This is an example of the kind of thing I’m getting disgusted with:
Some conservatives seem to need an enemy - they don’t want to convert people to their point of view because then there’d be nobody left to scorn. Whatever happened to the spirit of Ronald Reagan? He genuinely believed he had a message and worked to win people over to it. Instead too many conservatives seem to be channeling Richard Nixon - gloating over their lists of enemies and reveling in how they now have to power to make them pay.
God forbid anyone should ever admit that they’re wrong or acting petty or made a post that they came to regret. Because all that matters is winning the debate/election/game/whatever. So Bricker, you’re absolutely correct. Bush was perfectly justified to do what he did and you were perfectly justified to be snide about it. You win.
The problem with the rat race is that even if you win you’re still a rat.
Sorry, I see as much of the same silliness from the left as the right. Sam’s absurd allusion to Collounsbury as a member of the “left” hit one of my “respond to this” buttons, but I have no illusions that the attitude is held only by persons on one side of our current political divide.
Never said it was. But you were incorrect in your previous post, in which you stated:
It is factually incorrect that i, as a self-identified member of the left, think that everyone who disagrees with me is a member of the right. And i think that most other self-proclaimed leftists on this Board can also make the distinction between, for example, a libertarian and a right winger.
For example, i disagree with Liberal on a variety of issues—sometimes politely, sometimes not so much—but i am under no illusion that he is a right winger or a conservative in the generally-accepted sense of the word.
I’ve disagreed with World Eater very vehemently on some issues that i feel are very important, but he is one of my favorie Dopers, and i certainly don’t classify him as a right winger, even though he has confessed to certain conservative leanings in the past.
Hell, i even disagree with Diogenes on occasion, and i don’t think anyone would mistake him for a man of the right.
I guess your post just “hit one of my ‘respond to this’ buttons,” which is the button that sometimes gets pressed by self-righteous “moderates” who criticize the extremes and the mischaracterizations of the left and right, and, in the process, end up committing exactly the same errors of oversimplification and reductionism that they claim to be opposing.
You are entirely correct. Somewhere in my review and editing I accidentally eliminated the opening clause to the statement, which should have read:
“In too many cases, if a poster self-identifies as left or right, they immediately identify everyone with whom they disagree as being of the right or left.”
Clearly, there are many (if still too few) posters who do not join in the cult of “blame the (perceived) opposition.”
When I said, “the bunch of lefties”, I didn’t mean that all lefties were on his side. I was speaking of a specific group of people. If they were Rosicrucians, I would have said, “Collunsbury and the gang of Rosicrucians”. But whatever. I think you know who we’re talking about, anyway. And hopefully you’ll agree that the amount of venom flying around the board, coming mostly from that group, was a couple of orders of magnitude greater than anything we’re seeing from Bricker today.
Sam, with all due respect, I really don’t know the group that you are talking about. I am probably as much of a leftist as most liberals here. But I haven’t seen non-Bush supporters behaving as a group. Certainly, I had little interest in Col. He had interesting insights, but I didn’t notice that they were particularly tempered with much humanity.
Haven’t you seen respect afforded to you, Bricker, John Mace, Starving Artist, Airman Doors and others despite the “enthusiasm” of our differences?
You know, i have no trouble being labelled partisan. I am a partisan in favour of a certain set of political and moral positions that are extremely important to me, and i make no apologies for that. But i like to think that i can generally debate those issues logically, and that i can also recognize issues and actions that aren’t worth getting worked up about, even if they involve someone i vehemently oppose.
And the funny thing is, the GD thread linked by this thread’s OP is one where i can’t really get too worried. I mean, Republican President snubs Democratic mayor. Not exactly high on my list of things to get concerned about. The only thing that might cause me to go into overdrive in a thread like that is the sort of jackass response that Bricker gave. I think that Polycarp’s response to Bricker sums up my feelings on the subject nicely.
I mean, the venom and pettiness of Bricker’s post does not, in itself, worry me unduly. Just like i respect partisanship, i can also respect venom in the service of something that someone believes strongly in. The only concern i have is pretty much the same as the OP of this thread—the suspicion that Bricker is becoming Brutus. Because while i think this board can survive partisanship and venom, it will have a tougher time surviving stupidity.
I agree, all of it. Collounsbury, another one of my favorite posters to read, was not a leftie. Even though I have Reeder on my side (and I almost agree: almost anyone would have been better than G. W. - but my reasons are probably not the same as your reasons Reeder even though we do agree on occasion), I don’t consider myself a leftie either. During that last politcal quiz thing that went around in GD, I scored as a super conservative economically and a super liberal socially. Basically 180 degrees out from the Bush administration (IMHO) and about 90 degrees out from the democrats (at least they tend to be socially liberal).
The point is that I, unlike tomndebb, have not yet resigned myself to “seeing such nonsense” at the SDMB. Sure, there are posters that jump all over each other and pit the least thing that the other party does. There are posters that drive by and deride posts and posters without offering a cogent argument why the poster and posts are wrong. These posters insult, they deride, and only rarely do they add anyting except entertainment to threads (which by the way is a very valuble and welcome addition, at least for me). These posters are on both sides, “left” and “right”.
Until recently I did not count Bricker as a member of that group. He usaully would have good arguments. He would even agree with the “liberals” when the sins of the current administration were particularly egregious. He would cite precedents and past actions that showed that everyting was the staus quo and that current events were only being hyped to work the opposition into a frenzy. He is better than that in my opinion.
Yes Sam, there were some very ugly debates during this period. I wholeheartedly and sincerely agree. But it wasn’t the first time.
I used to honestly think you were inflammatory and hateful in your posts. I got this opinion by reading Great Debates in 99 and 2000. Since then I have come to respect you and your opinions; I think you are an interesting and intelligent poster and a valuable addition to the board and to any thread you participate in.
The point being that the vehemence of the last several years seems very similar to that of Debates past, at least to me.
Oh, and by the way, the EL is supposed to be Ethilrist. The hamsters would not let me view the thread while I composed a reply and all I could remember was that someone whose name had started with E had called me to task… EL was a place holder.
Bricker’s change in tone is simply the result of him reacting in an entirely appropriate way to the absurdity of the left these days, especially the left on this board. It’s hard not to laugh at the liberals right now. Bricker’s attitude is entirely appropriate and normal.
You’ve found the time for three or four mostly pointless drive-bys since my last post to this thread, Reeder, so maybe you’re ignoring my question, but in case you’re not, I’ll ask again. In your first post to this thread,
are you asserting that one can expect nothing better of a Bush supporter than snide mudslinging, or are you simply saying that this is something you expect of Bricker in particular?
