@Kimstu exactly - and octopus isn’t stupid, he fully understands this. But admitting it would cost him political points, so he never will
The essence of Octopus’s arguments:
Which is why the term “disingenuous shitwhistle” is a perfect description (if a little too polite IMHO)
What do you mean political points? I try to argue my point of view in hostile territory. I don’t think I succeed. If I honestly didn’t want to hear from you folks, when you are posting rationally that is, I wouldn’t post and read here. I gain absolutely 0 value from posting with folks who I already agree with.
I want my mind changed. If you can convince me that I’m wrong on let’s say minimum wage or mobs tearing down statues I’ll admit it. Posting on this forum has changed my stance on basic income, subsidized adult education, expansion of health care, capital punishment, etc.
That’s at least four subjects in which I admit, publicly in the pit to people who insult and ridicule me, that my previous views needed improvement. What I won’t do is change my views or how I present my views to please the woke.
OK, who is the woke here? The ones that repeatedly told you that they condemned the violence already or the imaginary hive mind ones that don’t?
How about zip ties?
Why? Do you imagine that nobody you already agree with on a particular issue has anything of value to add to your understanding of it, or any perspective on it that you hadn’t already thought of?
I don’t understand people assuming that they can’t gain anything from arguing with people who disagree with them, but I also don’t understand the mindset that one can’t gain anything from arguing with people who don’t disagree with them.
Especially around these parts, where even the most cordial concurrence among the like-minded on a particular issue frequently has some instructive caveats or nitpicks or demurrals thrown in.
Maybe 0 was an exaggeration. 5 things I’ve changed my mind about. Ugh!
More value engaging with different points of view. Is that better?
Sure, but—and I hate to have to break it to you—we have all been pretty much in entire agreement with you about that from the get-go.
As I said above, there are some fundamental positions that SDMB posters mostly form a united front about—“fight ignorance”, “don’t be a jerk”, etc.—because those are SDMB ground rules. If this site wasn’t mostly unanimous about correcting ignorance and factual error, and slapping down hate speech, most of us wouldn’t be here in the first place. That doesn’t make us an ideological “hive mind”; it’s not a “hive mind” if everybody on an internet Scrabble site wants to play Scrabble, either.
So if you make a flagrantly irrational or counterfactual argument, you are going to get a lot of pushback about it from a lot of different posters. That doesn’t mean that we’re maliciously ganging up on you, or that we’re hopeless conformists who can’t tolerate any divergence from “ideological purity”. It just means that you’re trying to play Parcheesi on the Scrabble board, as it were, and all the Scrabble players who assembled to play Scrabble are going to be highly motivated to shut that shit down.
But that still leaves everybody plenty of room for disagreement and different points of view within the constraints of Scrabble rules.
Walking off with some of Pelosi’s mail, which happens to be a federal crime?
No, no, zip ties and A FUCKING GUN IN THE FUCKING CONGRESS.
(On his right hip.)
Don’t be a jerk is farcical. That’s why there is a pit. Don’t be a jerk is just a wild card that can be used as desired.
Like the two main political parties, the Pit evolved – or devolved, depending on one’s POV – over time.
Uh, the existence of a designated forum where certain specific aspects of the “don’t be a jerk” rule explicitly do not apply doesn’t mean that the general rule itself is “farcical”.
I’m watching the news and it’s funny how the stock market seems to love our newly elected Radical Left Socialist Overlords.
Go figure, huh?
And definitely did apply when @Lynn_Bodoni was in charge.
Pretty sure my first official warning was from her for even suggesting somebody was a troll in here.
Lol, I thought you were Octo, Ann. My apologies.
They also vandalised her office and stole her sign. But hey - they didn’t burn it so it’s all good!
I note that, as per usual, our Usual Suspect is continuing to grossly exaggerate the events of the summer protests (and ignore the extent to which law enforcement and right-wing agitators were responsible for their worst excesses) while also continuing to minimize the actions of the violent and armed insurrectionists who broke into and vandalized the Capitol with the intent to overturn a legal election, capture and bind elected officials with ties and put them on “trial” (much like the violent right-wing insurrectionists tried to do last year to Governor Whitmer), actions that have been egged on by multiple Republican politicians and right-wing media and directly incited by the President himself, who praised them as they were occurring and which continue to be justified on right-wing media. And let’s not ignore the multiple violent insurrectionist attacks on multiple state houses on the same day, also encouraged and continuing to be defended by the right.
This is almost as much fun as watching him explain how people who say mean things on the internet are the real fascists while the aforementioned violent insurrectionists (which included several overt neo-Nazis bearing openly antisemitic messages), who attempted to overthrow a democratic election in order to ensure the installation of an authoritarian demagogue, aren’t.
To be fair, we are at the point where MAGA voices need to be silenced. Corporate America agrees.
https://twitter.com/Liz_A_Harris/status/1347313698508038149?s=19
Is that “silencing” him, though? Or is that an example of yet another private company refusing to provide a platform for someone they consider to be inciting violence and/or criminal actions, or otherwise violating their terms, conditions or principles?