Well, there are matters of libel, threats and of course publishing the addresses and phone numbers of users in an attempt to get other users to harass them.
In any case, what’s the deal with “hijacking”, anyway? If people respond to your tangent, aren’t they equally culpable, if actual culpability exists?
Since I quit posting to this thread after I was justly chastised by the mods, I have been reading it and for my last post here, the above literally cracked me right the fuck up.
Bryan Ekers
I have noticed an interesting pattern to your responses. You are quite pleased to primp and preeen and postulate about your own intelligence, yet whenever an opportunity arises to actually engage in a detailed examination of the facts you find you invariably decline the opportunity to actually prove your case. Whatever the reason for your rhetorical choices, they have been repeated consistentlly enough that I thought I would assist you in trying to focus your attention on a single, specific element of dispute. There are many to chose from, but I will begin with a charge that you levelled early in our exchange and have repeatedly failed to support (though, of course, you imagine that you have done so.) Indeed, despite the fact the words in question are your own and have appeared multiple times for your review, you seem incapable of remembering what you actually said. (Or perhaps you are incapable of understanding your own sentences. Or perhaps you are being dishonest. All three hypotheses would fit the facts.)
So, once more with feeling, let’s read the words of Bryan Ekers.
[ul][li]That you imply your intellectually superior position prevents you from fully understanding a position stemming from an intellectually inferior source (whence your use of “boggles”, among other expressions claiming honest confusion) may be taken as my effective definition of “jackass” for the purposes of this thread.[/li][/ul]
The sentence structure is a bit complex, but most of the elements of the statement are clear. You are outlining exactly what qualities support your use of the word “jackass” in this thread. The specific elements required are found in the introductory noun clause that servers as the subject of the passive voice construction (though some functional grammarians might try to turn the whole thing into an extended predicate nominative.) So, let’s look at that introductory clause.
[ul][li]That you imply - This part is pretty clear. One element of the requirement is that I must imply something. Difficult to demonstrate objectively, but the requirement is clear.[/li][li]your intellectually superior position prevents you[/]b - This is pretty clear, too. whatever I imply (in order to justify Bryan ekers “jackass”) must contain the idea that I am too smart to do something else.[/li][li]from fully understanding a position - And here is the thing I must imply that I am prevented from doing: understand a position or argument.[/li][li]stemming from an intellectually inferior source - this is a participial phrase that modifies “position”. In this case, it restricts the scope to positions stemming from a source intellectualy inferior to the subject that might make the iplication (me 
)[/li][li](whence your use of “boggles”, among other expressions claiming honest confusion)** - Well, this is a misuse of the word whence, so the meaning here is subject to confusion. Whence means “from where”, which is a poor fit for this construction, but the other elements of the phrase are quite clear: I have claimed honest confusion with “boggles” or other constructions. So, we might infer from this that the idea that I am honestly confused must be an element of my implication.[/ul][/li]Well, there it is. the standard of proof that Bryan Ekers has set for himself is pretty clear. He must show that I have made a post or posts in this thread that imply:[ol]
[li]That I am too intelligent[/li][li]to fully understand a position[/li][li]made by my intellectual inferior[/li][li]{as made evident through the use of boggles or expressions of honest confusion}[/ol][/li]
There you go, Brayn Ekers. Since you have stated that my “jackassedness” has been proven, quoting a post meeting all of the above criteria should be child’s play for you.
I will give you one hint, though, since you seem a bit confused on the point:
That was just silly. Triply so.
[ol][li]“Condescension” was not your stated definition of “jackass”, so you are once again raising a red herring.[/li][li]I have freely admitted, more than once, that some of my posts in this thread have been condescending.[/li][li]Your belief is clearly contradicted by the written words of this thread, which is a pretty fair illustratio of the quality of your conclusions thus far.[/ol][/li]
Maybe next time we can delve into your failures to read with comprehension or your strange delusion that being in the PIT somehow innoculates you from the red herring fallacy.
Bah! Admit it! Mr Self-Righteous had you scampering for higher grounds with his scathing rethorical skills. Either that or you fell asleep reading one of his treatises on the effective uses of oververbosity and condescension.
In related matters, yep, cutting quip, SlyFrog. Too busy cooking flames to read it the first time around.
RedFury
I apologize. When I was replying to that particular statement I was mistakenly thinking it had originated from Bryan Ekers. My remarks were misdirected when applied to you.
On the other hand, until the post quoted above I cannot recall your making a single statement in this thread about “bullying”. How, exactly, do you think yuo have made it abundantly clear that you despise bullies of any kind?
Uh uh…The Creature’s baaaack!
Thread’s all his. Quite frankly, guy’s turning me into narcoleptic with his keyboard diarrhea. Stinkless, elitist diarrhea I hasten to add.
Night kids.
Bryan ekers
On this point we are in complete agreement, though you will find RedFury considers the idea assinine.
I guess it’s not only nature that abhors a vaccuum.
Nah, I can’t so that cause it’d be dishonest.
What REALLY happened was I ate s shitload of bbq ribs and then drank an assload of beer to cut the grease.
Then I posted. Oops, my mistake.
I do tend to nod off when reading his posts though. They kind of remind me of trying to listen to the weather briefing before a mission during Desert Storm. Instead of just saying - “We’re in the desert and it’s gonna be hot and dusty” - we had to sit through an hour long seminar on irrelevant things like what the weather was gonna be like in southern Kuwait - we were in northeastern Saudi Arabia at the time.
There just aren’t enough :rolleyes:
thanks for the clarification. I thought so, but wanted to be sure.
Say hey, young man, you should know better than trying to pull that sympathy card on me.
Geez, you guys ever tire of announcing your premature deaths? 
Hmmm…death by way of babyback ribs and beer. Yummm.
Hijacking exists just in my mind, then?
Got it.
I hope you’ll correct any mods when they comment on it in the future, then.
-Joe
Babyback ribs? What kind of a pussy eats those? I eat Country Ribs! Big and meaty. Also, you don’t have to spend the next hour trying to dig out rib bits with a toothpick that the toothbrush won’t get out.
Have I? I disagree. And I’m not postulating about my intelligence, though I will on occasion justifiably primp and preen. I feel I’ve earned that right.
It’s not complex at all but your attempt to parse it by breaking it down to individual components and translating them individually is flawed. One could easily derive a conclusion different than (or even opposing) the spirit of the original statement. There is a (possibly apocryphal) anecdote about George Bernard Shaw coining the word “ghoti”, with the letters gh pronounced as it is in “cough”, o pronounced as it is in “women” and ti pronounced as it is in “nation”, hence “ghoti” was homonymous with “fish”.
I initially deflected the request for clarification of the original “jackass” statement, but that was because I thought your asking for an “ethical” justification was comically irrelevant. I’ll try to clarify it now:
You are a jackass because you are using a technique I’ll call (and will presently define) the “Sneering Socrates.” By way of background (I’m sure you already know this, but I’ll add it anyway for the sake of completeness, so feel free to skip this part), “Socratic irony” is an old teaching technique popularized (though I doubt originated) by Socrates and used on his students. Through a series of innocent-seeming questions, Socrates (or any instructor) could draw out a student’s beliefs about a particular subject (as though the student was explaining his beliefs to a person totally unfamiliar with the topic) and perhaps expose and expunge the student’s preconceived notions. The “irony” element is that while the instructor played the role of a person unfamiliar with the topic, in fact he probably had quite a good understanding of it and the common myths/misunderstandings/urban legends surrounding it and that many people use those as the bases for their beliefs.
In debating, Socratic irony is a useful tool if one wants to expose one’s opponent’s positions as flawed. Through a series of questions, one could eventually trap an opponent if you suspect their position has such a flaw. As an example:
Tom: Gun control is a good thing.
Fred: Oh? Why is that? I don’t understand.
If Fred already has a pretty good idea of why Tom believes the way he does, he’d be using Socratic irony to get Tom to explain his position. Fred might consider himself quite knowledgeable on this issue and can recognize the common myths and fallacies surrounding it. Without too much trouble, Fred might find out if Tom is using one of these fallacies as a basis and thus expose his overall position as lacking foundation. An important point is that none of this in any way validates Fred’s (unstated) position on the issue. In its classical use, Socratic irony isn’t even about the true nature of the subject under discussion; it is merely a means of exposing flawed reasoning and preconceptions.
So much for Philosophy 101. The “Socratic Sneer” occurs when the temptation to insert an ad hominem attack proves irresistible:
Tom: Gun control is a good thing.
Fred: What? I can’t believe any civilized person would say that. Clearly you weren’t raised right! The mind boggles! If you can summon the necessary brainpower (though I doubt it’s possible given your obvious limitations) then please, oh please, explain it to me!
In this case, the response implies that Tom’s comment is not only incomprehensible but actually offensive, and not only is Tom’s reasoning flawed but so is Tom himself. Asking an opponent to educate you to their views while simultaneously deriding those views as well as the opponent himself constitutes the sneer. To do this repeatedly (indeed stubbornly) is what reveals the poster as a jackass.
I expect you’ll claim that you didn’t do this, repeatedly or otherwise. I don’t care. You did. In fact, you’ve gotten a lot worse since I started contributing to this thread in large part because you’ve resorted to increasingly ridiculous semantic nitpicking to scrabble for any flaw in reasoning you can claim your opponents have committed (and thus proving their inferior intellects).
I personally consider myself immune to this condescension. Your claim that I can’t understand your statements is ridiculous on its face. It doesn’t even warrant rancor or rebuttal. You may as well accuse me of being a Martian.
I recognize you as a jackass because I recall acting in a similar manner (I’ll fore-go providing examples) and I was a jackass for doing so. I had also resorted to nitpicking and hairsplitting and condescension, though I think I managed to avoid aggressive parsing.
Incidentally, I don’t expect to ever resort to the profanity you seem to find so distasteful. “Jackass” summarizes my opinion of you perfectly. Profanity would be superfluous.
This amused me:
More than once? I can find only once such “admission”, in post #250, in response to RedFury:
That’s your idea of an admission? 
That’s hilarious. And amazingly ironic (though not necessarily Socratic) that:
[ul][li]Red and Xploder should be ashamed of their statements and it is totally irrelevant what Liberal may or may not have done prior to those statements, while[/li][li]You were condescending to Red but that’s okay because he deserved it![/ul][/li]
I can’t find a second “admission” by you. I used the search strings “conde” (for “condescend” and similar words) and “patro” (for “patronize” and similar words). If I missed an “admission”, please point it out and I’ll gladly acknowledge it.
The “red herring” fallacy claim is something I hope we can dispense with in light of this so-called “admission” of yours. Surely if it is shameful for Red/Xploder to have behaved rudely toward Liberal (given that the past behaviour of Liberal is irrelevant because they should have known better than to act that way), then perhaps it is a little bit shameful for you talk rudely to Red (his past behaviour is surely irrelevant because a civilized person would not act that way and fully announce his intent to keep acting this way in future). Or is it okay because it’s in the Pit?
I normally don’t like pointing out hypocrisy as it is a weak attack, but you seem so proud that you had admitted your condescension that the deeper analysis was really needed.
My speculations on the future of this thread, not supported by any particular statements but merely from my overall impressions:
[ul][li]You’ll post a 20-point bullet list pointing out dissimilarities between yourself and equus asinus, thus proving my assessment has no basis;[/li][li]You’ll repeat that I obviously do not (and likely cannot) understand you because of some limitation in my intellect;[/li][li]You’ll claim a victory each and every time a user announces he/she is leaving the thread, regardless of the reason (fatigue, disgust, boredom, acknowledgement of futility, etc.)[/li][li]Liberal will eventually come back and say your idea of defense did him no favours (unlikely, but my respect for him would increase dramatically); and[/li][*]You’ll leave the thread, not necessarily apologizing, but personally resolving to make an attempt to clamp down on future jackassery episodes (I’ll be happy to let you know in future when you’re approaching the brink :D).[/ul]
Wow…sort of like watching a Scott Plaid thread.
btw, the reasons you posted in your bullets are one of the reasons that I quit responding to this condescending asswipe.
what’s worse than carbon dating the glue from the flogged to death horse??
Actually, if I may expand on this a little (and it wasn’t my intent to offend anyone), the phrase “hijack” is perhaps a little overused. Certainly there are posters who have a compulsion to drag any thread in the directions of their pet issues (Liberal, of course, is quite fond of this sort of thing, which I guess sparked this whole kerfuffle in the first place), and the mods can and do intervene in these cases, but does a counterpoint the OP doesn’t care for constitute a “hijack”?
I admit bias, though, probably because of this recent thread in which the OP wanted a tangent discussion (actually it was more like pointing out a major flaw in the thread premise) stopped, saying “And this is my thread, so I get to make that decision.” I disagreed and invited him to take it to the mods if he felt strongly about it. Either he didn’t, or he did and they didn’t care.
By way of disclosure, that OP never actually used the word “hijack” but it was clear that’s what he meant.
Interestingly, Liberal was bashed in that thread even though he didn’t post to it. The basher got a serious two-mod simul-warning, which is kinda cool in itself.
Using the glue to paste down the flaps on a Unabomber-style package sent to your enemies to teach them a lesson?
perhaps.
did the package come postage due?
Why, that would just be shameful.