I want to commend all the posters who have, thus far, resisted making UD’s post into a springboard for a series of crude and vulgar jokes.
Ah sorry then. Misunderstood.
I just wanted to point out that “thuggish throng” is a great phrase, which I intend to use if possible.
And Liberal isn’t an enigma. He’s a Christian.
Oh, and the secret sauce at Subway is Italian salad dressing.
I think that’s all.
Unca Jimmy? Is that you?
Well now, see… I have sort of mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, I really do sympathize with you. Like you, I believe that I’ve been unfairly labeled, particularly by the claims that I nitpick, that I hijack, and that I try to make every thread about my philosophy. In fact, just yesterday, I did pretty much for myself what you’re asking me here to do for you. I examined 750 of my posts spanning a three month period in order to discern whether the allegations were true, or even had an element of truth. As it turned out, fewer than 4% of my posts (25 out of 750) could be construed by a reasonable person, in my opinion, to fit any of those categories. There were 17 possible nitpicks, 5 posts which could be said to have nothing to do with the OP or surrounding posts, and 3 which could be said to be about my philosophy in an off-topic context. The accusation that I “very rarely will set Libertarianism/Propertarianism to the side for the purposes of discussion” was indeed baseless, unless by “rarely” the poster meant more than 96% of the time.
I also sympathize with you because I’ve had to go through this sort of exercize before. Another poster leveled the accusation against me that I never admit when I’m wrong. In response, I produced dozens of specific posts in the span of a few months in which I had acknowledged that an argument had compelled me to admit my error, and that contained the statement “I stand corrected”. And on one other occasion, a poster had insisted that I had always supported the War in Iraq and had only lately come out against it. I dug up the post in which I condemned Bush as a tyrant and the invasion of Iraq as a coercion on or about the day that the attack was launched.
So, I can see where you’re coming from with this. Honorable people take our reputations seriously. But here’s the thing, and here’s the “on the other hand”…
Even though I produce proof that I do not hijack, nitpick, or grab attention, nothing is to prevent someone from simply saying that they interpret the data differently. They might claim that my defense of the free market in a thread about socialism constitutes a hijack, despite that capitalism had already been mentioned by someone else as a contrast to socialism. They might claim that a response to some other post is a hijack while giving Carte Blanche to the post that attracted the response. Or they might say that citing the correct definition of a word that is being misused is nitpickery. In other words, there is no amount of evidence that can be offered to the person whose mind is made up. In the case of the person who said I never admit error, once the evidence was shown that indeed I do, and do so quite often, he modified his accusation. And in the case of the person who said I had never opposed the war, he retorted that my opposition had been insufficient.
Therefore, it might well be the case that what I see as hissing at me, you see as constructive criticism. What I see as being mean for no reason, you might see as justified due to circumstance. What I see as needless piling on, you might see as offering your own unique perspective that I should have picked out of the crowd for serious consideration. What use, then, is there in listing for you the posts that offended me or hurt my feelings, when you can simply say that I take offense too easily or have a thin skin?
This is not proof in the nature of a scientific experiment proving an hypothesis false. Nor is it proof in the nature of a logical argument proving an assertion true. But I will give you what you ask for, and if you feel that I took things the wrong way or whatever, then that is how we must leave it. You are demanding an apology, which signals to me that your mind is made up. I do not expect this list to pacify you, and frankly I will be surprised if you admit that I could have seen these things this way, since that sort of admission of error is indeed quite rare around here.
Now, to be fair, one thing I do regret is lumping you in with the likes of Desmostylus and Excalibre. Other names certainly should have come more readily to mind, like ThisYearsModel and Guinastasia. You are a much lesser offender than they. The only reason I can think of that I used your name was that perhaps something you had said recently held a particular sting. I don’t know. Anyway, for that much, I will apologize. Also, I will not go back three months. You can do that for yourself as I did for myself if it is that important to you. But I will go back a couple of weeks to give you some idea of why your name occured to me at all.
Fair enough?
In this post, it seemed to me that you joined in a pile-on of ridicule, reinforcing a taunt from Bippy the Beardless. In this post, you thanked ThisYearsModel for a laugh at what I perceived to be my expense. In this post, you joined in the ridicule from Elucidator and Binarydrone to help nail down the image of me as a shark searching the board for chum. You have already conceded to me the Koran thread, so I won’t cite those, but there were three there. And frankly, I don’t see why this thread, with its OP and your follow up about me “harping on the same dreary theme” shouldn’t count as two more. So, by my count, that’s 8 posts in two weeks, far beyond the required one post per week that you demanded.
Again, there is nothing to prevent you from saying, “Oh, but I didn’t mean that, I meant this,” or “If you consider five people to be a pile-on, you haven’t seen a real pile-on.” But you asked, and that’s it. Do with the information whatever you will.
If I’m going to be on your enemies list, the least you could do is spell my name correctly. Believe it or not, there are many posts of yours that irritate the hell out of me that I do not respond to. Were I to do so, I would have to quit my day job.
Frankly, I think that your opinion that people follow you around the board to annoy you is merely a sign that you over-estimate yourself. You and I share many of the same interests, and wind up in the same threads frequently. I don’t see you in the baseball threads, and you don’t see me in the proof of God threads. You have well over 20,000 posts - it’s fairly difficult not to come across you. I shan’t ignore you; there is not now, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be, anyone on my ignore list.
You seem to have difficulty accepting that there are people in the world who don’t like you, or don’t like your opinions, or don’t like your style of communication, or all of the above. This doesn’t mean there is a vendetta against you. This means that when you post some piece of egregious nonsense, there are people who are more than happy (maybe even pre-disposed) to call you on it. Either get used to it or stop posting. Or carry on with your incessant whining about it. Whatever.
Wow, what a shitty thing to say to me. Desmostylus followed you around, no doubt about it. I assure you that I have never once done anything other than run into your posts (which are numerous indeed) as I read through the forums. Your claim that I follow you around is incorrect and frankly grandiose.
Wow.
I’ll say this. I’m now going to be more reluctant to participate in any thread Lib posts to. It seems more likely that I’ll be marked as an enemy if I so much as thank another poster for making me chuckle at a joke at Lib’s expense. What I find even more unnerving is that even if I were to try to avoid the whole situation by putting Lib on my ignore list (not that I ever would) I would still show up on his radar through these indirect associations like following up on a third party’s joke with one of my own. That’s not the kind of thing I want to be worrying about.
Liberal: Only one of your three examples – the “Thanks for the laugh!” one – could be remotely construed as a dogpiling attack on you. It was in fact a response – my only response at that time – to your assertion that I was hounding you. The very same assertion I’ve quoted in this thread.
The other two were fluffy little jokes following the fluffy little asides immediately preceding them. If you take those as vicious personal attacks, well…
Furthermore, all three of these pathetic attempts to prove yourself correct are from after you made your allegation.
I want the history that proves your libel. I want the terms of my challenge met. You’ve tried to handwave it away, to turn the debate to how you’re persecuted. I don’t accept that. I don’t accept your half-assed “apology” that leaves the central point standing – that I’m someone who’s “always” hounding you.
If you can go over your last 750 posts to prove what a great guy you are, you can go over the last three months of my posting history to prove I’m the scum you say I am.
Produce the evidence or retract the allegations.
Put up or shut up.
Someone has TIME to go back and do all this?
Is Liberal retired?
How I long for a job that lets me completely waste many, many hours in pursuit of vindication or righteousness.
And I didn’t know that EddyTF is a female! Just goes to show ya, I suppose. (I always think of that children’s story: Eddy’s Teddy I think its called, when I see your name–it’s a great book).
This thread reminds me of that quote (don’t remember all of it)" something something, but I cannot look away…"
I consider this thread to be a gaper’s block. 
eleanorigby, she’s named after her cats, IIRC.
If it makes Lib feel better to believe I’m somehow stalking him, well, more power to him. I don’t believe that I do, nor do I think others would believe that.
But if that’s helps him, I’m not going to argue.
Not necessary. You’ve done that yourself with your response.
You too. You want to talk libel, get a lawyer.
In other words, you can’t prove it, you won’t retract it.
Thank you for proving my point.
If I’ve learned anything about the SDMB, it’s that there are three types of threads that must be on the front page of the Pit at all times:
[ol]
[li]A pitting of George W. Bush[/li][li]A pitting of SUV drivers[/li][li]A pitting of Liberal[/li][/ol]
Now I see that we are lacking #2. If someone could go start that thread, then all will be right in the universe.
Hey, no problem, Lord Ashtar, I’m about to go out so I’ll look for a reason to bash SUV drivers.
But someone else will have to Pit Liberal now. Since he’s refused to prove his allegations, I’ve asked to have the thread closed. He’ll have to fight his good fight elsewhere.
Once somebody accused me of “having a problem with him” or following him around the board to argue with him or something similar. I was quite surprised, because I hadn’t associated the person’s user name with any kind of viewpoint or personality yet.
Obviously, we were simply interested in some similar topics, but happened to have opposing viewpoints on these subjects. There was no stalking or anything like that involved.
Lib, isn’t it somewhat likely that’s simply the case with those you refer to as the “offenders”?
Ah. I see you’ve chosen the incessant whining option.
Guin --well, the book contains all three names, so perhaps it would be good one for ETF to read to her cats!
I am going out myself soon, and will seek a reason to Pit SUV’s—not that I need a reason…
Game, set, match EddyTeddyFreddy.
Like I said, you chose to interpret everything to please yourself. Your mind was already made up. I haven’t said anything about you stalking me, and yet stalking is now a topic of this thread. And now you’re nitpicking about the time frame, when any arbitrary time frame would have yielded similar results. If in fact they occured after the “accusation”, then that means you’re suddenly making a big deal out of it when it didn’t matter before. You asked to have this thread closed. I also asked to have mine closed. My request was ignored. Let’s see what happens with yours.