As has been patiently explained to you more times than I can count, treating fellow posters disrespectfully with coarse abuse is primarily and precisely what. the. Pit. is. FOR.
Wailing about obscenity and rudeness in this particular forum is like denouncing immodest clothing trends at a nude beach. Whatever one’s views may be about general standards of behavior that prevail in the larger society, it is irrelevant and pointless to critique them based on what you see in a very specialized sub-environment which is fundamentally focused on flouting and disobeying the general standards of behavior that prevail in the larger society. And repeatedly attempting to do so just makes you look like an idiot.
“I’m a Libertarian who likes to take Obama quotes out of context, and then let the quote fragment piss me off. The people on this board explain context to me and let me know that I might have the meaning of the original quote wrong. You know what? I’ve about had it with you guys!”
Do it. The results of your research have the potential to be interesting and entertaining, which I honestly can’t say about any of your typical contributions.
He is as least as much of an attraction as a seeping perineal wart like you. Your participation at this board is a model of small, mean, nastiness. If your real life personality echoes your persona here, you have few who love you.
Come on, Desert, you’re better than this. I’ve always liked you as a poster and never saw anything particularly objectionable from anything you’ve ever written, but you certainly can’t be misunderstanding the context and spirit of this quote. Even without context, I completely understand what is meant by this, and I consider myself a cross between a liberal and libertarian (I’ve pretty much lived my entire adult life thus far self-employed/running my own business.) I take pride in the fact that I could say “I said fuck the 9-5 lifestyle, I want to live life my way” and made it happen, and I did make it happen, but it wouldn’t have happened without a community of people. Some simply as customers, and others who helped along the way: the teachers, my colleagues, my close friends who taught me everything I know about the business, my parents for their upbringing, etc. This should be uncontroversial.
Yeah, that’s my advice as well…though going to be harder after a dramatic ‘I’m goin’ and I ain’ta commin’ back!’ farewell. For my part, I often take off for a few weeks or even a few months. Sometimes on business trips where I have no time for this board, sometimes on personal trips…sometimes just frustration or whatever with the board itself. No one ever seems to notice when I’m gone, so I figure there is no point in a dramatic farewell for my part. One day I’ll just go to log in and that will be that…I’ll have had enough and time to move onto something else. Or I’ll be dead with my hand poised over the submit reply key.
Well I am sorry that this place has become alien territory for people like you.
It is too late for you, but I am willing to do my part to help. I will become a right winger and repeat the line ad nauseum until the rest of the posters here are intellectually beaten into submission. Just tell me who to obey and I will think what they say, including:
-Climate change is a hoax
-Government can never do anything good, as it is intended as a reflection of the popular will, charged by the Constitution to look after the “general welfare”, which can only be a drag on the fortunes of the very wealthiest, whose concerns are the only ones that really matter, therefore this pesky instrument of the popular will needs to be stripped of power and effectiveness until it can be drowned in a bathtub
-Appeal to authority and bare assertion fallacies will no longer be recognized. Political party arguments will no longer allow reference to the effects of said policy on the population, nor to precedent or predictive mathematics, but only to whether they support ideological principles such as “small government = good” and “privatization of all things public = good”
-Social Security and Medicare are radical socialist programs that undermine the True Character of Real America. I will pretend not to notice that unnecessary $1 trillion debts are intended to make their continuation impossible.
-Government research never happened and did nothing to support private enterprise. Roads? Bridges? Schools? The internet? YOU built that, Desert Nomad, and we all owe you a colossal debt of gratitude. I mean, holy shit, thanks a bunch, we seriously can never repay you for such a boon.
-Those pesky NFL players need to quit kneeling during the anthem. Who do they think they are? They get paid to play football!
-The deep state is real and calling the shots. It cannot be overcome by controlling one, two, or even all three branches of government. Only by selling all public lands and destroying all government programs that are not the military can it be defeated. Probably not even then, may need pogroms.
This is only the start, I am sure I am leaving out a lot but cut me some slack, I am new to this. In time I am sure I can drag all of these brainwashed socialist statists kicking and screaming into God’s holy light of GOP ideology (seriously, Christ hates liberals more that anything else you could name. It is why He died, to drive out those goddamned liberals.) It won’t be easy due to the worldwide conspiracy of scientists and their fake news about research conclusions, but rest assured, Desert Nomad, your time here will not have been in vain.
I think that part of the problem might result from the simple fact that there are just more lefties than righties on this board. One of the righties makes a point (or at least what passes for one these days) and each of us on the “other” side feels compelled to give our individual responses. While my response may be a little different than that of another person on the left side, and their response a little different and more nuanced than that of a third lefty poster, it all seems the same to the rightie (I mean, we are talking about folks who say “progressive socialist communist liberals” as a single noun) and comes across as “piling on”.
These flouncing announcements always remind of that old saw, ‘If you can’t run with the big dogs, best stay under the porch!’
I should think right leaners would be deeply offended to find themselves treated as tender snowflakes with thin skins.
Maybe this just isn’t the board for everybody. I’m sure there are more right leaning boards that will suit someone that can use that quote with a straight face. Maybe, just maybe, a board fighting ignorance just isn’t comfy for people who believe nonsense like that quote. I can understand that.
It’s common for people to make this claim, but while it may have some truth to it in individual instances, for the most part it’s bogus, and the people making this claim are self-deluded at best.
Anyone whose positions on current political issues are even somewhat aligned with the mainstream left/liberal/Democrats would not have been a conservative at any time within living memory.
You could theoretically have positions on the issues that are aligned with conservatives but feel that on a personal level contemporary conservative leaders are such flawed individuals that you can’t support them. But that’s not typical of the people making this claim - including the ones you name here - who are pretty much left-wing on the issues as well.
The ironic thing about that misquote is that the misquote is not that far in meaning from the real quote.
IOW, it’s technically true that Obama did not mean that you didn’t build your business; he meant that you didn’t build the public infrastructure which supports your business. But in context, he was making the exact same point. That since your business relies on that public infrastructure, which you didn’t build, you therefore owe part of your business to the public which did build the infrastructure that supports the business. Which is not really different in meaning than saying you didn’t build the business.
Which isn’t to say Obama is wrong about the point he was making. But again, it’s a technical point. The underlying issue is that Democrats/liberals tend to take an expansive view of how much successful individuals owe society (and can thus be taxed, regulated etc.) as compared to Republicans/conservatives. Obama’s larger point was to bolster his viewpoint and in contrast to the conservative/Republican attitude. Seizing on this quote was an attempt to highlight his (genuine) attitude on such matters.
This is not to say that I endorse misrepresenting Obama’s quote. I don’t. But I also think that seizing on this as some egregious distortion is also incorrect, as above.
