You know, for a reasonably prolific poster here I haven’t been pitted all that often. One time it was for a big screwup on my part, which I set right. The other two times the pitting backfired in a big way on the OP.
I’m including rjung in this count.
I’m partisan, sure. I never claimed not to be. And sometimes I misstep. But I like to think that I argue honestly, am not totally blind to my own side’s faults, and back up my arguments with fact when needed.
Thanks very much to those who stuck up for me here. I’ll continue to try to be a good honest debater in future threads.
Sam Stone, With respect, because I think that you are one of the posters that I disagree with but not one that is not worth talking to, I think that you have it all wrong.
If you look at this thread, and others like it, you will see that the Left is doing a pretty good job of policing its own. I have to say that my take is that we are actually far more willing than the Right to risk not showing a united front when it comes to distancing ourselves from our more challenged brethren.
I think that the question that I have for you is why this is not enough. I mean, think about it. Think about how oppressed and in the minority and unappreciated you folks on the Right feel on this board. Seriously, do me a small courtesy and stop reading for a moment and think about how that feels.
Assuming that I am worth the read to you, and further assuming that you did that, try for a moment to think about what it would be like for your entire world to be like that and not just an aspect of it that you choose to visit recreationally.
There is nowhere that I can go, out in the world, without my political and moral sensibilities being offended. There is no refuge that I have where the terrible feeling that we are going in the wrong direction is not ground into my face.
Now given all of that, given that IMHO the country is currently being run by evil madmen, aren’t you pretty impressed at how rational I am able to be the majority of the time?
P.S. Assuming that Bush means it, I support him fully in his stated goal to colonize the Moon and explore Mars.
I know exactly how it feels, being a conservative in Canada. So I do sympathise with that, a lot.
I’m afraid I’m not doing a very good job of expressing myself in this thread. I was trying to make a point that got missed, and now looking back on what I wrote I can see why. Hell, I’m having a hard time seeing it myself. What I was basically trying to do was to put the kibosh on the notion that being a partisan for one side was, in and of itself, something worth pitting. Of course it’s nice if both sides can be reasonable and admit their own faults, but that rarely happens. And partisanship can be the end result of feeling that one is under attack and must not give an inch. Not that it’s good, but it’s understandable. There are plenty on this board who are very partisan lefties, and that’s fine. We should not criticisen the person, but the arguments. If I make an argument defending the Bush administration, or you make one attacking it, we should not be judged on whether or not we have a history of doing so.
That’s great, and you happened to pick on one of the issues that I was thinking about when I said that some are guilty of knee-jerk opposition to everything Bush does. I was over on Slashdot the other day, which is filled with people who supposedly love space exploration. And yet the comments about the Bush space plans are overwhelmingly hostile and partisan in nature. I find that very frustrating.
I guess that’s a matter of interpretation, because I don’t see either of those as saying that Rove did a service, only that it’s a stretch to call what he did in “outing” Plame a crime, which I think is true. If there is an indictment handed down, it’ll probably be for perjury or objstruction of justice.
I didn’t particpate in that thread, so I’ll take your word for it. I popped in once, and it looked like **Moto **was blowing something way out of proportion, but I just didn’t have the interest to dig into the details.
FWIW, the Liberals were not too happy with Hillary in This Thread. Even rjung popped in to talk her down. I tried to help him with context by posting a link to an old thread of his, I don’t think he noticed.
Frankly, in my opinion, Bush has done good in none of the items in this laundry list of yours. I’ll give him Afghanistan up until we pulled our attention and resources away to… well, you know why. I’ll give him the manned mission to Mars. That’s about it, sorry.
Mr Moto
Nice posting there. Some would have jumped into this fray with both guns blazing. Instead you made a reserved and rational response. Incidentally, I was one of the ones that was on “your side” (see post #90). Heck, being a conservative is no reason for being attacked. I hope some day, you’ll realize your opinions are wrong and maybe even you might start a Dubya-Bashing thread !!
Seriously, it is good to see postings from the “other side”. To use that old cliche, he who knows only his side of an argument knows nothing at all.
More misplaced praise, the acquiescence of Libya is due to years of sanctions imposed after the Lockerbie bombing, not anything Bushco initiated. Incidentally, we could have achieved the same result in Iraq if Bush hadn’t had such a hard on for Saddam over his threats to kill Bush Daddy.
Squandering a surplus and plunging us back into a crushing deficit is nothing to be proud of, Sam. and it certainly doesn’t merit a tax cut that rewards the wealthy at the expense of our children.
I think the Democrats energy policy is disorganized.
Rove was evil long before Plamegate, he just added treason to his resume.
Yeah, all those 401k’s and IRA’s that were invested in the Market are almost back to where the were before Bush took office. Hooray!!
I don’t know why I bother rebutting each point, you are so content in your martyrdom, you won’t let anything rain on your little pity party. Your incessant whining about pile-ons and how mean the big bad liberals are to the poor defenseless conservatives is really not very attractive. Wipe your eyes and try some other shtick, this one is just embarrassing you.
Ha! Look at me, Mr No Content himself, and I have had a Pit thread dedicated to me ONCE! By a CANADIAN, even, so you know how seriously I took it. You, OTOH, shoot your mouth off in the most preposterous manner at least once a week so I suppose you should be surprised you aren’t pitted more often. I guess nobody expects better of us so we get a by.
It is easy for me to admit my unhappiness with many of the Democrats. It is harder for me to find redeeming qualities in the Republicans. McCain is an exception. I have threatened to vote for him. I’m glad that Frist has come out in support of embryonic stem cell research. I think that Bush was wise to consult with former Senator Fred Thompson about his nomination for the Supreme Court. Bush was good with the workers at Ground Zero. I really like Laura. Vice President Cheney is a clever man.
You know, I really can’t go very far with this. My contempt for the current Administration is that overwhelming. Yet I can think of a couple of Republicans that I would support for President easily.
Then maybe they should chose to stay. The Democrats/ Liberals are not in charge of Republicans/Conservatives and do not accept responsibility for their leaving. I like reading most of our Conservatives – even when I disagree.
Mr. Moto, I think one of the things that gets to me is how anyone who is so obviously polite can be so against the extention of Constitutional Rights to the detainees at Guantanamo. Weren’t those laws adopted because they were ways of insuring that all people were treated fairly? Do we really want to encourage doing trials behind closed doors in our country?
You seem to be lacking in empathy for some people who may be innocent and in a love of the Constitution of our country in that way.
I’m sure this is a misunderstanding or misinterpretation. But I thought that I would mention it here.
You idiot. Do you honestly believe that your biased selection of one or two threads out of tens of thousands in a tiny little far-west corner of cyberspace actually belies the general reality that both major parties are led by professional politicians whose sole aim in life is to secure for themselves wealth and power? That’s why the pendulum just keeps swinging back and forth between you. One of you emerges long enough for people to become disgusted by the jackasses at the helm, which they then vote out, pushing you back, and pulling out the other set of jackasses. They remain until they’re exposed, and then you people pop out again. It’s successful because it takes a long time to cycle you through. By then, millions of new wide-eyed naive voters have grown up and actually believe the bullshit promises and slogans coming from one or the other of you. And so it goes…
As far as “agreeing that Sandy Berger was in the wrong”-
[Quote:
Originally Posted by RTA, 8/4/04
If a real crime really occurred which was half as serious as you perpetrate it to be, he would be in irons right now. The matter is closed, finito. “No controlling legal authority” is calling what he did a crime, and wishing never made something so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DSeid, 8/05/04
I haven’t read the whole thread, so my apologies if this has already been noted, but, he has been cleared of all wrongdoing, you know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic, 7/20/04
The OP is being hysterically partisan and lying to boot. There is no cause to characterize Berger as having “hidden” anything and no such accusation has been made againts him. There isn’t even a motive for stealing copies since taking copies would not actually conceal anything.]
(http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=309680&highlight=Berger)
Interspersed also were the usual “this is not a debate - everyone stop talking about it, dammit!” calls, tu quoques, and the other tactics generally employed when the Usual Suspects see a thread that is trending away from the only topic they can tolerate for long - “Republicans sure do suck, don’t they?”
Sam, look around. Are you seeing a lot of conservatives in this thread accusing Moto of being a shill?
Then go look at threads talking about Reeder or rjung. There, you WILL see a lot of liberals agreeing that they’re shills.
The double-standard you’re trying to raise just doesn’t exist.
Now, you may be right that the liberals and conservatives around here spend more time criticizing the party in power than they do criticizing the party out of power. THere’s a very good and nonpartisan reason for that: it’s the party in power doing things. Were we debating a decade ago, you would have found me extremely willing to excoriate the Democrats for all kinds of different things. These days, the only thing for which I may take them to task is for being dumb campaigners, and that’s just not as meaty a topic as one could hope for.
John Mace, rationality isn’t a tournament match, either. If I agree that rjung is often unreasonable on the state of political affairs and that he shouldn’t have been the one to start this, will you agree that Moto has, at least lately, been extraordinarily goofy in his partisanship?
Binarydrone, given our recent science lesson, I can only conclude that the Internet is the queen of your hive. I now live in terror of the day her brood hatches.
Err…like an idiot, I posted that without seeing that the thread has a third page, and that Moto admits that he missteps sometime. Admit a misstep in the funeral and the Air America threads, and we’re golden.
You’re right TYM. My defense wasn’t spirited enough. Sorry, Mr. Moto.
One of Mr. Motos efforts on this board that I profoundly appreciate are his 16 “War Heros” threads. In these, he highlights the bravery and sacrifice that members of the military have made during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course, those threads appear to make some of you very uncomfortable. After the first thread got 59 responses, many from those whose forum recognition and tact skills are lacking, the rest of them got fewer than 20 responses. Some of them got less than 10. Many other threads about the tragedy du jour regarding animals get five times more than that.
Like Moto, I am also a Navy veteran. I was nearly killed twice while serving at sea. Moto and I have done our time on the wall, as have the people that he referenced in his War Heros threads. While I do not and could not compare my efforts to theirs, I have directly participated in defending the society that many of you who look down upon Moto feel you could do a much better job of running.
Folks on the right do not have exclusive rights to this point of view. I know of at least one doper who is a veteran that strongly disagrees with the current administration. Some of you in this thread might even be veterans yourselves. That said…
