OK, so what about **Cervaise’s ** original post:
Boo hoo hoo! He called me stupid! He must be referring to ME, personally! I take this as a defamation of my character! I demand an apology NOW! NOW I tell you!
No, but as I argued in the post above yours, there’s no logical interpretation of what he said that doesn’t put those of us who opposed the war into at least one of these categories: “cowards, quislings, fools and defeatists”. So if we’re not traitors, we’re cowards, fools, or defeatists. Do you really want to tie yourself to this guy? He’s consistently one of the worst people on these boards - it’s not like this instance of namecalling is unusual on his part. He’s an embarrassment to those on the right - or at least he would be, if enough of the righties on the SDMB had the capacity for embarrassment. When you guys gather around and defend people like Lonesome Polecat, you’re strongly implying that you think the way he conducts himself is defensible. Have enough honor not to fight for him just because he shares your politics.
Incidentally, his violation of rhetoric’s rule of threes is unimportant, but I would like to point it out anyway. He really sapped his sentence of its strength by putting four items in the series. I think “defeatists” is really the weak one; and purely on the basis of sound, I think the rest should have been reordered. “Quislings, cowards, and fools” simply goes better.
See? Great minds.
Lonesome Polecat, I pit you and your mistake at very elementary rhetoric!
I am not fighting for him because he shares my politics…I’m not sure he does, actually. I just think the idea that he needs to apologize to a specific person for what he said is ridiculous.
I did not demand an apology. If he believes those who oppose the war are traitors, defeatists, fools and quislings, then he should defend that position and not hide behind his weak-- I didn’t mean you specifically-- defense.
Does he think that those who opposed the war are fools etc, or does he not. If he does, then he should own up to it and get the smack down he deserves. If he doesn’t then why doesn’t he clarify who he was talking about?
Why? Why shouldn’t he apologize for what he said? It implicated vibrotronica, me, and a lot of other people around here. It implicated millions of Americans. Why shouldn’t he apologize for that? He won’t, of course. The only tool in Lonesome Polecat’s toolbox is namecalling and the abject hatred he feels for anyone who doesn’t share his political views. He is, as has been illustrated quite clearly in this thread, an utter coward who is now trying to hide from the implications of his own words. He is the worst sort of person, and anyone who supported or supports this war should be eager to say that he doesn’t represent them.
Thing is, I don’t think he meant what he said seriously; I think it was just poorly-formed satire. As such, he didn’t mean to call anyone any names; he just meant to mock Cervaise.
I don’t think Cervaise deserved mocking, and if he did, I think Polecat did a ridiculously bad job of it, but that’s what he was trying to do, I think.
(I recently encountered someone who suggested that all Democrats were Communists, and I sneered back that all Republicans were Nazis. Same rhetorical device.)
Daniel
I feel like I’m taking a trip down memory lane here. Once upon a time someone equated the US Air Force with murderers. As I am in the Air Force and USAF is explicit in my screenname I called shenanigans, only to be told that simply being part of the organization in question did not constitute a personal insult. Of course, as you might expect, I thought that was bullshit. It was also an accusation light years more explicit than what we have here, and yet nothing was done about it.
For what it’s worth, here’s my suggestion: if you want to take it to heart, great. You may be a member of the group he was referring to. But without some explicit reference you’ll never get any satisfaction out of this. Therefore, it stands to reason that this thread will consist of people talking in circles ad infinitum until it mercifully dies. So you can either accept that no apology is forthcoming, even if it is deserved, or you can keep shouting past each other, which resolves nothing.
I see no evidence. There’s no obvious similarity in their rhetorical form to lead me to think that. Besides, under that assumption, then everything Lonesome Polecat posts in political threads is “poorly-formed satire”, since I see no difference between this and any of the other diarrhea he squirts at the rest of us. Are you saying you think this is some long-term trolling rather than his earnest views?
No, that would be what he was doing at least. That is to say, the smallest possible application of his remarks. At most, he was calling everyone who disagrees with him traitors etc. And you’re not going to be able to figure out which he meant by “looking inside yourself.” He’s the one who posted it, he’s the only one who knows how broadly he intended his statements to apply.
Although based on previous experience with his spineless fuckwittery, I’m guessing the answer is “as broadly as possible.”
Ah, a voice of reason. You are right on all counts here. My only comment on what you say is that in the case you cite, the poster was referring to a fairly specific group of people (US Air Force), with a very specific crime (murder). In the case in question here, an extremely large and diverse group of people (those against the war) are being charged with possible inclusion in several different categories (what was it? Fools, quislings, cowards, and defeatists, 3 of which are personality traits more than an accusation of a specific act, and any of which or none of which might refer to someone who is against the war.)
What Left Hand says is probably what I should have said in the beginning:
It was just meant to be a takeoff on what Cervaise said, and it was supposed to make a point. I don’t know what LP specifically meant, and maybe **Excalibre ** is right that he is generally a pain in the ass, I don’t know. But to take it so damn personally seems silly to me.
Ha ha…maybe you are right on the last point…but what is he going to say to an individual person? (“YES…I meant YOU PERSONALLY.”)
I can only claim to live in the shadow of that master Orator, Cher.
I guess I just got called a traitor directly and indirectly one too many times. And in retrospect, I don’t think I overreacted to this one, I think I underreacted to the first thousand or so.
I’ve said it three or four times now. This “treason” rhetoric is dangerous, wrong, and unAmerican. This is war. It’s serious goddamned business. If you’re in a war, and you call somebody a traitor, and enough people agree with you, then that person gets strung up. Accusations of treason are invitations to political violence.
Why should I have to speculate about what the coward LonesomePolecat meant by his words? If he was just using some inflamed rhetoric, all he has to do is say “Hey, I got a little excited. Anti-war folks aren’t traitors.” He doesn’t even have to do that! I told him exactly what I believe. If he thinks my beliefs are treasonous, then he should say so. If not, then he should say so, too. There’s no loss of face there. I’m asking about his treason threshold.
But if his convictions don’t match his words, and I believe that is the case, then he should say that, too. It reflects a fundamental unseriousness on his part, and like I said, war is serious business. But he won’t say anything because he is afraid.
The fuck of it all is, it’s because of people like him that we are in Iraq, spending hundreds of billions of dollars we don’t have killing tens of thousands of people and seriously fucking up the future of this country.
No, he didn’t. He may think that, but the statement that is being quoted repeatedly in this thread does not say that everyone who opposes the war is a quisling. Nor does it say everyone who opposes the war is a coward, quisling, fool or defeatist. What it says is that Saddam Hussein knew that cowards, quislings, fools and defeatists exist in this country [no objection yet; those people certainly exist], and that he could count on these types of people to undermine support for the war by convincing others [“others” like you and I, who are not necessarily quislings, fools, cowards or defeatists] that the war is a bad idea.
This does not consitute calling you a fucking quisling, so shut the fuck up.
Also: you’re a fucking idiot for continuing to harp on weirddave’s typo.
(bolding mine)
Of course he doesn’t have the guts to say that. I’d kick his ass for that.
PS: I accidentally misspelled “constitute.” You may now ignore the substance of my post and make fun of that, proving that you’re a moron.
No, that’s simply incorrect. He said that Saddam could count on “cowards, quislings, fools and defeatists” to “turn a blind eye” to his activities. Taken at face value, his statement clearly applies to those of us who opposed the war; he says nothing about them “convincing others” but merely about their “turning a blind eye”. Merely “turning a blind eye” wouldn’t affect the matter in the slightest unless such “cowards, quislings, fools and defeatists” are so numerous as to constitute some major political force; if some a tiny minority of people “turn a blind eye” to any political issue, what difference does it make? “[T]urn[ing] a blind eye” only matters if there are so many people doing it as to constitute a real political force.
If you’re going to rely on some legalist interpretation of his words to try to excuse him for what he said, at least be honest about it.
Not trying to be a smartass. Even if we accept that you’re part of the crowd he directed the comment to (I don’t think the comment reads as if anyone opposing the war is in that crowd, but maybe that’s just me), why aren’t you being accused of being, say, a coward? A defeatist? Why are you fixated on traitor?
I agree. I think it’s pretty funny. Biggirl too, now.