I’m here to learn stuff, from my betters. Sometimes I get to teach stuff to my peers. Once in a while I get to console someone who needs consolation, and sometimes I get to snap the head off of someone whose head is way too big for his neck. I’m here to find out if anybody else has the same weird ideas I sometimes get, to swap chili recipes, to find out what I can do with a lightbulb that has broken off in the socket. I try to be a person, as best as I can here, even if people choose to take offense at some of the principles I live by, and I try not to reduce my antagonists (when I have some, which is often) to dehumanized objects of ridicule. I don’t always succeed, especially not with the likes of **Shodan **and Starving Artist, who seem to thrive on positions that glorify themselves at the expense of those who disagree with them, but I find it easy with nice people like you, with whom I agree on very little but who treats people with civility and decency almost all of the time.
If all I wanted was sheer entertainment, I’d watch porn and film noirs.
I think you’re lying, but I think you’ve been doing that since you were a fetus, so that’s nothing new. How did my post confirm that you were doing your job of calling 'em as you see 'em, then? See, me, I think you realized that you had almost admitted, in your previous post, that you were taking great satisfaction in getting people agitated, and that you in fact considered that to be your “job” on the SD, but then realized that you, too, would then be admitting to trolling, more or less permanently, so you backed off with this non sequitur of Bill Klem’s. Nice try–try a little harder next time. Someone may be buying this line of crap, you never know.
Well, gee, PRR, thanks for the compliment! You are throwing me off my Pit game, here.
See, I get that the Dope can be all of those things you say, but to me all of that IS “sheer entertainment.” If I get a certain kick out of reading a spectacular train wreck, that’s part of it, too. If I tweak someone who disagrees with me a little bit, and they get annoyed, that’s part of it, too. Now, I grant you, my style and personality is far different from Shodan’s. I’m not defending his posting style, necessarily, and he doesn’t need me to. But to be completely fair to him, I just don’t believe that what he is saying is that he’ll say any ol’ thing just to piss people off…that’s all. I think people are reading stuff into what he said that simply isn’t there.
One wonders, since you’re not trolling, just which disingenuous motivation you would attribute to this little bit of snark. My guess is that you’re just playing the fool again, but only in the sense that fish play at being wet.
Not quite. I’ve said time and time again around here that I give back what I get. My behavior toward you and certain other posters around here is almost a mirror reflection of what I get from you and them. Treat me with respect, politeness and consideration, and I’ll do the same with you even if we disagree on the subject at hand. It is almost invariably the case that when I’m critical or ugly with someone in a personal way around here that they have behaved that way toward me first.
Take you, for example. The first I noticed you (apart from being someone that another poster found it worthwhile to cough up $500 to get rid of) was when you were jumping my shit and slinging insults because you didn’t like what I’d said to someone else or about something else.
You say you treat nice people like Sarahfeena nicely but you are a liar. You treat people like Sarahfeena nicely so long as they don’t say something that really cheeses you off.
Of course, if you can find an example of where I was ugly to you unprovoked, I’ll be happy to retract and apologize, but I think we both know who has been the asshole first in that regard.
**Sarahfeena **pisses me off about once a week, the last time when she opened a thread about something to do with her kid’s school, I think, that had me howling at the moon, but I forgive her easily, even when I think she’s dead wrong because she has a good heart and makes a whole bunch of mistakes. Very easy to forgive.
You, on the other hand, piss me off just by the obnoxious and disrespectful way you address other posters, the way you tangle them up in nonsense and refuse (like your friend Shodan, in this way) to engage honestly in the subject under discussion. You never seem to learn anything, to change your mind, to back off your position, to concede a fact, to admit a mistake. You were born knowing everything there is to know about this universe, including who started it and why and what he had for breakfast, and you’re intent on making sure that everyone here appreciates your authoritative views on everything under the sun. Well, consider this an appreciation thread, then–I sure appreciate you for what you are.
I’m know you are trying to be nice, here, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt about how this sounds. “Oh, Sarahfeena, bless her heart…she’s one dumb chick, but she’s sweet, so I overlook it.” :rolleyes:
Never said that you were dumb (OR a chick, for that matter.) Just that we disagree on many, many things. Maybe I’m dumb. I’m sure you think I make a mistake every day that I get out of bed.
Didn’t say I overlook the things you say that I think are dead wrong, either. I said I forgive them. You’re one of those people, I forget what you call 'em, who are big on forgiveness as a virtue, right?
Oh, and I the most I ever post anything even mildly controversial is probably no more than once a week. So, PRR, that means you get pissed off pretty much every time I have an opinion that’s different than yours…you don’t even need me to say anything in a particularly inflammatory manner (which you admit I’m not prone to doing). It’s awfully nice of you to forgive me having my own opinions about things.
That’s about right. You say something I disagree with, I usually say nothing at all, think “Oh, that **Sarah **with her ideas–oh, well, everyone’s entitled to their opinions,” and go about my day. Is there a part of that you have a problem with?
It’s both interesting and amusing that it’s always the conservatives around here who are expected to ‘learn things’, to back off their position and/or change their point of view, and who get castigated for their stubborn refusal to see the light.
What arrogance. How many liberals around here have changed their position on substantive issues and/or their political ideology because something a conservative posted?
Pretty close to zero, I’d guess, and there are a hell of a lot more libs around here than conservatives.
The fact of the matter is, we all state our opinions and argue our positions based on what we think and believe. It seems to be a singular quality of the board’s liberals, however, to feel that it’s incumbent upon the board’s conservatives to ‘learn something’ from their posts and change their views accordingly, with failure to do so invariably met with accusations of stubborness, intactibility, stupidity, ditto-headedness, etc., etc. ad infinitum.
So, you tell me whose behavior is the most egregious?
No, I WAS literally howling at the moon, I just wasn’t posting in your “intolerant liberals” thread “I just went outside to howl at the moon…”, is all.
I think you mean, “My dear little man, please remember to whom you are addressing your comments.”
I think you’re wrong here, too. Why don’t you open up a thread and ask liberals if they’ve ever learned anything, conceded a fact, changed their position, accepted a conservative idea, etc.? I’ll bet you get some concessions along that line. I know I’ll participate. But for now, name a single truth you came around to that was espoused by a liberal that you at first strongly opposed. I’ll be clocking you for how long you take to come with one.
You tighty rightys slay me! Why do you hang out here? I’ll tell you why, because the people are smart. You like smart, dumb bores you. But you got a problem, don’t you, being that the majority of these smart people think you are, well, wrong. Now, of course, you know you’re not, so you have to resolve the contradiction. Why, it must be that liberals don’t respect your opinions! Its *their *fault for not agreeing with you. It can’t be because a majority of smarter people tend to be more open to change. And, frankly, what is conservatism but resistance to change?
Now, most likely you would be happier at a boards where the people are as generally smart as they are here, but populated with the reverse population bias: smart, but with the mirror opposite political bent.
But there isn’t one, is there? All these tubes, all these blog holes, and no such place as a conservative version of the SDMB. Sure, you can slum at the Freep, or at The Corner, but you’re not there ten minutes without somebody embarrassing the shit out of you.
So here you are. You think the dealer is a mechanic, the cards are marked, and its the only game in town. So you ante up.
A single truth? Okay, I was once of the opinion that that politicians who were members of the Democratic party were actually members of the Democrat party and were merely referring to themselves as Democratic in an effort to subliminally influence people to think of them in a more positive light - that they were somehow more ‘democratic’ than their Republican opponents.
Liberal posters here posted cites showing that the Democratic party has been referred to as such since its inception. I changed my view accordingly and have referred to both the party and its members as Democratic ever since…with the exception of times when Democrat would be more appropriate, such as, “Kennedy’s the only Democrat I’ve been pleased with as POTUS”, etc.
There are other ways in which I’ve changed my opinion because of things I learned here. For example, I’m less critical of Obama and more inclined to take a wait and see attitude toward his future presidency than I would have been had I not been reading this board.
And on the rare occasion that a poster approaches me respectfully and tactfully - posters such as Revenant Threshold, FinnAgain and Zoe (or, hell, even lissener, on occasion ;))- I can find myself reconsidering a my behavior and/or stance on the issue at hand.
Another thing I’ve learned is that sometimes liberals really do have a rationale for the things they think. :eek: I rarely agree with that rationale but it’s become clear to me that not everything that falls under the umbrella of liberalism is attributable to mindless knee-jerk reflex and/or a simpleminded desire to do whatever feels good.
As for the rest of your post, my esteemed denizen of refrigeratorland…poppycock! Just like with religion, abortion, socialism, etc., plenty of smart people can be found on both sides of the issue.
The reason for this is that intelligence really plays only a minor periferal role in people’s policial orientation. People believe what they do politically because of complex deep-seated reasons, the genesis for which they would likely be hard pressed to elucidate (sorry, but the word really is and always has been a ready part of my vocabulary) and which is based more on emotion than on intellect.
Further, I don’t believe conservatives are resistant to change so much as they are resistance to change for its own sake, or change made with no regard to consequence, which seems to be the type of change most favored by the left. You know, the throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater type of change. The type of change in which any disagreement or reticence is met with insults and name-calling. That type of change is the sort we’re resistant to.
So it took you fifty-three minutes to cough up that hairball, which you could have looked up in any decent reference work for grade-schoolers instead of having to be persuaded against your will by earnest Democrats presenting you heaps of evidence that the Democratic Party has been called the “Democratic Party” since the mid-nineteenth century? That’s your idea of changing your mind about something? You might want to consider why, exactly, so few people treat you with anything approaching respect, and how little you contribute to knowledge or understanding around here. Me, I’ve been thanked by various posters (not in this thread) over the past few days for my small contributions to their threads, and that overall good will, despite my frequent abrasiveness, assures me I’m not that bad. You? Not so much. You basically stink on ice.
Look at the pathetic list of things you’ve learned. You had to be taught that sometimes a rare liberal thinker will actually have an independent thought and might choose to forgo the pleasures of a mindless knee-jerk reflex? That your adversaries, in short, are human beings? You get treated like a monster around here because years of posting here has caused you to make only these minute exceptions to your rule of thumb that everyone who disagrees with you is only your caricature of them.
Less critical of Obama, huh? Maybe you can cite me a post of yours where you express a specific concession to that effect. It doesn’t even have to be gracious. Needless to say (but I’m saying it to you anyway, because you seem so proud of the occasions you’ve acknowledged that reality exists, even if you choose not to believe in it) conceding factual stuff, like, “His adminstration hasn’t begun yet” or “He was elected by a majority of the electoral votes,” doesn’t count. I’d really like to see what you consider to be your most generous, least critical post about Obama.
Nope, coughed it up instantly once I managed to pull myself away from the offboard activities I was engaged in. You don’t seriously think I gave two shits about your ‘clocking’ me, do you?
Yup, I could have looked it up, but since I had oodles of posters willing to furnish the information, it seemed the sensible thing to do would be to look at their cites. That’s what you wanted to know if I ever did, right?
You asked for just one example, I gave you one example (plus a couple of others just 'cause I’m a nice guy).
I already know why…I’m a conservative. There is no conservative around here who gets treated with anything approaching respect. Not Bricker, not Sam Stone, not Shodan and not me.
As opposed to the widely accepted knowledge and understanding generated around here by the conservative posters I just mentioned?
Well, what can I say? There’s no accounting for taste.
Not a comprehensive list, by any means. I learn things here every day. I just dashed off a few off the top of my head while tending to more important things than this so-called dialog with you. Some of us have off-board lives, you know, and we sometimes have to post on the fly.
Drama queen, much?
I’m perfectly aware that they are human beings. And though to me they are wrongheaded, most of them are far too intelligent to post drivel like you just did. You need to get over yourself. That was just silly.
And how have these so-called monster-treaters known of the three exceptions all these years? I only just posted them tonight.
But apart from that, nobody’s seen fit so far to cough up half a grand to get rid of my ass, have they?
If you don’t like my posting style, take a look at your own. People like you are the reason I post as I do.
At this point I couldn’t give less of a shit what you’d like to see. You asked for information, and even though I was busy with other things at the time, I gave it in a civil and expositionary manner. In response you chose to distort my words and thinking, and you’ve revealed yourself in the process to be no more intelligent than you are intellectually honest, so I’m not gonna waste my time.
I rarely agree with that rationale but it’s become clear to me that not everything that falls under the umbrella of liberalism is attributable to mindless knee-jerk reflex and/or a simpleminded desire to do whatever feels good.