How many threads about homosexuality do we have here on a daily basis? I’d hope nobody would suggest that those don’t bring a few nutcases out of the woodwork.
Nazis, hypocritical? SHOCK!
Daniel
[sub]and that’s not even getting into their stupidity[/sub]
I find it ironic the person trying define what subjects should and should not be made, and ignoring board rules about descriptive titles, is accusing me of junior modding.
Doors, I was surprised to read you think I have something against you. I’ve only disagreed with you because I disagreed with you on the topic at hand. I only recall us disagreeing on the “Godwin law” stuff, have we really disagreed a lot beyond that? I have no animosity towards you are anyone else on the board personally. I very rarely remember debates or who they were with long enough to generate any.
I have to agree with Airman Doors–why bother debating these clowns? There is no argument, no line of logic that can persuade ardent racists that their beliefs are wrong. They take a long time to deconvert because they, like creationists or face-on-Mars believers, are so emotionally invested in their delusions that they are largely immune to reason. As the adage goes, “you can’t reason someone out of a belief they weren’t reasoned into.”
If watching an hour of Jerry Springer isn’t enough to convince them that possessing white skin doesn’t automatically convey inherent superiority to people of other hues, incessant and repetitive wrangling on a message board certainly won’t do the trick.
That’s good. I’ll have to remember that one.
[Jon Stewart, waving bagel] "Obey the Electronic Jew . . . Obey the Electronic Jew . . . [/Jon Stewart, waving bagel]
Not all of 'em are Nazis. Some are just idiots. Please, let’s not offend the idiots.
As for Revtim… calm down, dude.
I would suggest that debating them does have value, so long as the debate is kept firmly in check and their red herrings are studiously ignored.
We must push them to define what “white” means, even though we know it to be an entirely arbitrary taxon bereft of any cultural or genetic basis. (“I know it when I see it.” “Good, then it should be easy to tell us what it is”).
We must push them to explain why they advocate segregation. If they believe that other ethnicities are not inferior, why would one possibly want them segregated?
We must show them that every state in the entire history of humanity has been multi-ethnic and multicultural and, indeed, that segregated communities are inherently less stable than unsegregated ones.
And finally, we must cut to the chase. If they are Holocaust Deniers, their wilful, sick ignorance must be illuminated. Heck, even David Irving now accepts many millions of deaths.
I’m not going to suggest that any subject should be off limits but I have to agree with Airman that I see no point in trying to engage these morons in a debate. What are we going to learn from it? I have no desire to listen patiently to hateful, bigoted fuckheads spew their pseudo-scientific, pseudo-sociolological bullshit. I think that engaging them in a discussion at all makes them feel like their dumbass views have some sort of credibility that needs to be considered by the other side. Sometimes there is only one credible side to a debate, and this is one of those cases. Hell, I don’t even think there is a debate. There is reality and there are raving, deluded, crankhead asswipes with nothing to add to any conversation. These people need to be marginalized and scorned. They need to know that we think they’re idiots with nothing to offer. Millen88 and Franklin Philly are just fucking idiots and they need to be told that they’re fucking idiots. I see nothing to gain from nodding politely as they carefully explain their inane, meth-fueled conspiracy theories. They need to be told to fuck off immediately, not humored.
Wow. I’m really of two minds here. In theory, I want to say, yes, any topic is open for debate. And it should be, really. But I read that thread and just get so … tired. It’s the same old shit again. There’s nothing new there … Mr. Franklin Whatever seems to be determined to frame the debate in such a way to guarantee his own victory but of course no one’s buying … is it really worth it to play word games with these morons? Either eventually they’ll get tired of not automatically having their own way and just leave (I can only hope), or they’ll try to “storm us” (aiii!!!) with a blitzkrieg of posters from their own board (aiii!!! again). I want to say, ban’em just ban’em now quick before they breed but that’s not right either. Arrrgggg.
The best I can do is simply try to ignore them and anything dealing with them. Hmmm … I’m not succeeding am I?
I think there is value in these debates, although I agree the yahoo being debated won’t be convinced.
You never know who’s lurking in the thread. Perhaps a person who is mildly racist will read it, and see how bankrupt the racist ideas he or she was contemplating is from the debate.
Also, you never know when a racist IRL might use a debate tactic that might have been covered in the debate. It’s good practice to debate here, so they can be trounced in real life in front of witnesses. It’s helping fight the good fight.
Plus, it’s very often useful to see the mind of enemy. In the battle against ignorance, having a racist debating here is like interrogating a valuable prisoner of war.
And hell, it can be pretty funny sometimes to see how they support their views.
Not to mention the old “don’t open the thread if you don’t want to read it” chestnut.
Everything is permitted, not everything is helpful.
It serves a purpose to debate blatant racists.
We assume that most people who post and lurk on this board are smart, fair-minded individuals. Wrong. For every Franklin Philly who is brave enough to post, there’s at least one lurker who has the same opinions but is too chicken to air them. Maybe arguing with Philly won’t alter Philly’s views, but maybe it will give sympathetic lurkers a pause.
Also, many of the posters on this board are naive when it comes to racism. They think racists are imaginary boogeymen who all died with the advent of color TV. By beckoning them to the forefront, we are able to shoot down that particular delusion. We are also able to shake the stereotype that racists are illiterate yokels who don’t have electricity, let alone an ISP. No, racists have computers with internet connections just like the rest of us. They could be high school janitors. Or they could be corporate bigwigs. They are just as anonymous as the rest of us.
I don’t think anyone is 100% uneducable. I don’t see why racist ideology–the bane of those who live to fight ignorance–should get a pass.
The problem is that any idea can be so carelessly regarded; I’m sure that the idea of allowing gay people to marry was seen as you see the ideas of Franklin and Millen now.
Countering each instance of ignorance is much more useful, I think. And when they repeat (or paraphrase) themselves, refer them to what you stated previously, or use the magic known as copy/paste. I don’t have the patience to really engage some of these people, but I am appreciative of the ones that do.
Franklin Philly will probably get his asshole ass banned pretty soon. He’s posting facts in great debates that are false and almost certainly deliberately false, and he just put fake words into my mouth via the “quote” function in an effort to insult me.
It takes me about two years to forget that without exception every self-described White Supremacist I’ve argued with has been a deliberately lying asshole; it takes me about two hours to remember it.
Daniel
I have an image in my head that I just can’t shake, so I’ve got to get it out by sharing it with you guys.
It’s of Franklin Philly, after he’s logged off this board, lying back on his swastika-patterned comforter, repeating to himself “hey, I really got them damned Jew liberals goin’” over and over again in order to keep his cock from going limp, as he jerks himself off in the lonely dark of his mom’s basement, looking furtively at pictures of naked black women, while the tears trickle down his face.
Yeah, and their tactics are analogous to trying to hit a moving target.
Very frustrating and at the same time humorous in the way they work.
I would suggest that if they want to engage in debate here that they should all be funneled into one thread until they either give up or the thing gets locked. Enough of this waste of server space threadshit spewage allready.
The sad thing is that there’s no way to get through to this guy; leave him be and he will just continue to be dishonest and spew utter drivel; ban him for this behaviour and he’ll go home crying about a conspiracy.
It’s difficult not to go into a thread in which folks make statements like “Inventing televisions is a genetically white characteristic”: shooting barrelled fish is so hard to resist. But I said I’d stay out of the debate after he broke two rules in as many minutes; I’ll stand firm.
monstro, while I agree with you that there’s a point in debating racists who are sincere, I don’t think there’s any point in debating with people who are deliberately lying. Once someone deliberately lies to you in a debate, the chance for any productive conversation is irrevocably lost, I think.
There’s no way to get through to him, most likely, since he’s not here for a reasonable discussion; however, it is possible to get him out of our hair.
FWIW, Millen at least comes across as sincere to me; I’ve seen him espouse views I find odious, but he does so without deliberately lying in the course of advocating those views. Discussion with him could prove to be productive, I think.
Daniel
Bye now! Buh bye, bye, bye now!
Daniel