Well, I certainly don’t want to be considered a drive-by, so I best post to my own thread.
Very enlightening responses.
By iampunha:
“If anything, the people around here who sometimes have to correct december’s latest screed deserve your praise.”
I thought that is what I did, as well as express appreciation to december. Ace0Spades did seem to catch that.
“Screed,” however, may depend on one’s point of view. And, no, I don’t always agree with december, but he does seem to have the ability to start threads that I find interesting.
Oh, it could be much worse … just off the top of my head:
Serlin (in whatever sock du jour he’s using)
JDT
Phaedy (mercifully, we are spared the majority of his bullshit)
CD Milk
Oat Willie
Ditwad
FoGgie
WB
FORMERAGENT and all that crap
And that’s ignoring the LBMB and that particular fiasco.
Just before seeing this thread, I posted a reply to one of december’s patented pointless GD rants that echos the OP, although less eloquently. Yeah, I’ve learned a lot from the replies, but I don’t think that mitigates that fact that december again and again launches GD threads based on highly selective or fabricated press quotes, which anyone can see are false by simply following the links that december himself provides.
Gotta admit, I find myself consistently baffled by his sheer, blundering, stolid persistence in trying to get people to take his political opinions seriously when said opinions are shown again and again to be built on a foundation of lies and half-truths. In fact, it’s beginning to drive me a bit potty. This is pure speculation, my crackpot opinion and mine alone, but I’m beginning to think that december actually is doing some sort of weird, subversive anti-conservative piss-take like the recently-booted Taggart, only without the flashes of wit.
I think we need to apply Occam’s razor to any ideas that december may be a radical liberal who posts as an extreme conservative in order to discredit the conservative positions.
All I know about december is that he was the first person to respond to something I said here. It may have been only a simple welcome, but it was appreciated. So now, when I see the name, I always stop to read.
I am from the far left politically, but that doesn’t get in the way…yet…
I think he’s seriously pushing the line-if not crossing it altogether.
Anymore, his ops are disengenious, usually written with a spin of his own that his source and subject does not support.
This long time reader and newbie poster finds december’s positions to be often outrageous. Sometimes he seems to be to the right of Atilla the Hun. But if posting a thought, no matter how outrageous, leads to intelligent debate then what’s the problem? I find the discussions in this forum fascinating no matter who starts them, but december’s posts seem to draw the most spirited debate. Although I disagree on virtually everything he expresses, save for support of Israel, I appreciate the fact that he gets the ball rolling and does not get all hysterical like some other posters that shall remain nameless. So he’s got an ego? So what? He’s so vain, I bet he thinks this thread is about him.
As I’ve said before, I don’t think december has added anything of value to the board which would not have been added by someone else. That someone else would, nine times out of ten, do it in a manner far more conducive to civilised debate than december does. THAT is how the fight against ignorance should be conducted. Fight fire with fire and everyone gets burned.
He purposely posts misleading OPs, he misrepresents what his sources say, and he posts leading questions, similiar to “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
I’m not sure I’ve ever read a december opinion that I agree with.
But, food for thought: could it be that what we gain from his presence here is ‘the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error’ (J.S. Mill, of course)?
I don’t think any of the staff have given him a specific official warning on the board but if you do a little digging you’ll find at least one Mod implying that december’s posting habits won’t be tolerated much longer.
Well…this isn’t GD, but since we are discussing something that mostly takes place in that forum…cite please? Specifically, for the part I italicized and underlined.
Well…this isn’t GD, but since we are discussing something that mostly takes place in that forum…cite please? Specifically, for the part I italicized and underlined.
in this thread he asserted for several pages, that Matthew Shepard was “into rough sex”.
He insisted that the main line press ‘ignored’ that fact, refused to print anything about it, refused to investigate it etc. He insisted that it’d been reported by a ‘gay columnist’.
I finally found the source of that piece of data, and discovered:
No, the columnist did NOT state that MS was ‘into rough sex’
The columnist speculated that he might have been ‘into the (so named by said columnist) rough trade’, which she further defined as an effeminate gay male who was interested in guys who (as far as I could tell) were kinda like the construction worker member of the Village People.
That said columnist based her speculation on viewing pictures of the people involved, and did not actually interview anyone who knew any of the people involved.
So, ‘faulty data’ you bet.
and his response when it was pointed out?
“thanks for finding that, well, it wasn’t like I remembered, but the main line press still didnt’ investigate it…”
this is the worst example that I personally recall.
Once upon a time, you could find several simultaneous Pit threads denouncing him. These days, he’s doing well if he can generate just one.
While december continues to harvest the attention he craves (it matters not whether it’s good or bad), the rest of us derive benefits from his posts that outweigh the irritation factor.
I think of the primary benefit in baseball terms.
With some of the intelligent, well-prepared and facile-witted posters pitching arguments at you, it can be hard to score points.
These are the Randy Johnsons and Curt Schillings (OK, more typically the Russ Ortizes) of the SDMB. You have to be on your toes to get on base against these folks. Sometimes it’s all you can do to eke out a scratch hit.
When you enter a december thread, it’s a different story. There he is on the mound. It’s only the early innings, but he’s already in trouble, sweating and falling behind in the count. You can anticipate that his initial argument has been demolished in the first few responses. He’s pitching out of the stretch, and you just know that he’s going to be floating one down the middle. Here it comes…no real heat, just a big, fat juicy nothing ball, and then
WHACK!!!
You’ve crunched another december fallacy, sending it soaring deep into the seats to the accolades of his innumerable enemies. Your power numbers are back up, and you round the bases knowing that you can still jack one out when the chips are down.
And that’s the story.
