I’m also curious about allegations of ad-homineism (is that a word?). I feel that I’ve not engaged in any ad-hominem attacks against beliefs. Secondly, if I have it’s most likely against “liberalism” and democrats, which makes my characterazation doubly egregious. I have engaged in ad hominem attacks against people, but I feel it was always in response to ad hominem comments and, while not justified, was at the point where rational discourse had already reached it’s possible limit. ala GuanoLad.
And as for The Ryan’s comments
The proper course can indeed involve coming to the pit and “whining” about it, or bitching about it, or whatever. That is what the pit is for.
The problem with that is that you get the cases of someone like Dianne Fienstein who on every front (except one or two) can be called a conservative. You have republicans like Tom Campbell, who on every front except for one or two can be called liberal. A liberal Republican vs a conservative Democrat.
Also, Al Gore is in many ways a conservative Democrat. He has also done more to move the Democratic part to the right and towards conservatism than possibly anyone else. I don’t think you can call someone attempting to make the Democratic party more conservative a liberal. He is the antithis of liberalism. I think it would be better if we could use terms that completely exclude party affiliation. Therefore some libertarians and democrats could be called conservative (Libertarian springs to mind) and some Republicans and Libertarians could be called Liberal.
oldscratch: Sshh! I was trying to make it seem like I could think of other ad hominem liberals besides Stoidela and RTA! Don’t ruin it just because you don’t happen to actually be an ad hominem liberal.
SPOOFE: Nice post, except the part that oldscratch already covered. While it may be convenient for the purposes of this discussion for us to assume that all Democrats are liberals, that still doesn’t make the assumption any more accurate. If Paul Wellstone and Dianne Feinstein are both liberals, then the term is being described so broadly as to have functionally lost all practical meaning.
How long must I stay here? I don’t think I can do it much longer. I was almost found it by a liberal today, and the whole plan was in Jeopardy!
Furtunately, I was able to brazen my way through the accusation, and the damn liberal scum was to lazy to bother to look up the evidence even though they had me dead to rights!
It might have gotten looked up anyway, but lucky for me another one of your double agents who has penetrated much deeper into the liberal organization was able to vouch for me.
Whew! That was a close one!
I seem to have been conditionally accepted. Over the coming weeks, I’ll let them “turn” me. Then it’s just a matter of gaining their trust until we’ve penetrated all aspects of the organization.
Let this faithful servant know when the time is right to strike.
Megadittos,
Agent Scylla
PS. delete this email as soon as you get it.
FWIW: I like her. I always have and I think I always will. Any woman who grieves that deeply for a dog has my eternal respect. And she never slammed me when I posted on and on about my brother during her OP about her dog. See, I didn’t know it was about a dog. I thought it was about a person. When I realized that I also understood that I wouldn’t change a thing about what I said to her. And she accepted my heart-felt posts for what they were worth.
So… you don’t like her, her threads… don’t post. But I like her. I may not agree with her politically or on other subjects but I sure as shit don’t want her to “go away”. I like her and I want her to stay. She accepted me for what I’m worth and I’m willing to do the same.
You hesitate to assume that all Democrats are liberals, and you use this as one of the reasons to conclude that liberals are outnumbered on this board.
However, you seem perfectly content to assume that all Republicans or Libertarians are conservative.
Well, close. I know fundamentally that all Democrats aren’t liberals. It simply isn’t a debatable point.
Do I? Where?
Look, my original point was that vocal members of the right wing–which includes both some Republicans and some libertarians–are more prevalent on this board than vocal members of the left wing, thus rendering criticism of Stoidela on the grounds of her frothing partisanship somewhat unbalanced and hypocritical. At Milo’s prompting, I made a tangent into the left and right wings of this board overall*, but while mention of libertarians was made, I don’t think I ever said that all Republicans or libertarians were conservative. I know better than that.
It’s true, though, that many libertarians–on this board and elsewhere–share the conservative philosophy (or a conservative philosophy)when it comes to certain basic issues like the free market, publically subsidized social programs, or the size of government. For this reason, conservative Republicans and conservative libertarians are often on the same side (and sometimes indistinguishable from one another) in debates in which the primary contesting view is held by liberals–with the caveat, as I said before, that in discussions of civil liberties or personal freedoms, even conservative libertarians will often side more with the left than the right.
Besides, oldscratch gave a perfect example of a non-conservative Republican in Tom Campbell; if I had disagreed with that characterization, I would have said so. Not only, then, have I not said that all Republicans and libertarians are conservative, but by not objecting to oldscratch’s post, I’ve implicitly granted the converse.
*as separate from the Democrats and Republicans, which is what has started this tangent.
Doesn’t it strike you as a bit peculiar that the only evidence Gararene has of my “irrationality” are threads in which he was either unwilling or unable to present any countering argument?
So does the fact that you didn’t comment on my post but instead brought something in from completely left field mean that you accept that it was proper?
Dunno who “Gararene” is, The Ryan, but frankly I had nothing more to add to the admirable job Monty, Kimstu, and tomndebb were doing to staunch your lunacy. Your logic is often poor, and your bedside manner normally atrocious. The words “civil exchange,” I can only assume, do not appear together in your dictionary–a book, I might add, which apparently contains several definitions which can be found nowhere else, if your peculiarly persistent habit of disagreeing with everyone about simple, simple concepts is to be any judge.
Well, your original point was worded so as to leave the impression that you thought there were simply a helluva lot more right-wingers than left-wingers on the board, which I disagreed with. However, I thank you for clarifying about “vocal members”, and I assume that you’re referring to the better-known members, and not including those who only make a post every once in a while (like farmer).
And, again, it depends on your point of view. When it comes to, for example, Gun Control threads, there certainly does seem to be a majority of right-leaning posters… but in abortion threads, you’ll see more lefty action.
Anyway, I find the point too trivial to argue over (you say to-mah-to, I say to-may-to), so I think I’m just gonna concede and drop it. After all, I can’t very well tell you that your point-of-view is completely wrong, can I?
No, and likewise. Like many things, it’s probably just a matter of perception and personal experience. Pax.
('Course, you and I could undertake a joint cross-ideology empirical experiment to quantify this board’s collective political ideology on different issues…but that’d be a hell of a lot of work, and we’re lazy, lazy men. grin)
See, well, there it is. He’s a big pot head. I’M not; I don’t do dope I just suckered him in… see what a whacked out pot head he is? How can you take anything he says seriously? The man is a pot fiend! If this doesn’t get you to swing your vote I don’t know WHAT will…
Man, I gotta say that your ad hominem/non-ad hominem comments were a little short of the mark, mainly because I think most of those posters are all decent debaters. The problem is in the specifics. Asmodean as an ad hominem debater? I never saw that…but I’ve felt that way about Kimstu in a post or two.
Really, though, It doesn’t suprise me to find posts where people can’t argue well and do indeed resort to invalid generalizations and personal commentary.
Admittedly there are some posters who lie on the side of, uh, imperfection–myself included. But I haven’t met anyone here yet who is consistently a fucking idiot.
Someone else here commented on the Thirteenth Amendment post of The Ryan’s, which I thought was a great example of rationality. I happened to agree with him quite a bit in there and found that his arguments were misconstrued. But anyway, it is GD after all, so no suprise there.
I’ve had many problems with individual posters in individual threads, and I am SURE others felt the same for me (I would be damn suprised if they didn’t because in rereading old posts I sure do!), but I have yet to find someone who was my enemy at every turn.
Anyway, enough of being a moderate for now. Back to GD…
I don’t consider it from left field. I was using the term “peculiar” as a milder version of “improper”, and trying to see whether you agreed with the weaker vesrion of my statement.
Gadarene:
Apparently the phrase “ridiculous accusations without any support” is one that appears quite frequently in your dictionary. It’s been three days since I asked for an example of me “oushouting” Stoidela, and you have come up with nothing.
