Amidst all the “debate” here about collounsbury’s behavior, I find the lack of negative response to this post very telling. Even for the pit, such a slanderous accusation is morally reprehensible and without foundation. Is our conduct on a message board to be regarded completely free of the norms of civil behaviour and restraint that we expect in the real world ?
Perhaps it is a generational thing. I see this sort of insulting very common and accepted amongst teenagers, but very rare in those who are over 30 years of age.
And I should hope that the posters here are able to separate content from author, as is always necessary in the real or virtual world.
Author! Author! How many times have any of us had to muddle our way through a post so rife with typos and syntax errors that a three year old could have written it better? Sure we could just skip over it. In the interest of gaining a complete background concerning the debate, sometimes we slog through such drivel. More than anything, regardless of the author’s putative adulthood, the quality of their writing assumes primary school proportions. Saying that it does is not directly calling the poster a three year old. We are merely addressing the low caliber of their manuscript. Even the most well written material can sometimes contain such blithering idiocy that one must call a spade a spade.
And skip along they should. Sadly, you are giving the gift everyone gives and nobody takes, ADVICE!
As to Collounsbury in fishnet stockings … [shudder]. He’s far too butch, what with all the reaming he does, to be caught prinking about in such effete regalia.
Yeah, well, I dated a girl once who had a whole boatload of gastrointestinal issues. One particular example involved her body attempting to deal with uncooked milk (or, that is, milk not used in a cooked dish–if the leche was from a bottle or jug, her stomach’s world turned topsy-turvey); when she accidentally ingested that stuff, her stomach would bloat consderably. To help deal with what she considered to be humilation, she humorously referred to it as her pregnancy, Tubby Fred.
So, now when people mention anything about GI problems, my mind wanders back to good old Tubby Fred.
But don’t worry, my jest was good-natured. I’m sure you’re as svelte a GD figure as any of us.
In addition, let me say that if you really do have serious GI issues (as, I believe, gobear alluded to in an earlier post), I hope I didn’t come across as if I was belittling those problems. GI maladies can be a whole swarm of bitches.
lucwarm and anyone else who feels Col should be warned/banned/flogged with december’s toothbrush:
I think the point was made quite clearly by Gaudere (though delightfully misstated again by milroyj in his orgasmic fervor to get Col in trouble for saying “drooling idiot” in The Pit, of all places) that if you wish to bring up an area where Col went over the line, a good thing to do would be to actually “bring it”, so to speak, instead of rehashing things Gaudere have already said do not warrant a warning/banning in her opinion.
Should this prove to be an exercise riddled with difficulty, endless mouse-clicking or burning of the phrase “I wish I was a cheesemaker” into the right side of your brain, do remember that you are not required to perform this incredibly arduous task. Rather, you are able (one assumes) to wait until Col fucks up again, if he does, and then say “ADMINISTRATOR ADMINISTRATOR COLLOUNSBURY SAID DECEMBER WAS A WHINGING GIT!”
Or whatever. It might make you look slightly less like a lapdog to merely use the “Report this post to a moderator” feature, which allows you to report the post without pointing out the cumstain (which you’ll be sure to wipe off before anyone else sees it), the result of months of orgasmic fervor of waiting for Col to say something that is an actual infraction of rules, instead of merely pointing out that, yes, you are wrong again (and as Gaudere has already said in this thread, that is not a personal insult).
And just in case anyone feels that I am unfailingly a Col apologist, I remind you that I have not been spared the barbs of his tongue (how the man eats with that tongue I will never know), though I didn’t exactly save the “flame” and pin it upon my wall as an example … “I went toe to toe with Collounsbury and all I got was this thread on race and intelligence.” I just think you lot who are trying to get him warned/banned for shit Gaudere already said doesn’t qualify as a direct personal attack look silly at best.
For the record, I complained about (what I perceived to be) a direct rules violation by Collounsbury not long after his reinstatement, via the “report this post to a moderator” feature. It was roundly ignored. I have no desire nor intent to go look up the post again – I’m sure I couldn’t remember what it was even pertaining to if I tried.
And in case anyone’s keeping track for statistical purposes, I’m a “leftist” (whatever that’s supposed to mean) and I don’t think I’m in any kind of “fan club”.
Collounsbury – and by extension – the “pass” he seems to get from the moderators are one of the primary reasons I stay the hell out of the GD forum. It not only makes me angry reading his vitriol, but it makes me angrier to continue reading threads he’s vomited in and see nary a warning for his jerkish behaviour.
And if it means anything, december’s another reason I can’t stand going there. I loathe both of their posts equally.
I’m certainly not calling for their banning – that’s up to the mods and admins here who have to put up with them. And clearly they’re ok with it, so far be it from me to suggest they shouldn’t put up with something they clearly don’t mind. My recourse is to just avoid GD 99% of the time.
I found IzzyR’s remarks very interesting (partly because they’re a reminder that I still don’t think I quite understand what Americans mean when they say “liberal”). I come from very much the same political territory as coll and wonder whether this perception remains in the economic area as well as in the foreign policy domain.
But the point is well made by IzzyR, I think.
I’ve said this before, but what the hell: think of the lurkers. It is foolish to respond as if to a few people with whom you would not bother to carry on a prelonged email discussion. They are not in any sense “key members of the Right”.
And grienspace, you may chalk me up as over thirty.
his arguments sound suspiciously like those arguments used in the “liberal” media, i.e. if the media says something you disagree with, it proves the “liberal” bias. and there is no such thing as moderate. Very telling.
I’m still trying to figure out how someone could think Col is a liberal. The mind boggles. The man is a fully paid up member of the globalist neo-colonial conspiracy, for crying out loud. He’s out there exploiting the masses every day, and what thanks does he get?
I find it ironic that Gaudere is here defending Collounsbury and his tactics here while warning him here once again for direct insults to other posters. So much for that short leash on his unbanning, eh?
Personally, I don’t care how much knowledge Collounsbury has, he’s rude and obnoxius and predictable. His “read a book before posting” posts are frequent and annoying. It’s almost as annoying as his attitude and his reaction to those he disagrees with. His posting personallity counters any useful information he might have.
I don’t see why he was let back on when such posters as Satan and DanielInTheWolvesDen are still banned. Even Kirkland could be nice every once in a while. If the first rule of the SDMB is “don’t be a jerk”, Collounsbury breaks that rule in every single thread he posts in.
My perception is that december will follow up his posts with “you have a good point” or something similar, at least half the time.
And he does not make personal insults. Others do.
I suppose I could dig up cites if you like, and I am not defending all of december’s debating tactics or positions, but I honestly don’t feel there is any comparison with the level of rudeness I have seen elsewhere.
That is exactly opposite my perception, though I freely admit that my experiences with him are more in the Pit than in GD. My experiences tend to the side of him that, when it is shown that he is wrong, he just moves to something else or raises a tangential point and has that become his new focus, turning a blind eye to whatever was previously being discussed. If he was in the habit, even half the time in his posts directed at Collounsbury, of saying “You have a good point” or “I see I am incorrect”, I do not think that current board opinion on december would be as low as it is.
He is not in the common practice of personally insulting others in GD, as some do (or, more accurately, come close to doing) more often than he does. But it is factually incorrect to say that he has never personally insulted anyone on this board. Cite. And I hope that my lack of further cites does not lead you to believe that this is the sole time he has personally insulted another. It’s just the only one I can remember off the top of my head.
I agree that december is less likely to be warned for coming close to using a personal attack/insult in GD. However … well, I guess I am of the school of thought that believes that deliberately posting misleading information or titling a thread in a misleading way in an attempt to encourage views and responses is just as bad form as using the phrase “drooling idiocy”.
IMO he is disrespectful in ways other than levying direct personal attacks. The place of his manner of disrespect on one’s personal List of Bad Things, of course, determine that person’s opinion of whether he’s worse than one who uses other unsavory methods.
Well, if "I criticize your lack of sympathy to the girl, her family, and French Jews in general’ is a direct, personal insult on the level of “you are a f**ktard”, etc., then you are correct. Keep in mind that the thread to which you linked was in the Pit, not Great Debates.
I have not seen anyone complaining about Collounsbury being personally abusive in the Pit, when such things are common. The thread was based on his behavior (and that of others) in Great Debates.
