Looked in a mirror lately?
Nancy.
He has a point; it’s hardly fair for the unarmed to keep bullying the heavily armed.
Vociferously ignoring the broader picture, and all discussion and even cites supporting it, in favor of finding some smaller point on which to declare victory over someone you find annoying, is a **Bricker **tactic of which you should not be proud.
Throwing a tantrum whenever one’s personal, or national in one prominent case, lovingly-caressed self-image is brought into question is one of your own. And you should not be proud of that, either.
Every day.
There wasn’t one until the *Heller *decision (and even that describes only certain uses that Scalia “discovered” were rights). I’ve never said what you just said I said. :rolleyes:
If you’re going to be so frustrated at why you’re being argued with, at least be clear why, 'kay? Sheesh.
You do have the power to break it, you know.
What cites were those? I don’t remember a single one that said any of the 9/11 perps had even been to Montreal, and the few peripheral characters to the conspiracy that had been fled Montreal after the attack, indicating they weren’t safely based there at all.
Do I look tantrummy to you, as I ask for facts? Please.
It appears, from what I have observed, that in a lot of cases, there are some thread participants that are not interested (or I should say, open minded enough) in being convinced that they may be wrong on a topic.
There are several topics that, by now, various individuals have “made up their mind” (and the topic will vary depending on the specific individual), and they will not engage further discussion in good faith. Topics include the existance/non-existance of god(s), gun control, war on terror, abortion/planned parenthood, and Isreal, to name the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Disappointing, but I can see that there are folks on both sides of an issue (maybe not at the same time, in the same thread) that are tired of covering the same ground again and again. All that is left appears to be frustration and/or bordom, leading to snark and other less than honest debate tactics.
Well, obviously you don’t need to cut it out. I’m not a mod, and I’m not your father. However, there is a difference, at least in my opinion, between personal insults directed at a single person, which are certainly unpleasant and usually unproductive, but which it seems are basically unavoidable; and blanket insults at an entire group, which are similarly unpleasant and unproductive, but which also poison not just the well but the entire water table, if you see what I’m saying.
If I think you’re a jerk I might post something about how much of a dick Shodan is and how he argues like a diseased toad, or whatever. And maybe I’m justified and maybe I’m not. And maybe you call me the nasal discharge of a rectal wart. And it’s a shame that we’re calling each other names and not actually discussing issues. But you will never (I hope) catch me getting mad at you, or even you and Starving Artist and Magellan all at once and then making blanket statements about SDMB conservatives as a whole, because doing so has effects (minor from each incident, but cumulatively relevant) on the ability of any meaningful debate to ever take place.
If there are a specific subset of (presumably liberal) dopers who you believe generally forswears reasonable debate in favor of horseshit, by all means tell us who they are and mock them. Pull a John McCain and let us know their names. But by leaving that as an undefined and vague term, you neatly sidestep all responsibility for ever justifying anything or confronting any tough and reasoned objection to any post you make, because you can always just blame it on these nebulous “Usual Suspects”.
Sadly, that is basically true.
“Sizeable”? I’d say there are fewer than 10 people, probably fewer than 5, who really act like that on an anywhere-near-regular basis.
I think you misinterpreted me entirely. I wasn’t accusing you of something, I was just issuing a qualification…
If you want to say, in a context-neutral setting, “some liberal dopers are jackasses who argue poorly”, I will agree with you, and certainly not take umbrage. That’s more or less what you said in your previous post.
I was just saying that one might imagine a situation in which the identical statement would be in effect a weaselly blanket attack, not claiming or trying to imply that you had used it in such a context.
Nothing you say is really what I’m objecting to. Yes, you’re outnumbered. Yes, certain posters are jackasses and others are predictable. And yes, certain topics are very difficult to discuss. And while it would be a shame for an intelligent and generally-good-faith poster such as yourself to give up on engaging in debate, it’s certainly your decision to make whether it’s worth it to keep fighting the fight.
But there’s a big difference between your claim that a thread on a single specific topic (gun control) is likely to be derailed by a group of posters (who you mention by name, giving them the chance to confront their accuser, so to speak) and blanket statements that no meaningful discussion of any political topic can ever occur on the SDMB because of the blind partisan idiocy of (an unnamed group of liberal posters, but the implication is that it’s pretty much all of us).
I guess part of why this has been bugging me is that, much as I acknowledge that the SDMB has plenty of issues and it’s difficult to have reasonable debate about topics, it’s still head and shoulders above any other forum I know of or have ever heard of. There are plenty of REALLY partisan sites on both sides, and it would be a shame if the SDMB just became an extension of Democratic Underground (or whatever). And the more people claim that we’re already there (which we’re not), the more that becomes self-fulfillingly true. That’s the real issue, imho.
That’s the second direct personal insult you’ve offered me in the same thread. Getting on my nerves. I’m about twice as old as you and at least as smart, and I don’t need this shit. If you search back, you’ll find I haven’t directed any personal remarks your way in a long, long time.
So, what am I to do? Call you on it every time, or ignore it and let you slap me around for no good reason? Which one is less a waste of my time? I’ve got friends, son, some of whom I’ve had longer than you’ve been alive. Had enemies, too, but they all got old… What do I need you for?
How about this: lets just give each other a real good leavin’ alone. Obviously, that works for me, been doing it. With one proviso: if the next words you send my way are civil and respectful, it will be as if none of this ever happened. My Favorite Jewboy taught me that, and I’m working on it.
Thank you for your service. Let that be the end of it.
If you are saying that twelve jerks insulting me is less disruptive to debate than me dividing my time between reasoned debate and pointing out that a certain set of assholes are assholes, I guess we will have to agree to disagree.
Nope, this is just horseshit. I already mentioned more than once that I do reasoned debate. Make a reasoned objection to something I post, and you can get a reasoned response. But you will have to ignore the trolling from the half-dozen others of the Usual Suspects, just like you want me to ignore their trolling at me.
But you are not willing to ignore it when I snark back. What I am asking is, Why? You have said already that you sometimes take it as aimed at you even if I explicitly say it is not.
There’s nothing I can do about that, and no need even to try. I say “some”, you see “all”, and you respond to what you see instead of what is there. So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut writes.
There’s no need to name the Usual Suspects - they know who they are. As I said, every time the subject comes up I get some jackass or other acting hurt because I don’t include him.
What they are trying to get me to name names so they can report me for insults when I mention it in GD. It’s the same as when some of the dolts tried to call me a troll because I said that I sometimes used my signoff sarcastically. Sure enough, one of the many assholes hereabouts changed the “sometimes” to “always” and tried it. It was stupid enough, but who cares?
Like I said, there’s not much I can do about stuff like this. If you are going to define “being careful to say exactly what I mean” as “weaselly”, nothing either can, or needs, to be done.
Regards,
Shodan
You obviously have a hot link to that thread; go read it yourself. It appears it would be for the first time, for much of it.
As you constantly refuse to address the actual subject responsibly, yes, you do.
You’re welcome.
I would suggest that it is the large and constantly changing number of posters here who (along with not being called on it by their fellow liberal memebers, thus making appear the board at large is in agreement) engage in the type of activity that results in their being called “the usual suspects” are the ones who are truly interfering with the ability of meaningful debate to take place here.
Like Shodan said upthread, it appears you are being critical of him for the way he’s responding to wrongful behavior by others rather than being critical of that wrongful behavior itself and the people who are engaging in it.
As for lumping everyone together, when you have ten dishonest, insulting posters ganging up on one of the conservatives and no one else is calling them on it, the impression is that even though they may not be engaging in that wrongful behavior themselves, the majority of the other posters is still in agreement with it. (Think of a lynch mob in an old western: only a handful in front are doing the talking but everyone else is in agreement with them.) Thus the entire group appears to be in agreement, and so the entire group gets labeled “usual suspects.”
I would suggest that if you really want to engender honest and reasonable debate around here that you focus your attention on the people who are causing Shodan and the other conservatives here to respond in ways you don’t like rather than criticizing the conservatives for responding in kind.
And good luck with that if you do.
Oh, bullshit. Nobody but you cares about your little list. Of course, I doubt it really exists- you just like to use it as a catch-all blanket term. It allows you to insult or deride the people you disagree with by lumping them into a nebulous group. And what’s really useful about it is that you can then assign any sort of behavior or status to that group… for you, it’s basically a “build your own Straw Man kit”.
Disagree with Shodan? You’re a “Usual Suspect”.
Have Liberal leanings? You’re a “Usual Suspect”.
Piss in Shodan’s Wheaties? You’re a “Usual Suspect”.
And since you don’t commit yourself so far as to actually have a Usual Suspects list, you can arbitrarily add people whenever you think it’ll piss people off.
“Oh, those Usual Suspects are so mean to us poor Conservatives!”
It’s a pussy way to argue, and you know it. But then, that’s kind of how you roll, ain’t it?
I remember participating in that thread, and you not addressing any of the questions for factual support of your claim, relying instead on stretching the definition of “perps” and “safely” to such an extent that Montreal wouldn’t even be in the top twenty cities that might qualify. You can accuse me of all kinds of reflexive patriotism and such, but whether or not the “perps” ever stayed in Montreal (safely or otherwise) is a matter of record, and I wouldn’t deny it, if it had happened. As I recall, the support for your statement was citing two people peripherally involved in Al-Qaeda (neither of them hijackers, though I think one of them met with one or two of the hijackers once, though not in Montreal) who did live, briefly, in Montreal.
Rather than admit your original statement had problems, though, you accuse critics of blind patriotism and such, and this behaviour is pretty much what the OP of this thread is complaining about, as far as I can tell.
I’ll address that subject anytime. I can start by describing the conditions under which the veracity of “the 9/11 perps were safely based in Montreal” (or whatever the exact wording was) can be objectively evaluated:
[ul][li]Define “perps”. We have the 19 hijackers, and perhaps 20 or so other individuals who played a major role in the preparation of the hijacking, and perhaps 100 others who played a supporting role, and maybe a few hundred others who supported the supporters… I trust that the further one gets from the 19, the weaker the “perp” label becomes. I invite you to clarify if you have differing views.[/li][li]Define “safely”. Before the attack, few of the “perps” (however one defines it, above) were being actively sought, so I guess they were “safe” just about anywhere. After the attack, I would take “safe” to mean having some protection from people who are now actively seeking them quite aggressively, as in hiding in an embassy, or in a country with no extradition policy. I wouldn’t consider having to hastily flee a sign of safety, but I invite you to clarify if you have differing views.[/li][li]Define “based”. Personally, I’d consider a “base” to be somewhere one can draw financial or logistical support. In general terms, your “base” is where the money and/or equipment and/or information comes from, and you maintain contact with your base to keep these lines open. It is possible to live at or near your base while the preparations are underway, and I suppose it’s possible to never actually visit your base at all, as long as you maintain contact with it. If you don’t live there or maintain contact, then how is it a “base”? I invite you to clarify if you have differing views.[/ul][/li]
Given this (though if you have other ideas in mind, you’re invited to share), is it possible that there may be other cities (perhaps quite a few of them) that would much better fit the statement “the 9/11 perps were safely based in [blank]”.
Does any of the above sound unreasonable? Sure, I have a personal interest in the issue, Montreal being my home city, but at no time (I hope) did I say or imply it was impossible that Montreal was a safe base, I’m just asking the person who says that it was to prove so.
And yet, you keep bringing it up.
For someone who doesn’t care about it, you seem to obsess about it a little.
FTR, yes, you are on the list if you want to be. Indeed, if you are not a professional idiot, you are certainly one of the leading amateurs.
Actually, yes, they did, by any reasonable standard.
We have hit on the problem here. They weren’t in evidence, but you, I, and the doorpost know that they would be forthcoming shortly, which is exactly what happened.
Well, “unconstructive” in the sense of being exactly on point. You asked if CBS counted as being prominent Democrats, and by golly, they sure did. The producer of the smear piece with the forgeries offered to help the forger coordinate with the Democrat’s “Fortunate Son” campaign, and aired the smear, in the full knowledge that their experts had told them that the documents were not authenticated. This is quite similar in attitude and intention to the Halperin memo telling ABC reporters to slant their coverage against Bush, for fear that Bush might actually win the election. So, as should be obvious, the forged National Guard documents were certainly lies told by prominent Democrats against a Republican. They were certainly lies, CBS are certainly prominent, they are clearly not only Democrats themselves, but acting on behalf of the Democrats, and Bush is a Republican.
All this is obvious. Or, I should say, would be obvious to a reasonably open mind. If it is not so to you, oh well.
Regards,
Shodan
I, am [del]Spartacus[/del] a Usual Suspect?¿‽!¡؟
CMC fnord!
Providing excessive punctuation … for a bunch of years.
Just a guess, but I’d say you are one of the Unusual Suspect, CMC. 
-XT
I’d rather be one of the casual suspects, OK with everybody else.