# The Douchebag of Liberty has passed on. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 18, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859 "2009-08-18T16:47:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/181 "2009-08-19T17:58:17Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > And neither was Novak. If your intent was to list dissimilarities between them, this one needs to be removed from the list. > > The rest of your analysis is certainly solid. I’m pretty sure that I said explicitly that Novak was not charged with treason. It was not my intent to solely list dissimilarities, but rather to both compare and contrast. For that matter, nobody who has ever posted on the SDMB has been charged with treason. The question is what is the overall context? The overall context of Novak’s life as far as I know is “ewww” offset by endowing a writing chair. The evil men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/182 "2009-08-19T18:00:13Z")
Good line. Ever thought about writing plays? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/183 "2009-08-19T18:02:13Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > The man is hopelessly addicted to reason. Thanks, I think. 🙂 I would only wryly observe that my addiction to reason has thus far made me a reasonably solid conservative on many issues. However, you’re right – I go where reason, and an informed conscience, take me. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/184 "2009-08-19T18:03:19Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I am honestly trying to change the OP’s mind. > > Well, OK, that’s not completely true. It’s not really true at all. Your real goal here, seems to me, is to make the OP out to be a hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/185 "2009-08-19T18:03:27Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > I’m pretty sure that I said explicitly that Novak was not charged with treason. :smack: So you did. And I even quoted it. Sorry about that. Belay my last. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/186 "2009-08-19T18:04:46Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > It’s not really true at all. Your real goal here, seems to me, is to make the OP out to be a hypocrite. No. My goal is to invite the OP and similarly-minded readers to examine ideas that they hold that are in tension with one another, and reach an appropriate conclusion. ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/187 "2009-08-19T18:08:32Z")
Please don’t assume **Bricker’s** argument style in this thread is indicatvie of an approach taken by attorneys in general. It’s not. It’s the argument style of a criminal defense attorney, whose only real aim is to poke enough wholes in the prosecution’s case to give the fact finder reason to doubt. He’s not responsible for proving anything, just keeping the other side from doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/188 "2009-08-19T18:08:58Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No. My goal is to invite the OP and similarly-minded readers to examine ideas that they hold that are in tension with one another, and reach an appropriate conclusion. Let’s be honest, your goal is to say, “See, liberals are just as bad as conservatives!” ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/189 "2009-08-19T18:10:06Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > OK, fair point. I did offer my view, and made it relevant in that post. > > Not sure what your last question is getting at, though. I read your post @166 to mean that your having a ‘personal idea’ meant that you believed you hadn’t shared it in the thread. If I misinterpreted you, my apologies. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/190 "2009-08-19T18:12:56Z")
> [@whole\_bean](#): > > Please don’t assume **Bricker’s** argument style in this thread is indicatvie of an approach taken by attorneys in general. It’s not. It’s the argument style of a criminal defense attorney, whose only real aim is to poke enough wholes in the prosecution’s case to give the fact finder reason to doubt. He’s not responsible for proving anything, just keeping the other side from doing so. So he’s like a Republican Congressman. ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/191 "2009-08-19T18:13:17Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I would LOVE to honestly change the OP’s mind. From previous interaction, I don’t honestly believe that’s likely. But the purpose of posting on a message board, rather than PMs or e-mail, is to sway the readers of the thread, who may well be more open to logical persuasion, especially when it takes the form of confronting them with examples of their own cognitive dissonance. If the reader can browse this thread and ask himself, “Why do I think Ellsberg’s a hero and Novak’s a traitor?” he may well reach the correct conclusion: that while he may still regard Novak as a dick, he might not be a traitor. Then why have you been dishonest and dismissive? (i) Wilson had little Africa experience. (ii) Neither Novak nor Eslberg had the capacity to weigh the risks and rewards of their decisions. (iii) Any view that Novak was a traitor and Elsberg was not must be inconsistent. If that really was even a low priority goal, you’ve done a terrible job and been a very poor ambasador for your cause. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/192 "2009-08-19T18:20:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > No. My goal is to invite the OP and similarly-minded readers to examine ideas that they hold that are in tension with one another, and reach an appropriate conclusion. How very generous of you to share your superior intellect with us. :rolleyes: Have you not yet seen that it is your own ideas that “are in tension with one another” (and what a charming way to say “hypocritical”) ? Much less to adjust them accordingly? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/193 "2009-08-19T18:22:29Z")
> [@whole\_bean](#): > > Please don’t assume **Bricker’s** argument style in this thread is indicatvie of an approach taken by attorneys in general. He’s the kind who gives the other 1 percent a bad name, huh? ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/194 "2009-08-19T18:24:08Z")
Novak is dead but judging by this thread The Republican Fifth Column is alive and well. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/195 "2009-08-19T18:26:21Z")
Withdrawn; I only saw and read the first page of the thread and my question was answered later. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/196 "2009-08-19T18:51:27Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > Well, I suppose that’s something. My abhorrence isn’t based on the possibility that you might hurt somebody’s feelings, though. > > You see, I sincerely believe that the bad things you indulge yourself in poison you, and piece by piece kill off the better parts of your soul. > > By the time that you are so far gone that you gloat over the painful death of **any** human being, especially for something as trivial as this, your soul is so dead that you can no longer remember, much less comprehend what it was like to be a good and caring human being. > > That’s how I think of some of you. I wonder if you are actually alive. If you were the empty dead spirits of hateful fanatics forced to haunt the internet and spew your hate as parodies of your formally living selves, it would explain your one-dimensional bitterness better than to consider you were an active part of humanity. If it makes you feel any better i do feel pretty bad for the poor innocent brain cancer that died after its long struggle with Bob Novak. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/197 "2009-08-19T18:53:10Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, that’s true. I crafted the terms of the discussion to impose the burden of proof on the other side. > > That is a perfectly legitimate tactic in debate. But… what debate? There wasn’t a debate. There was someone posting something in the pit. Then you jumped in and said “hey, we’re having a debate. Your position is: X. Here are the guidelines. Go! What, you can’t respond to my telling points? That must be because your position in this debate that you’re in has no substance.” > [@](#): > > That said, your characterization of my position lacks a great deal. True. I was employing some hyperbolic exaggeration. As, in fact, I did earlier in this very post. > [@](#): > > You really think that the issue of same-sex marriage deserves some special place in the debate pantheon because it’s incredibly important to some people? That’s a blatant appeal to emotion. This is tangential, but I kinda do, although not in the way I think you are talking about. When people are arguing about a topic that has a clear and direct impact on their own lives, I am willing to cut them at least some slack when it comes to their tone and emotions. If two people are arguing about stamp collecting and they start calling each other names, I think the fact that they lost their cool reflects very poorly on them. When two people are arguing about gay marriage, and one of them IS GAY AND WANTS TO GET MARRIED AND CAN’T, and that person loses his cool because he’s arguing about something which has an immediate and extremely important impact on the absolutely most important thing in his entire life, I am much more willing to be forgiving. Told you it was a tangent. > [@](#): > > I am honestly trying to change the OP’s mind. Are you? From what to what? The distinction I was trying to make is not whether or not gay marriage is in a special category, but that in that debate, it was clear from the start who had what positions, why they had them, THAT they had them, and that they were honestly trying to change other people’s minds. As opposed to this thread and the debating portions therein in which I honestly have lost track of who has clearly staked a claim to what positions and who you are trying to convince of what. It is hardly a coincidence that a fair number of people (including me, at least initially) had the reaction that you weren’t actually trying to convince anyone of anything, but simply trying to make people on “the other side” look like hypocrites. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/198 "2009-08-19T19:03:54Z")
> [@whole\_bean](#): > > Please don’t assume **Bricker’s** argument style in this thread is indicatvie of an approach taken by attorneys in general. It’s not. It’s the argument style of a criminal defense attorney, whose only real aim is to poke enough wholes in the prosecution’s case to give the fact finder reason to doubt. He’s not responsible for proving anything, just keeping the other side from doing so. As though there’s some moral failing associated with criminal defense? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/199 "2009-08-19T19:10:10Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > This is tangential, but I kinda do, although not in the way I think you are talking about. When people are arguing about a topic that has a clear and direct impact on their own lives, I am willing to cut them at least some slack when it comes to their tone and emotions. If two people are arguing about stamp collecting and they start calling each other names, I think the fact that they lost their cool reflects very poorly on them. When two people are arguing about gay marriage, and one of them IS GAY AND WANTS TO GET MARRIED AND CAN’T, and that person loses his cool because he’s arguing about something which has an immediate and extremely important impact on the absolutely most important thing in his entire life, I am much more willing to be forgiving. > . Yes, but what WORKED in that thread? Lord knows there were plenty of people screaming at me, calling me a bigot and worse, and hurling all sorts of impassioned invective around. None of that made me realize I was holding the wrong position. In fact, to the extent it had any effect, it was to dilute the persuasiveness of any reasoned posts made by the same posters that were yelling. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859/200 "2009-08-19T19:21:50Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > As though there’s some moral failing associated with criminal defense? Way to miss the point, Counselor. :rolleyes: Here’s a hint for you: The world is not a criminal courtroom. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-douchebag-of-liberty-has-passed-on/506859.md?page=11)