No, not really. Just reading through this thread I decided to spew out a Conservative version of the bullshit liberal trolling I see in many threads I post in. I have to admit it’s a very easy method to employ, I put almost no thought into a post and it gets the exact reaction I wanted without fail. It’s easy to troll, and I felt like I it was time to give a little turnabout is fair play since typically when I’m posting in a thread and someone starts resorting to inane Bushism and such I just ignore them.
I somewhat disagree. I don’t think conservatism, as it has been definited in America for most of its history, includes “minimal government interference in people’s private lives.” At least not Republican conservatism. That’s more a Libertarian value.
I’m a pretty ardent liberal/libertarian. I’m very liberal on social issues, but I’m not completely laissez-faire on economic issues. I’m for free market capitalism, but with some government restraint and safeguards. Plus I support a basic form of nationalized healthcare. Therefore, I sort of straddle the liberal and libertarian ideology.
I don’t despise Conservatives. I don’t despise traditional Republican ideology. But what I do hate is this George Bush, Jr. brand of neo-Conservatism. It’s not, in my opinion, reflective of traditional Republican values. It is not fiscally conservative by any stretch of the imagination. It is not about smaller government. It is not about keeping its nose out of your business. And this is what pisses me off. If the Republican Party got back to this ideology, I might actually respect it.
That’s a silly argument. If I wrote a rant about how the Bush Administration is a bunch of evil bastards because they played up the myth of Pat Tillman and subsequently lied about the causes of his death, including deceiving his family and destroying evidence to uphold the myth, the facts of the case are not dependent on how many Bush apologists show up to refute the charges.
Truth can come out in open debate, but that’s certainly not the only venue for it.
If we’re making a(nother) list, put PatriotX on there as well. He doesn’t seem to be around nowadays as much as he used to be, but the guy’s got a good head on his shoulders.
Well, let’s not get too crazy here… 
OK, PatriotX is on the list. As for SA, believe it or not, he and I have actually agreed on several things in the past, and may do so again. When we disagreed, it stayed fairly civil.
You would be demonstrating a definite bias that looks for enemies before it looks for truth.
So far, there is no evidence that anyone in the Administration knew anything about the “real” details of Tillman’s death at any time before the Army revealed it to the Tillman family. The evidence so far points to a battlefield screw-up and cover-up, the nature of which only slowly made it to the top echelons of the Army, where the initial cover-up was, at first, compounded and then slowly corrected.
By leaping to the conclusion that the Bush Administration is a bunch of evil bastards because of the Tillman event, based on potentially erroneous information, you place youirself squarely among those who chose to leap to conclusions about Iraqi WMDs based on their hatred for Hussein. Now, it may turn out, some day, that Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz actually did know about and participate in the Tillman cover-up, but there is not yet any evidence to support that claim.
True as far as that goes, friend Tomn. But concurrent with that truth is the further truth that even were it true, you and I are most unlikely ever to find out. Deniability is a corrupt form of truth.
I tend to agree with you, most likely the actual cover-up took place and remained at a very low level. Friendly fire deaths are radioactive anthrax, nobody in there right mind wants anything to do with them, including investigating. A captain who uncovers evidence implicating generals is contemplating a career in real estate.
Can I just mention that using a bunch of over-the-top adjectives, usually reserved for aural speech, to describe written speech, doesn’t help anyone’s case? I’m referring to things such as this:
“Those shrill, whiny liberals, with their screeching shrillness, are always whining and screaming shrilly. Quit crying and whining, you shrill, screechy, screaming whiners.”
I don’t know about everyone else, but this annoys me to no end.
Aural speech? Is that some kind of New Age speech? 
Perhaps you meant oral speech, as opposed to written speech.
But no, it doesn’t bother me at all. I think it’s an accurate descripition of some writing.
Regardless of our ability or likelihood of discovering the truth, the issue addressed was different. Criticism has been lodged at some posters, rjung clearly among them, that they are willing to go to any extreme to paint the members of the Bush Administration as evil. As an event in that discussion, rjung did, indeed, post a hypothetical which pretty much demonstrated the point made by those who have offered criticism. Aside from the “they got us into this” argument (which is not going to persuade me, since I oppose the Iraqi debacle but supported the initial efforts in Afghanistan where Tillman died), there is no linkage between the Administration and the Tillman cover-up. Beyond that, there has never been any reliable speculation linking the Adminstration to the cover-up. All the evidence, so far, indicates that this is an internal problem in the Army. So when rjung makes a charge (even a hypothetical one) that “the Bush Administration is a bunch of evil bastards because they played up the myth of Pat Tillman and subsequently lied about the causes of his death, including deceiving his family and destroying evidence to uphold the myth,” then that falls into exactly the sort of “mindless Bush bashing” that prompted the criticism.
I do not share the general disdain for rjung’s posts that has been displayed in these threads. There really are not that many posters (left, right, center, religious, atheist, straight, gay, Fundamentalist Christian, skeptic, pick-your-oppressive-or-oppressed group) whom I hold in actual contempt, regardless of their beliefs or their posting styles. But I do think that if one is being criticzed for a particular approach to posting, it is better not to demonstrate exactly the problems of which one has been accused as some sort of defense.
Aural vs oral: oral might have been a better choice, but I think a case can be made that since the descriptions are based on what people read in order to take umbrage, using what they would have heard (aural) can be defended.
I would disagree. I think it’s definitely a new situation we’ve found ourselves in - the Republican Party as a champion of a fringe religious movement and the unthinking ally of Big Business. A lot of the anti-liberty sentiment in the GOP is a direct consequence of their newfound power-base’s societal power-grab. The post-Reagan GOP is certainly not conservative, but the GOP was moreso before that.
Of course, go back a few decades earlier and politics was framed around other issues, and it didn’t fit neatly into conservative-liberal at that point either.
I would say that you actually sound pretty much liberal here - you support regulation of Big Business, while libertarianism definitely proposes to remove present safeguards on it. And nationalized healthcare is certainly contrary to libertarian principles. Social liberalism is the province of the left as well as the libertarians (though it seems more and more that neither major party really believes in this idea - Democrats unfortunately have been surprisingly frequent supporters of grandstanding about the dangers of the wrong kind of music and suchlike.)
I’ve been told by my parents that it used to be seriously worth considering voting for Republicans. I am too young to remember this era, but that’s pretty striking coming from my folks, who are pretty liberal and particularly opposed to the social conservatism that has blossomed so much in the Republican party in the last few years.
It’s my “How to write better” assignment for the day, “Exaggerating for effect” (#22 in a series).
As for the Pat Tillman thing, while I agree that we don’t know at what level the cover-up was authorized at, I find it interesting that there doesn’t seem to be any sort of effort by the Bush Administration to investigate why there was a cover-up at all. Especially since GWB himself wasn’t shy about embracing the Tillman myth before the fit hit the shan:
Martin Hyde, deliberate trolling is not acceptable, even as a response to the perceived trolling of others. If you believe someone to be trolling, report the post.
Amongst the Cecilians, you might as well title that “Painting a Big Fat Target on Yer Ass So Some Smart-Ass Can Nail Ya!” I find it cumbersome and unwieldy, hence I never exaggerate for effect.
I can’t really find a lot to blame here, save for marginal venality. The cover up no doubt started on the spot, who’s going to insist on telling an ugly truth that nobody wants to hear? Especially when that “nobody” who doesn’t want to hear it is the people you depend on in moments of acute stress?
I sure as hell wouldn’t, if I were where he was and wearing the same sort of boots. I very much doubt there was much discussion and conspiracy, the easy thing to do was to cover it up. The reason it was so difficult to uncover is the utter lack of enthusiasm for being seen as “not a team player”, but as a shit-disturber.
Of course, exploiting such a death for political purposes sucks, but it wouldn’t hardly suck any less if he had died from enemy action.
~hops about~
Don’t do that!
If we’ve got any hope of discussion then we need to stick to the facts. If you just want to embellish until something bears only a passing isomorphism with reality, then you might as well yell at a wall.
I don’t think your exaggerations are having quite the effect you think they have.
That’s what the link is for.
Considering the context of my message was about a nonexistent hypothetical rant (and one clearly labelled as such), I hardly think it counts as anything resembling an attempt to deceive.
Oh, and just to tie up a loose end:
“liberals = traitors”:
“Muslims = terrorists”:
“feminists = lesbians”:
And a few more, just to show off:
For once I completely agree with Sam. (Actually, this happens with some regularity, but it’s almost always in forums other than GD and the Pit.)
I don’t know. Whenever I take one of those political compass test, I’m always right on the cusp of liberal/libertarian, just on the libertarian side. I just think either economic extreme is ridiculous. I want a free and fair economy. I don’t think simply removing government interference guarantees that. I think the economy can be stifled by unfair business practices as much as government, and I think a truly free and fair market is only possible in theory—just like socialism is—so I have to strike a compromise which gives free market enough room to operate fairly with minimal regulation.
Personally, I’d be just as happy to live in a moderately socialist state as a moderately libertarian state. I know it may sound odd, but I could at least live with the difference of opinion on what a government’s role in society and the distribution of wealth should be. On the one hand, I don’t care if I pay 50% in taxes as long as I’m taken care of. On the other hand, I make enough money that I can take care of myself. I think the measure of a modern society is how well it takes care of its least fortunate members. On the other hand, I completely understand if you have a more every person for themselves mentality. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that either, but it’s easy for me to say as I don’t lose out in either scenario. This is why I’m wishy washy about my liberalism or libertarianism. Both political ideologies are reasonable to me.
However, I do have a problem when government starts telling me what I can or cannot do in my bedroom, when it stifles scientific progress on so-called “moral” grounds, when it starts calling critics of the state traitors, etc… The social conservativeness of Republicans is the main reason I could never see myself voting for them.
And we seem to forget that Republicans do have a history of social reform and welfare. The religious element of the right (which has always existed, although not with the fervor it does today) wanted to defend family and community against excesses of the free market. Lincoln emancipated the slaves (yes, I realize it’s more complex than this). Nixon created the FDA, the EPA, and the OSHA. It’s not like Republicans have always been die-hard literal laissez-faire capitalists. It’s not like they didn’t do their share of responsible social and environmental action.
And, to me, it’s a pity and a shame what the Republican Party represents today. And I daresay the same about the Democrats.
Um, the example you gave wasn’t very good. Starving Artist was saying that 99.999% of terrorists are Muslims (an analysis I absolutely disagree with–part of it depends on whose definition of “terrorist” you’re using. Even so, have we forgotten about ETA, IRA, anti-abortion activists, etc…?) This does not mean that 99.999% of Muslims are terrorists.
Basically, if you remember those logic puzzles, All A are B does not mean All B are A.