Shayna is an intellectual coward

The BBQ Pit
1

This all started with this now closed thread here.

And culminated in Shayna’s comment from this thread:

This is basic intellectual cowardice at its worst. I have no problem with someone going on a crusade against John McCain. However, I do have a problem with the general idea that supporters of one candidate can start a smear campaign against another candidate and expect that we, the supporters of the targeted candidate can do nothing in response aside from deal with the accusations targeted at our candidate.

In all fairness, we need to be able to respond both to the arguments against our candidate and we need to be able to redirect onto the crusader’s candidate. Like I said, it’s one thing if it were a genuine thread.

I also agree that mods need to keep threads on topic, however I think that when we are dealing with campaign threads it needs to be recognized political campaigns happen between multiple competitors. It would be an unreasonable stifling of discussion if someone can spam the forums with threads attacking their candidates enemies without us being able to turn the table directly in the threads in question.

I don’t like thread hijacks anymore than the next person. But I feel that in the upcoming atmosphere of the 2008 Presidential elections any thread opened about a given candidate pretty much opens the entire election up for discussion. Especially when the thread is a targeted attack against one candidate by a supporter of another candidate. The supporters of the targeted candidate should be able to respond in that thread, instead of being forced to create a new, ultimately pointless thread (pointless since the original thread would suffice.)

So it’s just my hope that we are given some degree of latitude in redirecting the topic of discussion when it is clearly a political campaign thread. It’s well known that in a campaign arguments go both ways, we shouldn’t have a bunch of one-sided threads where one side is only allowed to play defense and isn’t allowed to bring up valid counterpoints about the other side’s candidate.

Shayna is dishonest and insulting in trying to pretend the thread is “solely about John McCain.” I think whether you agree with me or not, anyone who has been following political threads on this forum knows the thread is about “Barack Obama’s opponent” not Senator McCain.

I understand the response to this may be, “if you want to talk about Barack Obama, start a thread on Barack Obama.” The problem is, I don’t want to start threads that aren’t genuine. If I really feel the need to pit Barack Obama, I will. But I shouldn’t have to start dishonest smear threads like Shayna just to voice my opinions against someone’s chosen candidate in the venue they have opted to go after my candidate.

In finishing I’d also like to at least ask Shayna to become less of a coward. If you can’t handle someone criticizing your candidate you really do need to stop posting threads about mine. Admittedly this is the first thread of yours I’ve read about John McCain, but I fully expect(ed) to see more of them down the pip.e

2

Whatever, dude.

3

Why can’t you simply refute the accusations directly, rather than changing the topic of the thread? I understand that it may be more effective from a political point of view to derail any subjects that highlight weaknesses of a candidate one supports to instead focus on weaknesses of his/her opponents, but it’s fairly annoying from a message board point of view.

4

I think my original proclamation in that thread that I wasn’t going to respond to Shayna’s arguments about Senator McCain was made in error. I rectified that error by responding to the accusations about Senator McCain later in the thread–to little response from the posters who by then were more interested in the Obama discussion.

I do think I should have to respond to any criticisms, but I also think that any thread targeting one candidate, by a supporter of another by its very nature opens up discussion about both candidates.

If you’ve been following the elections, you will note that Obama himself, when responding to criticism from other campaigns does more than simply refute the other campaigns. He refutes and then responds with criticism of his own, so that he is not purely on the defensive. I feel a generally similar form of discourse should be the norm in discussions about political candidates.

I think that is especially the case considering the overwhelming support of Obama on these forums. If the only thing McCain supporters are allowed to do is respond to allegations in these threads I think it’ll have the effect of essentially removing meaningful opportunities to criticize Obama.

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There are a billion Obama threads on this board already. There are, what, two active McCain threads? Or were two, anyway. Go whine about Obama in one of those.

Anyway, you’re still looking at this politically instead of from a message board POV. Message board etiquette has always been to avoid hijacking a topic, as it is trivial to open a new thread.

6

Bingo.

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The problem is, I don’t view it as a hijack. Until the end of this campaign topics relating to one of the Presidential aspirants clearly are linked to issues concerning the other aspirants. It’s disgusting that supporters of a given candidate want to start threads bashing the opposition, and want to bury their head in the sand and hide from counter-arguments.

The problem is, by forcing the counter-arguments to another thread, the very posters who started the initial discussion can simply refuse to show up. They can hide. Whereas their cowardice and refusal to reply within their own thread will be demonstrable cowardice to everyone, them simply choosing not to show up to a new thread will mostly be given a pass for various reasons.

I’m not necessarily arguing that every McCain-related thread should turn into an argument about Barack Obama. All I’m saying is, threads deliberately designed solely for the purpose of bashing one candidate to the benefit of another candidate, need to be open venues of back and forth argument and discussion about both candidates. If people aren’t comfortable with that then they shouldn’t start such threads, in my opinion.

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It’s one thing to bring up related issues associated with other candidates, e.g. Clinton or Obama’s record on AIDS prevention, condom use, sex education, etc. It’s quite another to decide that you don’t want to allow a discussion to continue that highlights your chosen candidate unfavorably and simply change the topic to something else. That is straight-up hijacking, and it’s irritating for those of us who actually want to discuss a specific topic related to the election.

9

That’s your problem.

10

Person A: I don’t like basketball.
Person B: You’re wrong, I like Cheetos!
Person A: Dude, we’re talking about sports.
Person B: Yeah, but if we’re talking about stuff we like and dislike, why should be limit it to sports, when we can talk about ALL the stuff we like or dislike. Besides, basketball is racist.
Person A: Umm…

11

Not particularly, no. If you aren’t interested in doing anything other than adding these short, meaningless responses you’re welcome to exit yourself from this thread, though.

12

<snort!>

13

Martin, I served up a GD thread on a platter, all about your preposterous accusations of racism against Obama, a thread where you can defend those charges under GD standards – if you can. You made one post there, just to ostentatiously announce you would not be participating. Now who’s the intellectual coward?

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Accusing Brack Obama of being a racist is not a “counter-argument” to a criticism of John McCain’s response to a question about Abstince Only programs. It’s not even a good tu quoue, it’s just an ad hom non-sequitur – in other words, a hijack.

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Let me make it clear, I do think my initial post in the thread in question wasn’t the right way of going about things. But I basically saw Shayna’s thread as this:

“I’m going to insult Senator McCain by calling him one of the the dumbest people on the planet.”

I think it is pretty ludicrous to call any of the current crop of candidates dumb. For the record I think McCain, Obama, and Clinton are all fairly sharp. I also believe that McCain would have the highest measured IQ of any President were he to be elected. (I’ll concede that in the past I’ve said IQ isn’t really very worthwhile–I still basically believe it isn’t, but I do think typically idiots don’t score well on the tests even if they aren’t a very great way to measure intelligence.)

What is even more ludicrous is to call him one of the dumbest people on the planet, that is crass, insulting bullshit. That goes beyond arguing or criticizing, that is name calling.

Since someone was calling my candidate names, I thought it entirely appropriate to do the same with Obama–in that case I responded to her childish claim that “McCain is the dumbest person (or one of) on the planet” with, “Obama is a racist.” Not very mature, but neither was the initial claim. Both of our claims were supported by what I feel are equivalently valuable pieces of evidence. Furthermore, unlike Shayna I think I was being intellectually honest. I do genuinely believe Barack Obama is a racist (that’s a complex thing, though, and I don’t mean it to sound quite as bad as it does in plain text.) I actually doubt that Shayna genuinely believes John McCain is actually one of the dumbest people alive today.

I’ll admit, it isn’t appropriate to put my fingers in my ears and just start a new topic mid-thread. That is why in that thread I went back and responded to Shayna’s claims about Senator McCain. I do agree it was wrong to just start a new topic about Obama mid-thread, but I tried to rectify that. All I’m saying is that in the future, in addition to responding to the thread itself we should be allowed to redirect to the other candidate, as long as it isn’t totally unrelated to the thread at hand. I think that when the OP starts off a thread with name calling, then name calling of THEIR candidate is related.

If Shayna had started a great debate thread to discuss McCain’s stance on free trade, then I agree it would be inappropriate to respond with something about Obama’s being a racist. But I do think it would be appropriate to bring Obama’s views on free trade into the picture.

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It was a hijack, no two ways about it. And I agree with **Diogenes **about the nature of the hijack-- a cheap, unsubstantiated ad hominem.

God, I can’t wait until this fucking election is over…

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Shayna’s thread was about calling John McCain and idiot, nothing more. That’s why I responded by calling Obama a racist.

She wasn’t really talking about McCain’s policy, she was talking about his being an idiot. That’s why I view that whole thread as being so dishonest.

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And you think it was a fair way to start the thread by proclaiming McCain one of the dumbest people on the planet? To mis characterize entirely what he had said?

Let it be said on the record, McCain never doubted whether or not condoms work. He just wasn’t sure he supported money for condom-distribution programs. He was uninformed about the issue, but he wasn’t saying condoms don’t work.

He was saying he’s uninformed about that particular issue and that he’s not entirely sure that public money spent on contraceptives necessarily helps stop the spread of HIV. That isn’t an illogical position. Much government money spent to alleviate hunger by providing food for the third world, for example, doesn’t actually alleviate hunger. No one is saying that happens because food doesn’t alleviate hunger. That would be stupid, obviously eating food alleviates one’s hunger.

I do agree it’s unfortunate McCain was uninformed on that issue, but at the same time I honestly doubt all the other candidates are fully informed on every issue at hand. I seem to remember Obama speaking as though al-Qaeda “may” establish a base in Iraq at some point, when everyone should be well aware that al-Qaeda has had operations in Iraq for quite some time now.

I’m not arguing in favor of hijacks, I’m arguing in favor of “responses in kind.” You start a thread about Obama’s position on Iraq, I should be able to respond with McCain’s position on Iraq. You start a thread calling my candidate an idiot, or any other inappropriate name, I should be able to respond with some name calling of my own.

I’m not arguing for hijacks, just responses-in-kind.

19

Martin, no response to this?

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[shrug] That’s why she started it in the Pit where it belonged, and made it clear in the thread title what she was Pitting about (person, not policies). What’s dishonest about that?