My view of the ‘good old days’ comes from having lived in them and knowing first hand what they were like vs. many of those around here who weren’t alive then and who’ve been taught nonsense about them from liberal history revisionists.
There’s also the disconnect that comes from my being a conservative and their being liberal. Things that piss me off don’t matter to them, and things that piss them off don’t matter to me. So we’re at loggerheads. But I know all this and I don’t expect to be popular. It’s par for the course around here.
In the beginning try to post in a more polite, tactful and considerate manner, but it was all for naught. There are a lot of good and perfectly nice and honorable people on this board but most of them aren’t to be found in political threads or in the Pit. The kind of people I come into contact with will go ballistic at the slightest hint of a political or moral view different from theirs, and my attempts to be more tactful in my postings still generated the exact same type of abuse they’re engaging in today. So, I decided simply to stop treating them as though they were interested in genuine discussion and adopted the attitude that mhendo refers to where I simply state my opinion and let the chips fall where they may. This annoys them even further because it deprives them of the ability to dissemble, equivocate and obfuscate, which are their favorite defense against ideas they don’t like.
An example of this can be found in the current threads on Bill Cosby. I personally have no idea whether Cosby is guilty of the things he’s been accused of or not, but the mere fact I question it is enough in the minds of most of these people to call me a rape-enabler, rape apologist, and/or rapist or potential rapist myself. It’s really quite ridiculous. And of course they pay absolutely no attention to evidence that some of the claims are false or exaggerated or otherwise not what they claim to be.
The same was the case with the Paterno thread. When news of Jerry Sandusky’s misdeeds first came to light a thread was started here blaming Joe Paterno for it. He was accused of knowing about Sandusky’s raping of children all along and covering up for it. He was accused of being a child raper himself. He was accused along with the administrators of belonging to a cabal of eager child molesters in league with Sandusky, all of whom were allegedly covering for each other and had been for years. Etc., etc., etc. One by one the facts came out and largely due to the efforts of myself and a few other hearty souls each and every one of these ridiculous claims was debunked.
But did this change anyone’s opinion about Joe Paterno? Did it change anyone’s opinion about me? Of course not. If anything it only made them madder.
Same with Woody Allen. I pointed out that Woody Allen was not Soon-Yi Previn’s father, that they never lived together, that he and Mia Farrow were never married and never lived together, and that Soon-Yi was not a child and in fact was the same age when her relationship with Woody Allen began as her mother Mia Farrow was when she began her affair with Frank Sinatra.
Did this change anyone’s opinion about Woody Allen? Did it change anyone’s opinion about me? Of course not, it only made them madder.
There is a very ugly side of human nature to be found on this board, and it is one of the reasons I’ve cut back on my posting activity here. These people aren’t interested in the truth. They aren’t interested in the facts. And they are neither pleased about it nor accepting when they’re shown to be wrong. Instead they reflexively accuse any opponent of the same criminality or moral failings as the subject in question, and when proven wrong continue to cling to their hatred and resentments as though nothing had changed.
So for the most part I only come around these days when I happen to think of some innocuous thing that someone outside the Pit or political threads might have an answer for, or in order to combat the idiotic mob mentality that leaps to the fore every time some successful person finds himself accused of sexual wrongdoing.
