Pitting The Republican for no reason whatsoever

The BBQ Pit
81

I agree that a number of people responded harshly to TR. I disagree that there was much of anything unfair about the response, and I also disagree that there’s an obligation to respond with sunshine and rose petals when somebody shows up and immediately starts acting like an arrogant, low-grade jerk with little or nothing of substance to add to the discourse of the board.

But I’ve seen people with equally shaky beginnings overcome them and become valued contributors in GD. If TR becomes one of them, he’s more than welcome to post the party line to his heart’s content.

82

Scylla, I have great respect for you, but I must take issue with this statement. Like you, I also abhor ad hominem attacks, but from the admittedly few times I watched Rush I’d have to say the man was downright mean and hateful who deliberately distorted what others said to make his point.

Now, perhaps he has mended his ways? It’s been a while(a couple of years) since I watched. I grew horse from shouting at the screen “That’s NOT what they said!”

83

According to the White House, that’d be illegal

:wink:

84

Fuck it, it’s not like I actually have work to do.

first political GD thread:
For the Bushistas. Tell me how good things are. (OP: Reeder, 22 replies)

Liberal posts
Reeder: 1 post
Squink: 1 post
RedFury: 1 post
rjung: 2 posts
Fang: 1 post

Conservative posts
Brutus: 2 posts
december: 1 posts
Scylla: 1 post
Airman Doors USAF: 1 post
Sam Stone: 2 posts
John Mace: 1 post
Publius: 1 post

Non-politcal posts
Duck Duck Goose (ironically, this was the most informative post in the thread)
Conservative Evolutionist
Leaper (arguably liberal)
tigsnort
Aro
newcrasher

Bush Admin to cut pay for soldiers in Irq (OP: Reeder, 18 replies)

liberal posts
Reeder 2 posts
Dogface 1 post
Rashak Mani 1 post
Roger_Mexico 1 post
Zenster 1 post

conservative posts
Monty 4 posts
newcrasher 3 posts
John Mace 1 post

non-political
Jonathan Chance (1 post)
Debaser (2 posts)
Milum (wasn’t sure about this one, 1 post)
Gore vs Bush: The Intelligence Debate (OP: The Republican, 50 replies)

libs
Menocchio 1 post
Reeder 2 posts
Rashik Mani 3 posts
Atreyu 1 post
Zoe 7 posts
kawliga 1 post
minty green 2 posts
spooje 2 posts
RedFury 1 post
rjung 1 post
jshore (more personal than political) 1 post
El Kabong 1 political

cons
The Republican 11 posts
december 2 posts
UncleBill 3 posts

either/or
Boblibdem (say what you want about the name, the post was split between the two) 2 posts

non/huh?
El Kabong 2 non political
Monty 3 posts
(O_o) 1 post
Squink 1 post
Stoid 1 post
Lynn Bodoni 2 posts

I’m running out of time here, so if anyone wants to continue, feel free. One thing that I noticed while scanning through various threads is that the ‘political’ debates in which conservatives and liberals are easily distinguishable are the ones in which the OP deliberately sets out to stir up anger or simply insult “the other side”. The threads “Pro-gun Democrat”, “Religious Fanatacism in the United States”, and “What is Justice in America Today?”, for example, were started by OPs sincerely looking for a actual debate, and so trying to pick out ‘sides’ just based on what was posted (and not on the reputations of the posters) would have ended up with almost everyone in the “either/or” category.

Basically, I don’t think you’re going to be persecuted, actively or passively, unless you put some effort into it first.

85

I don’t think it has anything to do with the Chicago Reader. I would guess the primary reason is because there is a correlation between skepticism and religious skepticism, for which reason this board contains a relatively large amount of atheists, who tend to be liberal (with some notable exceptions) particularly on social issues. This is enough to create something of an imbalance in favor of liberals, but the imbalance feeds on itself, because once a place has a left wing atmosphere it tends to attract more left wingers, and repel right-wingers. Except, of course, those right-wingers who like being in the minority, but most people are not like that.

It is also possible that liberals are more inclined to go about debating politics on message boards, while conservatives are busy posting to stock market message boards and the like.

Of course, this is all speculative, particularly the second hypothesis.

Your arguments don’t follow. You have made a case that you do not trust information coming from an unreliable source. Also that you personally are not interested in reading the thoughts of people whose ideas you have found to be wanting. OK. But it does not follow that someone’s arguments can be dismissed because of who they are. IOW, you can happily ignore any thread in which Ann Coulter’s ideas are being discussed. But you cannot jump into the thread to say “these arguments are invalid because they are being made by Ann Coulter”. And this is particularly so if the arguments are not in fact being made here by Ann Coulter, who does not post to this board, but are being made by other posters, who are willing to defend the arguments logically. In sum, your interests are your own business, but they do not define logic and reasonableness.

BTW, sublight, I think your assumptions on which posters are or are not liberal are open to question.

86

I wasn’t judging by which way the posters leaned, but rather the posts. If one feels persecuted by the presence of known extremists swapping Simpson quotes, then there’s not much hope, is there?

87

I should add that I don’t know the political leanings of most of the people in those threads beyond what they’ve posted there. And since Scylla’s proposal states

It is therefore the number of unique conservative or liberal viewpoints that is important, not the number of liberal or conservative members.

88

This is a mistake. The problem is that the positions of the posters will tend to be based on how extreme or unreasonable the position being argued is. For example, a poster who argues that GWB is using his ties to the CIA to eliminate his political opponents will likely not attract support from a majority of posters. This, because only the most extreme liberals will agree with his case - middle-of-the-roaders and moderate liberals will not support it. Similarly - on the other side - for someone arguing that Clinton has eliminated many of his political opponents over the years.

So you can’t point to any particular thread and say that the majority of posters in this thread expressed support for a conservative/liberal viewpoint therefore the majority of posters on the board tend to support conservative/liberal viewpoints. Because the political positions of a particular thread are a function of the position being argued in this thread, as above. What is significant is how much support a radical liberal position will get as compared to a radical conservative one. And how much support a moderate liberal position will get as compared to a moderate conservative one. Such an assessment, even if possible to arrive at objectively (& I highly doubt it), is surely beyond the bounds of practical analysis.

BTW, as a smidgeon of support for the above, you might note that in both of the threads started by the partisan liberal (Reeder) you have a majority of conservative posters. In the thread started by the partisan conservative (The Republican) you have a majority of liberal posts. This might be explained by the above - when an OP stakes out a far left position, he will encounter an opposing moderate/center/right majority. When a poster stakes out a far right position, he will encounter an opposing moderate/center/left majority. But as a disclaimer I should note that I have not read any of the linked threads under discussion.

But again, Scylla’s point is still valid if a moderate conservative will encounter more opposition than a moderate liberal, and an extreme conservative more opposition than an extreme liberal. I happen to agree with Scylla (I also happen to be - by odd coincidence - a pretty far-right conservative) but I think the truth in this matter is highly subjective and not given to being proved, in the manner you’ve chosen or in any other manner that I can think of.

89

So…did anyone, not knowing there was a new poster called The Republican read the thread title and thing " JesusfuckingChrist, what did we do now?" :smiley: Ok, maybe the religious of us on the right wouldn’t take the lord’s name in vain, but you know what I mean!

90

:smiley: Even though I did know of the poster who came looking to “stir up conversation,” I did first read the thread title as a generic term.

BTW, is conversation something that is “stirred up,” or is that more typically followed by “controversy”? Did anyone else think there was not enough conversation going on around here that it needed to be stirred up?

91

Not me, amigo. I’m certainly a Democrat, but I’m not a liberal by any stretch of the imagination. Civil libertarian on matters of individual freedom, advocate of free markets and open competition on economic matters, highly skeptical of welfare for able-bodied adults, strong believer in balanced budgets, etc., etc.

The only sense in which I’m a liberal is the sense in which party-line Republicans use the term: A person who disputes that what the 'Pubbies want to do is Good and Virtuous.

92

And before the Charlton Heston contingent shows up, allow me to add that the tremendous external costs of gun ownership mean that firearms are not properly a “matter of individual freedom” in my book.

93

To be honest, IzzyR, I agree with much of what you’ve said, although I should mention that I did not choose the method used above; Scylla proposed it and I decided to give it a whirl. I was also not actually trying to prove anything, except perhaps that it was a flawed method for the reason mentioned at the end of my first post: obviously antagonistic posts produce a sharply divided response, while honest calls for debate are much harder to separate along party lines.

I don’t believe that it is. Scylla’s earlier point (I had first wrote initial point, but his initial point is that we are all pieces of shit. This would require further investigation that is beyond the time I currently have available, so I must regrettably set it aside for now) is that one should not disregard statements from people such as Coulter, Limbaugh, FoxNews et al., solely because they come from Coulter, Limbaugh, etc., but rather that one should take the time to actually hear them and judge each of their statements on their own merits. In this vein, judging whether a post leans to the left or right should be decided by looking only at the content of the post, not the past actions of the poster.

Valid, but irrelevant, in my opinion. Since the openly antagonistic threads are usually so obvious right from the thread title, I can’t have much sympathy for someone who claims to be persecuted because they read it. That leaves the actual debates. As I noted above, it’s much more difficult to gauge political persuasion just by the content of the posts when there is substantive discussion going on. “Opposition” in this case is more a matter of bringing up points and arguments that conflict with those presented by others than accusations, rolled eyes and insults. If one comes away from GD feeling persecuted, I can only see it as a result of (a) allowing oneself to be drawn into threads that are obviously started for the purpose of creating bad blood, or (b) failing to view posts on their own individual merits and faults, and allowing one’s judgement to be biased by the poster’s past actions to the point that one starts imagining antagonism in every post.

On previewing, I see minty green’s post. I was not judging whether you are liberal or conservative, but whether the content of your post in that thread supported the “liberal” side or the “conservative” one. In any case I think this shows that trying to guage the SDMB’s political orientation is not a simple as some say it is.

94

Besides, if any group is over-represented on the SDMB, it’s libertarians. Fortunately, I lean that way myself, so I can’t say I feel too persecuted.

Anyway, it’s 2:30 in the am here, so forgive me if I don’t respond for a while.

95

Scylla: I’m not right, and you’re not wrong. And I’m sure as hell not trying to justify assholish behavior. If I’m going to jump on someone because I don’t like him or his politics or whatever, it won’t be a logical step. And I agree with you that the flak TR has taken has not been based in logic. Peace.

96

I wholehearedly agree. ISTM that about the only sizable political group that is significantly underrepresented on the board is the so-called Christian conservatives. We’ve got a few, of course, but the nature of a highly skeptical SDMB is not very welcoming to their dogmatic worldview. Other than the CC’s and a plethora of whole-hog libertarians, I think we’ve got pretty much every political POV represented in something resembling their real-life numbers.

And don’t bother me with trivialities like the international Dopers. :wink:

97

I don’t think so - Scylla made two completely separate points that you appear to be conflating.

  1. In support of the position - first espoused by Sam Stone - that the reason posters like the TR are more likely to be attacked than equally extreme liberal posters is the result of the liberal composition of the board. (This is what your initial post addressed).

  2. In response to the statement by Polycarp that he considered Sam Stone a poster who slanted and misrepresented others’ positions and was inclined to ignore all his posts from now on, all because he had dared agree with Ann Coulter about something, Scylla suggested that every issue should be looked at on its merits, and the mere fact that Ann Coulter had expressed an opinion did not mean that it was beyond the pale of acceptability. (This is what you refer to in your quote above).

These two points are unrelated.

Well that’s an interesting discussion, but not what we are talking about. No one here is complaining about being persecuted in GD - in fact, Scylla specifically disclaimed this, noting that he is the equivalent of 10 ordinary Dopers. What is being discussed is the prevalence of Pit threads such as this one, and whether they are disproportionately aimed at conservative Dopers. And the suggestion here is that this is a product of the political makeup of the board. As evidence of the political makeup, a suggestion was made that one might judge this by looking at GD threads. But the GD threads themselves are not the subject at hand.

98

You forgot to take into account that liberals are busy buying serapes at Hemp.com

So you’re pretty sure you’re right, but the hypothesis is un-testable. Thanks, reverend.

99

Dumbguy,

I believe IzzyR is making a good faith effort here at communicating his views in a reasonable manner. I don’t believe sarcasm and ridicule is warranted nor helpful.

100

There was a caveat in there. You had to demonstrate that you were not full of shit in order for me to make the effort.

Since you confessed to being full of shit, I am under no obligation to do anything.

So go fuck yourself, Chuckles.