I read this book that changed my life and gave me my Thread Hijacking License too

[roger_thornhill]

Imagine the mess Iraq would be in if Hillary Clinton and Michael Moore were in charge. As Popper puts it in the first volume of his seminal work, The Open Society and Its Enemies: Plato - which you should read if you haven’t already done so…

[astro]

@Polycarp

I’m not at all happy with Bush and his Reason-We-Invaded-Iraq-of-the-Month-Club policymaking. I find him largely to have been a disaster as President, for reasons I could outline in about 74 lengthy paragraphs. But this thread is not an anti-Bush rant.

But what I’m saying is post substantively, with reasons why you favor or oppose him or Kerry – or, for that matter, believe or disbelieve in a given faith, or favor or dislike SUVs, or even why you consider Balrogs to be alate or wingless (;)) – don’t just give a lame remark about dittoheads, or “Bushistas” for that matter.

I guess at rock bottom, I’m saying, by the grace of God or the Chicago Reader or the flying fickle finger of fate, we’ve been given an unprecedented means to communicate almost instantaneously across the breadth of the planet – and we ought to be using it for just that purpose, not to do monologues. I’ve yet to see the poster here that can do as good a sermon as I can get every Sunday – so I would appreciate it if the people who think they have a hammerlock on The Truth would go get themselves a blog and see if anybody reads it. There are some absolutely brilliant dialoguers here from whom I’ve learned a lot, and just plain trading off ideas, viewpoints, or simple fun with a concept, like the Dear Abby thread in Café Society, makes this place great to be a part of. That’s what the board is good for – not monologues that don’t attempt to engage the opposition or consider his/her points, and not drive-by sniping at your political (or religious or whatever) opponents. If I were on staff I’d propose that we encourage people to report drive-by sniping, with third reported offense grounds for banning.

Polycarp, you are an honorable soul and I appreciate your obvious zest for a vigorous back and forth, but many people make their political judgements about the fitness of incumbent candidates based on the overall general impression they have made over time without parsing out the specific details. I can understand your frustration that people here won’t tidily buttress their opinions, but stomping around the GD wrasslin’ ring in your Socratic Masked Avenger outfit, demanding that obey the proper rules for making rhetorical assertions isn’t going to get you far.

You’re just aching for a good cage match tussle where people will play clean in the arena of ideas and opinons, but no one will. It’s all scissor locks and sleeper holds. Sorry.

[Brutus]

@Polycarp

If I were on staff I’d propose that we encourage people to report drive-by sniping, with third reported offense grounds for banning.

Me and rjung would have to go start our own board if that happened. You don’t want to see that, do you?

[Eonwe]

@Polycarp

I’m not at all happy with Bush and his Reason-We-Invaded-Iraq-of-the-Month-Club policymaking. I find him largely to have been a disaster as President, for reasons I could outline in about 74 lengthy paragraphs. But this thread is not an anti-Bush rant.

But what I’m saying is post substantively, with reasons why you favor or oppose him or Kerry – or, for that matter, believe or disbelieve in a given faith, or favor or dislike SUVs, or even why you consider Balrogs to be alate or wingless (;)) – don’t just give a lame remark about dittoheads, or “Bushistas” for that matter.

I guess at rock bottom, I’m saying, by the grace of God or the Chicago Reader or the flying fickle finger of fate, we’ve been given an unprecedented means to communicate almost instantaneously across the breadth of the planet – and we ought to be using it for just that purpose, not to do monologues. I’ve yet to see the poster here that can do as good a sermon as I can get every Sunday – so I would appreciate it if the people who think they have a hammerlock on The Truth would go get themselves a blog and see if anybody reads it. There are some absolutely brilliant dialoguers here from whom I’ve learned a lot, and just plain trading off ideas, viewpoints, or simple fun with a concept, like the Dear Abby thread in Café Society, makes this place great to be a part of. That’s what the board is good for – not monologues that don’t attempt to engage the opposition or consider his/her points, and not drive-by sniping at your political (or religious or whatever) opponents. If I were on staff I’d propose that we encourage people to report drive-by sniping, with third reported offense grounds for banning.

You know, I agree with you mostly. I wonder, though, if at least in regards to the current US political dilema, there is no dialogue to be had. Even before Bush, make-or-break issues are more and more the norm. A candidate’s opinion on abortion, for example, could be all that matters to some (and is to many). I don’t know a lot of details about Bush’s fiscal policies, but after observing the public facts about all that’s happened in the Middle East these past few years and the way Mr. Bush has dealt with it all, I know I’m not going to vote for him. I can sit and read political threads here for fun, but as far as I’m concerned there’s nothing substantive that could be said here, baring some insider with new information.

[Liberal]

@Poly

…I don’t think [Bush is] completely evil, just working from a worldview I don’t share…

He’s too stupid to be evil. But the men who control him and make his decisions are the spawn of Satan.

[Desmostylus]

@Eonwe

You know, I agree with you mostly. I wonder, though, if at least in regards to the current US political dilema, there is no dialogue to be had. Even before Bush, make-or-break issues are more and more the norm. A candidate’s opinion on abortion, for example, could be all that matters to some (and is to many).

Rolling Stone has an interesting take on this:

Bush Like Me
*Ten weeks undercover in the grass roots of the Republican Party *
By MATT TAIBBI

One of the great cliches of liberal criticism of the Christian right is the idea that these people are wrongheaded because they profess to know the will of God. H.L. Mencken put that one best, and perhaps first: “It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.”

These criticisms sound like they make sense. But I think they are a little off-base. The problem not only with fundamentalist Christians but with Republicans in general is not that they act on blind faith, without thinking. The problem is that they are incorrigible doubters with an insatiable appetite for Evidence. What they get off on is not Believing, but in having their beliefs tested. That’s why their conversations and their media are so completely dominated by implacable bogeymen: marrying gays, liberals, the ACLU, Sean Penn, Europeans and so on. Their faith both in God and in their political convictions is too weak to survive without an unceasing string of real and imaginary confrontations with those people – and for those confrontations, they are constantly assembling evidence and facts to make their case.

But here’s the twist. They are not looking for facts with which to defeat opponents. They are looking for facts that ensure them an ever-expanding roster of opponents. They can be correct facts, incorrect facts, irrelevant facts, it doesn’t matter. The point is not to win the argument, the point is to make sure the argument never stops. Permanent war isn’t a policy imposed from above; it’s an emotional imperative that rises from the bottom. In a way, it actually helps if the fact is dubious or untrue (like the Swift-boat business), because that guarantees an argument. You’re arguing the particulars, where you’re right, while they’re arguing the underlying generalities, where they are.

Once you grasp this fact, you’re a long way to understanding what the Hannitys and Limbaughs figured out long ago: These people will swallow anything you feed them, so long as it leaves them with a demon to wrestle with in their dreams.

[dropzone]

@Polycarp

Well, I see that you all got your Thread Hijacking Licenses!

Licences? We ain’t got no licences. We don’t need no licences. I don’t have to show you any stinking licences!"

Continuing the hijack in a different direction because I’m not in the mood for a calm and serious discussion of issues and if you wanted one you should’ve started it in GD , I’ve been reading Invisible Eagle - The History of Nazi Occultism By Alan Baker and am finding it fascinating even though it is not the slightest bit crackpot. Probably will be worth a discussion someday.

[ExTank]

Polycarp:

This is so pitiful a rant I’m tempted to delete it – but it got a couple of petty annoyances off my chest, so I’m going to post it anyway.

[Emperor Palpatine]

Give in to The Dark Side! Feel the hatred flowing through you! Only by giving in to The Dark SIde will you be powerful enough to crush the posts of your opposition!

[/Emperor Palpatine]

[sub]This post brought to you by The Straight Dope Society of Obligatory Cheesy Star Wars References.[/sub]

[silenus]

@dropzone

Licences? We ain’t got no licences. We don’t need no licences. I don’t have to show you any stinking licences!"

I have a license! I got it from the men in the Cat Detector van.

[Desmostylus]

@silenus

I have a license! I got it from the men in the Cat Detector van.

That’s a Dog Licence, with the word “dog” crossed out, and “cat” written in in crayon. :rolleyes:

[Little_Plastic_Ninja]

@Desmostylus

That’s a Dog Licence, with the word “dog” crossed out, and “cat” written in in crayon. :rolleyes:

…I had comfortably forgotten about this sketch until you brought it up…

The cat detector van from the ministry of Ou-singe! Housing? It was spelt like that on the van! I’m very observant. I’ve never seen so many bleeding aerials.

[tomndebb]

@Brutus

@Polycarp

If I were on staff I’d propose that we encourage people to report drive-by sniping, with third reported offense grounds for banning.

Me and rjung would have to go start our own board if that happened. You don’t want to see that, do you?

Well, I’d stop by to visit you once a week, or so.

[Polycarp]

@Brutus

Me and rjung would have to go start our own board if that happened. You don’t want to see that, do you?

Actually, a board that the two of you co-managed would be something unique in the annals of Internet BB-dom.

I had a boss once who told me that in being a “change agent,” one very effective if risky methodology was to get the two sides in a dispute madder at you than they are at each other – so they start working together in a common cause. I’m wondering if perhaps the quoted sentence came close to doing that!