# More SDMB arguments I'm sick of **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 28, 2010, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274 "2010-07-28T05:43:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/101 "2010-07-29T19:08:30Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > > [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > > > Goddamn, but you’re a whiny little bitch. I think the “persecution” you experience here has less to do with your politics and more to do with your personality. > > Only if you define “personality” as “being right and rubbing your nose in it”. > > I’m quite sure you know perfectly well how unpleasant some of you look when you let your inner motivations slip out. And I know you would like everyone to pretend that you hold the high ground morally. The trouble is, you don’t, and I have no intention whatever of letting you off on it. > > I am going to embarrass you, and laugh at you, and make fun of your hypocrisy, and mock the politicians you want to worship and adore. and generally amuse myself very much at your expense. > > I like it, and I am going to continue to do it. The fact that it irritates you and makes you pitch these tantrums is part of the fun. > > Regards, > Shodan I generally don’t respond to a lot of your posts because I feel they are mostly trolling but the above makes me think that you actually believe the crap you spew. Maybe it’s just a higher grade of trolling and I’m being taken in by it but I haven’t seen you embarrass anyone lately… well, not counting yourself. A tip of the hat, Jain ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/102 "2010-07-29T19:12:42Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > Well, I think the first part of **The Second Stone** ’s argument is certainly valid. I think there’s no better word for Bennett than “scold”. If I harped on and on about you **Bricker** not following a moral code that I followed but you didn’t, how would you feel about my attitude towards you? Right there with you. I absolutely agree it’s fair to call him a “scold.” > [@](#): > > And that also leads to why I think so many people don’t like what Bennett did. Bennett wanted people to follow not just any moral code, but the specific moral code of William J. Bennett, which includes eschewing vices “A, B, C, D, and E” but not “F and G”. Which the appropriate response to all along should have been “Who the fuck died and made Bill Bennett the arbiter of moral good?” Nobody elected Bill Bennett Secretary of Morality. No religious body designated Bill Bennett as Righter of Wrongs. Maybe the Reagan administration designated Bill Bennett as Secretary of Education, but last I checked public schools weren’t charged with morality codes (and if they were, would you send your kid to a public school with a Democrat’s morality code in place? Thought not, **Bricker** ). Bennett’s moral code isn’t even consonant with yours, **Bricker** , seeing as you support same-sex marriage and he sees it potentially opens the floodgates of the end times (only exaggerating a little here). I know Bennett’s moral code isn’t consistent with mine. And that makes him wrong. 😃 But not a hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/103 "2010-07-29T19:19:12Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Because I am entitled to have an opinion, just like Bankroll Bennett, and publish it, just like Bankroll Bennett, here on the internet. Of course! And no one is saying you’re not entitled to that opinion. And I, in turn, and entitled to point out what I believe are flaws in your opinion, and thus (hopefully) persuade you to discard it and others not to adopt it. So we’re all entitled to expres our respective opinions. The question now becomes: is your opinion a good one? Is it useful in understanding the situation, the world? My contention is that it’s not, because you too broadly construe one word when you intend a meaning that’s covered by other words. The beauty of English is that I can call you stubborn, or intransigent, or pigheaded, and each conveys the same general sense but with a richness of nuance for each that the others lack. > [@](#): > > Now maybe you and Bankroll Bennett don’t think that I should have an opinion that hypocrisy is broader in definition than you would like it, that such use is improper English. Have I in the past claimed to be anything other than a descriptivist in the use of English language? No! While I enjoy the precise use of the prescriptivists, watching them fight battles like this is funneriest. And this is, I think, a perfect distillation of the argument. We don’t dispute what bennet did; we disagree on whether the term hypocrite should be applied to his actions. I argue that your use of the word as applied to him weakens it, especially when there are so many other choices that are correct. It is precisely a prescriptivist argument that I make. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/104 "2010-07-29T19:21:59Z")
**Bricker** : Perhaps if you were to recognize that Bennett hadn’t been piously preaching about specific actions, but about moral conduct in general, you’d begin to see the problem. Or even if you didn’t have a gambling issue yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/105 "2010-07-29T19:26:55Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I know Bennett’s moral code isn’t consistent with mine. And that makes him wrong. 😃 > > But not a hypocrite. But I think you might agree that others could see it that way, if they believed Bennett’s call for “self-discipline” ought to include “financial self-discipline.” I don’t personally think gambling is wrong myself, but it would be wrong for me to tell others “gamble responsibly” then drop millions at slot machines, wouldn’t you think? And one would think “if you must gamble, gamble responsibly” would be an underlying tenet of financial self-discipline, right? It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me, and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to call the above behavior hypocritical. ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/106 "2010-07-29T19:42:45Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > > [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > > > Goddamn, but you’re a whiny little bitch. I think the “persecution” you experience here has less to do with your politics and more to do with your personality. > > Only if you define “personality” as “being right and rubbing your nose in it”. > > I’m quite sure you know perfectly well how unpleasant some of you look when you let your inner motivations slip out. And I know you would like everyone to pretend that you hold the high ground morally. The trouble is, you don’t, and I have no intention whatever of letting you off on it. > > I am going to embarrass you, and laugh at you, and make fun of your hypocrisy, and mock the politicians you want to worship and adore. and generally amuse myself very much at your expense. > > I like it, and I am going to continue to do it. The fact that it irritates you and makes you pitch these tantrums is part of the fun. > > Regards, > Shodan Well…well damn. What do you even say to that? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/107 "2010-07-29T19:55:20Z")
Easy. “Trolltrolltrolltrolltroll”. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/108 "2010-07-29T20:00:06Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The distinction is between disagreeing, even strongly, with someone’s opinions, and hoping they die a painful death because they hold those opinions. Everybody on the SDMB does the first, liberal and conservative alike. The second is confined pretty much only to the left side hereabouts. Well, that’s a lie. The board slants more liberal, so in absolute numbers, sure, there are more liberals who do this than conservatives. As percentages of each group? Comes out pretty much even. We had no lack of conservatives who were pleased as punch to see Ted Kennedy kick the bucket. But since this would undercut your own argument, you will proceed to pretend that these people don’t exist. > [@](#): > > That’s why people like **Miller** are pretending not to understand the difference between respecting people and agreeing with their opinions. Decent people do the first even when they can’t do the second. Liberals who can’t do the first with anyone who disagrees with them on their hot button issues are not, therefore, behaving like decent people. And this is a deliberate misrepresentation of what I’ve said. I didn’t draw a distinction between respect and agreement, I drew a distinction between respect and tolerance. Which you know, but because I’m a liberal, you don’t feel any particular compunction against purposefully distorting what I say to make your position appear stronger. > [@](#): > > Tony Snow dies, and we get the assholery already mentioned. **Diogenes** says he hopes Reagan’s corpse is dug up and sodomized. **Boyo Jim** says he hopes Glenn Beck dies. > > Ted Kennedy dies, and **mswas** is banned for too often mentioning that Kennedy got drunk, drove off a bridge, abandoned a woman he was trying to fuck to drown and then lied about it. And that’s another lie. He was banned for a long history of inability to follow the rules, culminating in two warnings in short order for insulting mods in ATMB. > [@](#): > > In a way it’s too bad, but in a way it is OK. It makes it easy to see who is arguing their politics based on principle, and who is motivated merely by hate. Yes, that remains, as always, perfectly clear. Thank you for providing yet another object lesson in what it looks like when someone places partisan politics above honesty and integrity. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/109 "2010-07-29T20:16:58Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > > > Because I am entitled to have an opinion, just like Bankroll Bennett, and publish it, just like Bankroll Bennett, here on the internet. > > Of course! > > And no one is saying you’re not entitled to that opinion. And I, in turn, and entitled to point out what I believe are flaws in your opinion, and thus (hopefully) persuade you to discard it and others not to adopt it. > > So we’re all entitled to expres our respective opinions. > > The question now becomes: is your opinion a good one? Is it useful in understanding the situation, the world? > > My contention is that it’s not, because you too broadly construe one word when you intend a meaning that’s covered by other words. > > The beauty of English is that I can call you stubborn, or intransigent, or pigheaded, and each conveys the same general sense but with a richness of nuance for each that the others lack. > > > [@](#): > > > > Now maybe you and Bankroll Bennett don’t think that I should have an opinion that hypocrisy is broader in definition than you would like it, that such use is improper English. Have I in the past claimed to be anything other than a descriptivist in the use of English language? No! While I enjoy the precise use of the prescriptivists, watching them fight battles like this is funneriest. > > And this is, I think, a perfect distillation of the argument. We don’t dispute what bennet did; we disagree on whether the term hypocrite should be applied to his actions. I argue that your use of the word as applied to him weakens it, especially when there are so many other choices that are correct. It is precisely a prescriptivist argument that I make. Yes, we disagree on the tightness of definitions. That and we like to disagree. If Bennett had never been Addiction Czar and left his preachings to something like supply side economics is good and liberals are bad and let’s go to war, I would not use his gambling as an example of hypocrisy. Nor if he just bet a few hundred bucks on his favorite football team. But here is Bankroll Bill Bennett in a private room in a casino frantically blowing $8 million on slot machines. (Let’s forget he was also Education Secretary who wanted to eliminate the department and obviously did not take to heart any math instruction in probability, which is a bit of a hoot too.) Blowing $8 million on slots shows vice and not virtue if you are the richest man in the world. But being a professional scold makes it more hypocrisy. Pretending it isn’t hypocrisy is even more hypocritical if based on the fact that BBB never scolded about gambling but only vice in general. That makes it intellectually dishonest to boot, which is also a vice when done on one’s own behalf. (It makes you a lawyer when done on a client’s behalf.) That nobody buys it except those as pedantic as the late William Safire is even richer. Had Bennett simply said, “yeah, well, ya caught me, I’m ashamed. I’ll try to be better. None of this changes the values of being virtuous and putting aside our vices” I would have given him a complete pass as I never expected that he didn’t have any vices. But he does. Gambling and lying to himself and everyone about the value of virtue. The value of virtue to Bill Bennett is that he makes money off of books about virtue. That he personally is a hypocrite, intellectually dishonest, a weasel and doesn’t know himself doesn’t undermine the value of virtue: virtue is still good. But it’s only value to Bennett seems to be making money off of it to blow on his vices. Lucien spotted Bennett two millenia ago. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/110 "2010-07-29T20:21:00Z")
Bennett is the equivalent of if Socrates had admitted that the only reason he went around Athens showing all the old farts that they were stupid was that young men and boys enjoyed the old starched togaed know-it-alls being shown to be fools and it made it easier to bugger the young boys and if he had known that Plato was going to invent forms from it he would reconsider except that he never said he was against buggering young men. ---
**Author:** ![MidnightRadio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@MidnightRadio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MidnightRadio)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2010, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/111 "2010-08-01T06:58:22Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > When Twitter saves somebody’s life we will truly be vindicated. [Ta-da!](http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/04/03/moore.twitter.threat/) ---
**Author:** ![bullrun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d9b06d/32.png) [@bullrun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bullrun)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/112 "2010-08-02T21:32:37Z")
To BOYO “he always had a shitty point of viw” Yeah…Boyo…you are one of those diseased liberal charter members…alright. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/113 "2010-08-02T23:16:11Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > > [@Bricker](#): > > > > I know Bennett’s moral code isn’t consistent with mine. And that makes him wrong. 😃 > > > > But not a hypocrite. > > But I think you might agree that others could see it that way, if they believed Bennett’s call for “self-discipline” ought to include “financial self-discipline.” No. What they believed has zero relevance. The question is what Bennett himself believed. If I advise people to lead a responsible sex life, and someone listening takes that to mean no sex except in the missionary position, I am not a hypocrite if it’s discovered my wife and I enjoy more variety than that in bed. What others read into someone’s remarks cannot make that person a hypocrite. > [@](#): > > I don’t personally think gambling is wrong myself, but it would be wrong for me to tell others “gamble responsibly” then drop millions at slot machines, wouldn’t you think? And one would think “if you must gamble, gamble responsibly” would be an underlying tenet of financial self-discipline, right? It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me, and I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to call the above behavior hypocritical. No, because it’s not irresponsible to gamble $8 million in one night if you’re worth $80 billion. If you’re worth $9 million, then it’s irresponsible. And it’s not irresponsible to gamble $8 million over ten years if you’re worth $80 million. I feel like Reagan saying to Carter, “There you go again.” Because once again you’ve simply asserted that we should all share your view of what amounts constitute irresponsible gambling, when there’s no particular reason your idea should be an authority. ---
**Author:** ![Stoneburg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Stoneburg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoneburg)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/114 "2010-08-03T00:55:03Z")
What if I was supporting myself by advocating safe sex, being famous for it. Telling people to always use protection. Then you find out I often have sex without a condom with women, if they’re on the pill. And what I meant with protection was against pregnancy only, not STD’s. Would that be hypocritical? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/115 "2010-08-03T04:37:43Z")
> **[Atheists](https://xkcd.com/774/)** > > 'But you're using that same tactic to try to feel superior to me, too!' 'Sorry, that accusation expires after one use per conversation.' My pet peeve never ever want to hear again SDMB argument as captured by _XKCD_. ---
**Author:** ![Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/face_intentionally_left_blank/32/288_2.png) [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Face_Intentionally_Left_Blank)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2010, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/116 "2010-08-03T05:56:07Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > I’m fucking sick of people attempting to convince the unconvinceable. Liberal Dopers, you will never convince some (not all) of the conservative Dopers that liberals have valid points sometimes. Conservative Dopers, you will never convince some (not all) of the liberal Dopers that conservatives have valid points sometimes. > > There are people who, by virtue of their posts on this board, have proven themselves to be uninterested in hearing “the other side.” In spite of that proof, well-meaning but deluded posters continue to attempt to engage those unconvinceables in honest, good faith discussions. > > Stop doing this. It inevitably hijacks otherwise interesting threads into a never-ending saga of nonlistening. It’s as if people are incapable of learning they’re talking to a brick wall - or maybe they don’t care, as long as they get to post their screed as often as the brick wall does. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/117 "2010-08-04T12:49:46Z")
> [@Face\_Intentionally\_Left\_Blank](#): > > It’s as if people are incapable of learning they’re talking to a brick wall - or maybe they don’t care, as long as they get to post their screed as often as the brick wall does. Or a **Bricker** wall, or a **Second Stone** wall… 😃 We have a perfect example going in this very thread. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274/118 "2010-08-04T13:37:07Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Well, that’s a lie. The board slants more liberal, so in absolute numbers, sure, there are more liberals who do this than conservatives. As percentages of each group? Comes out pretty much even. We had no lack of conservatives who were pleased as punch to see Ted Kennedy kick the bucket. But since this would undercut your own argument, you will proceed to pretend that these people don’t exist. Not at all. I have already posted multiple examples of liberals wishing painful death on Republicans. Please provide the same number of cites of conservatives saying that they were glad Kennedy was dead and that they hoped he suffered. And be sure to be specific, and to leave the goalposts exactly where they are. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-sdmb-arguments-im-sick-of/548274.md?page=5)