What were you THINKING?

The BBQ Pit
1

Continuing the discussion from Trolls R Us Resurrections:

After clearing the title with Miller, here’s our Trolls R Us Companion Thread!

Our Goal: If you have a beef with a poster, or a poster’s post that is absolutely Pit-worthy, but not worth it’s own thread, no need to clutter up the Troll thread unless you think they’re an actual troll. Perhaps it’s a long time poster (without a Pit thread) who’s put their foot in their mouth. Perhaps they’ve said something that for anyone else, you’d consider it in character, but think they were drunk/high/off their meds!

Here’s the place to throw down, get it our of your (or their, or everyone’s) system, and then move on to the next case of misplaced enthusiasm, poor research, or foot-in-mouth disease.

NOTE - while we don’t want cutsey self-Pittings (it’s against the Pit rules after all), if you’ve made an own-goal of a post in another thread and realized your error too late to correct, I’m sure you could also post here as a pre-emptive defense, although you really should do it in the proper thread.

2

Okay, recent events in Hatchie’s “Cenk Uygur running for Pres” has made me actually use this thread for it’s intended purpose. I don’t think they’re a troll, but OMFG they are obsessed with this guy, and the non-stop moving of goalposts in his own thread is infuriating.

The OP is fine, talking about the non-confrontational nature of most current Democrats, including Biden, and how the party could use some additional energy and combativeness. Which, I largely agree with. And initially, Hatchie was willing to admit that said prospect has a problem with them not being a natural born citizen. Sure, I was irritated at being asked to evaluate them based on a full length podcast, but -shrug-.

But wow, it escalated fast. By post 5, they’re saying that the natural born requirements are unfair (probably), undemocratic (probably not IMHO), and likely vulnerable to a SCOTUS challenge (this SCOTUS? Yeah right).

By post #13, they were demanding (only a slight exaggeration!) that people should listen to the podcast before they responded to the thread. Which, well, absolutely wants to make me dig in my heels. Kenobi_65 probably put it best though:

“Hi, I’ve posted a link to this 2 hour interview with this guy, and I really want you to listen to it before you engage with me on this topic.” That’s pretty presumptive, IMO.

I mean, it keeps going, Hatchie switches to an argument that the SCOTUS could rule that “natural born” is unenforceable, and everyone points out that no, it’s absolutely enforceable, why would they do that, and so on. Then claims much of the Constitution is old stuff that’s been left in but ignored, carefully ignoring that it took constitutional amendments to supersede. Then says they don’t want to argue the point, demand everyone else drop it, more or less returns to point zero, that as a voice for change and energy in the party, Cenk is key because Trump (or other MAGA types) are so horrible.

And on and on and on. I get it Hatchie, you like this guy, and I too am frustrated with the Democrats always being the adults in the room, without being respected as such. But the way you’re presenting this candidate, flailing in your arguments, and making demands is 100% counterproductive.

What were you THINKING?

3

This SCotUS finds that a Natural Born Citizen must be the child of two citizens, 4/5 both must be Natural Born, and voids Obama’s presidency.

Having lived through Birth Certificategate, what are you THINKING indeed?

4

Heh. Yeah. To be honest, it’s like constantly arguing the reverse of this sequence from Joe vs the Volcano:

“I’m not arguing that with you! I know he can do the job, but can he GET the job? I’m not arguing that with you!”

Most people in the thread are at least somewhat sympathetic to the views of the candidate, but all of them are pointing out the huge issues with ever getting Cenk into the position, and Hatchie keeps deflecting them as unimportant, or flat our refusing to discuss them.

ETA - again, in no way do I think Hatchie is a troll, but for whatever reason Cenk resonates with them in such a way that they’re going to maddening lengths for a non-argument.

5

People asked for a summation or something more succinct, and Hatchie’s reply was “Well, sorry, I can’t spoon-feed you.”

His hero-worship reminded me of the woman who just loved JamesOtto, a country singer, and posted lots of hearts. And @MortSahlFan was enamored of an early stand-up comedian (Lenny Bruce, maybe?).

6

OK, that’s funny.

Mort Sahl was very important in his time, inspired a lot of excellent later stand-ups.

7

I laughed.

8

I also don’t understand the thinking in that thread. But it’s not just about Hatchie. He’s irritated and cranky, but I totally get that reaction. Because he’s being treated with condescension and mockery. He wanted to have a discussion about the pros and cons of a particular candidate’s positions.

I get that people don’t want to watch a whole video. But the irritation level seems way too high over that. If you don’t want to watch, just don’t watch. And if you don’t watch, and don’t know more about the guy or his positions from elsewhere, then you don’t have anything to say.

Plus the natural born citizen requirement is clearly bigoted. There’s a reason why it would be illegal in every other position. Sure, it’s not exactly practical to get it removed, but several posters seemed to shit on him for daring to think it is wrong.

Honestly, that thread felt more like a Pitting outside the Pit, which is why I abandoned it. I don’t get why those happen. It seems random what will get Dopers really upset.

Don’t get me wrong: Hatchie isn’t helping things. He’s responding in kind. But I get why he is upset. I don’t get why others are. (And I mean that in the “I don’t think they should be so upset” way.) I don’t get why sometimes snarky, personal posts are treated as fine.

9

I think because he wants to discuss Uygur’s presidential run as a thing that might actually happen.

It won’t.

We can discuss it as an alternate timeline hypothetical, what would you think of him as a candidate if he were eligible, but that’s not the discussion he went with.

10

As in a lot of things, I agree and disagree with your assessment of Hatchie, but I’m thought I did a decent job of explaining why in my earlier post.

For the record, I think you are correct in that the OP (being very careful here) was about a discussion of Cenk’s merits, although IMHO Hatchie went into the thread with very rose-tinted goggles. But hell, so do a lot of us, and that’s not in any way wrong.

The first couple of reply’s were snarky, sure, but mostly focused on some version of “Interesting, but he has zero legal chance.”

And then as I described upthread, Hatchie got really defensive, and jumped onto the whole “natural born citizen is unfair” subtext, abandoning the other issues. Which, again, as I stated in thread, I have sympathies with, but, well, unfair in the USA covers a huge number of sadly legal circumstances. And people pushed back on it.

After which, Hatchie goes on the attack, being equally if not more snarky and dismissive, I quote:

“That’s no answer”

and

"Name recognition plus 50 cents will get you half a donut at Dunkie’s.

I wish people here would listen to his spiel in the linked interview - THEN you can respond."

The last line especially is fightin’ words on the dope, and the feedback loop was completed. The majority of the next few dozen posts were all about that fight, which Hatchie picked (IMHO) but took both sides to make rancorous. Still, I was personally pissed off by Hatchie’s refusal to argue the points he himself brought up, and dismissing counter arguments about problematic past and present statements and associations.

And the repeated “Noted” one word responses? That reeked of Shodan’s “Regards.”

Still, things seemed to have calmed down a bit in the thread. And I’m not pitting Hatchie for having enthusiasm, or a desire for change (both in politicians and the Constitution), but felt his possibly excessive enthusiasm lead him to making very poor arguments and driving his own thread into a heated and overly combative discussion.

11

That means a lot, because part of my job description* is to lighten up the interactions here, especially in the Pit.

.

*which I wrote…

12

You do a good job at the job you assigned yourself.

13

You should change your avatar,

14

But I’d use Francis The Mule…

15

Video is a terrible medium for presenting information, assuming nobody is taking notes and studying them. It’s laden with emotionalism and frankly an inefficient use of time.

If there’s no article on your topic, your topic probably isn’t worth discussion.

“Read my book” (which I haven’t seen here), also puts an undue burden on your audience. If you can’t introduce your case in an article, you’re probably not worth listening to.

16

Honestly, I almost closed the OP down as we frown on “watch this video” OPs without a summary and why you think it is important. But as he did put much effort into latter part I left it open.

17

Okay, I’ll post this here, because that’s where I’ve had it up until now, but in the abovementioned thread, I think Hatchie is evolving into actually trolling the thread. I’ll quote:

The “I’m making you do all the work” after the “I can’t be bothered to explain” and the “I refuse to discuss that [constitutional ineligibility] issue” (after bringing it up themselves!!!) is absolutely trollish.

And that’s leaving out this latest tidbit:

If that were a Pit thread, I’d blink and move on. But it’s P&E. Still, I’m emotionally involved, so I haven’t flagged anything. But if it continues, I’m moving my comments on this particular poster back to Trolls, because of all of the above.

18

Okay, I’ll back off. Maybe my snark goes too far sometimes.

But, a lot of the heat in my thread was lit by others. In particular I really didn’t want it to become all about Constitution Says So. But I got sucked into it.

And I learned my lesson about leaning on outside links that people here find inappropriate and gauche. I wanted to include parts of Cenk’s own words as text in a couple of posts but for various reasons I couldn’t.

19

Glad to hear it. Again, I disagree with you, but I don’t hate you. I do think you’re sometimes doing your arguments more harm that good, but as things had calmed down, was cautiously optimistic. And you aren’t the only one getting heated in the thread.

Just was honestly worried that the passions and tempers in the thread were driving you down the road of a true troll, and wanted you to pull back. I haven’t done that (I think?) but I’ve absolutely gotten infuriated enough to pull a note in a non-Pit thread for edging into personal attack range and felt the thread was headed that way.

20

Hatchie: There are automatic transcription tools for You-tube (that will require some editing). Yeah it’s work, but so is having X number of people watch a one hour vid.

Remember to observe fair use laws: you can reproduce quotes, but not the full transcript.