Waitasecond here, friend. Leaving out the ‘opinionated’ (all us denizens of the debate fora are opinionated, after all), you make it sound as if a certain amount of bias is a reasonable thing for participants in these debates. And I’m not agreeing or disagreeing; I’m just noting that bias is more or less the same thing as lack of objectivity, which is the characteristic you see in me that troubles you.
Can you explain this for me?
Oddly enough, the same thing can be said about Michael Moore’s infamous movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. Yet conservatives were up in arms about the movie, because they thought the facts presented, and the manner they were presented in, suggested, or caused viewers to draw, connections and implications that went beyond the truth.
Or does anyone remember the early part of The World According to Garp, where Garp’s mother gives her three-line explanation of Garp’s origins that paints an extremely and deliberately misleading impression of those origins? (I wish I had a copy handy, so I could quote, but I don’t, darnitall.)
The reality is that different presentations of different facts make a world of difference in what people take away. Getting back on point, consider:
and what I thought he might have chosen to say instead:
Facts, facts everywhere. Huge difference, though.
Seems like a distinction without a difference to me. Both are engagements about some characteristic or behavior of a poster on the SDMB versus the topic at hand. Both were unwarranted, unnecessary, and irrelevant to the topic.
What, exactly, were you trying to show? Should RTFirefly refrain from posting if he doesn’t post topics from across the political spectrum? Should readers discount his postings or the news items contained therein because he does not cover both sides of the isle equally?
I think it is completely appropriate to question, say, Dan Rather on his objectivity. He has broad reach and a stated ethic of impartiality as the head of a news organization. Lack of objectivity on his part has far-reaching consequences and the risk of falsely accusing or antoginizing him is outweighed by the potential damage he could do if he was thought to be objective and was not. RTFirefly? Not so much.
So the point remains. Why throw stones at RTFirefly? He’s just some guy on a message board. Why pick this battle instead of the one framed in the OP or just moving on and ignoring it all together? What, in your own personal cost/benefit analysis, benefit did questioning his objectivity, thus leading to this animosity, gain you or your cause? Even in cases where your “pointed questions” find feet of clay, what is the benefit? Does it stop DeLay’s campaign manager from having people assault little old ladies? Does someone else throwing rocks at your own feet of clay prevent Harry Reid, or those he counsels, from putting on a cloak of false concern for soldiers and their families as a publicity stunt? I’m think the answer to both these questions is no, so why do it?
Enjoy,
Steven
If a candidate is holding a political rally and you go to it and publicly demonstrate your opposition you’re asking for trouble. SHOULD people be open-minded and understanding? Yes. Will they be? Probably not. If you attempt something like this there’s a strong possiblity that you’re going to get shouted at, harrassed, or roughed up. If you’re going to act provocatively, don’t be surprised if people get provoked.
This is why Mr. Moto’s parallel with DeLay’s goons is inaccurate. The goons invaded Lampson’s rally, not the other way around. Like Mr. Moto did, the goons purposefully sought out the opposition in an attempt to anger and provoke them. The only difference is that they showed up in large enough numbers to be physically intimidating.
Perhaps if Mr. Moto can describe an instance where a group of belligerent Democrats have shown up at a **Republican rally ** and stirred up trouble there can be an adequate comparason of the tactics of the two parties … .
Oh for gawd’s sake you fucking nancy-boys. You’re aware of course this is Pit, eh? Questions of character are de rigueur, if not the raison d’être, for the whole damned forum. Y’all (and by y’all, I mean the three of you pussies: Steven, Daniel & Rufus) oughtta hike up your prissy little skirts and run screaming for the exits if you think what Moto did is so offensive - let alone warranting a whole stupid whining thread. Buncha goddamned pantywaists.
I vocifeously disagree that is a statement of fact. But I’m done here. We’ll just hafta leave it there and deal with it.
“He’s just this guy, you know?” 
If you’re done, you’re done, but it’s uncontroversial that you can’t stop doing something you’ve never started doing, therefore you haven’t stopped doing something you’ve never started doing. That’s why the question, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” is so horrible, because the correct answer, “no,” implies something far worse than the actual truth. And that’s why I use it as an example of something factually true yet insulting.
If you’d prefer, though, I’ll say that it’s factually true that I’ve not stopped beating my wife, yet I’d be pretty insulted if someone phrased it this way toward me.
Daniel
I do love a good irony.
Daniel
I tend to act the same way regardless of the forum. It is a shame, IMO, that so many of the threads about civil behavior on the SDMB take place in the Pit, but you gotta play them as they fall. If you prefer your discussions full of ad hominiem and aspersion casting that’s ok. I feel no obligation to change my style, however, just because it appears to be panty-waisted or prissy to you.
Enjoy,
Steven
All right. Who the fuck are you and what have you done with Moto? Seriously I do not think I have ever seen a better attempt to rehabilitate oneself. The partisan shit spewing vileness is apparently gone. Replaced by a facade of reasonableness. Did you get tired of being despised? It’s going to take more than a few reasonable posts to do it.
I didn’t really think it ‘warranted’ a ‘whole’ thread of its own, but I wanted the original thread to be about Tom DeLay & Co., and not hijacked from the beginning by a debate with Moto over my alleged obligation to have responded to one post of his in a two-year old thread.
And since, as I’ve previously noted, threads come in integer quantities, it was either 1 or 0; I was unable to give him the .2 thread this deserved.
Besides, Unc, when I opened my recent “Pitting Bush forStuff That Isn’t Worth Its Own Thread, Early 2006 Edition” thread, I got jumped on by some rather vociferous types who objected to my finding a way of giving certain Pittable stuff less than a full thread per instance.
Hell, you were there too, stretching some dinky three-post issue into a two-page donnybrook because you were mad at me over not doing what you felt was sufficient research before posting about it. Odd that you should be so upset about my starting a thread about Moto. Which one was the bigger deal? How can you tell? Pot-kettle-black.
Irony already noted by Daniel.
This board brings out in me a rather confrontational side, which is one reason I’m packing it in. People who know me IRL don’t see this side of me.
I think there are lots of folks here who fit this bill, including the OP. And really, there is some value in this. Most of us don’t have arenas where we can debate these subjects with some passion.
In my case, I think it’s a little out of hand. So I’m out.
Like the country song asks - How can we miss you if you won’t go away?
This post and your expanded explanation in your declaration thread are very close to my own experiences and thoughts. Stepping back for a while has always been good enough for me, but I don’t blame you for feeling you might need more than a break. I am thinking more and more that it is a shame we’ve interacted largely in these political threads.
He’s a very nice guy in person.
Hey, me too. Just ask me! 