It certainly would have been if I had actually called you a “gun fetishist.” I did not. I said “that alleged number is still complete and utter fantasy on the part of the gun fetishists.”
While I have to say that the thought of someone as short-tempered and thin-skinned as you owning a gun is somewhat less than comforting, I still hope to hell that you don’t get fired over this pit thread. Not that you’re such a great addition to the boards or anything, but we just got the lunatic fringe conservatives to shut up about december’s banning, the last thing we need is a whole batch of “They fired UncleBeer because he was pro-gun!” threads.
I see minty green is still spinning right around that definition of ‘is’.
‘Oh I didn’t call you a gun fetishist. Just those people who actually believe that reference that you posted. Oh, you’re one of them? Well still, I didn’t mean you.’
lissener thinks far too highly of his own intellect. He has his opinion, and anyone who disagrees must either be stupid or evil, because his opinion is unassailable. Unfortunately for him, this closes his mind to other points of view, and makes his arguments laughable.
Only when you honestly consider the other side, and understand the position, can you ever hope to argue against it.
Ah, the strawman defense.
You won’t get any argument from me.
Ah, self-abuse.
Then what’s your beef with my arguments, given that (a) I don’t hate guns, (b) I am a gun owner, and © I don’t want to take your guns away from you?
Oh no, I was quite definitely insulting you with that particular comment. When I insult you, catsix, there will be no ambiguity about it.
Yep, just my opinion, based on nothing more than reading the binding legal authorities. I sincerely invite you to correct any erroneous legal propositions I may have stated, in gun control threads or anywhere else. Seriously. Take your best shot at it, toots. Bring lots of cites.
“Facts”? It’s not like “the law” is derived through scientific testing and objective verification, you know. “The law” is what the lawmakers and those tasked with interpreting the law say it is. Court opinions aren’t “facts,” but they certainly are the law, at least until that law is changed or overruled.
My “opinion” on the law is almost as worthless as your own. (Indeed, while it seems to have escaped your feeble notice, I personally disagree with the collective rights paradign that currently prevails in the nation’s courts.) What matters is what the courts and the legislatures say. If you say the law is contrary to what those entities say it is, you’re wrong. And again, I invite you to demonstrate any legal errors on my part. Bring lots and lots of cites, not just your worthless opinions.
No shit. What does that have to do with being a friend of law-abiding gun owners? Is there some gun-owning Borg collective that swears eternal hatred for those who oppose their positions?
Lissener and Reasonable seem to have gotten in a spat recently and are in the process of an acrimonious divorce. I think he is having a fling with that slinky Ms. Crackpot from down the block.
You’re sure that wasn’t supposed to be crackhead?
Minty:
Though, I am your mortal enemy, I hope you will accept a sincere constructive criticism.
No matter what else, I have always had to grudgingly concede that you did not attempt to use your knowledge of the law as a position of authority from which to bludgeon your opponents.
I tend to think that your not crossing that line was an admirable thing.
It’s not my call, but you may wish to consider your proximity to that line at the moment.
No, no, I’m not referring to you, minty my man. What I’m saying is generically speaking UB should have just as much right to bring someone to the Pit as anyone else here without people telling him he can’t or acting surprised that he didn’t address it entirely within the scope of the GD thread. I mean, it’s not like people don’t start Pit rants every few minutes or so about threads all over the SDMB. Or take their bitching elsewhere to try to rally support for themselves.
Now, if there is a specific Moderator Rule against that, then he obviously shouldn’t. But that’s really between him and his boss.
If only it were true. Stuff bleeds over - onto LJ, Fathom, even my Board on occasion. There are no entirely white hats here. It shouldn’t bleed over, but it does.
Please clarify, Scylla, as I am confused. In what way am I close to the “line” of “us[ing] [my] knowledge of the law as a position of authority from which to bludgeon [my] opponents”? By challenging catsix to put up or shut up when she challenges my explanations of the relevant legal authorities? Surely, you would concede that I’ve always been willing to discuss and debate all aspects of the law in general and gun laws in particular? How is that “bludgeoning” anyone? 
Anthracite, I know exactly what you mean re: bleed-over, and I agree with you wholeheartedly.
I don’t see how. If it’s posted here, it’s no longer between two people or a select group. If any one of us broke an existing rule, is it only between that individual and the administration here? Past situations would indicate otherwise.
**
Well, I found this to be a little… bludgeonish “Yep, just my opinion, based on nothing more than reading the binding legal authorities. I sincerely invite you to correct any erroneous legal propositions I may have stated, in gun control threads or anywhere else. Seriously. Take your best shot at it, toots. Bring lots of cites.”
as well as this:
“And again, I invite you to demonstrate any legal errors on my part. Bring lots and lots of cites, not just your worthless opinions.”
I am sensing an undertone of “I know what the law is and you don’t, so don’t challenge me” That’s of course a hyperbolic interpretation of the tone I’m sensing, and I may be wrong.
I certainly don’t like it when people tell me they object with the way I say something, and I hope you don’t interpret this that way.
I mean it only as a a constructive criticism. It is up to you to decide if it has merit.
Yes, I certainly would concede that. And while you are as combative or nasty as the next guy (or me for that matter) on most subjects, I have always found you to be purely illustrative when discussing the law, which I think was good.
In the tone and substance of the two quotes I sense this has changed.
Again, it’s up to you to decide whether the change is actually there, of whether or not it’s warranted.
I do not object but just thought I would offer the observation for your consideration.
Well I’m quite confident that I do know what the law is on this subject. But I am also quite sincere in my request for catsix to challenge me on the substance of the law, as opposed to just calling me (in effect) a mean ol’ lawyer who doesn’t consider anybody else’s opinion on the matter. It’s kind of a dare, really. I love a good challenge, though I don’t really expect a good one to arise on this occasion.
Fair enough. As I said it wasn’t really any of my business.
The difference between you and me, minty green, is that I don’t call you anencephalic and feeble minded.
I’ll argue your points, and even the way your posts have this ‘I am a lawyer, so I am an expert. You are not, so you are without a brain.’ tone to them, but you on the other hand have to make those attacks as personal and as scathing as possible?
So I said that you come off as if you consider yourself better than those of us who don’t have degrees in law, and your rebuttals are ‘You are an embarassment to the anencephalic.’
I don’t feel the same dismissive tone from other lawyers on the boad that I feel from you. I don’t sense the same attitude that I sense from you. I’m trying to put this as plainly as possible and not be mean about it, but a lot of the time your ‘I am a lawyer and I will explain it all to you’ posts make me think you’re sitting there looking down your nose at me and at everyone else who’s not a lawyer.
I don’t want to challenge you because I figure you’ll just berate me.
I think you’re an intelligent guy and you obviously know your field, but you present it in a very condescending way.
I’m sure this will only result in you calling me more names, so I don’t know why I’m bothering to post it. I just wish you understood that the tone of your posts and your choice of words present your ideas in a bad light a lot of the time. You can decide for yourself whether the way you’re perceived matters to you, or whether you’re just going to call me brainless again.
No, you just called me as “a self-loather,” which is ever so much more polite and not a personal insult in the slightest. My bad.
If you’re getting that, it’s only intentional (and specific to the person being addressed at the time, not “everyone else who’s not a lawyer”) when I’ve explained a legal point, including the relevant legal authorities, for the nth time and the person continues to insist to the contrary with no legal authority in support of their position. I would suggest that this happens more often in gun control threads, where the legal misconceptions of the pro-gun side are often staggering and well-entrenched.
Fact is, I enjoy explaining the nuances of the law to laypersons, even when I first have to do the legal research to discuss it accurately and intelligently, and I’m ordinarily happy to discuss it at length. When people post inaccurate propositions of law, I frequently explain in detail why the proposition is inaccurate and what the relevant law actually is. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anything even remotely disparaging in such posts, unless . . .
I’m quite confident that I will prove you wrong on this particular legal subject. But you’re really only likely to be “berated” if you blithely continue to assert a legal proposition without legal authority in the face of my own auuthorities to the contrary, or just make disparaging comments about how I’m a know-it-all. 'Cause frankly, willful ignorance is the worst kind.
So if you’ve got authorities to the contrary, bring 'em on. Otherwise, I’m under no obligation to treat you with the utmost respect and courtesy when you: [ul][]Make shit up (see your first post in this thread, to which I challenged you without any invective whatsoever) []Call me, personally, “a self-loather” and endorse my sarcastic sobriquet of “Gun grabber, freedom hater, liar, fearmonger, etc.” . . . without me having first said one fucking word in personal disparagement of you in this thread, you complete and utter hypocrite Accuse me, without any evidence whatsoever, of arguing that I am my own authority on legal matters [/ul]So on the whole, get bent.
Whether or not it is an actual Moderator’s Rule is not known by most people here because most people do not see the Moderator’s Rules, and there (I guess? I can’t find it.) is no public Rule on this. And even if it isn’t a “written down” Rule, I’m sure that there are “agreements and understandings” on how things are done. This is why I believe it’s between him and his boss - because so few facts of the particular situation are published.
The nearest I can find to a public rule was in this thread. Ed Zotti posted:
Exactly what the new rule is remains a private matter, as far as I can find. So it’s pretty pointless speculating about whether UncleBeer broke it or not, I guess. Mod/Admin stuff - we’ll find out if we need to.
It’s ultimately between him and his pseudoemployer, but strictly so. Since the distinct impression was given that such a rule exists, we are free to speculate that it does exist and whether it may be applicable here. It is relevant here in the same way that any rule here is relevant to the general membership. If it is a rule, then it has been broken. That’s no different than a regular member breaking an existing rule.
The silence on the part of the administration may mean that there is no rule. Or it may mean that there is one but this particular transgression is being condoned. They may be choosing to deal with the issue in private, but that doesn’t mean that we’re precluded from commenting on it - we should do so until and unless an administrative announcement has been made.
That should be “not strictly so.”