Invitation to all child-beaters

[tomndebb]

@pseudotriton_ruber_ruber

**Tom *and Olives seem to be saying that because verbal abuse can have long-lasting traumatic effects, my passionate preference for verbal rather than physical discipline is all fucked up (to use a technical term from my years of graduate study in child development). Tom, do you really suppose that I would appraise an entire tribe of Indians systematically heaping hours of verbal abuse on a young person in pejorative and destructive language designed to tear down that young person’s selnse of self-esteem as PREFERABLE to a mild physical admonishment? If you do, let me say clearly that I’m quite sure the first one is a horrible and degrading method that speaks poorly for that tribe’s values, IMO, and the second one may have overlooked some small improvements in conveying the parent’s message.

I used a deliberately extreme example precisely because from your first post on this topic a few days ago you have resorted to hyperbole and absolutist statements. In this case, we had an example of verbal discipline that was clearly more harmful than some physical discipline.

If you are willing to back down from the hype and discuss the issue rationally, I suspect that you (all) might actually arrive at a level of discussion in which you could all agree to disagree without invoking extreme passions or inciting opponents to rage.

Your choice, of course.

[DellieM]

When my son was 3 he savagely bit another child. I slapped the back of his legs. He never bit another person again. Lesson learnt.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@tomndebb

I used a deliberately extreme example precisely because from your first post on this topic a few days ago you have resorted to hyperbole and absolutist statements. In this case, we had an example of verbal discipline that was clearly more harmful than some physical discipline.

If you are willing to back down from the hype and discuss the issue rationally, I suspect that you (all) might actually arrive at a level of discussion in which you could all agree to disagree without invoking extreme passions or inciting opponents to rage.

Your choice, of course.

On this and other subjects, I’[ve often used hyperbole as a means to get the issues stated clearly and upfront. If you would like to point out what I said that was too extreme, knock yourself out. I’m willing to back off on overly broad categories, include exceptions (as I believe I have, several times now) and to defend statements that I’m willing to stand by, which is most of them.

I fully realize that my basic contention–that people who feel hitting their kids is a fine and wholesome activity are either commiting assault or unnecessarily risking commmitting assault, now or on some future occasion–is a minority view, not shared by many spanking and non-spanking Dopers. My OP and the phrasing therein was my attempt to be as clear as possible where I stand on this issue, so as not to leave myself open to charges of “Hey, PRR, you raised this question and suckered me into giving you my position but it turns out you had your mind made up from the get-go and you sandbagged me by not revealing your negativity upfront.”

Your defense of posting a weak argument, Tom, is that I posted a weak OP? Fine, but it would do you more credit to elevate the discussion into a better one rather than fling poo and explain “Well, you started it.” Rather than keep going into this, I’ll just take a breath and see if we can’t have a more rational discussion from this point. You understand my basic position, I’ve explained in subsequent posts how that position is more nuanced than I made it appear to be at first, and you can choose which you’d prefer to entertain.

[FinnAgain]

@pseudotriton_ruber_ruber

I’[ve often used hyperbole as a means to get the issues stated clearly and upfront.

You don’t own a dictionary, do you?

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@DellieM

When my son was 3 he savagely bit another child. I slapped the back of his legs. He never bit another person again. Lesson learnt.

Thanks for this brief capsule statement. This is the nut of my argument: the logic here is extremely self-serving. “X happened, I did Y, and X never happened again” is indisputably so, especially since I wasn’t there when X happened, and have no clue if you even have a son. If we substitute almost any other term for Y, though, and you still maintain its truth, there will be many variations of Y that strike you as totally wrong:

@hypothetical poster

When my son was 3 he savagely bit another child. I sliced his arms off at the shoulder. He never bit another person again. Lesson learnt.

or

@another hypothetical savage

When my son was 3 he savagely bit another child. I killed him. He never bit another person again. Lesson learnt.

or

@a slightly more civilized hypothetical poster

When my son was 3 he savagely bit another child. I had his teeth removed. He never bit another person again. Lesson learnt.

or even

@a soft-hearted liberal hypothetical poster

When my son was 3 he savagely bit another child. I baked him chocolate chip cookies and told him he could have one if he agreed never to bite anyone ever again. He never bit another person again. Lesson learnt.

My point here is not that slapping your son’s legs makes you into a murderer but that you learned the lesson you wanted to learn from the incident. Hitting kids is usually the most convenient recourse to certain problems. It’s fast, it’'s easy, it’s unquestionably clear negative feedback, it has plenty of clear advantages and reasons to engage in it freely. At the risk of being boring and self-indulgent, let me repeat that I’ve been there. I am an irritable man who has often found myself tempted to punish a child physically, but I made an unusual vow at some early point to try as hard as I could to restain those impulses, and that vow has worked out very well for me, so well that I’m seeking to argue its merits to people who are unalterably opposed to it, on the off-chance that maybe I’ll encourage one person to re-think his position slightly.

Maybe I had unusually tractable and well-behaved kids, so this wouldn’t have worked with some of your pieces of work. Possibly–I give my kids a lot of credit. But I can anecdotally argue that talking to my kids, giving them positive reinforcement where I could, often at great inconvenience to me and with great effort, has been remarkably effective, at least by the “X>Y>Z” standards employed above. You’re unimpressed by my success in raising two well-behaved kids without hitting them? Then you can imagine how unimpressed I am by your success in raising kids your way. We have all (I hope) raised kids who are capable of functioning in society, but that doesn’t (in itself) begin to constitute proof for the effectiveness of anyone’s methods, not yours and not mine.

I’m far more interested in discussing the fine points, the underlying details behind one recent decision to punish a child physically, and exploring unexplored alternatives honestly and openly, than I am in reading many more of these “I spanked him, he never did another nasty thing again, spanking works Q.E.D., drop dead and go to hell” responses, but if that’s what you have to contribute then I will thank you for your contribution.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@FinnAgain

You don’t own a dictionary, do you?

Mine says “A rhetorical device consisting of exaggerating for effect, not intended to be taken literally.” Do you understand what that means, you dumbass motherfucker? It means that I am not implying in that epithet that your ass is any dumber than other parts of your body, nor that I am asserting that you have at any time actually inserted your penis into your mother’s vagina, but simply that you are dumber than any box of rocks I’m aware of, even though the image of “a box of rocks” appears nowhere in the original hyperbole. It requires brains and wit to understand, which definitively rules you out. Any other questions?

[ivan_astikov]

The hostility towards prr in this thread is not surprising, as it is coming from those trying to justify why they might attack their children, or have done in the past. I think the only point prr is making is, if you can think of 5 reasons for hitting your kid, with a little effort you could think of 5 alternatives that don’t have a violent outcome. This doesn’t mean that every time a child is hit, there will be a lasting harmful reaction, but it does mean there are always alternatives.

slight typo

[chowder]

My kid beat me at chess when he was just turned 5 years old.

I was fucking furious.

Without a moments hesitation I punched him full in the face breaking his nose and knocking out 2 of his teeth. Not satisfied I waited until he slumped to the ground before kicking him viciously in the balls…four times.

I then grabbed a cricket bat and belted him around the head with it a few times…blood everywhere. Still not content I stamped on his right hand breaking all the fingers.

At this point my wife came in to see what all the screaming was about, I told her and she immediately smacked the little fucker with a saucepan breaking his arm.

That taught the little bastard not to beat me at chess, ever!

A few days later I visited him in hospital, apologised and we’ve been best mates ever since

[Bryan_Ekers]

@ivan_astikov

The hostility towards prr in this thread is not surprising, as it is coming from those trying to justify why they might attack their children, or have done in the past.

That is not an exhaustive explanation of the reason for the hostility.

[FinnAgain]

@pseudotriton_ruber_ruber

Any other questions?

I do have another question, actually. I wonder why it is that you pretend to be an English professor. I mean, why that fake career instead of another fake career? I don’t know what your real job is, but that sure as sunshine aint it. I don’t understand why you’d pretend to be a professor of English of all things, especially with your fundamental lack of any skills related to the use, analysis or creation of written English. Why not architecture or something? You could pretend to be a successful engineer, and get out of having to prove your credentials by saying you don’t like to talk shop. You could pretend to be a deep sea diver, a race car driver, or just any old nine to fiver.
Then at least your pitiful inability to understand the use and nuances of the English language wouldn’t be quite so amusing. Your total inability to look at your own text, tailor it to your audience and predict what reaction it will recieve wouldn’t be so glaring. Hell, we expect high school freshmen to be able to write for a specific audience. When you’re writing with less skill than your average 14 year old, pretending to be a professor of English is just about the dumbest thing you could do.

Why’d you choose that fake career to puff up your online persona rather than a less patently ridiculous fake career? Hell, claiming to be a retired astronaut would probably have been a better choice. You’re not even a very smart liar.

Now, on the nature of your utter ignorance of English; it should occur to you that you cannot exaggerate for the purpose of clarity, you stupid fuck. That’s why it’s called an exaggeration. You cannot make something clear by intentionally distorting it. One achieves clarity in their writing by striving for precision and accuracy, not distortion via exaggeration. One can troll, however, by creating deliberately exaggerated, inflammatory claims designed to stir up shit, and then hopping up on the cross the moment people take a nibble at your bait.

Come on, fess up. What’s your real job? You’re a jizz mopper, aren’t you? After you get home from a hard day of scrubbing crusty peep show glass, angry at the world, you log onto the Dope for some good ol’ trolling, eh?
Hopefully a few more of your troll OP’s like “I want comments from all you child-beaters, and I can’t understand why people are reacting with hostility, and stop inaccurately paraphrasing me you bastards, the hostility in this thread is your fault!”, and we can finally be rid of your presence for good.
And by the way, oh great fake professor, “dumbass motherfucker” isn’t hyperbole. You’re not exaggerating any basic claims (you really don’t own a dictionary, do you?). Your fraud is threadbare. In order to exaggerate something, you need to magnify beyond the limits of truth; overstate; represent disproportionately, etc… Dumbass is a simple slur, as is motherfucker. A “dumbass” is not dumber than someone who you merely call stupid. A “dumbass motherfucker” is not more of an idiot than someone who you simply call an idiot. Calling someone a “dumbass motherfucker” is semantically identical to calling someone an “idiot” “moron” “stupid fuck”, etc…

The word you were looking for, fraud, is “idiom”, not “hyperbole”.

But I guess I can take some pity on you. After a hard day spent jizz mopping, I’m sure that you can’t be blamed for turning in a fraudulent performance that isn’t altogether laughable.
(that’s litotes, by the way.)

[tomndebb]

@pseudotriton_ruber_ruber

On this and other subjects, I’[ve often used hyperbole as a means to get the issues stated clearly and upfront. If you would like to point out what I said that was too extreme, knock yourself out. I’m willing to back off on overly broad categories, include exceptions (as I believe I have, several times now) and to defend statements that I’m willing to stand by, which is most of them.

I did not say that you had posted anything extreme. I noted that I had posted an extreme example to highlight the fact that you have used exaggerated and absolutist statements.

Your very first post on the current round of threads opened

It’s horribly, offensively, unequivocally, and morally wrong. No excuse for it, ever. If you find yourself hitting your kid, for any reason, turn yourself in at the nearest police station at the very moment you come to your senses, and throw yourself before the mercy of the court. If you have an extenuating circumstance (“This is the first tme I ever hit my kid, Your Honor, and I’m deeply ashamed and will promise never to do it again”) you’ll probably get off with a slap, and it’s a slap far less severe than you meted out in your court of justice.

You make no distinction between balling up one’s fist and smashing a kid with a roundhouse blow and smacking a diaper padded bottom of a toddler who had wandered into the street. You also imply that such an (undifferentiated) action is clearly against the law.

At no time have you backed away from or modified your position until we got a slight nod that some corporal punishment might be less offensive than some verbal punishment, and only after I had provided a counter example. (You claim to have acknowledged some exceptions, but I do not recall having seen any such thing.) Frankly, your assertions in these three threads, condemning everyone who disagrees with you and admitting no room for discussion are simply dogmatic declarations that serve no purpose except to rile up those with whose opinion you disagree.

I did not post a “weak argument.” I posted a very clear example that contradicted your extreme position. Even in the context of your position, your comments have been hostile and designed to irritate other posters rather than to attempt to persuade them that your view might be correct. Since you appear to be enjoying the hostility, I suppose I should have just ignored your statement, but in the interest of The Straight Dope, I felt that your gratuitous claim that even if words hurt they can be taken back should be noted for the silliness it represents. (And your hyperbole that any and all corporal punishment is equicvalent to “beatings” is simply one more example that you are more interested in riling people up than persuading them.)

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@Bryan_Ekers

That is not an exhaustive explanation of the reason for the hostility.

Strawman much?

[TheLoadedDog]

Why I oughtta…

(deep breath. Count to ten…)

prr, you are grounded. … No, I mean it…
…yes, I’m serious…
…that’s right…
…no being an obnoxious, holier than thou, didactic asshole for ONE WEEK!

[FinnAgain]

@tomndebb

frankly, your assertions in these three threads, condemning everyone who disagrees with you and admitting no room for discussion are simply dogmatic declarations that serve no purpose except to rile up those with whose opinion you disagree.

.

[

troll – this is general internet usage for “somebody who is posting just to be confrontational or to raise hackles.”

](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6241129&postcount=1)
.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@FinnAgain

I do have another question, actually. I wonder why it is that you pretend to be an English professor. I mean, why that fake career instead of another fake career? I don’t know what your real job is, but that sure as sunshine aint it. I don’t understand why you’d pretend to be a professor of English of all things, especially with your fundamental lack of any skills related to the use, analysis or creation of written English. Why not architecture or something? You could pretend to be a successful engineer, and get out of having to prove your credentials by saying you don’t like to talk shop. You could pretend to be a deep sea diver, a race car driver, or just any old nine to fiver.
Then at least your pitiful inability to understand the use and nuances of the English language wouldn’t be quite so amusing. Your total inability to look at your own text, tailor it to your audience and predict what reaction it will recieve wouldn’t be so glaring. Hell, we expect high school freshmen to be able to write for a specific audience. When you’re writing with less skill than your average 14 year old, pretending to be a professor of English is just about the dumbest thing you could do.

Why’d you choose that fake career to puff up your online persona rather than a less patently ridiculous fake career? Hell, claiming to be a retired astronaut would probably have been a better choice. You’re not even a very smart liar.

Now, on the nature of your utter ignorance of English; it should occur to you that you cannot exaggerate for the purpose of clarity, you stupid fuck. That’s why it’s called an exaggeration. You cannot make something clear by intentionally distorting it. One achieves clarity in their writing by striving for precision and accuracy, not distortion via exaggeration. One can troll, however, by creating deliberately exaggerated, inflammatory claims designed to stir up shit, and then hopping up on the cross the moment people take a nibble at your bait.

Come on, fess up. What’s your real job? You’re a jizz mopper, aren’t you? After you get home from a hard day of scrubbing crusty peep show glass, angry at the world, you log onto the Dope for some good ol’ trolling, eh?
Hopefully a few more of your troll OP’s like “I want comments from all you child-beaters, and I can’t understand why people are reacting with hostility, and stop inaccurately paraphrasing me you bastards, the hostility in this thread is your fault!”, and we can finally be rid of your presence for good.
And by the way, oh great fake professor, “dumbass motherfucker” isn’t hyperbole. You’re not exaggerating any basic claims (you really don’t own a dictionary, do you?). Your fraud is threadbare. In order to exaggerate something, you need to magnify beyond the limits of truth; overstate; represent disproportionately, etc… Dumbass is a simple slur, as is motherfucker. A “dumbass” is not dumber than someone who you merely call stupid. A “dumbass motherfucker” is not more of an idiot than someone who you simply call an idiot. Calling someone a “dumbass motherfucker” is semantically identical to calling someone an “idiot” “moron” “stupid fuck”, etc…

The word you were looking for, fraud, is “idiom”, not “hyperbole”.

But I guess I can take some pity on you. After a hard day spent jizz mopping, I’m sure that you can’t be blamed for turning in a fraudulent performance that isn’t altogether laughable.
(that’s litotes, by the way.)

Have I mentioned my profession in this thread? I dont think so.

is it relevant here? Not remotely. But just this once, I will make you the same exact offer I have made to fools like you who bring it up and make similar accusations.

Report me, specifically for trolling by stating forthrightly that I have lied about my own personal history, openly and blatently and repeatedly, and I will then be banned and all your problems with me with be over. To save you the trouble of tracking down where I have made claims outside of this thread, I will state here (not that it has anything at all to do with this topic) that I do claim to be a tenured full professor of English lit at an acccredited institution of higher learning (a university, in other words) and I that I will gladly accept banning from the SDMB if any mod will look into that statement and find the smallest part of it to be false.

I will also request that you accept some form of suspension, however, for deliberately harrassing me by hijacking my thread with this nonsense if it turns out that my statement of fact is unassailably true.

Put up or shut up.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

@tomndebb

I did not say that you had posted anything extreme. I noted that I had posted an extreme example to highlight the fact that you have used exaggerated and absolutist statements.

Your very first post on the current round of threads openedYou make no distinction between balling up one’s fist and smashing a kid with a roundhouse blow and smacking a diaper padded bottom of a toddler who had wandered into the street. You also imply that such an (undifferentiated) action is clearly against the law.

At no time have you backed away from or modified your position until we got a slight nod that some corporal punishment might be less offensive than some verbal punishment, and only after I had provided a counter example. (You claim to have acknowledged some exceptions, but I do not recall having seen any such thing.) Frankly, your assertions in these three threads, condemning everyone who disagrees with you and admitting no room for discussion are simply dogmatic declarations that serve no purpose except to rile up those with whose opinion you disagree.

I did not post a “weak argument.” I posted a very clear example that contradicted your extreme position. Even in the context of your position, your comments have been hostile and designed to irritate other posters rather than to attempt to persuade them that your view might be correct. Since you appear to be enjoying the hostility, I suppose I should have just ignored your statement, but in the interest of The Straight Dope, I felt that your gratuitous claim that even if words hurt they can be taken back should be noted for the silliness it represents. (And your hyperbole that any and all corporal punishment is equicvalent to “beatings” is simply one more example that you are more interested in riling people up than persuading them.)

You make some interesting and valid comments here, Tom, that I’ll be happy to discuss, one at a time. I think you’ll do well to distinguish, generally, between opinions and statements of fact, which is sometimes a subtle distinction. I don’t quite get your point, for example, in claiming “I felt that your gratuitous claim that even if words hurt they can be taken back should be noted for the silliness it represents.” That’s my opinion, one I see no harm in discussing with others who may well hold valid opposing viewpoints. I’m not labelling in advance your possible counter-arguments “silly” and I find it hard to define whether anything not physical can be said to be very literally “taken back,” leaving me unsure what you’re trying to argue here, or why exactly my opinion on this subject is so gratuitous. I think I’ve shown how words can, in my view, be retracted more easily than physical actions in general, and I invite you (again probably in another thread entirely, because it’s really off our main subject here) to clarify your thinking. I don’t feel strongly or passionately about this subject, and for all I know I’ll end up conceding your point, once I know it.

That last thought was just an example of your riling me up, with elevated and inflammatory diction, in almost precisely the same way that you claim I have sought to rile others up. For my part, I’m interested in toning down this discussion, and getting it back on track. Maybe I should open another GD thread, rather than trying to continue this one in the Pit, since under your able moderation, things will more likely stay focused in GD. As I explained, my passion and the strong feelings I felt (correctly) that others feel in opposition to my view, inclined me to open this thread in the Pit, but that may have been a tactical error on my part.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@pseudotriton_ruber_ruber

Strawman much?

Sometimes, but in this case I was just stating a fact. Ivan said “The hostility towards prr in this thread is not surprising, as it is coming from…” and I pointed out that the reason he gave was not the only possible explanation. I’m rather doubtful the reason he gave was even a probable explanation, but no matter.

How that constitutes a strawman escapes me. Ivan said, in effect, "The reason for X is Y"and I pointed out that Y was not the only explanation for X.

Perhaps we have different understandings of the concept of “strawman”. I’m prepared to accept the possibility that my own understanding of the concept is flawed or incomplete and I invite you to elaborate.

[FinnAgain]

@pseudotriton_ruber_ruber

Put up or shut up.

So your defense is that you’re not a fraud when it comes to claiming you hold a position, you’re just a fraud when it comes to actually being able to fulfill the duties of that position due to frightening levels of incompetence?

Mmm hmmm.

I suppose I could’ve amended my original claims to include the possibility that you’re just defrauding students out of a quality education, but ah well. Given your general level of dishonesty, in any case, I wouldn’t put it past you to forge credentials when dealing with the mods, so no, no bet. Wouldn’t matter anyways, as you’d still be an arrogant idiot intent on trolling. But if it makes you happy, I’ll retract my original claim and modify it to state that either you’re a fraud when you claim to be a professor, or a fraud and unable to actually fulfill the duties that position would entail. Better?

It’s relevant, by the way, because in addition to your rampant trolling, which even tom has noticed but refuses to warn you about, that you are generally an arrogant idiot with delusions of competency. You don’t know what the word “hyperbole” mean. Or “idiom”, “strawman”, “clarity”, etc… And yet you’ve continually trolled numerous posters in this thread for language-related ‘problems’ in their posting. As you opened a Pit thread in order to troll people, it’s perfectly well within the scope of the thread to point out that in terms of the content of your character, you’re a waste of carbon.

Hope I cleared things up for you there buddy.

[Scumpup]

@pseudotriton_ruber_ruber

You make some interesting and valid comments here, Tom, that I’ll be happy to discuss, one at a time. I think you’ll do well to distinguish, generally, between opinions and statements of fact, which is sometimes a subtle distinction. I don’t quite get your point, for example, in claiming “I felt that your gratuitous claim that even if words hurt they can be taken back should be noted for the silliness it represents.” That’s my opinion, one I see no harm in discussing with others who may well hold valid opposing viewpoints. I’m not labelling in advance your possible counter-arguments “silly” and I find it hard to define whether anything not physical can be said to be very literally “taken back,” leaving me unsure what you’re trying to argue here, or why exactly my opinion on this subject is so gratuitous. I think I’ve shown how words can, in my view, be retracted more easily than physical actions in general, and I invite you (again probably in another thread entirely, because it’s really off our main subject here) to clarify your thinking. I don’t feel strongly or passionately about this subject, and for all I know I’ll end up conceding your point, once I know it.

That last thought was just an example of your riling me up, with elevated and inflammatory diction, in almost precisely the same way that you claim I have sought to rile others up. For my part, I’m interested in toning down this discussion, and getting it back on track. Maybe I should open another GD thread, rather than trying to continue this one in the Pit, since under your able moderation, things will more likely stay focused in GD. As I explained, my passion and the strong feelings I felt (correctly) that others feel in opposition to my view, inclined me to open this thread in the Pit, but that may have been a tactical error on my part.

Unctuous. The word you all were searching for to describe this post is unctuous.

[TheLoadedDog]

@Scumpup

Unctuous. The word you all were searching for to describe this post is unctuous.

Yeah, but I still kinda prefer slimy.