You have to forgive Shodan, he’s what the medical profession calls a “stupid fuckin’ idiot.”
Oh, what the hell.
Fully realizing this will do no good at all,
No, BrainGlutton didn’t post before me.
However:
](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=5058615&highlight=cancel+election#post5058615)And gobear isn’t even that looney.
Same thread, post #39 -
Or this thread, as a hypothetical.
Now then, you were saying?
Regards,
Shodan
Ah, you’ve got me there, Shodan. I concede defeat on this point. If I had a sword, I’d fall on it.
The post by gobear really does cross the line from reasonable concern to paranoia (and is rather out of character for him, isn’t it?). The post by LoiusB doesn’t quite come up to the same level, but is also a bit over the top. The scotandrsn thread isn’t really in the same category at all, since it’s pretty clear he wasn’t putting it out there as a genuine possibility, but more as an “intriguing to think about” bit of fantasy.
There, now. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
[channeling Cmdr. Data] Everyone else, please continue with the petty bickering. 
peals of evil, gloating laughter
Yes, and it is out of character. Which is something I find sort of unsettling.
Lots of otherwise intelligent (mostly) people who seem to have this blind spot towards Bush. And in some case, it really is irrational.
It doesn’t bother me so much coming from the Usual Gang of Idiots (hi, rjung!), but it does concern me when it starts to form a sort of paranoid ethos on the SDMB. It’s all well and good to post about how so-and-so is the worst politician since Sargon the Over-Endowed and they hear jackboots and all that. But when they sound like they’re serious - that’s when I start to worry.
Because I keep hearing the inner dialogue of Travis from Taxi Driver in the background of some Dopers’ posts. And I wonder how they feel about Jodi Foster.
Regards,
Shodan
PS - OK, so I was wrong. It did do some good.
That just means Bush’s policies are so extreme that even the non-wackos are freaking out over them.
The fact that you don’t find anything disturbing over George’s various shitstorms speaks for itself.
And the fact that you are too stupid to realize, or too dishonest to admit, when you have been demonstrated to be wrong, speaks for itself.
Regards,
Shodan
Neither gobear nor LouisB said anything about Bush staging an attack to cancel or postpone the elections.
Here is your line, quoted exactly:
As of your post, not a single post in that thread made the claim that the administration was planning on bringing the event about. Not one. You have been challenged repeatedly on this, and you repeatedly skirt it. Still a strawman.
Regards.
Nor did I claim they did, you clown. That came later, and whoever-it-was chimed in helpfully to say that he did, in fact, believe that Bush would stage or allow a terrorist attack to retain power.
My line, so helpfully quoted by you, refers to cancelling the elections.
gobear’s line, helpfully quoted by me, refers to cancelling the elections.
The “event” being talked about was cancelling the fucking elections. See the words “cancel the elections”?
I thought you were paranoid, not stupid.
Here is your line:
Let’s examine the allegations put forth here.
The first is that “no one said that they would postpone the elections no matter what”. gobear, as we have seen, did in fact state that he thought Bush would cancel the elections. So you are wrong there.
I made no reference to Bush staging an attack, but BrainGlutton posted later to demonstrate that some Dopers believed it. So your allegation that I was engaged in unsubstantiated mind-reading was wrong, too.
There is nothing that I can discover wrong with your allegation that people thought the law might be abused, so you didn’t quite make the trifecta of Dumb.
Better luck next time, Einstein.
I was right. With those Dopers both paranoid and half-witted, it wasn’t going to do any good.
Regards,
Shodan
I’ll repeat that again, so you don’t miss it.
One more time.
Not a single person in the thread said anything about the Bush administration planning to bring about the event prior to your post. Not one.
gobear referenced a prediction he made in an earlier thread. He still did not say the Bush administration was planning on staging an attack to do so. He also equated cancelling with postponing, in case you missed that in your obviously less than thorough reading of the thread.
Okay, let’s try this again.
The mind reading allegation was based on the fact that you made these statements prior to BrainGlutton’s post. But you knew I’d say that, didn’t you?
Of course there wasn’t anything wrong with it, nor was there anything wrong with the other 57 posts, a lot of which were from conservatives like yourself. It was a perfectly healthy debate, one in which party lines DID NOT coincide with where people stood on the issue. That’s a rare fucking thing these days. Is that what bothered you about the thread so much that you had to spew that crap? Oh, let me remind you again, since you keep missing it. Here’s the crap:
One more time. This had not been brought up at the time of your post, but that’s what you attacked.
In finding a conservative who actually engages in debate? That will be easy, as there are plenty around, and you used to belong to that group.
Luckily, there are plenty on both sides who are neither. Too bad we lost one of them.
I notice you skipped over this one -
Which gobear posted prior to my post, as well as mentioning it a year or so prior to my post.
Actually, I was hoping against hope that you would notice what I posted. Apparently not, as the part where I said:
So when I said that some Dopers believed that Bush would stage or allow attacks, I was entirely correct. You, on the other hand, are wrong. Persistently so.
And you skipped over the part where I tried to drive what I said thru your thick head as well:
So when I said “cancel the elections” in reference to a “dreaded event”, I meant that the “dreaded event” was to “cancel the elections”.
I said earlier that paranoia cannot be debated. Neither can stupidity.
Regards,
Shodan
So if Kerry wins, you won’t make any more posts or threads that disparage Bush or his administration? It’s a deal.
And if you’d care to make a friendly wager that you break your promise within, say, 3 months after election day, my email address is in my profile…
Since you repeatedly ignored the main problem I have with your post, even after repeating it several times in a single post to ensure you didn’t miss it, I’ll stick with that single point, and nothing else.
In posts 1 through 57 of that thread, who made a claim along the lines of the bolded statement above?
Wow. It finally happened. My name got brought up in the Pit. (I check through Advanced Search from time to time, because I never come here.)
And with a thread that I would have to qualify as My Most Embarassing Moment in a year and a half of regular posting (after 3 posts, I didn’t come to the SD site for about two and half years, doncha know).
I had, and still have, grave concerns about Bush, given his known actions and statements, the current political climate in the nation, and knowledge I’ve gained about the conditions, historically, in any country that have generally given rise to dictatorships.
However, I had a deep and pathetic misunderstanding about the Constitution at the time of that OP, the correction of which has given me an even deeper respect for the intentions and forethought of the Founding Fathers. Even as a hypothetical, the idea of Bush cancelling the election is pretty outlandish, because essentially, it’s not his to cancel.
I hereby confess and atone for my tinfoil hat paranoia during that time.
WHO TOLD?
Damn.
It’s so one can’t service the President and his Secret Service retinue with a director and a small guest cast without word leaking out somehow.
Shit.
So much for my reputation.
Well, at least I’m not a sloppy eater and I don’t have stains on my clothes.
No. It. Can’t. 
Well, I hope it doesn’t have to.
Much like I hope I don’t need to survive with leprosy.
Now, as I hope my old OP made clear, the sheer volume of anti-Bush threads is only part of the reason I got frustrated enough to post in the first place.
This is a perfect, perfect example of the rest of the reason.
It almost makes the rather sudden bump worth it.
Well, I for one think that Dreyfuss is innocent.