Tempting as it may be, guess I’ll stick with the one I’ve got.
Oh fucking please. “So it’s morally wrong to donate to charity?” is such a ridiculous rhetorical statement that there’s no justification for it.
Furthermore, he said “That is, you believe (or at least the OP believes) tax deductions are wrong” which doesn’t even remotely resemble anything that I said in that thread.
Really, find the statement I made that this could possibly be a justified response to.
And then when I asked him to back up that statement, he lied again, back to a completely childish way.
Seriously - anyone that’s willing to go to bat for Shodan’s behavior in my OP gets put on my moron list. If you think that’s an appropriate level of discourse, you probably have nothing valuable to say.
This isn’t a close one - it’s not a judgement call or an issue of perspective. It was blatantly stupid threadshitting, childishly comical misrepresentation of positions, and flat out lying.
He’s either deranged, extremely stupid, or a troll - there is no other alternative that could explain his behavior in that thread.
Well, that is not meta enough, where I come from I could say that you are just saying also a useless thing here, sure, there is very little chance of change, but there are also other lurkers and more sensible people that can confuse Shodan of being commendable.
Of course, this being a forum related to getting the facts straight, eventually one has to reach like the Bad Astronomer (that also used to post here) for the facts; global warming, for example, has in the end so much evidence to support it that it is really impossible not to assign skulduggery to the extreme conservatives that deny it.
You are lying because NO ONE was arguing that English isn’t the language used in reality (de facto) in the United States, people were arguing with your FACTUALLY incorrect statement that English was the official language of the United States.
Would you like an official government website to try to grease the gears of your addled brain? Here ya go.
If you had the faintest idea what “de facto” actually meant, you wouldn’t have claimed it being the de facto language of the U.S. made it the official one…more well educated people than yourself understand “de facto” and “official” to be contradictory.
I didn’t pit him for this, but I clashed with him over the issue of spoilers in TV show threads. He was just as obstinate on that.
Complete bullshit.
Truer words have never been spoken.
Shodan explained his logic in this thread, and it’s consistent with his posts to the other thread. This logic is flawed, but it’s probably what he meant (& means).
What’s this about?
Okay, so all of you conservatives who are claiming that I’m not attacking Shodan for his specific behavior, but rather just his politics - are you willing to say that his behavior is completely appropriate? That this pitting is unjustified, and that I’m just attacking him for his politics, but in reality, Shodan is a good poster, a valuable part of the discourse on this board. Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to say that his behavior is in accordance with the sort of behavior you seek from your ideological allies?
I don’t buy it. Could you walk me through it step by step? The source of his misunderstanding? The new insight he was attempting to offer by what he posted? The continued lack of understanding despite people telling him where he was going wrong? The continued deliberate misrepresentations of positions?
Seriously, please walk me step by step as to how he could be a reasonable person posting in good faith based on his behavior in that thread.
I’m saying that if you really think his behavior as outlined in the OP is just fine, you have to be a fucking idiot, or you think trolling and lying is appropriate for GD, in either case I think it’s unlikely you have much of anything of substance to offer.
It kind of is. Refusing to acknowledge a mistake is not debating in good faith.
Oh don’t you start, you crazy bastard.
Down, tiger. We’re talking Shodan here.
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian]
Anyone else remember Sam stone posts as particularly laden with cites at any point? I sure as hell don’t, but my biases may be coloring my recollections.
[/QUOTE]
Yep, I do. Sam generally cites quite a bit in any of his serious posts, at least in my experience…which is why it’s a pleasure and instructive when he joins a debate usually. I don’t know if my assertion here will hold any water with you, since I’m one of the idiots from what you’ve told me in the past, but it’s easy enough to check…just do some searches on Sam and look at the threads he’s participated in. You might think his links are BS, but he DOES put the things in when he’s serious about debating.
I also can understand his other point about cites in general. A lot of times when I’m looking for cites to bolster my own position you have to really look for cites from completely non-partisan sources (as close as you can get), since I know if I link to something from anything even vaguely associated with ‘conservative sources’ it’s going to simply be dismissed. Now, I’m sure the easy answer to that sort of dismissal is simply that ‘conservative sources’ are simply wrong by default, but it does make it difficult to hold up the other end of a debate when any sources have to be from acceptable sources…meaning they have to be non-partisan or perceived as acceptable left wing sources. Yeah, yeah…boohoo, conservatives have it rough, blah blah blah. I get it. Which is why I don’t bother trying to exhaustively source stuff. Well, that and I’m militantly lazy. Unlike Sam.
That said, I do think that Shodan comes across as a partisan sniper in a lot of his more recent stuff. My GUESS is that he’s a bit bitter and feels a bit isolated, since as noted a lot of the ‘good’ conservative posters are gone, which means that the few left have to carry the water…and, as Sam noted, he’s not carrying it anymore. So, instead, Shodan just does drive by partisan sniping these days. Not that I’m sure he cares about my opinion, but I really, REALLY don’t think it helps. Not that Sam cares either, but I really, REALLY wish he’s slog on, if for nothing else just to give a different perspective. It’s though though when folks turn on you. I know it’s been tough for me at times, and I’m not even a ‘real’ conservative…except that I AM, here. But my take is that I’m here more as a learning experience for myself, when I have the time (which increasingly I don’t), than to try and change peoples minds. In my case, and contrary to your beliefs, it’s much more likely that it will be MY mind that changes in most of these debates than the other way around.
Anyway, I can see where Sam is coming from. And to a certain extent I can see where Shodan is coming from too. IMHO, he USED to be a much better poster than he is now. I don’t know if he can or even wants to ever try and turn that around, as it would be a hell of an uphill struggle, but I wish he’d consider it. On this board you will get more flies with honey than horseshit, and reason, logic and calm will get you the most of all. Lose the ‘I’m a conservative and everyone hates me’ chip on your shoulder as it doesn’t help, and only eats at you, and just debate the issues in a calm, reasonable and lucid fashion. Even if everyone disagrees with you (and not everyone will around here…contrary to the beliefs of some, this place isn’t in lockstep in any way, shape or form), it doesn’t matter. Present your arguments and see what happens…and don’t be afraid to test your premises and find that they were wrong, flawed or in error. And adjust accordingly.
I’d give you the same advice, Hentor, though I’m sure it will be as well received as what I just gave Shodan. Hell, I give MYSELF the same advice, and I often find me telling myself that I’m full of shit and that I should go fuck myself with a banana and a wet nap after throwing myself in a quarry full of 1920 Death Rays…
-XT
Well, he has a point. In his case, it’s both. He’s taken to task because he posts like he’s a repulsive cross between a runny cowpat and a Gila monster ; AND because his “ideas” (or should that be “his” ideas ?) are retarded.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14705476&postcount=126
I thought threadshitting was a deliberate attempt to derail the thread versus a reluctance to lose face.
In addition, it’s hard to know what people are thinking sometimes. People in this situation sometimes become convinced that they’re right, even if they clearly aren’t to the objective observer.
Jeepers, you’re just now getting here? You been on vacation in the Outback, or what?
Then let me dissuade you. SenorBeef took me to task not too long ago … I can’t remember precisly which thread, but I recall some heated back and forth that culminated with a poorly written post that he read as me calling him Mrs. Beef or something.
And if anybody on this board is inane … it’s me. And I’m a gigantic pussy liberal.
On preview, I see it has been covered.
Regards,
Shodan
Re Sam Stone, the main problem with his cites, in my recollection, was that people held him to a standard that was invented for him specifically. Sam discussed broad themes and ideas, especially in economics, and many times he would cite to sources that discussed these themes, but in other settings and WRT other situations, and he would get nitpicked over this. So if - for example - he was making the point that Obama’s tax policies would kill jobs (to take something that sounds like something he might have once said - no idea if he actually ever said this) and then linked to a study which purported to show that raising taxes in Australia killed jobs, he would be excoriated because the study was Australia and this was the USA, that was the 90s and this is 20 years later, and so on.
[This is my recollection anyway - I have no intention of backing it up with any cites :)]
Doesn’t hold up. Even if Romney hadn’t donated to charity, his tax rate goes up from 14% to 16%. Big fucking deal. Still under the average working joe, which is what the OP said his point was.
The only way you could possibly interpret his statement as at least making sense is if he doesn’t understand how taxes work. If he thinks Romney owed 6m, but donated 3m to charity, therefore taking off 3m from his bill, his statement could at least be within the ballpark of being relevant. It would still be snarky and assholish, but at least you could sort of see where he was trying to connect the dots.
But I gave him an out, if he did legitimately have that misunderstanding:
At that point, if he was genuinely mistaken somehow, he would possibly pull back and admit he was wrong (ha!) or at least discontinue that particular line of attack since it was based on ignorance.
But he didn’t. He doubled down. He continued to lie about what I had said.
So even if he was too dumb to know wtf he was talking about at first, he was corrected, and decide to persue the same line of non-sequitors and lies.
There is no context in which his statements are justifiable.