# May I have a reason, Tom?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-i-have-a-reason-tom/505058>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [August 2, 2009, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-i-have-a-reason-tom/505058 "2009-08-02T14:20:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 10

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**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/may-i-have-a-reason-tom/505058/10 "2009-08-02T19:14:20Z")

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> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#):
>
> I wish I had your kind of prescience.

I wish you did, too.

> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#):
>
> May I start a similar thread again? Or is that being obstreperous? If not, is there some kind of new rule here I’m unaware of, forbidding a certain type of thread in GD (where a mod moved it, over my objections, by the way) concerning partisanship vs. policy?

If you can figure a way to ask the question in such a manner that you are not inviting, indeed, begging, for a whole thread of _tu quoque_ responses and sniping, go ahead.

You say that it was moved “over your objections,” but “your objections” were little more than not so veiled insults and histrionics.

Then, in your next post, you continue the high moral tone with

> [@Criticism of the Obama administration](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/criticism-of-the-obama-administration/504974/9):
>
> I’m torn between giving righties’ posts that same sort of dismissive response or reading them to see if there’s any non-partisan substance there.

If you can’t post without belittling “the other side,” then take it to the Pit. The comments you posted gave me no reason to believe you were seeking an “honest opinion” so much as to provide a platform for smug or selfrighteous condemnation of the the political Right. Given the nature of several posters on the Right, it required no prescience on my part to see where the thread was heading and I see no reason to tell respondents to your posts to stick to the topic when the topic appears to be “how many ways can I bash the Right from behind a mask of an ‘honest question’?”

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