Shayna is an intellectual coward

The BBQ Pit
81

**Martin,
**
Yes these boards lean left. But no, in this case that is not what is hurting you. Shayna opened a thread about McCain, with the stipulation that it should stay about McCain (which shouldn’t even be necessary. You were free to defend McCain. But you instead attacked Obama. That is 1) childish, as even if you’re right about Obama, she can still be right about McCain. 2) It’s annoying and difficult to debate when someone will not address the subject being debated.

So, you fucked up here, and there.

Maybe it’s time to take a break, come back fresh in the morning and type something like, “You know, I fucked up. My apologies to all.”

magellan01– conservative

82

Nope, sorry, you’re wrong. These threads go against you because you’re a fuckhole. A rude, overgrown bully of a man who thinks he’s superior to everyone & everything, & it comes through loud & clear in your posts. You’re a small minded, assholish, fuckwitted phelgm breathed ,cum guzzling cat litter munching egocentric dipshit, & a waste of perfectly good air that everybody else can breathe.
I should feel sorry for you, but I don’t, because you won’t be happy until everyone around you is as miserable as you are.

Go suck an egg.

83

I thought you guys hated “the culture of victimhood.”

84

You know, the title of this thread went over better when it was a song by the Ramones.

85

You’ve grasped the essence of posting to the SDMB, but not one of the complications.

You are certainly correct that a certain percentage of Dopers are knee-jerk morons who reflexively attack anything that isn’t as far out in space as they are. They do this for everything, and they make up a good percentage of the pilers-on and trolling, both here and in GD. They can be disregarded, or else take (as you do) moral satisfaction from mentally identifying the logical fallacies, strawman arguments, non sequiturs, special pleadings, and outright dishonesty on which they rely.

That isn’t all Dopers, however. There is a somewhat less vocal group of more reasonable Dopers, mostly but not exclusively moderate to conservative. The trick is to be able to listen to what they say without letting the other trolls drown them out, or annoy you to the point where you react to all the way you should to the idiots (hi, Princhester!).

Now it is probably true that the Usual Suspects treat hijacks differently. If someone starts a thread about Obama that is anything but adulatory, it won’t go two pages before some moron starts with the “McCain is stupid/Bush lied about Iraq/whatever” bull crap. And the Usual Suspects will welcome that warmly, as a respite from the difficult tasks of blackwhite thinking that are necessitated by the Obama personality cult. If all you want is to make them look stupid, well, it isn’t very hard, as long as you discount the automatic rants, Pittings, and screaming insults that substitute for thought in their world.

But if you want genuine discussion, you need to discount them without discounting people capable of genuine thought. They are not as common as the idiots, but they do exist.

Sure, the Obama lickspittles like Shayna and so forth are going to throw a tantrum if anyone dissents from the Beatitudes of St. Barack. But who cares? The answer (IMO) is not to hijack McCain threads but to stick to your guns in Obama threads.

The short version of all this is, if you want an easy win, engage with the trolls. If you want something worthwhile, whip the trolls into a frenzy by dissenting from the lockstep thinking that is all they are capable of, savor the howls, and then move on to real discourse. It isn’t easy, and I am not always successful at it, but it is a lot of fun to try.

My $.02 worth.

Regards,
Shodan

86

It may please fellow Dopers to hear that friend Shayna, Queen of the Jungle has taken on another career as book cover artists model, a la Fabio.

Given her political perspicacity and vocabulary, it may futher surprise that she is, indeed, blonde. I’m sure I speak for a broad consensus when I wish her well in her new career.

87

You overestimate the value of your contribution.

88

Martin -

See what I mean?

Regards,
Shodan

89

Do you have a fulfilling home and professional life?

90

Not that anyone specifically asked my view, but…

I don’t believe, Martin Hyde, that you’re on the correct side of this argument.

It’s absolutely true that this board leans left, and that the conservative poster here is often the target of pile-ons for precisely that reason. I don’t know if I qualify as a true-blue conservative, but I’ve certainly been at the bottom for more than one inane pile-on here, for whatever bona fides that gives me.

That said, I would share the following observations:

There’s a difference between Obama is a racist and McCain is the dumbest person on the planet. Especially in the Pit.

The McCain line is clearly hyperbole. Shayna does not seriously contend that of the trillion or so people in the world, presidential candidiate John McCain is the most intellectually limited, and no fair-minded reader would take it to be so. No one should reasonably attempt to debate in this thread by offering examples of dumber people. What that title clearly is meant to say is: Listen to this ultra-dumb thing McCain said/did. And that’s a fair subject for a thread.

Obama is a racist is an accusation that has been seriously made. It’s not clearly hyperbole. If you offer this observation, you invite people to debate this actual assertion. Now, I don’t say it’s unfair to offer this as a subject for debate (although I would disagree with the premise) but it’s not reasonable to connect it the subject of the other thread.

Shayna is not a neutral party on the subject of Senator Obama. But you cannot complain at how unfairly she dismisses logical argument without first offering it. In other words, debate the debate. You haven’t done that here.

91

Martin,

You were out of line to hi-jack. You should have retracted sooner. Live and learn.
So just sit back and watch the bedlam when Hillary takes the nomination. :wink:

92

Say Rick, who’s been posting under your account name for the past few months?

Disclaimer for the humor-impaired: I am in no way calling Bricker a sock. It’s just that I’m not used to this new and improved version.

93

Yes, I do - thanks for asking. My kids are doing well (they are visiting friends in Germany right now), and I am making real progress in my new position. And me and the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan will celebrate our twenty-sixth anniversary next month. I want to surprise her with a trip to Vegas for the weekend.

I do try to make time for my hobbies, though - lifting weights, reading, cooking, baiting trolls.

It’s a good life if you don’t weaken.*

Regards,
Shodan

*Anyone recognize the reference?

94

I think a night with some “magic beads” and candles might be just the thing to cure what ails him.

95

They live in it. Don’t let them fool you for a moment.

Besides that, it is secondary to being not of the reality-based community. That is to say, if one is living in a fantasy world, it’s fairly easy to imagine unending victimhood.

Why one would get off on imagining such is more a matter of one’s core personality, I suppose.

96

Sure! That’s the really, really hairy porn guy, right?

97

At this point, I don’t have anything original to contribute.

But I’d like to thank Martin Hyde for starting such an entertaining & enlightening thread.

98

From my point of view, I haven’t changed a bit. I’m applying the same standards to this crop of politicos that I have to previous crops.

The only difference is that now, when I speak up to defend a politician against unjustified or ill-supported bashing, there’s a fair chance it’ll be a Democrat I’m defending, because both Senator Clinton and Senator Obama are oft-aimed targets. When it was President Bush I defended against the “OHMIGAWD HE IS TEH EVIL!!1!!!” frothing, I was considered by some here a mindless Bushbot. The occasions when I spoke up in support of Rep. Kennedy, let’s say, after the Ambien business were apparently dismissed.

But now? Hey, now maybe I’m one of the good guys! I’m defending Democrats!

And that will last until people start hammering McCain and I feel compelled to try and stop that tide, and then, undoubtedly, I’ll be a mindless McCain-bot.

sigh

You know, it’s perfectly possible to disagree with a candidate’s positions and actions without assuming that they are the minions of Satan. I’m just sayin’.

99

Heretic.

Regards,
Shodan

100

It makes more sense when you realize that lawyers shed their skin every few years.