So the line to kiss the jackboots forms to the left? Count me in! 
Well, that solves one dilemma for me.
Daniel
Well, I’m not comfortable with his banning. I’ve said it in the ATMB thread, and I’ll say it again here: OK, he was a loon, but he was mostly a harmless one.
Plenty of people have posted a lot worse things and received more warnings and been suspended before being banned: this smacks of a pre-emptive strike here, which doesn’t seem fair. The SDMB may not have been the ideal place for him, sure, but since when have people been banned because they don’t fit in? This banning sets a bad precedent, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. So there.
Okay, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and ask a sincere, though risky, question regarding the allegedly “racist undertones” of Graham Wellington’s posts.
Agreed, the dude is nuttier that a squirl turd, but is the suggestion that we “have an open and honest national conversation about the black crime rate in this country that’s been so high for so long now,” a racist suggestion?
Graham was clearly insensitive, but racist, I still don’t know. Plus he was amusing as hell. The post were he used the n-word had me rolling, not for his metaphor involving the racial slur, but the thought of distraught career driven elementary school children hurling themselves off of monkey bars because their future job prospects were dismal – black comedy gold
I don’t care if it’s fair or not, so long as the board is less cluttered-up with thread titles that sound like they were written for The Kids in the Hall’s “Gavin.”
If my head was made of meat, how much would it be worth?
doesn’t that assume that there is some link from “Crime rate” to race?
You don’t? I do.
I feel all warm and fuzzy. Though I haven’t been around the SDMB for an extremely long time, I saw that one coming.
Did you read the post where he said
?
I don’t, either. The guy was badly damaged. The only purpose he’d have served here was fodder for the rest of us, and the idea of mocking the disabled doesn’t sit well with me. The boards are better without him, and he better without the boards.
Well, the Carlos Castenada thread was way out there, but most of the rest of his threads were harmlessly silly questions that no-one was obligated to open or reply to.
Like I said, no-one was ever forced to read one of his threads, let alone make fun of him. I don’t think someone ought to be banned because he posted silly things that others could laugh at. If he bothered anyone that much, there’s always “Ignore”.
Perhaps so, but once he’d paid his money he had as much right to be here and post rubbish as you or I: as far as I’m concerned he didn’t break the board rules enough to warrant sending off this early in the game, and I find the reasons TubaDiva gave in the ATMB thread a little disingenuous.
Case, your reply left out the most important part of my post: “[T]he idea of mocking the disabled doesn’t sit well with me.” I don’t think he should have been banned because he annoyed other posters. I think he should have been banned because he was not well, and his interactions here would only have served to exacerbate his illness. I agree with his banning because it seemed as much a humanitarian gesture as a punitive one.
Then explain George W. Bush?
That was not the reason given for his banning, which is why I called it disingenuous: no-one’s going to front up and say “We banned him because he was a nutcase who irritated some people.”
As to whether he was mentally ill, or simply held some extreme beliefs on certain subjects, it’s a matter of opinion: who are you or I or TubaDIva {I’m not dumping on TubaDiva personally here; I imagine this was a collective decision, and I’m only naming her because the ATMB thread was in her name} to perform a clinical diagnosis and decide he was in fact ill, and that banning would be in his best interest?
That seems more than a little patronising. Either way, he’s still out 15 bucks.
He had some serious anger issues with women-in-general, from what I saw in his post about his ex.
I should have paid attention to that squirmy feeling that his purpose in asking about our childbirth painful experiences might be to get off on women’s pain. Ew.
I need to wash the ickiness off me now
He though Jesus had given him a mission to unmask a global Satanic conspiracy. I don’t think you need a doctorate to figure out this guy had only a nodding acquaintance with reality.
Okay, so it’s patronising. Some people need patrons, because they can’t make good decisions on their own. The guy was suffering from paranoid delusions. Letting him stay around and become a subject of public mockery would most likely exacerbate his condition, and that would be inconscionable. At the very least, if I had any sort of control over this board, it would absolutely not be a risk I’d want to take.
But, all that aside, receiving and ignoring several official warnings in the space of a few days is more than sufficient reason to ban anyone, regardless of mental state.
I’m with you on this, Miller. I’ll admit to a certain fascination with his delusions, but part of that fascination is born of cruelty, and that’s not something that’s good. Either he was mentally ill or he was jerking us around, and in neither case is that something that’s good for the board.
They should refund his 15 bucks, though.
PS Shut up, Duckster.
Mhm. Not that it’s a legit reason for banning someone, but let’s face it: if he’d been here longer - and it wouldn’t have been much longer - he’d have just racked up more warnings. I knew this guy was going to get banned after I’d read only a few of his posts, and I didn’t even go into the Castaneda thread. His instability was that obvious. I think the most you can say for him (and I won’t even say it, myself) is that he shouldn’t have been banned yet.
Narrowly avoided:
Hey, fellow Yahoo! Parapsychology group members, demonic possession is real! There’s this poster named Soandso over at the Straight Dope that is totally possessed. I know, because he cryptically talked about “Death Rays” and used to say “Gotcha Ya,” which is code for “You’re being controlled by demons.”
It’s true, and if you DO EXACTLY AS I SAY, you’ll see that it is. Rent Porky’s II. Play close attention to what the Reverend says when the Klan members show up at his revival meeting. Now compare this with the post made by Soandso in the thread, Recommend Me an Avacado Dip recipe. You see?