Try again bro.
It looks like he was just making a parody of the OP to me…Not outright bigotry.
Correct me if I’m wrong. (And I may very well be)
ethnicallynot, the post you cite is what is known as satire, or parody. IOW, that the method used by the one being parodied (in this case Mr. Bix) would produce the following outrageous (or contradictory) result.
Doesn’t wash. Find me something that was actually being argued.
Munch, neither of the two gentlemen to whom you refer were parodying december’s writing style. (FTR, I don’t think their statement were bigoted, but they were obnoxious and over-the-top).
In political debate you are expected to stand on your own feet and back your opinion with some kind of fact in the form of statistics, factual events as reported by unbiased sources and so on. december hardly ever does (actually I have exchanged dozens of posts with him and I can hardly think of any time he did).
december has a habit of never backing his words up with anything else the Op Ed articles. That is frowned upon in political debate since it only proves that someone else shares his views. In the best of case it shows that someone who is ‘into’ the topic shares his views. This is called an ‘argumentum ad verecundiam’ or argument based on authority.
At times he reverts to ‘argumentum ad populum’ or argument based on popularity, that is to say that he backs his opinion by saying that this is the view of the majority so it must be right. Both these are considered grave rhetorical errors. Someone who debates like that all the time destroys the debate since you end up debating against his sources instead of his opinion.
You are also expected to be logical and stay on track of the debate. This is yet another area that December refuses to play along with.
He is an expert at the ‘strawman’. That is to say he raises an issue that has nothing to do with the issue in debate except on a cosmetic level. The strawman is so obviously false that december can then tear it down and prove something related to his original position and say that hence his original point is also correct. Very dirty debating style.
His fourth favorite trick is the ‘red herring’. A cousin of the strawman, this is an extra nasty one. He sends you off on a side-track that is absolutely not relevant, but looks relevant. Meanwhile he connects all the arguments you give to the original question, twisting your words beyond recognition.
I should note that I do not think that December does this in cold blood. In some weird freak of nature accident he has been endowed with a natural skill for dirty debating styles, and he exercises it sub-consciously and quite in full belief that he is arguing straight and fair. If he didn’t constantly slur Muslims, Europeans and Palestinians as well as inadvertently be condescending to whole social and ethnical groups it would just be funny. As it is it is rather frustrating and quite offensive.
The level of debate that at times ranges in GD means that this type of argumentation is most often seen through by some poster pretty quickly. I can’t say that I am one of those at all times, I let myself be baited and I have walked into his traps. Lately I try to not debate only the issue, but also the way he debates, it works better, but it is still hellishly complex, and quite frankly not as fun as if we could be straight. There are members in his quarter of politics that I hold very high in esteem as regards both their opinion and their ability to deliver even if I disagree with them. december puts them to shame and robs us all of a meaningful debate.
All that being said, I value his opinion and I have grown to understand that he is indeed a valuable addition to the board. Sadly he has lately started to display a level of irrationality that makes debating him not only grueling, but at times impossible. That is what the other Pit thread started by me is about; that it would be really helpful for all of us if he could back the bogus rhetoric down a little. I think that would be my answer to this OP as well.
For examples you just have to open any of the many, many threads he has started about Israel or Palestinians or Muslims.
Sparc
Independent of everything else being discussed here I would like to address this point, as I have seen it made before and think it is not always valid.
There is no inherent reason for an OP-ED piece to not be reliable as a source of facts. As a source of opinion it is only an opinion, but a fact cited in an editorial or OP-ED piece is as reliable as the author. The distinction must be between fact and opinion, not between news articles and editorials. If the NY Times writes in an editorial that “George Bush opposes such-and-such legislation after promising to support it during his campaign”, I would consider this as valid a source as if they wrote it in their articles. If they wrote “George Bush opposes such-and-such legislation after promising to support it during his campaign because of XYZ reason” they would then be offering opinion, which cannot be cited as fact. This distinction has been lost on many critics.
No “whoosh” Munch. If I gave the impression that I consider the statements in question to be racist then I apologize. I tried to make it clear that I didn’t consider them to constitute “constructive civility.” And “bigotry” does not equal racism. It’s only, in this case, an intolerant adherence to an opinion.
If the quotes in question were parody, which ethnicallynot seems to deny, I can only say that I have not seen december post in that style (though I have to admit that I have only read a tiny fraction of decembers posts.) I have seen Collounsbury make similar posts in threads that didn’t involve december.
Admittedly, it is somewhat unfair to include ethnicallynots post since it was made in the Pit, but since it was made in the same post as his complaints about “civility” I couldn’t resist.
and Izzy as a rebuttal of that, look up a thread called “PC = Polite”, in which **december ** made the claim that the main stream press had failed to report that Matthew Shepard was into “rough sex” (his words), so that MS could be seen as a martyr. After many, many go arounds about if that would even be a relevant piece of information to publish, even if true I finally found the source of his statement. Yes, indeed, it was an OP/Ed piece, only it was written by a woman who’d never known the man, not interviewed him/his friends etc. and made the statement that in her opinion MS was into what she called “The rough trade”, which she then defined as something like an effeminate gay male being attracted to and looking for partnership w/mainly ‘construction worker type’ heterosexual males.
and generally, from my own personal experience, his references to op/ed pieces are in fact to support not the data itself, but the spin.
I too don’t quite get what it is about december’s posts that pushes so many buttons.
I’ve not read many of his posts as racist (including those linked, taken in context); I’ve read people recasting his posts as racist. (Maybe I’ve missed them, his titles don’t tend to attract me to the discussion too often.) Sure, his style is chosen to provoke a response from a certain segment of our crowd. PC he aint. His points are occasionally, nevertheless, valid (IMHO). Take the linked thread asking about why people seem to give Arab against Arab oppression and intolerance a bye while holding the Israeli side to an extremely high standard. Many posters from across the spectrum agree that such does seem to occur, admit that they do it, and offered some reasons to help explain it. They just find that the way december asks it is too provocative.
And also as to the racist thing. My jaws still clench from my run-in with efrem. On multiple occassions it was discussed that one should be very hesitant to suspect or express the suspicion that someone’s anti-Israel position was influenced by anti-semitism. Multiple posters were all over any one who played that card. efrem called me racist for disagreeing with his position about Palastine … and no one said boo. You gonna call him racist you really should be prepared to prove that his motivations are racist, not just that he disagrees with you. You really gotta have multiple clear episodes that make such a case, or you should retract the charge.
Munch Uh Yeah, Coll only resorts to obscenity to parody december, uh huh. (I think that Coll’s exuberant exhortations of expletives are tolerable, even amusing, but only because he so often also brings an incredible amount of knowledge and occasionally insight to the debates.)
And hey, we’ve had multiple threads whose original source was from Palestinian sites (remember the Myths about the MidEast thread?) … as long as they contain some verifiable facts. Jewishjournal has a bias, just as does the BBC and The Guardian, but it doesn’t make stuff up. It will spin it, it will select what to report, just like those other rags, but not falsify. Argue the spin, find other reports of the same events to see how it was percieved from another point of view. But don’t say it can’t be true because the source has a bias.
Please e-mail when you find one. If you do e-mail, I still will not believe it. OK, maybe the Weather Channel. Nope, they overpredict hurricanes – BIAS! Damn pro-hurricane bigots.
No disagreement wring - I do feel that this particular charge is overused, and many accusations against december fall into that category - some do not, I’m not going to survey it. My point is to point out that the accusation should not be tossed out indiscriminately - not to make a full-scale rebuttal of the entire charge.
In general the deal with december is that many of the accusations against him have some merit. BUT, similar accusations could be made - with equal merit - against many other posters, including many prominent december critics. No one is perfect - some are better some are worse - december is in the mainstream of posters, IMHO.
I believe he is singled out for (sometimes valid) criticism - and that these criticisms are themselves exaggerated (e.g. this OP) because his views tend to fall at the outer end of the SDMB spectrum.
Izzy - agreed, none of us are perfect. However, one thing that he does that I don’t see as much from other posters (either side) is the deliberate polarization tactit (especially when he’s the OP).
(and if the OP/Ed piece has data in it, isn’t it likely that another non-op/ed piece has the same data?)
Hard to know if it is deliberate - the polarization that you speak of are likely merely a function of the fact that his views are out of the mainstream (of this board) - not an attempt to antagonize anyone.
The data thing - sometimes it will be easy to find, sometimes not - depends how obscure and how old the facts are. In any event, I don’t think it is a big deal, in such cases.
**
I don’t equate being a moderate with rosy-eyed stupidity. In fact, I believe I have a post in the GD thread in question where I make it clear that I equate being a moderate with behaving in a reasonable, moderate fashion.
But when a point is being debated, just saying “Oh, I’m a moderate….” Isn’t enough. One needs to say “I believe that the following moderate actions should be taken…” or “I believe that the following moderate policies should be adopted……” and then show why those moderate actions or policies are preferable to other, more extremist, policies and actions. Then one has added something to the debate.
**
You may notice that I don’t have all that many more posts that you, so understand that I am not exactly the greatest SDMB expert on the board. That stated, I am under the impression that december sometimes opens his threads in the Pit at the request of other posters so that they will have the freedom to express themselves in a more “vulgar vernacular.”
**
What can I say? To at least some extent you’re right. I am, perhaps, a little more pessimistic than you in that I don’t believe that any of these issues are actually going to be “resolved” on this board. All of the these issues were, in general, debated last year and the year before and they will be debated again next year and the year after. Yes, I see Great Debates as an intellectual exercise and I try to keep it fun by not taking it too seriously. Is that a crime? I might add that I hope that nobody takes anything I say too seriously. I have no problem with sharing a forum with that portion of the board which feels otherwise and I hope they don’t have a problem with me.
**
Maybe I’m dense, but other than your opinion of the cite in question, where is the difference in these “two” methods of debate?
**december ** (like all of us) opens his threads where ** he ** wants them. There’s been some of late where he opened them in GD, and several posters requested that it be moved, but to the best of my knowledge, he’s not had one moved.
DSeid, I agree with the idea that all journalism is to some extent subjective and therefore somewhat bias. And I agree that we can’t discredit a source because it chooses to report from its vantage point of moral and ethical standards.
Now, December is one of the people who uses the slightest bias = unreliable source argument. On numerous occasions he has attempted to discredit the New York Times. The most recent argument was that since a local rabbi had attempted to organize a boycott against the paper, it CANNOT be reliable source on Palestinian/Israeli issues. :smack:
The New York Times anti-Israeli? I once said to my wife “the NYT makes us weep about Israeli deaths and face Palestinian casualties”. If there’s a balanced source here in the States on the issue, it’s the New York Times. :sigh: I imagine December will start arguing me on this one.
Here are some other “source attacks” against NYT by December:
And yet, when it suits him, he quotes from this so-called unreliable source:
Yes, we choose which sources we use. But the more enlightened we are, the wider the spectrum from which we collect information is. Long ago in my early foolish tweens I read through voluminous pamphlets and a book published by the Watchtower because Jehovah’s Witnesses kept knocking on my door. After all, I wanted to know why I was turning them away. That I could have skipped the whole ordeal is easy to say in retrospect. Sure, we can’t read ALL sources from ALL vantage points, put at least we can make a small effort to see what the other side’s sources has to say.
ethnicallynot…
Sometimes, when I’m arguing a “conservative” position, I make it a point to use “liberal” sources and when I’m arguing a “liberal” position I make it a point to find “conservative” sources. I doubt that I’m the first person who ever thought of this.
But if you decide that every poster who has ever challenged another posters sources on the basis of bias has got to go then it’s gonna be mighty lonely in Great Debates.
I appreciate your support of my right to post, RexDart. However, two points:
-
It should be noted that the link to “jewishjournal.com” was one of twelve cites that were provided in that post.
-
Especially in a thread about bigotry, it’s not a good idea to denigrate a web site simply because it has the word “jewish” in its name.
Sparc – You’re entitled to your opinions about my debating style, However, for others to understand them, there needs to be specific quotes and a statement of why you think they prove your point. Without specificity, I cannot defend myself. E.g., what would I do if someone wrote: “December is a commie sympathizer. Just read his posts and you’ll see what I mean.” 
I still recall his “Pinochet got a bum deal” thread. Apparently, because only 60,000 were killed and/or disappeared compared to the millions of victims of communism.
He compared the reign of one individual to the entire Soviet era, which included several dictators.
sigh
I criticized some of your other links in that thread as well. Many were from .org websites, the bedrock of agenda-driven “information” on the web. One of your links was only a title of an unavailable article, which article sounded like an opinion piece from the title, IIRC.
Oh, it’s more than just the name. I did visit the site, you know. Here’s a little excerpt from a recent opinion piece on that site where the author makes the same mistake you are accused of making in the other Pit thread:
link here: http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=9009
This website makes the same mistake you were accused of in presuming that violence against Israelis ought to sway opinion to their side. It shows a clear bias towards Isreal and against Palestine, beyond simply the inclusion of “jewish” in the name.
I believe it is a regrettable truth that publications geared towards the Jewish reader seem to presume that being of the religion Judaism automatically translates into a support for the nation Israel. Perhaps it’s true, perhaps it isn’t. I checked the site beforehand to be sure, so don’t try to insinuate that I’m an anti-Semite, which is exactly what you did no matter how you try to dress it up.
I just chose one particular train wreck of a thread from the past as illustration. Admittedly december was in a somewhat unusually bigoted temper in this one, but it is illustrative of why and how he pushes buttons.
Since many of these are direct replies to positions of individual members they gain even more inflammatory effect by indirect personal attacks at that member. I don’t think december does that part on purpose, but that is nevertheless the effect.
I agree, but that is not what december does. His most recent GD thread is a case in point.
After having stated that Palestinians have murdered thousands of other Palestinians because they were moderates, he posted a number of cites that corroborated that there had been murders in large numbers amongst the Palestinians for collaboration. When called, amongst others by none other than IzzyR upon the ‘moderate’ part of the claim he referred to the Op Ed’s opinion.
december, you are the cite on this one. I narrowed the scope down to the threads on Israel in GD. For a more current example I put up the Pit thread I started as the result of your most recent rhetorical faux pas. I’m not trying to dis you here; I’m trying to help you.
By debating the way you do you loose part of the audience and provoke reactions that are completely counter to your desires. I can’t go through your whole posting history on Israel on that one, what I can do is match you on a case-by-case basis. That’s why I preferred to take our most recent debate out of your thread and into the Pit. The problem was not your question, but how you posed it. The thread is still there and I have explained myself at some length in it, with examples and highlights.
Sparc
Hmm. By his posting in that other pit thread, his logic would therefore dictate that Arafat, who, according to december is ‘merely’ (my word, not his, just in comparison to Pinochet)responsible for less than a thousand of such killings over the past couple of decades, shouldn’t even be complained about, since we have this other guy who did worse.