This Year’s Model, yep.
askeptic, I don’t think I’d better.
What I was trying to offer was how it feels to be discussed and being enjoined from responding, since I have a strange perspective as I’m still here. It’s intensely frustrating but you have to put it into perspective and decide whether or not it’s worth losing your privileges for. In this case, it wasn’t, but it does make you think and shift your paradigm a little.
You know I don’t really see the problem. We are all members of this on-line community we know the rules and those of us still here abide by them. Those that do not are BANNED. I don’t see the problem if some people want to express their feelings about the banned ones. The argument that it lowers the tone of the board is silly. We are not a bunch of elite intellectuals (well most of us are not) we are just a random collection of humanity who found our way to the Dope. Some who stop in really are dicks. Why can we not express our feelings about them. Who cares if they cannot defend themselves. It can be argued that they gave up that right when they chose to continue their jerkishness to the point of being BANNED.
Liberal, I’v got a pretty good idea where you’re coming from on this. As I posted a ways back, I do agree with you to an extent.
The question now is, do you see where the rest of us are coming from: that threads like that do allow for a certain amount of catharsis?
For them, yes. But for the banned member, it can be the infection of a wound. Despite Veb’s flippant remark on the matter, people who are banned are not necessarily bad people. They might run afoul of stupid rules like the so-called “hate speech” rule. Or they might have accumulated an undeserved reputation such that what they write is interpreted in the worst possible light — everything is called a hijack, or a nitpick, or whatever weak debators can think of to taunt a stronger opponent. Or they might just have a personality that is too this or that for moderators’ tastes. Or it could just be a colossal series of misunderstandings. Or it could indeed be that they are just assholes. But a good rule of ethics (since some people insist on seeing this in terms of ethics) is designed so that it universally applies (what Kant called a “moral imperative”). That the user is banned is his punishment. That those who remain need not encounter him again is their reward. Those ought to be enough. That the banned member needs to be drawn and quartered is Dark Ages in its mentality. If people have some perceived “need” to be able to dish it out without any fear of taking it, that simply means to me that what they really need is some serious counseling. The rules state that a member may be banned for any reason. Fair enough. But if the rules were to state, “You may be banned for any reason, and the remaining members may stomp what remains of your reputation into the ground like a pack of hyennas feeding on a fallen gazelle,” it might please people with the character of Askeptic (“Who cares if they cannot defend themselves”), but good people might well just move on to some other board. The argument that it provides a catharsis is narrow minded. It might provide a catharsis for a racist to be able to use the n-word, but so what? Let the racist go to Stormfront. And let the third graders who want to come out in the darkness, and sling their own feces at helpless people go to boards where they can be with other cockroaches and monkeys.
Or it could be that they violated the board rules time and time again. Most times it’s because they violated board rules time and time again. It’s interesting that you have so many nefarious reasons why a person could get banned. Do you think that the mods ban people so arbitrarily?
It sure sounds like you are assigning motives, not to mention hurling insults. I’d really like for this discussion to go farther, but it seems to me that your personal experiences are plugging your ears, or in this case eyes 
.
No. In fact, I said that they might actually be assholes. I don’t know why it is relevant that they were banned for good or bad cause — the banning is the punishment. This need to needle at ghosts seems psychotic to me.
I’m not assigning motives; I’m giving you my perception. From where I sit, stomping on dead bodies looks just… bizarre.
Just where are you sitting, Lib? Belleview? There are no dead bodies, and no stomping. If that’s what you see, you should tell 'em to loosen the straps on your canvas pajamas, 'cuz it’s cutting off the blood to your brain.
It’s a metaphor. If it’s something you can’t wrap your brain around, you should sue your teachers.
I remember that episode of I Love Lucy. Gave me nightmares.
Now Lib, I’m taking time away from watching Good Eats, so you’d better pay attention to this.
Last week in the deli, a coworker and I had an incident with a customer. She took umbrage at the way my coworker said “What can I get for you?” Started muttering and swearing. The customers husband threatened the manager. Three other customers complained about the bad customer.
After she (bad customer) left, we all turned to each other with a wtf look and exchanged “what a bitch” remarks. Spent most of the day doing such things actually. Why is this important? It backs up the catharsis argument.
There was no danger in confronting her. The customers and managers were *not * on her side. We weren’t kicking the defenseless. We just needed to blow off stress.
It’s the same thing with banned dopers. More often than not they have kicked up the same strong feelings as the evil customer. It’s far more efficient to just let it out than to just wait for it to dissipate.
Huh. Is that what a classic liberal would do?
I think they’ve excommunicated one another.
After such a sacrifice, how could I not pay attention? I am missing the morning farm report, so I hope you will listen up as well. What you described does not happen here. It is not the case that someone comes stomping through the board while everyone else must shut up because of company rules. In fact, some people here do not hesitate to pile-on whenever they smell the opportunity. No distasteful pitting is beneath them. Now suppose in your scenario, the lot of you all along had screamed at the offenders and parried each of their snipes with snipes of your own, and then the manager, wielding great power, had come out from the back, hoisted the bitch and her pimp by the scruff of their necks, scolded them publicly in front of you all, tossed them out on the street, and posted a billboard notice for all to see that Bitch and Pimp had been ejected, complete with a list of their transgressions, including footage of their past transgressions for anyone to examine, and then provided you a place where you could praise or criticize the managers decision — honestly, beyond that does not lie catharsis, but virulence.
I’ve worked several customer service and retail positions, and I can say with almost 100% certainty that if any customer had come in and gotten into an argument with the us such that they had to be thrown out, and then the manager put up a list of their transgressions…
Well, later on in the brake room we’d end up talking about “that crazy customer who was in earlier!” It just happens.
Er, break room, rather.
Oh, and, if you can’t Pit a man for snuggling with the corpse of an infant, what can you Pit 'im for?
Again Liberal, you’re missing the point. The scenario is not the important point. The aftermath is. The important part was the lack of malice involved in what we were saying afterwards. We didn’t hate her. We weren’t kicking her when she was down. We were just getting shit off of our chests and relating our perspectives on a shared experience.
And I appreciate your sacrifice as well, but the farm report? At least I was missing something good. 
Well, when you own a farm house, the farm report is helpful. 
No one’s buying me and giving me to anyone.
I can be gifted to a few people… let’s start with Ewan MacGregor, and we’ll work our way down the list.
You’ll have to share him. There’s doubtless quite a line waiting outside his doorstep.
Mmm, Ewan McGregor . . . so hot, and so willing to take his clothes off in movies . . .
Back off, I saw him first!