B practices dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid.
“A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B…”
He is my only one.
Jim is foolish, but he’s not benign. See this thread, one of several in which he says he sends his “scientific and medical theories” via USPS to people he’s seen on TV and department heads. And why does he send them via snail mail? Because, he says,
I would be remiss not to add that US mail is protected by the First Amendment (even if ‘ unsolicited ’
). That is why I use the postal service sometimes. Unlike message boards, if someone has a bee in their bonnet about something, they just have to live with it.
Note the passive aggression.
He’s paranoid that the USPS is opening or destroying his mail and sets up little tests to try to prove it. He uses smiley faces like they’re magic shields. Refuses to research. Feigns confusion and innocence when he’s caught out. Claims to be gay while spouting homophobic nonsense.
Something is not right with this picture.
I promised myself that I would never post in the Pit. But since it’s the only place where I can speak my mind, it appears that I will have no choice.
First of all, I am not defending what I did. Actually when I say what I am about to say, I want to be clear I am speaking broadly and generally. (Also I am not an atheist FWIW.)
Something has clearly changed on these boards, especially since I joined over twenty years ago. Back then, if I brought up something like the DES/Lesbianism thing, I would be applauded. Now people tell me I am worst than Hitler. No, something here has definitely changed.
Also, in a broader sense, we need more freedom of speech protections on message boards, protections closer to what the first amendment would provide, if this were a government entity. I realize that it isn’t, and that it doesn’t. But maybe someone should rethink that. I know statutes certainly could give us more protections on the internet. I wasn’t sure where I stood on this issue before. But now I think I am more certain.
But I certainly accept the moderators’ ruling. And I do intend to abide by it 
.
So a gay dude can’t post about his own experience or sexuality.
I would say “heavy handed” except there is not dense enough material in the universe to make hands that heavy.
Were people really that stupid 20 years ago?!
ETA: At least then you’d only be using a reference 10 years out of date.
Not stupid but more ready (at least on these boards) to simply rebut a post rather than run blubbering to the Hall Monitors going “waaah someone said something that upset me and I need you to make them stop talking!”
Saying you are gay (and we only have his word for it) does not give you carte blanche to say any bigoted thing you want to about gay people. He is not being arbitrarily singled out, he is bearing the burden of his own posting behavior. That’s called equality of treatment. I imagine (not intending to speak for moderators) that the topic ban is broadly drawn to avoid ambiguity with someone who displays limited ability to police his own posting behavior.
Bullshit. You want to be able to write whatever you want without consequences.
That would be the opposite of freedom. That would be the government forcing privately owned entities to provide space for all the creepy crawlies like you to come out of the woodwork and spew their gunk in everyone’s face.
His posting behaviour is a sulphurous fart in Yellowstone and matters not a whit except to the offenderati whose knees are primed to hit their chin. I don’t think it justifies any sanction greater than scorn and ridicule. But apparently that ain’t enough now.
No different than the Evil Captor ruling on his sexual posts. I mean, let’s be real here, Jim isn’t posting “Ask The Gay Guy” informative threads, or anything like that. Just prurient, regressive bullshit.
Asking dumb questions results (or can result) in informative or at least entertaining answers. IME a substantial part of the value of this place is not the questions but the responses; because they are informative or pointed or funny.
Well, if it comes to weighing entertaining you vs offending some already-marginalized gender group, I know which way I’d want the scales to tip.
And if scorn and ridicule actually worked, you’d have more of a point. But it doesn’t.
It never was good enough. Bigotry is wrong and causes harm, even when fueled by stupidity. You can’t fix that by pointing and laughing at it. We pointed and laughed at Trump the whole time, but it didn’t stop him.
The old adage of “just let them say what they want—they’re too stupid to be believed” has been shown time and time again not to work. Not even if you point out their stupidity, as they can come up with more stupidity faster than we can debunk it. And people are more likely to read the original and not get to the response.
To me, it feels like you’re still living in the pre-Trump world, or at least hoping things will go back to there. (Not the Trump really started it, but it was around when Trump came to power that public opinion seemed to realize how the alt right was exploiting our desire to not shut people up.)
If you haven’t watched it yet, I invite you to check out the series “The Alt Right Playbook.” I know it’s a lot of videos, but the guy is doing scholarly work, but releasing it in a form people will listen to now.
(And, no, I’m not saying Jim is part of the alt-right. But the same principles are valid.)
I’ve long wondered if this person is really as uninformed and clueless as he seems, but this post clinches it for me. He knows exactly what he is doing and his “muddled grandpa” bit is just an act.
I haven’t put anyone on ignore, but this poster is clearly not the “confused, somewhat dim, but well-meaning” character he is pretending to be, and I will remember that anytime I see him post henceforth.
Don’t forget playing the victim.
I agree he broke character. But, in doing so, he actually showed the flaw in the simple “freedom of speech” argument he gave. You do in fact need to look out for bad actors.
And, @Jim_B: if the Dope would have put up with that woo bullshit back in the past, deliberately phrased to try and provoke the very reaction it did, then we were failing at our mission. Trolling by pretending to be ignorant is bullshit.
This is not the first Pit thread about this useless moron. I wrote one myself a few years ago.
I don’t understand the jokes he posts.