Maybe MrDibble is remembering “wetback”. I remember a WTF moment involving the term.
Here’s an idea: if you have say something, just be willing to defend it and not give two shits what people here say or think about it.
It works for me. I have said a lot of things people have taken exception to over the years I’ve been here, and I just don’t give a fuck. If you know in advance that you’re likely to say something that’s going to end up with a few choice words between you and other posters, then make sure you post it in the pit.
Some of the right wing posters who’ve posted here over the years seem to think that they’re entitled to their own facts, as well as their own opinion, and it gets ugly when the rest of us remind them that we categorically reject that idea. They claim “Liberal bias” and then walk off in a huff. That’s their problem.
What you’re asking us is to just shrug and restrain ourselves to ideas and attitudes we find offensive, which is something I/we won’t do. As for moderation, there’s very little of it in the Pit, so no favoritism to be had there.
I only got this on the second read. Still love what you did there, man!
So OP, you want a place to discuss hot-button topics without strong opinions being expressed? How about opening a thread for passive-aggressives only?
Yes, this.
You should care, because he’s still brought up as a conservative who would not have been banned if the Pit wasn’t there, so whether or not he is now banned, he still has a shadow here. A long, racist shadow. Because you may have thought he was, and I quote, “a pretty good guy to hang out with”, be aware that some of us saw the racist there long before he was banned.
I think it’s worth distinguishing between a conservative like Bricker–who consistently held positions that I considered odious, but who never to my recollection used dehumanizing, bigoted arguments to support those positions–and folks like Clothahump, who did. Although I disagreed with Bricker on most things, I wish he were still around, and think he was treated shittily by some posters.
Clothy? Good goddamned riddance.
I used to enjoy arguing with Bricker, and was sad when he was banned. Yes, i started with his positions on most political stuff, but he never struck me as bigoted, and i was surprised to learn he’d been banned.
I have no recollection of Clothahump.
Bricker isn’t banned (and has posted this past week!), he just no longer participates here.
Sorry, confused him with Shodan.
I miss both of them.
For Shodan, it was specifically his devotion to dedicated misrepresentation of his opponents that got up my nose. Just about every political post from him was a sneer at a straw man he’d erected to mock liberals, and that was really really tiresome and not at all conducive to conversation. Bricker, by contrast, often constructed tightly-reasoned and well-cited arguments.
Yes, him and Regards, “Some Black People Deserve The N Word” Shodan both get a pass on their casual racism which has always puzzled me.
It’s a little disappointing, but not surprising to me, that the two people who’ve said they miss Clothahump and Shodan, respectively, are both posters, mods even, that I like
Personally, I think it speaks to how well racists who are just obviously racist to someone with real experience of racism, can fly completely under the radar if you’re not.
But of course, that’s just me reacting on a “certain subject” on “an emotional level”, not a “logical one” 
.
I remember reading a Cafe Society post back in the day, and thinking “Damn, this was brilliant! Hey, I should look and see what genius posted thi— wait, this was SHODAN? Well, regards, indeed.”
That’s happened a couple of times, where I’d written off some poster whose one trick would be shooting down the straw men they shabbily constructed … (righties and lefties as well) … and then come across a really well thought-out post by them on a topic besides kneejerk politics.
Oh, posters who are shitty humans can definitely start nice threads or make nice posts. That doesn’t justify keeping them, any more than the fact that it can beg and roll over justifies keeping a dog that bites you and shits on the carpet.
I’m a shitty person. I still talk to people that are bigots and don’t cut off family members that are. Hell, I go drinking with a friend that voted for Trump twice.
I’ve got a friend I’ve known since the 70s. My kids call him Uncle. He’s bigoted. If I lived up to your criteria I guess I should never associate with him.
My Late Uncle was very anti-Obama and voted for Trump in 2016. I was overjoyed to find out he voted for Biden last election, but he was still an old guy from another time. Despite this he was a nice guy, but not in your book I’m sure.
So by association I am a terrible human too.
Overall I like you MrDibble, but in many ways you’re very annoying with your holy-than-thou attitude. Do you do this just online or in real life also?
I don’t think you’re a shitty person for not cutting ties with every bigoted person in your life. I don’t think you’re a shitty person if you enjoy Shodan or Clothahump in non political threads.
I do think that if the paragon of a “good conservative” - one who arrives at his conservative views for non bigoted reasons - is Shodan or Clothahump, that’s a pretty sad indictment of the quality of conservative thought on this board.
Oh, that’s fair and I agree.
Shodan was interesting at times, but I didn’t like him.
Clothahump and I had a lot of overlap in Media & Books that we liked. But I know I said he was terrible in political threads. Honestly if the situation arose, I would have been fine having a beer with him and tried to avoid politics at all costs.
Fwiw, I rarely read the political threads on this board, so most of my experience with both those posters would have been in non-political contexts.
My preferred approach to people in my life who have ideas i think are bad is to either refuse to let them clutter up the space i share with them with their bad ideas, rather than to completely cut them out of my life, or, if i think they are redeemable on those topics, to engage with them.
I’ve had decent success convincing friends that:
- Same sex marriage is a good thing
- Trans women should be able to use the ladies room
- Abortion, biblically, is not murder, and it’s not an important enough issue to vote for Republicans who also support vile policies, like Trump and his allies
So i don’t think engagement is always, or even usually, a mistake.
I can’t think of any examples where I’ve had success engaging with a friend on racial issues. I don’t know if that’s my failing, or if it’s because racial issues have been “out there” long enough that most people have already heard all the angles, or something else.
Have all the emotional reactions you want, but I hope you don’t try to substitute them for logical arguments in a debate. And sometimes there are gray areas in what exactly constitutes racism, misogyny, homophobia and other assorted bigotries, which means that an emotional reaction could be premature (i.e. you don’t always know what another person is thinking). Sometimes (not often but it happens) you can actually move someone towards a better understanding by being dispassionate in a debate rather than calling names. Some posters (and you probably don’t know who you are) jump up and down and fling abuse at the first sign of something they don’t like, as if they feel the need to prove their anti-bigotry credentials. There is a place for emotional reactions (and that’s why we have the Pit).
You’re getting off easy. Apparently I’m a child molester by association, because a guy I went to high school with became a priest, and I let him into my home and allow him to be around my children.
Or at least that’s true according to some dude in another Pit thread.