This hasn’t received nearly enough love.
Well done sir.
Just you
When trying to decipher gonzomax’s posts, I find it helpful to remember that his mother took daily advantage of the pregnancy discounts she was able to obtain from the liquor store.
interesting thread, mainly because of the well presented OP.
I think most people are moderates, leaning to one side or the other but willing to listen to both sides of an argument and make up their minds on their own. Each side has it’s zealots. Der Trihs being an example of the worst kind of zealot. He adds nothing (he truly is a one trick pony when it comes to politics), and he turns off people who may otherwise agree with his basic point of view, but loses those people based on his over the top troll-like postings.
He may get enjoyment out of this, but for the life of me, I cannot understand how someone could keep up the schtick for as long has he has. After a while, even a sane kid puts down the phone and stops crank calling people. It gets boring. Which tells me that DT is not kidding. This is how he really feels. And if that’s truly the case, he is a scary nut job, just like any of the right wing nut jobs who feel it’s their duty to bomb an abortion clinic.
There are a lot of reasonable posters on both sides of every argument out here. So I have to ask… why is DT tolerated? Given the bannings and hoo ha of the last week or so, how is it that this guy’s posting privs. continue? Would removing him from the community actually open up worthwhile dialogue between people with different points of view? I think it would. As soon as DT makes an appearance, the thread is lost, and we all know it. I rarely pop into a thread to give my opinion once that nonsense has started.
TPTB seem to give certain posters very long ropes, while others get a noose. DT is one of the posters that can spout whatever he wants, refuse to give cites, and is rarely if ever called on his bs by the mods. Why is that? (He’s not the only poster, mind you… we all can name the other two or three). But the reasons are probably just as disturbing. He brings traffic to these boards. People have opinions about him. Without him, perhaps TPTB feel traffic would slow. I personally doubt it, but who knows? I think people who have opinions and want to share them but don’t because DT knocks a thread so far off track it’s not worth wading through the 5 pages of nonsense would finally be heard.
Sad really. A board that had a number of very bright people still can’t find a way to deal with these outliers and still find a way to have an intellectual discourse. Ignoring him is the only way, but people don’t seem capable of this. If we all did, he’d find his act isn’t working anymore and he’d either stop posting in threads that he was ignored in, or find another place on the web to satisfy his needs.
Either way, the board wins.
And just for the record, in case anyone is wondering, I have a big problem with what Bush and Cheney and gang have done to this country. I have a big problem with a president being allowed to wage war without the advice and consent of the Senate. As a nation, we’ve completely violated the constitution to permit any president the power to inject his brand of diplomacy whereever and whenever he likes. We need to put more controls on the system that allows Iraq and Afghanistan to be in play almost 10 years after the fact. But I feel very strongly that democrats want this power too, so the repealing of these laws to move the power back to the senate will never happen.
What have we done to our country?
There is another option than just ignoring him - all too often, the only responses I see to his rhetoric (if we can even dignify his posts with the word) are variations on “STFU you loon!!!” typically posted by our resident right-wingers, lending the implication of acceptance from the more liberal/moderate voices due to their silence. If folks from all viewpoints would respond in kind and en masse to let Der Trihs and his ilk know unequivocally that such invective is not welcome and does not add value to the discussion - whether it be political, religious or military in nature - maybe he’ll begin to get the picture.
Especially if the OP of whatever thread Der Trihs is shitting in would exercise some control. In this thread dealing with the challenges of coming out as atheist, from a couple years ago, I simply told him to cease his anti-religious bullshit or I’d ask a mod to close the thread, and after a couple such warnings, he left us to a very interesting discussion.
IMO, I believe that the OP has the right (and maybe even a responsibility of sorts) to ask folks to moderate their tone to ensure civil discourse, up to and including asking for the thread to be closed if one poster pulls the discussion off the rails in dramatic fashion.
Then again, we liberals can sometimes be reticent to attack a viewpoint anywhere close to our own - it is perhaps one of the biggest failings of the average liberal mindset, that all viewpoints left of the political spectrum, no matter how radical, should be tolerated. Think of all the times we get upset whenever right-wingers don’t unequivocally condemn the stupid shit coming from the mouths of Glenn Beck/Shawn Hannity/Pat Robertson. The stupid cuts both ways, and in remaining silent to empty, hateful rhetoric from our own side, we give the appearance of acceptance, the same as we accuse the right of doing.
I do agree with you that Der Trihs should have been banned a long time ago - we really should have a limit on how many times a poster can pull threads into the pit single-handedly, because I think he’s in the dozens by now.
The way I have always looked at it is that I support DT’s “right” to post on a privately held chat board (such as the owners grant us), even though I may disagree with the meaning of his posts. As long as he follows the published rules, he has as much right to post as you, me, or someone who only posts in the WoW thread in the Game Room (if such a poster existed).