Damn this is the first time I’ve seen any of The Ryan’s posts and I have to agree with everyone else. Just from this your a sludge-fucking, ignoramis, with stinky feet! Ha and your mother dresses you funny bastard!
Ryan, there’s an old saying that if a hundred people tell you you’re drunk, maybe you should lie down.
Most of the people you’ve argued with now think you’re a shithead. Maybe you should go flush your brain.
Sure, because the whole thread is an example of your ridiculous behavior.
That is not a request to pay attention, it is an insult. The followups included
Also insults, and further totally unwarranted.
DNFTR!!!
Whoops, sorry. I didn’t explain that as much as I should have. In the thread in question, Jodi was using the term “express” to refer not simply to the statement of a belief, but to the implementation/ enactment of that belief. That is, she was claiming that the purpose of the BSA’s ban on homosexuals was not to discriminate against homosexuals, but to express their belief that homosexuals should be discriminated against. She claimed that the discrimination that resulted from the ban was simply an effect, and not a goal, of the ban. I hope you can see how this is very sort of hair-splitting and word games that my detractors accuse me of.
- Quite a bit fewer than one hundred people have come to this thread.
- Even if a hundrend people came, that would be less than 1% of the posters.
- If someone is trying to convince me that I’m drunk, it helps if they’re not slurring their words and constantly falling down while they’re doing so.
I see no evidence for that.
To phrase “keep your brain on track” means “to pay attention”. Ergo, I was asking her to pay attention.
This is a statement of fact, not an insult. Furthermore, Jodi was exhibiting an intolereance towards mention of her flaws in that thread, so my comment was not unwarranted.
I was pointing out that her statements were not helping her credibility, another statement of fact. And again, it was not unwarranted. She made a clearly false statement, and either did so intentionally or else with utter disregard for the truth.
And if you think those were insults, then surely you must agree that these are insults:
I think 593 page views (so far) with not a single person coming to your defense qualifies as evidence that a lot of people think you’re a shithead. I’m not about to go count how many people you’ve argued with, or pull out statistics about board usage to try to argue the precise statement. You, on the other hand, are already probably composing your reply explaining in the most condescending manner possible that evidence that a lot of people think you’re a shithead has nothing to do with whether most people you’ve argued with think you’re a shithead.
And to the rest of the SDMB who’s looking at this - if you think we’re off base in thinking that The Ryan is missing a few socks from the drawer, please go ahead and post. I certainly don’t want this thread to misrepresent the general views of the SDMB as a whole… :rolleyes:
Well, I actually enjoyed being on the ryan’s side in the thread about government slavery ala the draft.
I still think we had a point.
Never had a problem with him yet.
I’ve had one encounter with The Ryan where he told me in the most condescending manner possible to use my common sense.
I’m voting for him being a shithead.
She’s referring to this statement:
from Fuck you, Eat Shit and Die Golf.
My statement was in reference to her complaining that it was unreasonable for Mercutio to expect her to figure out on her own that “I need one of those new things, you know, those things that record all the shows so you can see them later and keep you ever so entertained, you know, a woman.” was not meant to be serious. She wan’t even complaininng that the joke was in poor taste; she was complaining that it wasn’t clear that it was a joke! And frankly, I think that by Pit standards my response was rather polite. If she really believes that this is the “condescending manner possible”, then she must have lived a very sheltered life.
Oh, and notice yet again how people are making accusations without quotes. I think it says something that they are presenting only their interpretations of events, rather than the events themselves.
ENugent
The fact that only a few percent of the people that have read this thread think it’s important enough to respond to somehow supports your position? Since when do people express their displeasure at other posters by ignoring a Pit thread on that poster?
Now he’s following me around from thread to thread accusing me of hypocrisy.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=57631
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=57432
What a creepy little cockroach.
One more vote for “shithead.”
Actually, expressing a belief is merely expressing a thought. Last I checked, we don’t have Thought Police (well, other than you) here. Now, taking actions based on that belief very well could be discrimination. As it is, you’re confusing a person’s thoughts with his actions. They are not the same thing.
Although The Ryan and I had a somewhat testy exchange: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=50033 (maybe he didn’t consider it testy; I did), I don’t think he’s a “dickhead”, a “cockroach”, or a “shithead”, as others have stated. I think his only fault is that he tends to attack the person making the statement rather than confining his attacks to the statement itself. Personality aside, I think he is a pretty intelligent guy and my newbie opinion is that the board is better for his being on it.
I was going to respond to the OP.
But somewhere in the middle of The Ryan’s six consecutive, long-ass posts, I lost my will to live.
Ooh - yer all a touch harsh don’t you think? Telling the world that he is a shithead and than castigating him for coming along to deny those claims?
Personally I can’t believe that Ryan and oldscratch are STILL fighting about the goldfish incident. Good god. Perhaps I should bring up some fight I had with another poster 6 months ago too.
Look at who has replied here: oldscratch, Jodi, Esprix, Scylla, Myrr, arl. All of you have exactly the same tendencies to pull posts apart and disect semantics - that’s what makes you good debaters! OK, some of you are much better than others at being polite about it - but nobody is actually harmed by Ryan being rude.
Personally I find the posting style a touch abrasive. However I’d rather some intelligent albeit rather rude replies (on any side of a debate) from an articulate poster than a sycophantic incomprehensible nothing post from a poster who finds stringing two thoughts together difficult.
So lets all kiss and make up and go find ourselves a nice juicy debate to argue about instead, m’kay?
pan
Sorry folks. I have to fall in line somewhere between aynrandlover and kabbes. The Ryan is being mostly reasonable here, as well as in the thread in question. It seems that a lot of people on this board don’t like to be disagreed with, and get fairly testy when they are. It also seems that this happens mostly in threads where a question of morality comes up, and personal views come up that are hard to quantify.
I think that both parties are somewhat in the wrong here (man, this fence sures is riding up my ass…). For questions like the ones that came up, its real tough to step back and try to see it from the other parties’ point of view. Or, because issues like this are discussed so frequently, we’ve made up our mind a long time ago, and looked at the issue from the other side’s point of view then - and we’ve forgotten what that POV was.
But mostly I’m disappointed (yeah, I know all of you are just hanging on for my approval - :rolleyes:) in the fact that we think that an informal vote in the Pit is going to be an official endorsement of The Ryan as an asshole or an unwanted member of this community. You’ll have to excuse me as I dust my head off, its been stuck in the sand entirely too long.
Okay, I’ll bite. Based on the links provided, I think the criticism of him is way over the top. Lots of posters, including many of the ones in this thread, and probably including me, are just as prone to splitting hairs or looking for semantic outs.
In the case of the link Enugent provided, I don’t see The Ryan being any more condescending than I’ve seen from many highly respected SDMB posters. Many of his arguments, in fact, were extremely well thought out and highly relevant. He does quote badly, though.
I mean, I haven’t gone through a lot of other threads so maybe he’s being an asshole somewhere else, but based on the evidence posted in THIS thread, the case is thin. Yeah, he was a dick to Scylla. Does anyone really want all their posts reviewed to see when they were a dick?
Though I disagree with The Ryan on most every issue and have had several exhanges with him which made me doubt his ability to rationally debate, I’m going to have to throw my lot here in with City gent, kabbes, Connor, and RickJay.
Yes, The Ryan can be frustrating. He often seems to needlessly contest what most of us regard as universally established truths, or to quibble over semantics while ignoring the heart of the other side’s argument. He definitely has some anger issues–he’s far too quick with an acid reply. But, on the whole, I think The Ryan is a valuable poster who’s not nearly the unmitigated dick that most of you are making him out to be.
Take the Boy Scout thread, for instance. As I pointed out to another Doper on e-mail last week, I thought The Ryan was being perfectly clear in the distinctions he was drawing. When challenged, he repeated his points a little less civilly–which led to more challenges, and more incivility. But I followed his argument from the beginning–indeed, it raised points that I was preparing to mention myself–and I thought that Jodi and others were a bit too hasty in jumping on him. (And, conversely, The Ryan was a bit vitriolic in his response–something which seems to be a trend.)
All in all, I believe that those of us who frequent GD sometimes have the tendency to judge the poster rather than the post. Most of us have, at one time or another, snapped at those who we felt were willfully misinterpreting our words (witness my exchanges with the laughably obfuscatory Jackmanii in the liberal media thread). That The Ryan perceives himself to be misinterpreted far more than most, and that he tends to respond in a jerkish manner, is certainly something for which he bears more responsibility than the rest of us: many times, The Ryan, your points simply aren’t as clear as you think they are, or you just flat out don’t understand the objections that are being made. It doesn’t mean, however, that The Ryan is so much more guilty than me or than any of you as to warrant such unqualified broadsides as have been expressed in this thread. As RickJay pointed out, we all parse arguments to an uncommon degree–clarity is, after all, the essence of Great Debates, and we all endeavor not to be misunderstood. The Ryan’s main failing seems to be that he has earned the ire of enough people that his attempts at parsing aren’t usually evaluated on their own merits any more; people see his name, automatically assume that he is being cryptic and unreasonable, and respond in kind. I’ve done it myself a few times, and upon review, I don’t think it’s particularly fair of any of us.