IzzyR pointed out “most or all of the december pile-on threads are themselves full of the very sort of transgressions that december is being accused of.” Jackmannii had a cute, self-referential example.
Oh, and IzzyR, the closest I’ve seen the “schtick” tomndebb mentioned would have occurred in this thread about a pro-Palestinian conference. Specifically he made the assertion that stating “There is Racism inherent in Zionism” was anti-Semitic.
He based this on his own definition of Zionism. As I pointed out towards the end of the thread, the statement “Zionism is Racism” isn’t so obviously false as to be untenable on any grounds except blatant anti-Semitism. He disagreed with the position of the conference organizers, and painted their position as anti-Semitic, although there was not sufficient evidence to do so.
tomndebb has a much longer history with december than I do, but from my time here it doesn’t seem too much of a mischaracterization. Especially given someone who continually espouses the “if you’re not pro(insert extremely broad and poorly-defined stereotype here), then you’re anti(insert extremely broad and poorly-defined stereotype here)” attitude that december throws around so liberally.
Enjoy,
Steven
Izzy, I don’t see me misrepresenting your position. What I said was that you asked for proof of part of their post, while failing to address the meat of the post. which isn’t misrepresenting you at all. it’s what you did. Tejote had noted that while some were pointing at those members of the audience who booed Lott, the same damn thing happened at the memorial for 911 to Hillary. And I noted, that while you asked for proof of part of the post, you failed to acknowledge the basic point of yea, some people will be jerks.
at worst, I didn’t see that you’d acknowledged somewhere else that some people will behave poorly. that’s hardly a ‘mischaracterization’ of your position.
as opposed to in this thread [url=“http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=138945&highlight=december+position+stop”] where december mangles several people’s positions all on the first page.
mine, for example, I make several points, one of which is that the claim in the OP was that this ad ‘ruined the guys campaign’, and I countered that the poll numbers showed him way behind for quite some time and hadn’t really changed since the ad aired, which, like, disproves the claim that the ad caused the campaign to fail. december then claims that my entire position is that ‘well, he was behind so it doesn’t matter’ which ignored most of what I’d posted and mangled what little was left.
If you think (as you seem to do in this thread) that I am in the same league on that issue as december, you can, no doubt, bring sufficient proof of that?
yes, many posters will attempt to rephrase a person’s position and not get it right. HOwever, there aren’t many who continually do it, and to such a degree as to completely mischaracterize it. Which is what I’ve claimed (and demonstrated here) the he does.
re: tomndeb’s point, I believe that there was a slight hyperbole involved, however, [december** will post a pit thread raging about how dare the UN or Amnest International condemn Israel for doing such and such when the Palestinians do such and such. when others see it as: Amnesty INterational (for example) will find USA lacking because of the death penalty, and also condemn suicide bombings by the Palestinians. I see no contradiction, he seems to.
RickyJay we don’t agree. There are a number of conservative posters w/whom I disagree quite a bit: Scylla, Fenris, Izzy, to name 3. and generally they don’t rile me (tho’ Izzy you be skirtin’ that line w/this comparing me to december stuff… )
it ain’t his opinions. It’s his behavior
I concur that december’s tone in many of his OP’s is somewhat lacking in objectivity, and does seem calculated to get a rise out of the liberal plurality of this board.
However, I’ve discovered over the past week that whenever I attempt to post something disagreeing with a december thesis, I lose connection to the SDMB, getting a 404 screen.
So my question to december is:
How much are you paying the hamsters?? 
No, RickJay, he doesn’t aggravate people simply because they disagree with him ideologically, but because he is dishonest about it. The GD board is not, and should not be, simply a place to toss cheap, inflammatory opinions at each other. Not all opinions are of equal merit, ya know - those better based on facts and using better reason are simply objectivelybetter, wherever they lead - and following them there is simple honesty. His failure to do so is more than simple poor debating technique; it’s ignorance fighting back. The same is occasionally true of other people, and they get about the same response until they learn otherwise. december gets it worse because he does it more and doesn’t learn, or show any interest in learning. If he’s really 59 as he claims, and not a bright but lonely 14-year-old as I often suspect, then it just isn’t gonna happen.
As others have stated, he causes the usual denizens of the boards an inordinate amount of effort to clean up after him, and that does get aggravating after awhile. We’re trying to fight ignorance, and the constant rear-guard action is a waste of effort that could better be spent in the fight. That, I think, is the source of most of the enmity he generates.
Then there are the constant attempts, not to actually learn or teach or explore, but simply to annoy - the Democrat/liberal baiting thread titles alone are enough to make that point. 'Tis a pity the mods don’t like using the T-word, but there aren’t too many other ways to describe trying to generate heat instead of light. He simply leaves out the four-letter words.
I do suspect his behavior tends to drive away honest, thoughtful conservatives from GD, those who understandably do not want to be associated with his “thoughts”. That makes the place far poorer.
Sam, you think he has better manners, and treats other people better than others treat him? Try reading his screeds showing racism towards Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular, or paternalism towards blacks and women, and try that again. Are you seriously suggesting that racism and sexism are consistent with a decent respect for other persons? Is there really a moral difference between how one treats other individuals and what one’s attitudes are toward their ethnic groups?
I have a particular affinity for rodents.
You know, I’m pretty sensitive to racism. I have absolutely zero tolerance of it. I don’t recall december saying anything that I consider racist. To be fair, I skip a lot of those pile-on threads because I find them just too damned annoying (from BOTH sides), so maybe I missed something. If you could point me to a cite, I’d be happy to read it.
BTW, disagreeing with someone’s religion is not racism. To be a racist, you pretty much have to dislike someone because of their race.
But the word ‘racist’ is like a loaded gun. You can drag it out and brandish it about, and exert power over others. Democrats are great at this - If you oppose welfare, or disagree with certain aspects of multiculturalism, or God Forbid disagree with another culture, you get smeared as a racist.
Racism is ugly and despicable. You cheapen its meaning by applying it to people who disagree with you about food stamp programs or whether or not Islamist violence may be due to religious teachings.
But hey, maybe december is a racist - I’m ready to see the proof of it.
Collounsbury: Nah, being for free trade doesn’t get you your right-wing props. Free trade USED to be a right-wing idea, but it’s been proven so thoroughly to be correct policy that it’s really accepted wisdom by all parties, except for morons like Ralph Nader and Michael Moore. In fact, if Bush pulls one more stupid tariff stunt, the Democrats would be very wise to pick up the free trade issue and try to rip it away from Republicans.
But if you want to consider yourself center-right or center or whatever, that’s fine with me.
mtgman:
I believe you’ve brought this up before. And as I said then, my understanding is that the term - from the perspective of board rules, at least - applies to instances in which the poster does not himself believe in what he is posting, and/or does not intend to defend it, and is posting solely to irritate other people. This would not apply here. But the moderators make the rules here, and if they clarify that any provocative posts are forbidden I can live with that too. (Though I think they’d have to throw out a whole lot of people).
Personally, I think in this era of free speech you’re better off learning to let this type of thing slide. But that’s just me - do your own thing. 
There is a logical basis for saying that a grossly inconsistent approach to Israel as compared to similar situations elsewhere is likely motivated by anti-Semitism. This is not the same thing as saying that any criticism of any Israeli action equates to anti-semitism - a rediculous statement.
wring:
True. But there is no requirement that I acknowledge anyone’s post to the extent that it does not directly relate to anything I’ve said in the thread. I did not address the fact that the same thing had happened at the 9/11 memorial because I did not disagree - and had never disagreed - with the notion that inappropriate behaviour could come from either side. Your assertion that I “neatly avoid[ed] acknowledging” this point was an implication that this contradicted something I had said. As was your subsequent offer to not hold “the Republicans” responsible etc. - another indication that I had been holding “the Democrats” responsible. This was untrue.
(The significance of the Tejota statement that I challenged was that it (falsely) implied that Republicans as a group approved of the booing of Hillary)
Again, because this was completely irrelevant to my position in that thread.
For the most part I agree with you here.
I would note however that the “claim in the OP” that you refer to does not refer to anything said by december - it just happened to be part of the article he was quoting. december himself did not make any reference to the matter in his OP, which was focused on an issue that is unrelated, IMHO. So someone might reasonably err in assuming that your words were addressed to the actual OP, in which case you did seem to be excusing an appeal to homophobia on the basis of the fact that he was behind anyway. Still, it is true that he did ignore your second paragraph in summing your views. (And your first, but it’s hard to figure out what you meant with that paragraph.)
I have no idea. I would have to do an extensive study of your and december’s posts. I don’t mean to single you out specifically - it’s just that you happen to be a december critic and you happened to have transgressed with me just yesterday.
But I don’t think I have to demonstrate that you do it as often as december to make my point. All I’m saying is that this is relatively common, unfortunately. Certainly some do it more and some less, but I don’t see that - if you really look at everyone as closely as you look at december - that he stands out as being some sort of unique offender.
Slight hyperbole? The difference between saying that “the UN and Amnesty International are inconsistent with regards to Israel” and “Everyone who has ever spoken harshly of any Israeli action is obviously anti-semitic” is enormous. I guess the difference between “slight hyperbole” and “egregious misrepresentation” depends on whose ox is being gored. (You’ve been generally pretty liberal in most of the child molester threads I’ve seen, but if december summed it up as your “all child molesters should get off the hook shtick”, I doubt if you would call it a “slight hyperbole”. Just a strange feeling I have.)
december, only you are in your own league.
Low, low minors.
Umm, sorry I did not respond sooner, but I rarely dip into these pile-on threads–and usually, as I did here, end up with a comment that banning is overkill for whatever is angering the Teeming Millions.
As to december’s schticks: Should I conclude from the lack of challenge, Izzy, that you accept as valid my claims regarding his views in the Republican/Democrat arena? Can I assume that you believe my 94% - 5% - 1% ratios of misplaced threads are accurate?
In a post that clearly resorted to casual hyperbole, I am not sure why one sentence must be defended when the others are given a pass. The device I used was not mischaracterization but caricature–the exaggeration of a conspicuous trait to make the object more easily recognized. If you need to see what prompted my caricature in regards to Israel and anti-semitism, do a search for the last six months where the search object is “december” and the poster ID is"sparc." There are numerous examples of december laying any number of slights (real and imagined) to a basic anti-Jewish mentality. It will not surprise me if you can find a place where december actually acknowledged a criticism of Israel as legitimate, but such acknowledgements will be far outnumbered by the other claim that I caricatured.
I fully support free speech. What I don’t support is the right to intentionally irritate a captive audience. We seem to disagree about which scenario is happening here. I’ll agree to disagree if you will :)**
Agreed. Now you have something to prove before december’s statement that the conference was anti-Semitic, which you’re saying was not unreasonable, meets the criteria you just set forth.
Prove that the SAFE organization, the one who was organizing the conference, was “grossly inconsistent” with regards to how they regarded Israeli actions versus how they regarded similar actions by other groups.
I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to. I did a fair bit of reading on the conference, it’s past, it’s organizers goals. I saw nothing that gave carte blanche to other groups who were occupying potentially strategically-threatening territories outside their recognized borders in direct opposition to UN resolutions(this is as fair a statement of Israel’s position as I can come up with at the moment. It does not give creedence to the biblical/historical claim on the land, and it recognizes the potential threat to Israel if the land is controlled by their enemies). This is a pretty nasty thing for me to ask you to prove because it’s akin to asking proof for a negative. In my defense of this normally untenable debate tactic, I offer this justification. I feel it’s fair game to request this proof since you’re trying to base your justification for the accusation of anti-Semitism on it. You said it’s not illogical to draw a conclusion of anti-Semitism given this behavior, and I am asking for the evidence of this behavior.
I saw nothing about other conflicts on their site(s) whatsoever, so the claim of inconsistancy, on which the anti-Semitic judgement is based, falls flat and I am forced to question the motives of the person who is putting forth the judgement. Even if you could find situations which are similar, there may be non-racial differences that are important enough to the SAFE organization to justify a different stance. The accusation is, as I said earlier, predicated on insufficient evidence. **
Yes, but your statement above is remarkably different from the litmus test december used to determine anti-Semitism in this case. december made his judgement of the conference/organization as anti-Semitic based upon inconclusive evidence, a single article in The Jerusalem Post which cited ONE of the SAFE organization’s tenets with regards to the Israel-Palestine conflict. His behavior in this case DOES support tomndebb’s assertion that december uses the label “anti-Semitic” without adequate justification. As noted above, even if proof can be found that the conference organizers are inconsistent with their positions of “similar” conflicts elsewhere, this evidence was not in the record at the time december made the claim they were anti-Semitic. In fact he showed himself to be ignorant of the organization in general, so we can pretty much rule out the possibility that he had evidence of their “inconsistant” behavior before he posted the judgement.
Ultimately it’s irrelevant to the arguement because even if such proof could be found, it doesn’t excuse his calling the group anti-Semitic at the time he did with the evidence he had at hand. This is the behavior tomndebb is, rightfully, calling him on.
Enjoy,
Steven
Pretty much. With the qualifier that I haven’t seen him claim that Republicans “are never mean”. But if you modified it to a “we Republicans are so picked upon” schtick, I’m with you.
I don’t think so. I think the fact that the support that a person brings has been found to be wanting by others does not make it IMHO material. IMHO would be if the person is not even attempting to bring any support.
I disagree. (I would also note that even if december did not acept a single criticism of Israel as legitimate, it does not follow that he has said that those who do criticise are anti-semites. The fact that you’ve set these as the two possibilities suggests to me that you may be projecting a bit).
In any event, I would suggest that once you allow for “caricature” of the positions of others and “casual hyperbole”, I would suggest that a more tolerant attitude would be called for in the case of december as well.
Sorry, I wasn’t talking about rights. I was referring to your comments about the attitude you take. And suggesting that these days - as a practical matter - you might want to consider a more easygoing attitude. But no big deal, as previous.
As for the rest of your post, it seems to me that it boils down you re-arguing the entire issue again. Assume that we accept your position 100% - december knows little about the organization, and his arguments are weak. This does not imply that he equates any criticism of Israel with anti-semitism - only that in that particular case he perceived an inconsistency where there was none, which resulted in him making an unfounded accusation of anti-semitism.
I s’pose.
In GD I stick with arguing the points (and rarely do more than post a couple of corrections and move on, in his threads) and in The Pit I have done no more than tweak his odd “black-and-white,” “us vs them” style and have never hurled epithets at him or wished him harm or banishment. Given that my personal reaction to his posting is that in aggregate he promotes both hatred and ignorance, I figure I am demonstrating a good deal of tolerance (or, at least, restraint) already.
see, Izzy I see slight misunderstandings quite a bit different than things like this where december again maligns his opponents arguments.
I agree that when in a debate, you parse/extrapolate, restate etc. your opponents arguement, you may indeed end up misstating their position. At times, this is even part of the debate “when you say this, do you mean that?”.
then there’s what he does.
So, when you make the claim that ‘everyone’ does it, it seems to me that you’re (watch out, extrapolation/analogy coming here), suggesting that since many of us may slap some one’s hand away in a playful manner, then we should not get so riled when some one hits us with a 2 x 4.
There’s only a few posters who generate repeated pit threads. I tend to believe there’s a reason for that. For example - when RickJay kept on insisting that it was 'cause we disagreed w/ december’s position, that enraged us so, the defense is that, well, there’s tons of conservatives here that don’t generate pit threads, and most only generate a few complaints.
Therefore, it’s not his position, it’s how he posts.
and one of two things generally happen when some one
generates this much negative attention.
-
They learn to stop doing the offensive behavior.
-
they step over the line and get banned.
I would prefer the former.
When I first came up against him, I patiently went through, step by step, trying to get him to add substance to his arguements. He posts interesting subjects, but we end up spinning our wheels trying to make it fit into a debateable topic, I would like that to stop.
and, although he doesn’t post profanity etc, I find his patronizing attitude just as insulting as a Coll’s nastiness. the whole ‘appologists’ comments, suggesting that people who disagree w/him are naive - that’s just as insulting as the more common variety “well, if you would go back to ‘reading is fundemental’ classes, perhaps you’d be able to follow” sort of thing.
I dont’ care for either. And, as I’ve pointed out before, his schtick is exactly the same as the fundementalist who continues to post “I think homosexual behavior is an unnatural abomination and you’re going to go to hell for it, but don’t take it personally”.
I find both attitudes to be patronizing and insulting, dressed up in nice words.
Re: the long-suffering temperment. For me it comes down to principle versus practical. In this case I’ve chosen to go with principle. Who knows, in a few years I may kick myself for trying to help keep debates on topic, and keep frivolous topics and logical fallacies to a minimum. I may get cynical and disgruntled and snap at the kids playing in the lawn. But for now I’d rather try to correct these things than let them go unchallenged. In the case of someone who has shown no effort towards reform, I’m in favor of removal. Kind of like probation for a first offense, then jail time for repeat offenders. I’ve stated I’d rather see reform than removal, but in the absence of reformation, removal is the next best thing.
When it was pointed out, did he retract the accusation? He was still participating in the thread at that point. What motives would lead him to leave an obviously overzealous claim in place? Why did he refuse to read other material about the conference, instead of solely relying on the newspaper article? These are not the actions of someone who is debating in good faith.
I never said he equated any criticism of Israel/Israeli actions to anti-Semitism. I don’t think anyone here has said that. You seem to have taken tomndebb’s statement as an absolute. Do you know what a shtick is? It’s not an absolute, it’s just something a person frequently/usually does. It’s a piece of their character that is often present. The case I pointed out was an especially clear instance. I said there’s a trend, just like tomndebb said. My post was a single datapoint in support of the assertion of a trend of behavior, I never asserted a behavioral absolute. You’re arguing against a straw man when you argue absolutes.
Why won’t you address the issue of trends and aggregate datum? That’s what wring, tomndebb and myself are putting forth as evidence of december’s jerkishness. His frequent characterization of criticism of Israel/Israeli actions as being anti-Semitic. On a higher level, the thing we all have a problem with is his continued propogation of the fallacy of the excluded middle, i.e. If you’re not pro-(whatever), then you’re anti-(whatever). This is his shtick, the fallacy of the excluded middle. He does it in tons of threads about any number of topics. If he has to turn his opponent’s position into a straw man in order to argue extremes, he’s shown no reluctance to do that. Do you honestly not see this behavior on his part?
Enjoy,
Steven
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by wring *
see, Izzy I see slight misunderstandings quite a bit different than things like this where december again maligns his opponents arguments.
[quote]
Don’t know about that one. I see it more as pointing out the implications of their positions, as opposed to attributing things to them. That issue seems to still be unfolding, however.
Well, I’m suggesting that the differences are just not that great.
This does not follow. I’ve already discussed the reason for the multiple Pit threads earlier. Again, it is a combination of political positions that are not shared by many and a tendency to post frequent partisan us vs. them threads, in a manner designed to provoke the opposition. This causes 1) an increased motivation to head for the Pit, as well as a disproportionate focus on the weaker points of his arguments, as compared to those of others. I repeat again, if you would take any random poster here and subject his every post, argument and cite to the level of scrutiny (by hostile eyes) that december’s get, there would not be that much difference.
The word “any” was Tom’s. And I disagree that he frequently/usually does it (as mentioned in my first post on this matter). In any event, Tom has since clarified that he was using a “caricature” and “casual hyperbole”, and I would leave it at that - see my previous posts.
Well he does tend to argue about partisan issues, as previously acknowledged. But I’ve not seen him use the fallacy of the excluded middle noticably more than others on this MB - I think it is one of the most common debating techniques used here. What perhaps makes it seem like that is the fact that he is frequently arguing on behalf of a “Good Guy/Bad Guy” type argument. But in terms of the actual logic and thought process, no.
Hit submit instead of preview.
The first quote from wring includes my response (missing a “/”).
The second “Originally posted by wring” should be “Originally posted by Mtgman”.
Sorry, guys.
:o
he thinks Democrats are inherrently wrong and no amount of citeable facts will persuade him from his partisan beliefs.
he’s free to feel that way.
I’m free to think he is an idiot for being so closeminded.
…Whereas the Democrats around here are universally open-minded and willing to believe that the Republicans are right on many issues. Uh huh.
The above straw man, Sammie my boy, amply illustrates your problem with your endemic logical fallacies. Nothing in noting, correctly I would say, that december automatically thinks democrats (or anyone to the left of his goalposts), implies or even suggests the converse that “democrats” universally are open-minded etc. It would appear you suffer from the same ideological disease as december.
As to my orientation, well I shall not be taking you as my benchmark, that is for certain.