statement, m’kay?
Let’s not forget Sam Stone here. I always love reading his posts. The man is always ready to argue fully and to the end when apologists for world socialism show up.