Translation: You got your ass handed to you in your own thread, you couldn’t defend your own position and you ran away like a little bitch.
John, just go read the post I pointed you to in this thread, in which I had not said a damn word until you brought up my name. The initial discussion of Sam’s similarity to december was not by me. It didn’t originate with me, either; if you try searching a little more honestly you’ll find it goes way, way back. I do agree with it, sure, and so do a substantial number of other contributors to this thread (are they all also partisan kneejerkers?), but to *attribute * it to me is, as I said, lazy, dishonest, and whiny. Now go tell Mommy you need a diaper.
Um, hardly. :rolleyes:
It is my opinion that a child deserves a mother and a father. I do not need to defend my opinions. And neither do you. Or anyone else. But silly me, I naïvely thought most people would think a child deserves a mother and a father. I forgot that we live in an enlightened, Orwellian age where what was once considered bad is now good, and what was once considered good is now bad.
My mistake was posting it in the first place…
Look, I said “I think…” when I posted that you originated the comparison, and I didn’t mean that it started in this thread. If Des started it long ago, then so be it. You’re the one I’ve noticed using it the most in GD, so that’s why I brought up your name. If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll stand corrected on who started this silliness.
And lazy?? The comparison of Sam to December is nothing if not intellectual laziness. The latter got banned for trolling in an OP. Show me an instance when Sam did this, and I’ll fall all over myself agreeing with you.
If you didn’t want to defend your opinion then why did you start a debate thread about it? was everyone just supposed to agree with you? What did you think was going to happen?
Your phrasing is loaded. Your contention was that a child who does not have parents of both sexes is somehow being deprived. You were trying to imply that non-traditional parents are NOT giving a child what it “deserves.” You failed to articulate any nececssity for families to conform to your own personal ideal. You got your ass kicked in the thread and you ran away.
“Orwellian,” huh? No, it’s not doublespeak, it’s just a reevaluation of outdated and toxic social constrictions. It’s called progress.
Waaahh, nobody agreed with my OP. I never should have posted it.
The hole is pretty deep already. Do yourself a favor and stop digging. 
I believe you have just received a blast from the ‘whooshed’ fan here, Diogenes 
That is entirely immaterial, although it may be annoying. If posters are logical and factual, then political stance doesn’t warrant a pitting. If I find that someone is habitually shifting ground and refusing the burden of proof, then I just put that person on my ignore list.
If you take the time to detail the fallacies made, along with making explicit the flow of the arguments and why your points have not been addressed or dealt with, then you go a long way to making the partisan look foolish.
I just wanted to be sure this comment was repeated. Freedom of speech produces cycles, just like the economic cycles of the market. At the moment the President and the party in power are giving lots of ammo to a certain segment of vocal opponents. It will shift and for all we know the conservatives will start yelling at the President to bring the troops home, end foreign interventions that don’t serve US interests, cut back on wasteful spending like the $4 Bill per month war, etc.
Anyway, so my comment isn’t just parroting of Giraffe’s excellent point. I’ll introduce a bit of data regarding pollution. I could do this in the original thread I guess, but then this comment would be wasted and I don’t want that. Sam noted that the US has relatively low(compared to developed nations) Sulfur DiOxide levels. SO[sup]2[/sup] is indeed a nasty pollutant, harmful to flora and fauna. This low level of this particular pollutant is a good thing.
Now, does this data point speak the way Sam implies it does? Does it mean the US is doing a good job overall, or more to the point, that the government is doing a good job with regards to pollution? I don’t think this datapoint alone is compelling. Firstly we don’t have causality. What causes SO[sup]2[/sup] emissions? Does the US have/do a lot of it? Why does Belgium have such a higher SO[sup]2[/sup] concentration than the US? Does it have to do with the fact that Belgium’s urbanization level is 97% as oppsed to the US’s 77%? Or that their population density is much higher than the US? 327 persons per sq km (847 persons per sq mi) (1991) as opposed to the US’s 27 persons per sq km (70 persons per sq mi) (1993)? Or any one of a thousand other factors which could be important when comparing a country which takes up approximately a third of a continent and a nation which is about the size of Delaware? None of this context, vital to a fair evaluation of the datapoint, was supplied by Sam. Just throw out the datapoint and if people are still unconvinced then it must be that they are partisan shills motivated by a deep hatred of all things Conservative, or Bush in particular.
Sam, I’ve seen this pattern over and over from you. Statistics about the number of schools rebuilt in Iraq without any context such as school attendance or how well the rebuilding was done(some reports make it out to be nothing more than a bad coat of paint in some cases). Statistics about the number of open hospitals in Iraq without the context of the state of their supplies or their ability to actually treat someone. Do you really believe these are irrelevant? Do you think it serves the fight against ignorance to make claims about the peak electric production levels post-war without the accompanying data about distribution and sustained production? I guess you must or you wouldn’t continue doing it, like you did with both the Sulfur DiOxide datapoint and your random sampling of the titles of GD threads you based this thread on.
The US faces some real environmental challenges. Some of them are being dealt with, but some are being ignored and the costs passed on to others(or the future). You can’t make that go away by screaming “Our SO[sup]2[/sup] levels are low!” at people. Likewise, shouting “GD is full of leftist BS” doesn’t make it so without a deeper look than just the titles of a handful of threads.
Enjoy,
Steven
At least they have devolved. There are several posters who seem confused between the difference between debate and rant, and somehow those threads seem to begin in GD before being moved to their proper place in the pit.
I have a nifty conspiracy theory about Kerry and The Democratic National Convention (or more of a prediction, actually) but I think I’ll not start a GD thread about it, unless I can come up with a more…diplomatic way of wording it. But oh! If I start it here I can call him an asshole, right? Decisions, decisions…
When I saw it, people seemed to be saying “one, or if possible two, loving parents is what a child needs” and hence a father isn’t necessary. Did it really become “a child doesn’t need any loving parents at all?” :eek:
Hence the charge of laziness. You didn’t bother to make sure you were right, you just wanted to launch a bitter broadside against someone you have a particular distaste for, and who therefore must be the source of all the evils you wish to excoriate. Most people outgrow that mental process around, oh, third grade or so.
Come on now. That is hardly the source of the comparison. You’re fooling nobody but yourself. Hence the charges of dishonesty and whininess, although other evidence supports them as well.
I already recommended that you actually read this thread. You’ll find the nature of the comparison spelled out very clearly by a number of other posters who, for reasons best known to yourself, have not been the target of your namecalling. No, **Sam ** is being compared to **december ** by so many because of the pervasive intellectual dishonesty of his posts, his reflexive partisanship (of a most unusual variety, at that), his refusal to consider the possibility of his being wrong, and his habit of attributing any debunking of his bullshit as being a personal attack. The differences? He’s a little less “polite” than december, certainly far more whiny, he’s not at all a bigot, and no, he hasn’t actually trolled - but then neither did **december ** until after several thousand posts.
You offered some excellent advice later on here, and I suggest you take it: *When in a hole, stop digging. * Word to the wise, amigo - what you’re doing here does not add to your credibility.
:: trying to wade carefuly through thread, avoiding knees jerking left and right ::
Gosh this has (d)evolved to a few personal squabbles, hasn’t it?
back to the OP Sam I’ve not been posting much at all to GD for quite a while, but have been around for years, and dwelled (mainly in the past) there. Cycles, my man, cycles. The last election was brutal, the pendulum swung rather rightist right after 9/11, and (as has been mentioned) now we have Iraq to serve to divvy us up.
and, as has been pointed out, the titles you note as luridly leftist are hardly that upon examination- Although I’ve not posted to (I think) any of them, I even recognized that even if the OP was absolutely far out there, the thread itself wasn’t.
Titles/OP alone do not indicate the leaning of the board - otherwise during the ‘reign’ of a certain poster, the stock of Tug-A-Hoy’s would have, um, gone up, way, way up.
This is a good point. Also since the banning of the person who was best equipped to fight ignorance on the subject of MENA and to some extent, Iraq, Great Debates has steadily declined.
Bah. Maryland. Belgium is about the size of Maryland, not Delaware(quite a bit bigger than Delaware). Oh well, the point still stands. Comparisons between the two need lots of context not just single datapoints.
Enjoy,
Steven
Sam, Sam, Sam. In your haste to condemn the rampant fringe leftism of the Great Debates forum, you failed to check to see if there actually was rampant fringe leftism. What? Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at your bullshit list o’ cites! And keep in mind that you’re claiming that not only is the front page of GD loaded with fringe left OPs, but that the threads themselves are fringe left circle jerks.
A note before I begin. If you disapprove of a whopping 18% of the thread titles, I don’t think you have much of a fucking complaint to begin with. That said, here we go!
Did America Deserve 9/11?
Honestly, Sam, I don’t know. But I’m more than willing to give this thread a chance. First, the OP. While the thread title says “Deserve”, the actual OP asks if US foreign policy “provoked” the 9/11 attacks. The OP, while you may find it misguided, is written in a calm, reasoned manner. The fact that a post is from a leftist perspective does not mean it isn’t worth debating. Select quotes from this liberal circle jerk:
[ul]
[li]“You have the most screwed up ideas of morality I have ever encountered.”[/li][li]“No, meweus, the U.S.A. did not deserve those terrorist attacks.”[/li][li]“ditto No, meweus, the U.S.A. did not deserve those terrorist attacks.”[/li][li]“To answer the OP - those poor people who died didn’t deserve it. Fuck no.”[/li][li]“No country deserves to have thousands of innocent citizens die.”[/li][li]“If this were in the Pit, I’d tell you exactly what I think of you and your question.”[/li][li]“It strikes me as obvious that the answer is no.”[/li][li]“No, absolutely not. … That doesn’t mean that what happened on September 11th was right. No one deserves any of that.”[/li][li]“No, America did not deserve it.”[/li][/ul]
And so on. Almost every poster said the US did not deserve 9/11. Some said that we may have provoked the attacks, but that is not a radical left position. It’s akin to saying that al-Qaida attacked us because they disagree with what we’re doing. Of course they did! Go read the thread, Sam, and you’ll see that most of the posters agree with what I assume is your position.
"Screw the Planet! I’m an American!"
Once again, you fail to read past the thread title. If you had not been in such a rush to bash the left, perhaps you would have opened this thread and found that the OP is not an anti-American rant, but rather a reasonable post on corporations’ responsibility to the environment. You may disagree with the OP, but it’s hardly a “radical … fringe” post, and both sides of the issue are well represented in the replies.
Guantanamo, Holocaust Parallels
The OP is not saying, as you likely assume, that whatever the US is doing in Guantanamo is equivalent to the Holocaust. The OP actually argues that an indifferent view of possible abuses at Guantanamo is akin to the mindset of German citizens in World War II. I’m sure you disagree. And it looks like others disagree too, as there are numerous posters who take a position contrary to that of the OP.
Bush Campaign Running Most Hostile Campaign in History? Why?
Oooh, nice try, but it’s not gonna work. The actual thread is more moderately titled: “Bush campaign running most negative campaign in recent history? Why?” Note the key word: “recent.” Is Bush’s campaign the most “negative” (not “hostile”, as you claim) in recent history? What the fuck is wrong with a debate about that? The mere fact that you disagree with the OP does not mean that a subject is not worthy of debate and discussion. So I guess we can knock that one off the list, seeing how the OP is based on a story from the fucking Washington Post.
Is the Official 911 Story a Conspiracy Theory?
This is not the first or the last time someone has posted a conspiracy theory with no commentary and asked for debate. Both the right and the left have their fair share of crazy conspiracy OPs; claiming that one such thread is evidence of radical fringe left bias is truly ridiculous. I think this would be a good time for another set of quotes from this allegedly radical thread:
[ul]
[li]“I read this with a very large grain of salt.” (first reply!)[/li][li]"
"[/li][li]“Are you sure that site isn’t satire?”[/li][li]“Another poster indicated that this may be satire, that poster may be correct.” (followup from the crazy radical OP)[/li][li]“The Bush Admin’s failure to plant WMDs in Iraq must be a huge disappointment to conspiracy fans everywhere.”[/li][li]“I don’t think for a minute the Bush administration was in on it, but it IS a conspiracy.” (think carefully about this before you fly off the handle)[/li][li]“The idea that the administration was somehow involved in 9/11 is so stupid it doesn’t even deserve a tinfoil hat.”[/li][/ul]
God damn! What is it with these radical lefties? What kind of fucking crackpots fill a thread with posts that don’t support the claim that 9/11 was a Bush plot?
President Bush Wants to Become a Dictator?
This one’s a total misfire. See blowero’s post.
IMPEACHMENT EMERGENCY: Jan 20 '05 Will Be Too Late…
I’m not even sure what the hell this post is about. Perhaps something about the urgent need to impeach Bush. Let’s skip the analysis and go straight to the leftist crazies:
[ul]
[li]“whats the point of this rant?”[/li][li]“Do you honestly think that articles of impeachment could be drwn up, brought to a vote and that a trial could be held before November of this year? Not a chance.”[/li][li]“None of which, afaik, are grounds for impeachment.” (response to OP followup arguments)[/li][/ul]
Actually, much of the thread is people supporting/opposing Bush in general terms, or debating how impeachment works. Crazy, I say! Crazy!
Are Barbara & Jenna Bush “Fair Game” If They Join Daddy’s Re-Election Team?
“Are the actions of Bush’s campaign workers fair game for the media to pursue?” How would you respond to that, Sam? What if it was about Kerry? This is a subject that deserves debate; you just got all hot and bothered because you saw “Bush” in the title.
Timing of New Terror Warnings
Aw, fuck it. To the quotes!
[ul]
[li]“This is just silly.”[/li][li]“Pelosi, Kerry, and the usual idiots will claim political motivation for any warning issued in 2004.”[/li][li]“No matter what happens, the people that think that GWB eats freshly harvested infant hearts for breakfast will find something to complain about.”[/li][li]“I doubt that there was any overtly political motivation for the terror threat warning.”[/li][/ul]
Eventually, the thread becomes comments about how the warning was just misguided.
Now listen up, Sam Stone! I don’t want to here you telling me that I went through each thread and just picked quotes that made it look like I was right. Of course I did; I am right! Your OP claims that GD as a whole has become a “radical message board” on the “fringe left.” And yet your own cites comprise less than 20% of the threads on the main page of GD. Almost every one of the threads you cite is simply a reasonable OP with an incendiary title. One of the OPs is written from a conservative perspective. And in every single thread, multiple posters take a position opposing that of the OP, including many cases where leftist Dopers oppose the OPs you claim are “fringe.”
You’re full of shit, Sam. Fuck off and quit wasting everyone’s time with your pointless rantings.
While more conservatives than liberals may reject non-traditional families, it’s ridiculous to label someone “fringe left” for accepting the idea that a single mother can successfully raise a child alone.
Mtgman:
Preach it, brother!
You need to learn to place your statistics in a context, Sam, and save us the trouble. I don’t think they’re saying what you think they say, and it gets tiresome spending three hours in front of the computer to debunk them.
The fact that people are disagreeing with the OP just proves how leftist this board is. I call it The Crafter_Man Principle.
This, of course, demonstrates another way Sam acts like december.
Your entire well-constructed fully-researched post will now be ignored.
Now, how long did it take you to write that post, do the coding, and dig up the various quotes from those threads?
Now Sam will handwave it all away (or just plain ignore it), and it will take him a matter of a few minutes, tops.
Just like december he’ll avoid, ignore, and denigrate anything that systematically demolishes his flimsy “points”.
And then, here’s the kicker…
He’ll make the same points again! It’ll be like you never posted!
That’s right, kids! “Debate” through attrition!
At some point, someone will lose their temper with his schtick and get warned, banned, or both.
Sound familiar? december wasn’t the only person who pushed Collounsbury to his well-deserved banning through willful ignorance. Sam was a big help in that, too.
So, Sam you can play your little violin and beg for pity. You’ve been decemberized. Too bad it’s your own fucking fault.
-Joe