I think I see the problem. The quote thing works in Chrome, Firefox and Safari. It works weird in IE. Which by the way is evidence that no one should use IE.
In any case, the traditional quote this post button (the one with the close quotation marks and the plus, immediately to the right of the quote button) produces this result:
The post above that the stupid people in this conversation are upset about looks like this:
[
](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12041602&postcount=246)
In IE, at least in the version I have on my laptop, the bottom post is completely underlined and reacts to a mouseover, but you can’t click unless you navigate near the top. This is typical of IE’s random internet fuckups and disregard of standards.
In other browsers, that work better in every single way, the entire box of text acts as a clickable link.
In any case, look at both quotes above. Neither shows the post that Bricker quoted. Because that isn’t how quotes work. They only display one level down.
Are we all together? Good.
Now if you click on the blue triangle next to Bricker’s name in the top quote you’ll get to the thread and his post inline. (Which by the way is why I like the URL trick. Most posters in my experience don’t know about the blue triangle.)
If you click anywhere on the bottom quote (unless you’re using IE, in which case, you mouse over the post and find that the top is a link) you go to Bricker’s post directly. Not inline, but by itself.
Are we still together? Good.
In either version Bricker’s post consists of this quote:
And his answer:
Now, I’m not sure why the slow kids have glommed onto the idea of context, here. I know it’s an easy answer if you don’t want to think and are faced with something that’s hard to argue against. “Oh the context, they left out the context.”
However, in this case, the context is that Bricker answered a question. He did it in an evil fashion. If he didn’t mean it, I can’t tell you. But I think taking something someone isn’t saying as a joke at face value is a reasonable thing to do.
But in any case, if you wanted to see the whole thread for more detail, that’s easily gotten to in my link. Right there in the upper right hand corner.
So the takeaway is:
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Stop using IE, adults under 60 aren’t supposed to use it. IE is janky as shit. Switch to Safari, Chrome or Firefox.
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Bricker answered a simple question by stating that he finds a situation where sick people die for lack of medical care totally acceptable.
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People who take Bricker as on their side, or at least take Lobohan as against their side, will go nuts over a commonly used quoting convention because it’s easier than thinking. The context you need is in the quote. People quote individual posts all the fucking time. And only stupid people are lost when it comes to finding the root thread.
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Stupid people who can’t face reality will complain and say TL;DR.
<3