I think he means the non-shooty kind of veteran.
You know, you’ve been referring to “The Usual Suspects” for years now, and apparently you don’t think much of them. It’s your favorite go-to backhanded insult.
So… who *are *these Usual Suspects, anyway? Let’s see the names. We’re in the Pit- feel free to have the courage of your convictions.
I find they are mostly volunteers. Every time I mention it, some people clamor to be included. So, if you like, feel free to include yourself, if that is what is worrying you.
Regards,
Shodan
In alphabetical order? Aardvark, Aaron A. Aardvark, Anthony B…this could take a while, wanna go get a sandwhich?..Aabama, Osama H…
I guess maybe I don’t understand the question or don’t understand what it has to do with the current pit thread. When did I tell you to ignore snark? When did I tell you not to fight back? The somewhat related thing I’m saying is that if you in fact pay attention to the snark and do fight back while ignoring attempts at reasoned debate, then it’s disingenuous of you to complain about how all there is is snark. And I think you’re saying that if others ignore YOUR attempt at reasoned debate and only respond to your snark, then it’s disingenuous of them to complain that all you do is snark. So I guess we agree?
I’m not saying “Shodan is a douchebag because he responds to snark”, nor am I saying anything about all conservative posters which presumably includes you. What I am saying is that describing the partisan nature of the board (which is a real and serious (well, serious on the scale of things that concern an online message board) issue) in a hyperbolic fashion doesn’t help anything, and generally makes things worse.
It would be a better analogy if I had said something like “gosh, every time I try to have a conversation with conservative dopers they just start getting defensive and whining about how much of a persecuted minority they are, so now I don’t even bother trying”. Once I start thinking/talking that way, though, then I think I’ve pretty much doomed myself to live in the world I describe.
True, and no one would disagree with that, and I’m certainly not pitting statements of that sort (unless they’re made in a context in which you very strongly imply that “some Dopers” means “all liberal dopers”, but you’re reserving plausible deniability).
Both of these offered explanations assume that there used to be more conservatives here but they left. I strongly suspect that liberals are more likely than conservatives to visit the SDMB in the first place. It’s my impression that Internet users on average tend to be liberal on social issues, although this is perhaps less true now that Internet access is so widespread outside academia. The Straight Dope newspaper column runs mostly in alternative weeklies, a group of newspapers that also tends to skew left – sometimes very far left. The SDMB also has a significant number of posters from outside the US, many from countries where a political stance considered middle-of-the-road locally would be seen as liberal by American standards.
There used to be more (and better IMHO) conservative posters on the 'Dope. Some VERY good one’s, actually, but gradually they have left (or were banned). When I first started posting on this board, the political debate was less…strident.
I do agree with you that a lot of 'Dopers are from other countries, and their perception of what left, right and center constitutes is substantially different than that of most Americans.
-XT
I joined several years before you did, and I do not remember a time when the SDMB membership didn’t skew liberal. There have no doubt been good conservative posters who have left, but many good liberal posters have left too.
I’d agree that GD did become more strident over time, but I think that was largely due to the existing liberal majority being angry about the Bush administration…and even angrier about his re-election. It has not been my impression that the percentage of SDMB liberals has swelled significantly over the years, although in the absence of formal polls of Doper political views I guess there’s no real way to know.
The best thing about the board’s longest-running autocrucifixion is watching poor **Shodan **struggle with that last nail.
Fond memories of december?
He wasn’t who I was thinking of, though sometimes he was interesting.
-XT
Best thing I’ve read today.
golf clap
Oh, come now. This is YOUR list. This is the catch-all term you use for anyone you feel is overly partisan… so let’s see some names. You quite obviously feel very strongly about this group, so… again, have the courage of your convictions. I mean, you DO have names, right? Let’s hear 'em. Who ARE the “Usual Suspects”?
Put up or shut up.
You are. I said that.
The Usual Suspects are idiots. You are an idiot. Do the math.
Regards,
Shodan
AWESOME handwaving Mr. Conservative. AWESOME.
Shouldn’t it just be The Usual Suspect, then?
Just where is all this complaint/exaggeration about SDMB partisan-ness that triggered the OP? I’d guess that mention of the board’s liberal bias doesn’t occur once in a hundred conservative posts - and even that is a…ahem…conservative guess. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it’s less than 1 in 500.
But let a conservative poster mention it at all, no matter how justified or appropriate, and howls instantly go up ridiculing the poster for playing the “victim” card. Neither Shodan nor any other conservative I can think of around here has ever complained about or even mentioned that they viewed themselves as a victim around here. Still, the board is highly biased in the main, and populated by a certain contingent of posters that is all too eager to gang up on anyone who dares to take a conservative position on almost anything.
Another problem here is that it’s virtually impossible to get anything in the way of an honest appraisal or discussion of anything political. A perfect example would be the recent thread asking for examples of Democrat lies, wherein we’re entertained by explanations that the examples cited aren’t really lies, just “hyperbole” - and besides, those guys don’t really mean what they say, they’re just being politicians. It’s to be expected. :rolleyes:
I personally pretty much hit the wall after the thread Bricker started to discuss my claims that liberalism has created much greater problems with teen pregnancy that existed in the 50s. I would wager that a person could stop 100 people on the street and mention the term “problems with teen pregnancy” and everyone would know what they meant, and they would know that with current rates of abortion, teen girls stuck with trying to raise children in single-parent homes, and an STD rate of 25% among the nation’s high school girls, things are most certainly worse than they were then.
But not here. No, we can’t discuss it in those terms. Here we have to keep defining it and defining it and defining it down to the point where either it really isn’t a problem at all (or, preferably, to where things were worse in the 50s).
We have to consider whether we’re talking about young teens or 18 and 19-year-old women; we have to consider whether they were married when they got pregnant or whether they were pregnant when they got married, we have to consider whether the father lived with the mother afterward, and if so for how long. We have to debate the merits of the parents living together and whether this makes the pregancy no longer a problem. We have to debate how many continue to live together vs. how many split soon after. Then we have to discuss how many who actually get married split soon after and whether that’s better or worse than just living together…
Etc., etc., etc.
I could go on for more paragraphs than anyone wants to read about how narrowly people were attempting to define what teen pregnancy really was in that thread and how to compare it with the 50s…if appropriate records even existed to allow us to do so.
Then we had the denials that teen pregnancy is a problem in the first place. Did she get an abortion? Then no problem. Did she and the father get married? Then no problem. Did she and the father move in together? Then no problem. A 25% STD rate? Hey, they had high rates of STDs in NYC in the early 1900s. Robeson High School, where 1 in 7 girls is pregnant? A mere aberration.
Again, etc., etc., etc. Deny, deny, deny. Nothing was ever the result of decades of liberal permissiveness, and if anything, things are better now.
So all in all, it was at this point that I got pretty much fed up with trying to have discussions of any import about things political around here, and that, in combination with the fact that continually pissing in the wind around here had begun to have a negative effect on my own attitudes, has convinced me that continuing to try to argue matters such as these around here is simply not worth the time or trouble.
Not my whole hand, just one finger.
Regards,
Shodan
Ironic, really, because that thread did go on for paragraphs and paragraphs about how you dismissed any objective evidence that didn’t fit in with your preconceived beliefs.
A quick question…are you guys saying that Shodan coined the phrase ‘The usual suspects’? Or just that he uses it a lot? It’s one of those phrases (I’ve used it myself from time to time) that just seems to creep into ones subconscious if you post on this board for any length of time.
Just curious.
-XT