Is it your contention that time served for violent crime convictions is shorter now than it was before 1968, or what? Do you have any data to show this?
For those wondering (and because waiting for SA to cite anything is a waste of time) the thread was Freedom and Traditional Values: A Question for the Conservatives, and Miller’s post is here.
May the rest of us?
Don’t be too hard on yourself. I was given to understand over here that SA’s troll-like hostile fact-free posting style was all my fault. Strangely, I have only been here since 2014, so my malign influence must have been so compellingly evil that it not only turned SA into the unfortunate persona that exists today, but it reached back in time and retroactively turned all his early posts into spittle-mouthed shitstorms, too. Stranger still, to the best of my recollection I wasn’t even aware of his existence until he got my attention sometime in 2016 with his boundless praise of one Donald J. Trump.
But in a recent update we learn that it’s not actually any one person who turned SA into what he is today, it was a gradual process and it’s always totally the fault of whoever happens to disagree with him on any particular occasion. There apparently exists some mythical time when SA’s posts were, presumably, not only polite and well-reasoned, but rigorously fact-based. I find this to be as incredible as any other myth or fable, since I have yet to see SA actually demonstrate awareness of any facts whatsoever, and to live entirely in a frightening bubble of relentless right-wing dogma (
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(https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20898969&postcount=253): “Yeehaw, guns!”) but I stand ready to examine any such alleged consistent pattern of a saintly and rational SA in his younger days before we nasty liberals turned him.
I would note, by the way, that in the same post in which he blames me for turning him into such a nasty cretin, SA claims that I could “never in my life” be able to cite the things I had just said about him. I provided a cite showing that he had acted in the manner described a mere 12 minutes previous. His response, of course, was to run away and never address it. This happens all the time. When he got his ass kicked over some previous points, he suddenly became very busy (again), declaring that he would likely come back because he can’t let “bullshit” stand, and of course he never came back to that, either, instead turning to laughing at murders occurring in the UK, which murders are apparently not only humorous but totally disprove the effectiveness of gun laws, or something.
But SA is still hammering away on that theme, because in the bubble that he inhabits, it’s all he knows. From a recent post: “It’s far more risky to accost people in their homes and cars these days than it used to be” [because, like, them people got guns]. Oddly enough, as cited, fewer homes actually do have guns, and gun proliferation is increasingly taking the form of gun nuts amassing personal arsenals – and sometimes using them to murder people. More oddly still, all other first-world civilized countries where these blessed gun protections are scarce have lower rates of homicide overall and far lower rates of gun violence. So who’s safer?
SA’s answer is that these other countries are “different”, and the most notable difference is absence of “diversity” (code for “blacks”). When I pointed out that there are large metropolitan areas outside the US with the greatest diversity in the world without US-style gun problems, there was some kind of deflection about how the differences are different, or something. Anything except acknowledging that “Yeehaw, guns!” is actually the root of the problem, not the solution.
And speaking of SA’s boundless support for Trump, one must note in all fairness that he subsequently rescinded his support, which is commendable and probably the only good thing I can think of to say about him. The mystery is how a supposedly rational person could ever have supported him in the first place, and it’s too bad that he’s still supporting most of his policies and the lunatics that have now infested the government. That bubble of far-right delusion is indeed impermeable.
Interesting for several reasons:
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Starving Artist’s first post to that thread is exactly one year after he registered on the board.
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If Starving Artist (or anyone else) were to say that particular thread was an example of liberal intolerance on display, I’d have to agree. A handful of board conservatives are describing their individual views and there is clearly quite a lot of variance (Miller’s praise for SA was specifically for SA’s lack of interest in regulating or criticizing homosexuality), but there several interjections from others who don’t hesitate to speak broadly of “conservatives” and say negative things about them. That said, I still haven’t found any sign of Starving Artist’s pre-embitterment phase when he was earnest, polite, honest, sincere, reasoned, etc. and I see wolfpup has also looked into the matter and came up empty.
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I’d kind of like to see the thread topic attempted again, with some degree of moderator input that posts which broadly bash conservatives (like post #3) are discouraged or even warning-worthy. This degree of moderator control is a bit more heavy-handed than this board typically shows, though. I’d propose the creation of a moderated-debate forum in parallel with GD, where drive-by postings empty of value but heavy on snark or insult would be deleted and warned. The main problem I see would be getting someone willing to police it and deal with all the bullshit criticism their efforts would earn.
My own response to that thread (were I to bump it to write one) might be that to note that obviously “conservative” is a broad category with alliances both easy and uneasy being forged between people of differing interests, and the only specific criticism I’d make based on the OP is that it is disingenuous for conservatives in general to claim they want smaller government or less governmental interference or fewer governmental controls when really only a specific subset (i.e. libertarians) have this as a policy. There are plenty of conservatives, almost certainly a majority, who are just fine with government regulation of the topics they see as needing regulation, i.e. restricting homosexuality or restricting abortion or restricting recreational drug use or restricting violent video games or restricting flag-burning or really any number of things.
Sure. Go nuts.
That would require me to read his posts. He’s on scroll-wheel ignore.
I’m sure it’s completely unintentional that SA mentions this (without a cite) in a way that makes it sound like he was being praised for being “one of the good conservatives” on this board – making one think that he’s been judged as one of the very few who are usually rational, even-handed, and stick to fact-based arguments. What was actually meant there was that it was good that SA wasn’t one of the blatant gay-bashers, or at least, claimed he wasn’t.
Which is not even remotely the same thing, speaking of being a dishonest sack of shit.
And frankly, given how regressive SA is on social issues and how much whining we get from him about the good ol’ days before everything went to shit in the 60s, and about “traditional values”, I find the sincerity of even that bleating claim to be rather doubtful. I could be wrong, of course, and maybe some vestiges of progressive thought have seeped into that bubble in which he lives, but it’s certainly incongruous with all his other beliefs. And even taken at face value, he still asserts that while he doesn’t “hate” gays, he and his conservative pals are opposed to SSM – a position that has been overturned by the supreme courts of several nations essentially on the grounds of basic human rights and human dignity in light of the importance of marriage as a foundational social institution. SA doesn’t believe that applies to gays. Not that he hates 'em, you understand, they just get to have second-rate rights.
I knew I shouldn’t have looked back, but this place is like a car wreck that you feel compelled to look at even when you know you shouldn’t.
And yeah, it does happen all the time that you lie about things I say or believe. You do it constantly. Take the post I referred to when I said that. Your claim was:
Since I know perfectly well that I’ve not only never said any such thing but never harbored such beliefs, I challenged you to cite that I had. Your lame and SDMB-typical response was to post in effect that I had made positive comments about 50s/60s era America, followed by some drivel about Father Knows Best. :rolleyes:
In a sense you can’t be blamed I suppose, since it’s a common dodge around here to pretend that the positives of that era are inseparable from the negatives, but as I illustrated to Kimstu last night, neither depended upon the other for their existence, and major progress had been made in both women’s rights and racial equality during that era. And such progress would surely have continued without the drug-addled indiscriminate fuckupery which began in the sixties and has brought this country to the idiotically fucked up state it’s in now.
Further, I didn’t run away from your stupid “cite”, I just felt it was such an obvious nonstarter that it wasn’t worth the time to rebut. But now that you’ve gone back to it again I decided it was time to expose it for how full of shit it was.
And don’t flatter yourself. My posting style morphed into what it has become long before you wound up here. You’re a lying liar who lies, but I’ve been dealing with those here for a decade and half now. You’re nothing special .
Yeah, about that… got any pre-morph examples? Just curious.
Nope, but I can give you the chronology.
In the beginning (we can call it phase 1) I took the place fairly seriously and tried discussing the issues honestly and in good faith. I instantly came in for abuse once even a hint of conservative mindset was detected but I soldiered on. I posted pretty prolifically and according to EddyTeddyFreddy was in danger of being banned (as a troll, I imagine) but due to her kind intervention was spared. This when on for a while as I morphed into phase 2.
During phase 2, I adopted the philosophy of being polite and respectful to posters who were polite and respectful to me, and shitty to posters who were shitty to me. This was in attempt to dissuade shitty posting behavior and encourage polite and respectful posting behavior. Hah! Should have known better. Then became phase 3.
During phase 3, I finally became utterly and completely fed up with the tactics I’d been encountering for as long as I’d been here. It had long been nearly impossible to discuss any particular point or issue due to the endless amount of obfuscatory attempts at derailment. Bogus cite demands (demands for cites which could not possibly exist), squabbles over minor or secondary issues, etc., anything that could divert attention from the main point had long been the order of the day and I became fed up with it. So began phase 4.
In phase 4, I’ve adopted the philosophy that I’ll simply state what I have to say forcefully and directly, without sugar-coating or attempts at tact, and in that way get my message out and make it clear to one and all just what the point is. This approach has been remarkably effective at cutting out all the dishonest obfuscatory bullshit that I had had to contend with here for years. And naturally it has angered a good many of its targets and made me a lot of enemies here on the board. To that I say, so what? It didn’t profit me in the slightest to be a nice and respectful guy or to attempt to discuss things in good faith then, so how am I any worse off now?
As I’ve said before, assholism breeds assholsim. You guys don’t see it but I’m just a mirror image of you, and what you get from me is me going after liberals and liberalism in the same way you go after conservatives and conservatism. There was a time in this country when our nation’s leaders could work together to make things happen and move the country forward. Starting in the sixties the left began it’s ‘my way or you’re an asshole’ approach to politics and social issues, the right eventually responded in kind, and here we are. The moral? If you don’t want people to act like assholes to you, then don’t act like assholes to them.
Your insistence on blaming everything – from all of America’s ills to your own immature and silly behavior – on liberals doesn’t reflect well on you. You set a poor example for young people, by your posts. There are many decent conservatives (and liberals!) on this board and in real life. That there are some assholes doesn’t excuse your own poor behavior. And your view of liberals and liberalism is both false (you inevitably get our motivations wrong, despite repeated attempts to gently and kindly [and not so kindly] correct you) and absurd. It’s childlike, even – mature adults recognize that the world is far, far more complex than “liberals are at fault for everything wrong”.
Really? For the benefit of others, I’m even willing to dig into it more deeply – not for your benefit, since your brain long ago snapped shut like a rat trap, and accounts for the bubble you live in. This is what I said you do:
… blaming society’s ills on “hippies”, on less oppression against minorities and the plague of civil rights, and presumably also on women entering the workforce …
I thought my cite – and the Father Knows Best reference, pretty much perfectly summed up your tedious whining about the 50s and 60s. In addition to that cite, though, I would point out this thread (and there are many others) in which you opine as usual about the usual villains causing society’s ills:
The “counterculture” (“hippies”) – you wax eloquent in this thread in particular:
The counter-culture revolution was about immaturity, selfishness, freedom from responsibility, hedonism, and the notion of ‘relative morality’ - the ridiculous idea that societal standards should be abandoned …
Minorities and civil rights:
A good example here is that previous thread I cited, the GD thread on Larry Krasner and justice. The problem, apparently, is all the blacks. You explicitly cite “diversity” as the problem.
Now, I don’t dispute that a high proportion of violent urban crimes are committed by young black men. The demographics isn’t the point, the point is the causes (why it’s a relatively recent problem) and the solutions. It was less of a problem in the good ol’ days that you whine about because blacks were far more restricted in where they could live, the places they could go, the things they could do. Civil rights removed the most oppressive of those restrictions, and resulted in a situation that you seem to have a problem with, longing as you do for the good ol’ days. And your solution? Not expanding opportunities for this disadvantaged minority, but throwing more of them in jail, and keeping them in there longer – the exact opposite of the opportunity-focused and rehabilitation-based programs that have been so successful in other places that, as I keep citing, have even more diversity in heavily populated urban areas than the troubled urban areas of the US, and consequently lower crime and lower rates of recidivism.
So there’s no shortage of cites and statements by you demonstrating that you are indeed precisely the regressive bigot with all the wrong answers – to racism, justice, guns, and everything else – that I said you were.
As for my speculation on your attitude about women entering the workforce, notice that I said “presumably …”, extrapolating from your pathetic nostalgia for the 50s. But perhaps you’re not actually a misogynist and could accept that particular social change, but everything about your values suggests that you would much prefer the fair sex to stay in the kitchen and clean the house whenever she’s not in the maternity ward popping out another son for you.
OK, apology accepted for having accused me of being the cause of your fall from grace as an exemplary poster. I would bring to readers’ attention, however, that whatever took you off the path of being this mythological polite fact-respecting poster – something for which we have yet to see any evidence whatsoever and which I maintain is pure myth – and turned you into a frothing spittle-mouthed ranting troglodyte, must have happened a long time ago.
Certainly more than a decade ago. Here, for instance, is a tribute to how well your troglodyte persona was already established way back in 2008:
It seems to be a terrible cycle - SA is an asshole to everyone, so we respond in kind (even newer posters!) and so it goes.
So once again, you admit you are nothing more than a fucking troll.
And yet I’m a very nice and likable guy in real life. I honestly can’t think of a single person who dislikes me. So why am I so different here, hmm?
No, but I’ll admit you’re a moron.
Trollery involves dishonestly stating inflammatory things solely for the purpose of riling people up. The things I post are sincere and posted for the same reason that others post things that rile me up - I believe them to be correct.
Can you cite a single example of your phase 1 or 2? Can you recall any specific words from what EddyTeddyFreddy said?
Maybe you really are a likable person in real life, perhaps in part because you’re more reticent in the real world to expose your contemptible politics to public view, the way you claim you were more reticent in your early days on this board. Being a “nice guy” in many aspects of real life is not necessarily inconsistent with holding regressive and reactionary political views that are deeply damaging to the interests of an enlightened democratic society. Much the same way that your related political philosophy, “Yeehaw, guns!”, is damaging to the interests of a peaceful society.
You are the driver of one of the cars in the wreck. So you can’t really help looking.