Oakminster's hardon for me

[SenorBeef]

I’d considered pitting Oakminster a few months ago because he has a crazy over the top hardon for me and I really don’t know where it came from. But it didn’t really seem worth it. I actually haven’t pitted anyone in my 10 years here. But his bullshit spewing seems to be ongoing, so I guess I’ll invite him to hash it out here so I can wreck him rather than get sniped in random threads.

It apparently started in this thread which is long enough as to be hard to summarize. Essentially, you had the normal lock-step apologists coming in and defending anything right wing. The highlight of this absurdity was probably when Bricker told us that “second amendment remedies” to certain politicians being elected to office was referring to citizens groups getting together and getting involved in the political process.

My main point in the thread is summarized in my first post. There’s an absurd solidarity on the right wing that no one is willing to criticize or reject others who claim to be in the same political sphere. No one is willing to say “I’m conservative, but I really hate the things that Palin/Bachman/Beck/Angle/etc. spew, I don’t support them”. Essentially they decide that partisan solidarity trumps that, and become apologists for even the worst amongst their side. My purpose in entering the thread wasn’t to blame the incident on right wing politics (although that did seem like the natural connection), but rather, I was disturbed to see the generally rational right-wing folks like Bricker bending themselves into pretzels to support craziness that on some level they must know is bullshit.

Oakminster replies with the general assertion that I’m painting anyone to the right of John Lennon with a broad brush. Which is absurd, because I’m specifically calling out Angle/Beck/Bachman/etc, and only people who choose to support them. But in my reply, I made a typo and spelled “John Lennon” as “John Lenning”.

@Oakminster

Learn to spell, dumbass. John Lennon. Not Lenning. Of course, that error illustrates the lack of intellectual rigor you and others of your ilk display when desperately trying to spin this into the fault of your political opponents.

Oooh, spelling smack. He showed me. All of my “ilk”, whoever they are, are obviously dumb because I didn’t proofread.

When I mocked the idea of spelling smack, he pulls out:

@Oakminster

No, I’m pulling the you, personally, are a worthless piece of shit card. Not only for your completely unfounded wild eyed ranting in this thread. You utterly fail as a human being, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I have less respect for you than I do for Der Trihs. Or Dio.

Well, that’s quite strong. I wonder what I’d done up until this point to “utterly fail as a human being” in his eyes, worse than two others who he must hate very strongly.

I challenged him to start a pit thread about me if he wanted to hash that out and explain why it is I’m completely worthless as a human being, as I didn’t want to hijack that discussion with it, but he declined. But rather than having the balls to simply call me out in its own thread, he decides to take snipes at me in another thread I wasn’t even involved in.

@Oakminster

I am getting to where it is difficult o tell the difference between Phelps and the more prominent board liberals here. So much hate, so little intellect. Der Trihs, Fred Phelps, Senor Beef…birds of a feather. All blinded by hatred, incapable of seeing anything objectively.

I have to say, this one cracked me the fuck up. Yeah, whenever I think about my ideological allies, Der Trihs and Fred Phelps are the two guys that come to mind first.

And again, I decided to let it slide because he wasn’t worth the time. But it popped up again today:

@Oakminster

When the day comes where your opinion on any subject is worth more than dog shit, I’ll see that you are notified. Until then, you less than intelligent actualizer of the classic Oiedipal fantasy, feel free to put me on your ignore list.

See, the point of this thread was to smear a possible GOP candidate for POTUS, over something one of his appointees failed to actually do several years ago. But that went right over your pointy little head, because you’re a shameless partisan hack and a boil on the ass of humanity.

So I guess this is going to be an ongoing hardon and I should address it.

I’m not even quite sure how to defend myself, because I don’t actually hold the positions he accuses me of. To him, I’m one of the board’s “prominent liberals”, and a “shameless partisan hack”. Which is funny to me, because I’m not even liberal, let alone an apparent ideological ally of der trihs. I’m certainly less liberal than the average on this board.

I’m about as non-partisan as it gets, actually. I’ve actually voted for more Republicans than democrats. I have no love for either party nor most politicians. My positions on the various issues are pretty diverse and don’t line up at all neatly with any particular ideology - I’m a skeptical pragmatist utilitarian who tries to consider the merits of all positions on any issue without bias, and I think my posting history clearly supports that. I’ve even changed my positions on some pretty major issues after they were argued well on the boards.

I am an outspoken critic of the current republican batshittery, but part of this actually stems from my tendency towards the ideals that republicans supposedly stand for. I’m angry that there’s no sane party to counteract what the democrats get wrong, and that the republican party cannot represent me because they’ve decided to cater to absolutely batshit bullshit and hatred. So feel pretty strongly on the issue. And I suppose in his small, partisan world - if I’m criticizing the craziness of the current republican leadership and base, I must be a super liberal partisan. Because after all - true conservatives support their party no matter how crazy, hateful, deceptive, and evil some become, right?

Which I guess may actually be why he has such a hardon for me. I think right wingers actually struggle with this issue - their partisan allegiances tell them to defend anyone claiming to be on their side no matter what, no matter how much they lie or how wrong they are, or how hateful. They must present a unified front at all times. You have to go out and support Limbaugh/Beck/Bachman/Palin/etc. And on some level, they’re uncomfortable with that stance - internally they know it’s wrong but they’ve bought into the unified front idea. So when they actually see someone like me - who is actually somewhat ideologically similar, yet willing to do what they’re not and reject the evils of their side, it reflects upon their internal conflict over the issue and the cowardly decision they’ve made to accept the cognitive dissonance and keep up their support. So in that way I actually become worse than an ideological opponent - I become an ideological ally who didn’t take the cowardly path of being blindly partisan.

But I think that explanation may actually be giving him too much intellectual credit.

But that’s just a guess. I really have no idea what has inspired him to say that not only am I ideologically wrong, but completely devoid of any intellect whatsoever (which even people who disagree with me can clearly see isn’t true), and that I’m also completely worthless as a human being. These are some pretty strong accusations, and stuff that I haven’t really seen him level at other people, so it makes me, if nothing else, curious as to exactly why he hates me so much. He treats me like I was a child molester or something.

The only other thing I can think of as to why he’d hate me - and it’s almost embarassing to mention this because it’s so childish, is how he flipped the fuck out when we decided to change the draft type to one of our fantasy football leagues this year. This thread, from about post #27 to #42 or so, including:

@Oakminster

Essentially, this completely unnecessary change is saying “Fuck you, Oak, we didn’t want you around anyhow.”

It’s funny too because not only do I lay out the reasons for the change, but most people come in to support me and say it’s a good idea, and I’m very polite to Oak asking him to give it a try. And then Oak flips out and says NO I’M NOT GONNA TRY ANYTHING! I DID IT ONE WAY AND THAT’S ALL I’M EVER GONNA DO. CHANGE IS SCARY. THIS IS ALL JUST A PLOT TO FUCK ME OVER!!!

But apparently this was some Pretty Serious Shit because

@Oakminster

My first instinct is to cut a promo on you that would melt the internet. But I ain’t gonna do that.

He was almost willing to melt the internet! Over a bunch of people forming a consensus to tweak a fantasy football league.

Now that I think about it more, as retarded and childish as it seems, reading his reaction again, maybe that really was the source of the seeds of over the top hatred. A knee-jerk, almost pathological notion of trying something different in a silly little free fantasy football league.

So anyway, I don’t know what the fuck your deal is. But if you’ve got a problem with me, why don’t you just lay it out here and melt the internet and show me your intellectual prowess, rather than sniping at me in various pit threads.

[Bosstone]

In before Oak asserts his manliness and/or the lack of it in others.

[Inner_Stickler]

Maybe he’ll go retro and rate the pitting.

[Frank]

So the OP boils down to, “Oakminster is an asshole”?

Can’t say I’ve got much argument with that.

[Munch]

There are only two possible outcomes to this thread:

1. Oakminster accelerates his continued lobbying to become an SDMB moderator and starts including cash bribes with his weekly cover letter and resume.

-or-

2. He leaves the board (again) in a hilarious hissy fit (again).

I think the board admin could use a few rounds of drinks, but I’d hate to not be able to witness the Drama of Oak melting down (again).

[El_Kabong]

Nothing much to add except that Oakminster gets my vote as the most unreasonably belligerent poster I’ve seen on this board since, oh, Aldebaran, maybe.

Should consider a slight name change to Oakmonster, he should.

[SenorBeef]

@Frank

So the OP boils down to, “Oakminster is an asshole”?

Can’t say I’ve got much argument with that.

Well, no. I mean, he is, and feel free to join in with your declarations of his assholishness, but this thread was mostly started specifically because I don’t know wtf his problem with me specifically is.

[VinylTurnip]

Sometimes I think I haven’t actually gotten more laid back as I’ve gotten older. It’s that everyone else has gotten more obsessive and crazy.

Which is fine. I slimmed down without actually losing any weight, too. The long-term planning is paying off.

[FloatyGimpy]

@Munch

2. He leaves the board (again) in a hilarious hissy fit (again).

crosses fingers oh please oh please oh please…

[The_Second_Stone]

I’ve always thought of you as a more conservative than not poster, Mr. Senorbeef. But you must understand that there are people who are professional “conservatives” who will only toy with the idea of taking the “liberal” side to sound like they have an open mind when they really do not. It’s done to maintain credibility. Whether Bricker, Oakminister, Rand Rover and John Mace are paid by their corporate masters or not is really beside the point: they are astroturfing.

For the record, I am not paid to astroturf for liberal causes. And I won’t vote for Obama a second time. He’s a corporate tool who couldn’t negotiate his way out of a wet paper bag and gets his kicks torturing Bradley Manning.

[Palooka]

My experience with SenorBeef consists of how he generously runs game servers for Dopers, helps Dopers with their PC questions and keeps the console folks in line. My experience with Oakminster is him whining about stupid shit in the World of Warcraft thread.

Point: SenorBeef.

[John_Mace]

@The_Second_Stone

I’ve always thought of you as a more conservative than not poster, Mr. Senorbeef. But you must understand that there are people who are professional “conservatives” who will only toy with the idea of taking the “liberal” side to sound like they have an open mind when they really do not. It’s done to maintain credibility. Whether Bricker, Oakminister, Rand Rover and John Mace are paid by their corporate masters or not is really beside the point: they are astroturfing.

Gee, I guess I missed my paycheck this week. :rolleyes:

As for the OP, I find **Oakminster *to be often a reasonable poster who can be a good counter to the left leaning consensus on this board. Too often, someone on the left will start a thread and makes an assertion, and no one will come in and challenge them. No one reads the link to see if the assertion is actually true. That almost never happens when someone on the right does the same thing-- there ill be any number of poster combing the link to look for discrepancies. (That’s a good thing, btw, but not so great when you only fact check the other side.)

But he does have an incredibly inflated opinion of himself. That, combined with a hair-trigger temper makes him come off as an ass too often. He’s not unlike Blake– both of whom are knowledgeable in their field, but are so condescending in their attitudes that they poison the atmosphere of the debate. I mean, comparing the OP here to Der Trihs is just ridiculous. He’s not adding anything to the debate other than vitriol.

And all that whining about the mods in ATMB. I don’t go there very often, but it seems like whenever I do, there are 3 or 4 regular complainers going on and on about some silly moderator action as if it were the most important things in their lives. 99 out of 100 times, they’re wrong, too.

*grant me some poetic license here. I don’t literally mean no one, but the thread can on for quite some time before someone fact checks it.

[Jackmannii]

@The_Second_Stone

Whether Bricker, Oakminister, Rand Rover and John Mace are paid by their corporate masters or not is really beside the point

Not to mention insane.

The Corporate Masters (not to mention other players like International Jewry) are already going broke paying the Corporate Media and bloggers* to do their bidding; there’s not enough in the till to finance individual message board posters and still offer zillion-dollar payouts to CEOs.

And it’s spelled John Lemming, not Lenning.

*this charge was made by discredited antivaccine researcher Andrew Wakefield in a New York Times Magazine article on Sunday. Wakefield thinks bloggers are being paid to continually refer to him as discredited, unethical, fraudulent, greedy, struck off etc.

[Bricker]

I’m just happy to learn how much I like Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh.

[SenorBeef]

You very well may not - you probably don’t. And you probably aren’t a huge fan of Sharron Angle either. Yet when presented with the fact that she said that “second amendment remedies” may be needed if Harry Reid beat her in the election, you may have been internally disgusted for all I know - but externally, all you tried to do was explain to us that oh, second amendment remedies have nothing to do with calling out for someone to assassinate her opponent, no, it has to do with getting together and holding hands and voicing their concerns.

The fact that you don’t like these things that you defend actually makes you worse, it doesn’t absolve you. You know better, but you’ve decided “my side right or wrong” is more important than reason or intellectual honesty.

Anyway, it wasn’t my intent to rehash that discussion with that thread, I just gave it in the context of what it was I was arguing against in that thread when Oakminster came in and declared me a worthless human being.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Bricker

I’m just happy to learn how much I like Palin, Beck, and Limbaugh.

Maybe, maybe not (you voted for Palin, didn’t you?), but saying that “2nd Amendment solutions” is a metaphor for citizens’ groups was standing on your head to defend a phrase you should have just disowned and been done with it.

[Bricker]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

Maybe, maybe not (you voted for Palin, didn’t you?), but saying that “2nd Amendment solutions” is a metaphor for citizens’ groups was standing on your head to defend a phrase you should have just disowned and been done with it.

No, I voted for Obama and Biden.

[John_Mace]

@Bricker

No, I voted for Obama and Biden.

Are you sticking by your explanation of what “2nd amendment remedies” means?

[Bricker]

@SenorBeef

You very well may not - you probably don’t. And you probably aren’t a huge fan of Sharron Angle either. Yet when presented with the fact that she said that “second amendment remedies” may be needed if Harry Reid beat her in the election, you may have been internally disgusted for all I know - but externally, all you tried to do was explain to us that oh, second amendment remedies have nothing to do with calling out for someone to assassinate her opponent, no, it has to do with getting together and holding hands and voicing their concerns.

And I stand by that. “Second Amendment remedies” in that context was NOT a call for someone to assassinate her opponent. That you think a serious senate candidate was literally asking for people to shoot Reid if she lost is amazing to me.

And she lost, by the way, with no gunfire whatsoever directed Reid’s way.

[SenorBeef]

While I do think Bricker deserves a skewering for the absurdity that was what he said, let’s try not to hijack this too much if you don’t mind. If anyone wants to create an Apologist Bricker bashing thread I’d be up for that.