**Bricker **didn’t recognize me in my new whiskers coat.
If he wasn’t in that thread, who the hell would I argue with?
Loved this exchange.
I think the OP makes reasonable points. However… message board posters with minority beliefs face enough problems that I’m inclined to cut them more slack.
In a typical thread in which Bricker is expounding/defending a minority view there will be dozens of opposing posts making very bad arguments. Maybe 1/2 the responses to him will be laughably illogical. But those responses get ignored, in order than Bricker’s small perceived flaws can be assaulted.
Posters tend to let errors slide when made by posters with beliefs similar to their own. On SDMB conservative posters face an uphill battle that extends past merely arguing the points of a given controversy.
Of course the fact that they are mostly delusional doesn’t make things any easier.
So: okay pitting but meh.
I knew someone would make this comment, or similar, but was hoping, with baited breath, it would be Bricker himself. 
Your breath smells like earthworms?
Or did you mean 'bated breath?
(See, if you just toss enough …er…bait… out there, I’ll find it.)
Indeed: you smelled the baited breath and took the bait – if the breath had merely been bated, you wouldn’t be here.
Bricker found an eggcorn!
Points awarded.
Chuck Norris is Bricker’s Girl-Friday.
You don’t want to know what my breath smells like :). Seriously, yes, I meant ‘bated’, but I appreciate the classic Bricker focus on minutiae response. [Wonders if Bricker will take the ‘bait’] 
Well, now at least I have a good mental picture of Bricker.
Yeah, that’s about right.
Well, that seems unlikely.
It’s threads like this one which keep me from taking him seriously. An OP like that one is not something that someone interested in a dispassionate search for the truth (along with a healthy respect for the concept of doing what is right for the country) would pen, but it is something that a propagandist with an axe to grind would. In other words, an admission from him that Beck, Limbaugh et al. have gone way over the top with their rhetoric is the main issue here would impress the hell out of me, but of course we aren’t going to get that from him.
Oh, sure you will, so long as you are willing to admit that Limbaugh and Beck are entirely equivalent to Mark Shields insanely venemous rants at David Brooks.
<snerk> You know, if the RW nightmare ever happens and gay marriage is enshrined into law so that all of us straight men have to get married to another man, I think I’ll call dibs on you, just because I loved that reference so much.
I think the complaint here (a common one on the SDMB, BTW) misses the point of responses like Bricker’s.
The point is not about whether liberals are hypocrites. Rather, it’s a response to the perceived implication of the original complaint, that conservatives are evil because … As a response to that implication, it’s logical and proper to point out that the offense needs to be viewed in context of how common it is among the public at large, and members of the opposite end of the political spectrum in particular.
And the perception of this implication is a valid one, IMO. If this was a predominantly middle-of-the-road MB, with middle-of-the-road posters pointing out transgression by members of both parties in a non-partisan way, then the guy who always jumped in with that type of response would be missing the point. But as it is, complaints about Evil Republicans/Conservatives are a constant theme on this MB, and IMHO it takes almost willful blindness to not see that these individual complaints are components of the broader theme. And even if not intended in that manner by an individual poster or OP, that’s how they play into the existing dynamic of this MB.
As such, responses such as Bricker’s are valid and logical.
Geez, this is the most anti-pit pitting I’ve ever seen. Someone throw a stone or a punch or something!
Bricker, please don’t read what I am about to post…
I began lurking here around 2003. I was a law student. I thought Bricker was the bees knees, and hysterical. He was one of the main reasons I joined. He and I probably agree about very few things (not law-related anyway), but I did/do like him. I think he tends to bring a bit of levity to a lot of discussions. But don’t tell him I said so. I have a sneaking suspician that his ego cup runneth over (not unlike almost every attorney I know, myself included).
He would lead you into an excruciatingly precise definition of “ego”, with a three page long diversion into whether or not Little Orphan Annie was a lesbian. Then, applying his newly refined definition of “ego”, he would present you with one occassion from ten years ago when, if you squint your eyes and hold it upside down, he sorta kinda has a point, almost.
Then declare victory.
In fairness, that’s not what he does at all. There are some people (on both sides) who do that. Bricker at no point either defended the job killing health care bill title or said that Democrats had proposed bills with equally idiotic titles. Instead he did something more subtle, which is that he asked if the OPer would be equally outraged if a Democrat proposed such a bill. This does several clever things:
(a) it strongly implies that Democrats do and have proposed such bills without having to actually outright state such (which would of course open him up to being called on it)
(b) it puts the OPer on the defensive… now for your thread to continue you have to prove that you’re not a hypocrite. Which is very hard to do
(c) it tends to totally derail the thread entirely, until the original complaint is lost and forgotten
Absolutely agreed.
Perhaps we should move this thread from the BBQ pit to the Huggie-love-fest-pit.
You’re absolutely right… I definitely feel like this issue has become my pet board cause, presumably a hopeless one. On the other hand, while the odds of my changing the behavior of the entire board are presumably slim to none, that doesn’t mean there’s no chance I’ll change the behavior of anyone at all…
And thanks for the generally kind words