Does Carol post outside of The Pit? If so, does he/she always take the “underdog” side of a thread?
I am genuinely asking, I can’t recall any specific time I’ve seen Carol outside The Pit.
If she only posts in The Pit, considering her bullshit, I’d vote troll. If she was at least was pleasant outside The Pit I would give her the benefit of the doubt. Right now, I have no doubt that she’s been a very successful troll. Even VCO3 got banned and he did post outside The Pit, but maybe I have my details on VC slightly confused.
Besides, I don’t think there is any meaningful way to establish credibility with you other than to have you consider me a conservative. Your thought process goes “Conservative? Credible. Not conservative? Target”
And yet you’re willing to rush to her defense based on the vague notion that she’s conservative.
I wouldn’t be proud of it. I tend to have libertarian (and to some degree paleoconservative) views in a lot of areas, and you two do nothing but turn me off to your cause. You almost never add anything of value to what you touch, and yet you post prolifically and the rest of the board suffers for it. So if you take someone like me, who is generally sympathetic to a lot of what you believe, and actually make me want to rethink my positions - what good do you think you’re doing here?
All right. I admit I haven’t ever followed **Crafter_Man’s **posts as often as Carol’s…but I’ll take it at your word he can be a decent guy at times.
I included him in the pit, though, because he seemed to be also adding to the hijack of the other topic. I’m sorry I accused him of trollery, however.
I think I’ve seen her post a few times in GD…but that’s it. Like you, I can’t remember ever seeing her post in any other forum other than those two, though, and yes, I’d guess that about 98 percent of her posts are here in the Pit. One could check just by clicking on her profile and clicking “show all posts”.
It’s because after a considerable amount of time here in which pile-ons occurred virtually every time I tried to argue the conservative POV, and after a considerable amount of time in which I saw posters even such as Sam Stone and Bricker and Scylla reviled and insulted and their perfectly valid points scorned and disregarded, I decided to fight fire with fire and give as good as I get. If you don’t like the way I post, take it up with the board’s intransigent lefties who brook no POV but their own.
Well, for one thing, I’m apparently weeding out people who haven’t come to their beliefs and positions based upon their own abilities at critical thinking, and who seem to be willing to alter or abandon them based upon the styles of one or more of their ideological contemporaries.
In other words, if you feel compelled to rethink your positions because you don’t like what I say or how I say it, you must be pretty insecure in those positions to begin with. I don’t like much of what Rush Limbaugh does or says, but that fact hasn’t caused so much as a blip upon my ideological or philosophical beliefs.
Having GD be her secondary playground doesn’t make me think she’s any less of a troll.
And because I have no life and it only took a few minutes, the first ten pages of her posting history shows one post in IMHO, four posts in ATMB (the cussing in The Pit thread) and 14 posts in GD. All the rest were in The Pit.
Someday you’ll take responsibility for your posting style and stop blaming it on your opponents. Say it with me: “I, Starving Artist, am a big boy. I can post in a less than retarded manner, no matter what those mean, awful liberals do!” Really, this shit is old. And this is a pitting of Carol Stream, not the fucking Starving Artist Show for the billionth time. Carol Stream does not deserve to be defended along with Bricker, Scylla, and Sam Stone. Please do not lump them in with her.
Okay, well I had even less of a life than you, Bees, so I looked at all of her posts (or the 750 max they show).
Some stats:
Out of 750 of her last posts, Carol has:
1 in Out on the Town
1 in Sweet Home Chicago
4 in MPSIMS (of these four, 2 were snarky posts)
5 in ATMB (of these five, 3 of them were about things happening in the pit or pit-related things)
13 in IMHO (most of them in political-type threads)
94 in GD
And 632 in the Pit.
Again, this is only 750 of her last posts (give or take one or two miscounted posts).
Strikes me as someone being here who only wants to pick a fight and attack other people. : p
But I’m sure I’m someone’s sock according to her…probably Bees.
I don’t know why. I haven’t said it more than a handful of times, and always in answer to what someone has said to me. What would have me do, just sit there and ignore people who don’t understand why I post as I do and who are clearly under erroneous assumptions about it?
Oh, please. Show me where I lumped them in with her.
What is it with you people and reading comprehension? I have taken responsibility for them. I explained both why my actions are as they are and what precipitated them.
You’d do well not to look to Rubystreak for cues on which insults to hurl my way.
More’s the pity for you that I do in fact read. Let’s quote you again.
You know, I can sort of get everything before that sentence. I think it’s misguided, but understandable. However, insisting that you’re blameless and it’s the liberals that have driven you to be a vicious, petty idiot is abdicating your responsibility and nothing but. It’s your choice to be a dick in retaliation, own up to it.
Good work on your detective work. Feels good to know I’m not the only one just sittin’ around.
If the admins were to merge our accounts (because we’re obviously a sock of the other) would we come out as some sort of Brundle-Fly creature? Idle Bees Covered in Thoughts? Idly Covered in Thoughtful Bees?
As I said to Rubystreak, show me where I did that.
I did. Quite clearly. What part of “fighting fire with fire” with regard to dickish lefties around here exempts me in your alleged mind from owning up to dickish behavior? You’re being a dick yourself with regard to the things you’re saying to me, and you’re getting dickishness in return. That’s how it works.
So you admit that your purpose here essentially is to attack. Not to have reasonable debate, or possibly influence someone to your side, but to try to give a hard time to those who you oppose ideologically. This certainly isn’t the noble quest that you think it is.
While in a previous post I lumped you in with Shodan, I could also lump you in with Der Trihs. Sure, politically, you’re opposites - but as posters, you’re very similar. Your purpose is to spew your hateful, partisan attacks more than to share or to learn. You make worse any thread you touch.
This is funny. You take someone who has an open mind and is willing to be swayed by facts and arguments and chase them away and you view this not with regret but with pride. Why, you’re purging your partisan group of the ideologically impure!
I actually am extremely introspective. I’m probably more willing to challenge my own views and listen honestly to arguments than anyone on this board. With that comes the possibility of being swayed.
You make it sound like a negative, but it’s actually the opposite. I know you’re ideologically pure. You’re inflexible. You cannot be swayed by new arguments or facts because you are utterly certain you are right. You will accept things that fit your current ideology and reject and attack things that don’t.
You actually believe this is a strength of yours, and a weakness of mine. This is ridiculous, and part of why the partisan bickering idiots on either side add nothing to this board.
To be clear, it’s not as if it was something fundamental like you advocated a free market and I therefore questioned whether the notion of a free market was any good. More along the lines of - is there anything redeeming about conservatives or Republicans that I should ally myself with politically? The more you (and others of you ilk) cling do your idea of rigid ideological inflexiblity - which includes blindly supporting everything from fundamentalists who want theocratic rule to big business advocates who wish to trample on individuals and small businesses to the benefit of the powerful - the less I want to do anything to support your group. You show no finesse in your positions - no ability to stand for part of the conservative agenda and be against other parts… which is quite easy to do when the conservative coalition has such a wide range of views. No, you divide the world into two monolithic blocs, blindly supporting one and blindly attacking the other.
You brought up Sam Stone, Bricker, and Scylla as your ideological comrades in arms, but you shame them with the association. Each of them contributes to the threads they participate in - they’re not fueled entirely of hatred and the desire to attack - they often simply want to present their arguments to influence others to their side. Sam in particular is easily among the best posters on this board - whether you agree with him or not, you can respect that his posts are well thought out, informative, and persuasive. One of his faults is that he tends to be too partisan with the Republcan party even when it’s not really congruent with his personal philosophies - for example when he defends Sarah Palin. But for him this flaw is a small part of what he posts, while it’s pretty much the entirety for you.
Ideology aside, as a poster, a debater, and in terms of what you add to this board, you are far, far closer to Der Trihs than Sam Stone.
That was a great post SenorBeef, and yes, I’m amazed that Starving Artist is willing to dump on even a conservative just because he is not as “pure” as he is.
AFAICR in the latest Sarah Palin thread in GD Sam Stone finally gave up on Palin for her quitting move. Yeah, I do appreciate when people accept evidence. Even if it takes a long time.
My biggest problem with Starving Artist is the immaturity of his sense of humour. It’s all smiley-faces and giggles, but no wit. There’s no cleverness to it. It’s as though crowing about success is being used as a substitute for actual success.
And, uh, Carol Stream’s a jerk or something.
I admit no such thing, primarily because it isn’t true. My purpose here is to present the other side in a way that is clear and unequivocal and which doesn’t get lost in obfuscatory, insulting bullshit.
Again, my purpose is to make my POV clear. I think you’ll find that my posts are remarkably free of the typical SDMB vitriol and personal name-calling, and that apart from liberalism itself I have little that is insulting to say.
My purpose here is not to learn or debate…or at least not in the main. This is because, relative to the amount of anti-right vitriol that goes on around here, it would be a lost cause. Sure, less aggressive conservative posters here might…might…occasionally cause one or two other posters to rethink their positions on something and maybe even change their mind, but I don’t think their style of posting accomplishes much in the way of negating or at least presenting the fact that a lot of what goes on around here is left-wing glurge, which, left unchallenged, can become accepted as fact.
There are posters who think that. There are others who agree with me. And there are still others who disagree with me but congratulate me for sticking to my guns. I know this because I hear from them privately. Not everyone on the left agrees with Rachael Maddow or Keith Olbermann but many do, and not everyone on the right agrees with Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh. The only people that virtually everyone has no problem with are the people who aren’t saying much to begin with.
Horseshit. I’m not aware of anyone who I’ve “chased away” around here, let alone someone with an open mind and eager to learn the facts of the matter under discussion. I’d be willing to bet that a thousand times more posters or would-be posters are chased away around here by the unrelenting conservative/Republican-bashing that is the bread and butter of this board. Why aren’t you castigating the people around here who are engaging in that? They outnumber posters such me a hundredfold.
Fine. Sway away. That’s you. It would be impossible for me or anyone else to post in such a way as to give everybody what they’re looking for.
[quote=SenorBeef]
You make it sound like a negative, but it’s actually the opposite. I know you’re ideologically pure. You’re inflexible. You cannot be swayed by new arguments or facts because you are utterly certain you are right. You will accept things that fit your current ideology and reject and attack things that don’t.
[quote=SenorBeef]
I believe the things I believe based upon what common sense and life experience tell me. I can be swayed, and on occasion I am, though not usually by anything I read here.
What I think you don’t understand is that I only post for the most part about things that I’m certain of. There are certain things that I believe that I know I am simply not going to come to feel differently about no matter what someone else says. Government health care is an example. Socialistic philosophy is another. Thus it can seem that I’m inflexible. On the issues I’m less certain about, I tend not to post. There are a host of issues that get discussed around here that I haven’t weighed in on because I’m not sure how I feel about them. So I read and I learn, and occasionally I do either change or moderate my thinking as a result. But you don’t know about those instances. All you know is what I’m opposed to and you extrapolate from that that I’m close-minded about everything. It is understandable that you may feel that way, but it is nonetheless incorrect.
I really don’t tend to think in terms of strength and weakness. I am merely trying to keep the endless drumbeat of “Conservatives/Republicans/Righties are teh suxxor” that goes on around here from being accepted as the undisputed truth by virtue of challenging those assertions as aggressively as they are presented.
Hopefully I have dissuaded you from this point of view. Again, I challenge mainly those things I’m sure of. You would probably be surprised at the number of things I don’t speak up on because I don’t feel that I know enough about the facts of the matter and I’m unsure of what sort of position to take.
Nonsense. I don’t shame them anymore than they elevate me. We each have our own styles, and again, if you are so swayed by style rather than substance, IMO you need to re-evaluate your approach to these things.
Nor am I. I don’t hate people around here, and I don’t hate liberals I know in offboard life either. And I have no real desire to attack; it’s more of an obligation. Take a look at the nonstop abuse heaped upon conservatives as people around here and tell me how to counter them while still posting in a calm, reasoned way full of exposition without getting utterly drowned out in the process. Most people around here aren’t looking for facts. People are either for or against things like the death penalty, abortion, government health care, etc. for reasons that have virtually nothing to do with facts. Present them with facts that refute their reasons for feeling as they do and they will simply switch to a different refutation. Refute that and they switch to another. And so on and so on.
What I am trying to do is hopefully to reach readers whose ideological beliefs are not yet formed and make them aware that the conservatively-biased things they read around here are not accepted truth no matter how much it seems that way.
I couldn’t agree more.
No, he is being honest. You appear to be suffering from the illusion that one can’t have a legitimate reason to defend Sarah Palin. Plus, let’s call a spade a spade here. Too many posters around here are way too quick to jump on any consession and behave as though it’s an admission of defeat. So the effect is to quash any small concession that one might make out of the knowledge that attempts to make dishonest hay out of it will be the result.
Plus, people have to defend their ideological base. In my case there are certain things about the Republican party as it is now that I don’t like, but I still think it’s head and shoulders above what the Democrats want to accomplish, and since I can’t pick and choose which issues the Republican party will pursue and which ones it won’t, I have to support it anyway for the greater good. But the result of this is that it can appear to you that I’m a close-minded devotee of the Republican party and immune to its faults, and that’s not the case.
Well, in the first place I’m not trying to be like Sam Stone. He and I have different goals and different ways of reacting to hostility.
And in the second place I haven’t wished I could kill liberals because they are the source of all evil in the world, which Der Trihs has with regard to American soldiers, military and conservatives as citizens. So I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t take your assessement too much to heart.
No, I dumped on him because he was acting like an asshole (i.e., “Eat a dick.”) to me, and then appeared to blame me for his own apparent ideological uncertainty. You’ll notice that when he dropped that tack and engaged me honestly and sincerely, I responded in kind.
Surely you know that humor is largely in the eye of the beholder, and on those rare occasions when someone mentions mine, it is usually in an appreciative way. That said, I’m not trying to be witty. If I were to try to come off like elucidator around here, my opponents would seize upon it and, knowing that I was trying to be likeable and disarming, deride and ridicule whatever I said no matter how funny it was. Picture elucidator on the Free Republic site and I think you’ll see what I mean. I make far fewer attempts to be funny around here than I do in off-board life by far.
And besides, Rubystreak likes it…kind of…and that’s good enough for me.
