A new US Republican thread 2016

[webwit]

I'm just following his shining example of abuse, and getting "a chuckle" out of it, because he's not a real person, also by his shining example. Same time tomorrow, Jacob? Your transformation from abuser who doesn't care about a community, to full-blown victim, poor me-me-me, is almost complete.

[seebart]

I know of at least one user who got a non voluntary cool down opportunity after getting personally insulting.
I think something similar might be in order here, or are we setting different standards for founding members?

Respect for that Slom.

Repeating it won't make it less insulting.

What I fear is that we set bad standards for other parts of the forum and potential new members.

I wouldn't worry about that, the keyboard input in gerneal is still too strong at DT for a thread like this to cause damage. I have a few new (old) keyboards I could post but we're fine.

I wonder if webwit's complete descent into lunacy is late onset Alps vortex disease? ripster seemed to have substantially lower immunity, having long since flipped his lid. I wonder what the club policy is for committing the benevolent dictator to the loony bin.

I don't believe it's related although I never witnessed the ripster events.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Jacob's "abuse"? Seriously? I'd be surprised if anyone here thinks that anything he's done justifies such obscene tirades (which look deadly serious regardless of how amusing it may be to perpetrate).

[cookie]

What I find extremely shocking is that one of the nicest internet community of all time goes from "we are all best buddies" to "Lets shove some shit in each others throat" in just a few pages.

All it needs for that is a thread about politics.

[seebart]

What I find extremely shocking is that one of the nicest internet community of all time goes from "we are all best buddies" to "Lets shove some shit in each others throat" in just a few pages.

All it needs for that is a thread about politics.

DT was never so innocent.

[Findecanor]

It is one thing to write tirades against a political party, and controversial people in it.
It is another thing altogether to be abusive against a fellow member on this board.

I say we ban Webwit from posting on the board for the rest of the month, to give him a chance to cool down.
That behaviour should not be tolerated on a serious forum by anyone, founding member or not. On some other forums I have visited for a long time, the same behaviour would have resulted in a perma-ban after very little discussion - but I believe in that people can come around.
We all have quirks and you can't be friends with everyone. The point is to act civilized despite not liking each other,
to be able to conduct yourself, and to provide value to the forum regardless. This bickering is pointless.

[webwit]

Here come the banning fascists. Why don't you go to those "other forums" which hate free speech.

[seebart]

Very clear words Findecanor. matt3o would decide in any case. I'd lock this thread before any other action, but OP won't be happy about that. This is a good reminder for me why I could not act as admin.

[webwit]

This forum was founded as a safe haven from ban creeps, especially those who call themselves "civilized", which is rather suspect since Findecanor is part of the circlejerk team. A silencer and banner of disliked opinion is not civilized, on the contrary, that's the enemy of civilization.

[andrewjoy]

It is one thing to write tirades against a political party, and controversial people in it.
It is another thing altogether to be abusive against a fellow member on this board.

I say we ban Webwit from posting on the board for the rest of the month, to give him a chance to cool down.
That behaviour should not be tolerated on a serious forum by anyone, founding member or not. On some other forums I have visited for a long time, the same behaviour would have resulted in a perma-ban after very little discussion - but I believe in that people can come around.
We all have quirks and you can't be friends with everyone. The point is to act civilized despite not liking each other,
to be able to conduct yourself, and to provide value to the forum regardless. This bickering is pointless.

No, just no.

Freedom of speech is an important part of this form, even if you don't agree with somone it is important to support there right to speak. Or you will be as just as bad as all the people who no platform people in universities or say criticism of islam is hate speech and so on. That is exactly why we are in the situation we are in at the moment.

freespeech-SamGraham-flickr-370x242.jpg (30.52 KiB) Viewed 10908 times

Don't be like this person , we will never be like that here.

[seebart]

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[Slom]

No, just no.

Freedom of speech is an important part of this form, even if you don't agree with somone it is important to support there right to speak. Or you will be as just as bad as all the people who no platform people in universities or say criticism of islam is hate speech and so on. That is exactly why we are in the situation we are in at the moment.

freespeech-SamGraham-flickr-370x242.jpg

Don't be like this person , we will never be like that here.

There's nothing worth of protection in

The sociopath village idiot is back! Your family must be so proud.

You're a nasty cunt and a failure of a human being.

Asshole.

Neither is there in doxing people.

[andrewjoy]

But trump is called much worse in this thread and that is ok ?

Personal attacks are crude yes and you can disagree with them but the example above are protected.

And nobody mentioned anything about doxing.

Just a quick question. If there was a book that has instructions on how to beat your wife , how to make war against people and the correct method of executing homosexuals, should that be banned ?

In this example i would possibly agree with you that this kind of speech falls outside the protection of freedom of speech.

Yet people say you cannot criticize this book as thats hate speech!

This is a very slippery slope.

Meanwhile in Canada

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 47851.html

[kbdfr]

[…]

The sociopath village idiot is back! Your family must be so proud.

You're a nasty cunt and a failure of a human being.

Asshole.

[…]

Once upon a time:

[…] Ad hominem attacks are so boring and it means you are not capable of discussing the issues instead. Like, OMG, someone on the Internet has a different opinion, let's not counter-argue the opinion, but attack the person instead. Yawn.

[seebart]

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[Findecanor]

Freedom of speech is an important part of this form, even if you don't agree with somone it is important to support there right to speak.

There is a distinction between attacking someone's opinions, and attacking someone's person.
"Free speech" is about the former. Calling names is an example of the latter and can effectively silence a person from participating in free speech.

I have been a moderator on several boards in the past from the dial-up BBS-era onwards. This is a clear-cut case IMO.

[Ratfink]

Please, close this thread before the forum tears itself apart. I'm worried about you guys.

[seebart]

1mnrf9.jpg (127.61 KiB) Viewed 10845 times

Please, close this thread before the forum tears itself apart. I'm worried about you guys.

Don't worry it's "fine", I'm just getting started with meme's...

[derzemel]

oh my god... what the hell is going on here?

[seebart]

Looks like this also now serves as the introduction to the not so friendly dandy DT "we're all friends" DT reality for some. With any community like DT it is normal that there are conflicts and users that hate each other, the question then is how is this dealt with? Or does it even need to "be dealt with"? Not sure. Fact is we have zero moderation here at DT, for better or for worse. I can flame my meme's 24/7 all I want...

[chuckdee]

This is bad news all around:

Democrats Have The Votes To Filibuster Gorsuch And Force 'Nuclear' Senate Showdown

I can imagine the ramifications for later. And once Pandora's box is opened, there's no closing it again. I really hope they think long term on this...

I was trying to start a non-partisan view of the process, and how it's being eroded. The Republican's are doing it now, but not so long ago, the Democrats did it on appointees to the cabinet. It removes the need to work together and compromise, which is what has in the straits that we are in. If the Republicans change it, it will be in place for the Democrats also, thereby eroding the need to reach across the aisle more.

Seeing as both have contemplated and the Democrats have done it already, can't it be discussed in a non-partisan manner?

[webwit]

How a sociopath is turned into a victim because someone calls him what he is.

[seebart]

Consciously on topic chuckdee, very good.

[Ratfink]

Okay, you know what? I'm out. People I once respected here are acting like children. This forum no longer feels like a fun place to discuss vintage keyboards. It's become something very toxic, something that I don't want to be a part of. I'll chalk my club membership fee up to a learning experience, and skidaddle.

[DanielT]

Don't worry it's "fine", I'm just getting started with meme's...

Meme's , uuuuu me like meme's

[jacobolus]

I was trying to start a non-partisan view of the process, and how it's being eroded. The Republican's are doing it now, but not so long ago, the Democrats did it on appointees to the cabinet. It removes the need to work together and compromise, which is what has in the straits that we are in. If the Republicans change it, it will be in place for the Democrats also, thereby eroding the need to reach across the aisle more.

Seeing as both have contemplated and the Democrats have done it already, can't it be discussed in a non-partisan manner?

This is not a fair summary of historical events. Part of the reason we’re in this predicament is that every time the GOP pulls another stunt, everyone breaks out the “both sides do it” nonsense.

The GOP controlled the Senate during the last 6 years of the Clinton administration. Dizzy with power, they blocked dozens of Clinton nominees for various government offices and federal courts, by just refusing to bring the question to the floor. They used it as a way to (successfully) block regulatory agencies from doing their business and keep Reagan’s appointees largely in charge of the judicial system. In one case a judicial appointee was kept waiting for 4 years before he got a vote, whereupon the attempted filibuster of his nomination failed. In the end several dozen Clinton appointees never got a hearing or a vote, and dozens of others were stalled for months or years. At the end of Clinton’s second term there were a large pile of empty federal court seats.

During the Bush administration, the GOP turned around and had Bush nominate a slate of extremists to the federal bench. E.g. Ayn Rand acolytes who think that minimum wage and worker safety laws should be ruled unconstitutional as part of a 1930s socialist takeover of American individualism, that think that the government should have no right to regulate false advertising or defective products, think it’s fine to keep prisoners in solitary confinement for 30 years, former KKK members who promoted maximum sentences for bystanders to non-violent drug deals but leniency for racist hate crimes, and so on. Above all, many of Bush’s appointees (both the ones who got blocked, the ones who were controversial but made it through, and the ones who skated through easily) who generally hold that corporations deserve rights and humans do not. The Democrats threatened to block some of Bush’s nominees, and there was a big showdown. Ultimately most of the most controversial ones still made it through the GOP controlled Senate. Once the Democrats won control of the Senate again a variety of controversial Bush nominees for various executive positions were put into offices in recess appointments, where the White House decided that it could unilaterally push appointments through without advice or consent by doing it over holidays while the Senate was not in session.

During the Obama years, the GOP stepped up its efforts to the max. They started forcing floor cloture votes with lengthy debates even for nominees who were entirely uncontroversial just to waste time. In essence, they started filibustering a wide variety of bills and appointments just for the sake of stalling, to prevent the Senate from getting to other legislation or doing its other business. Overall thousands of hours of time were wasted on nonsense. Even as the minority party, they were able to stall or block dozens (hundreds?) of Obama nominees, leaving government offices empty which in some cases legally prevents the agency in question from functioning, and in general wasting massive amounts of everyone’s time. Finally the Democrats had enough after the Republicans in the Senate successfully filibustered several uncontroversial court appointees out of pure game playing instead of any criticism of the nominees in question, and the Democrats pulled the “nuclear option” trigger and abolished the filibuster for sub–Supreme Court confirmations. The GOP response was to step up their cloture vote game, and force a cloture vote on literally everything. Each time there is a cloture vote hours of Senate floor time can be used to give every Senator a chance for debate. So in sum, thousands and thousands of hours were wasted.

Finally, after the GOP regained control of the Senate during the last 2 years of the Obama presidency, they switched to just stalling and blocking many of Obama’s nominees from even coming up for votes (that was the playbook from the Clinton years). To forestall recess appointments of the type Bush had put through, the Senate changed its schedule to remain always in session, even during holidays.

The most ridiculous of all of course was blocking Merrick Garland from ever getting a hearing or even a cloture vote, someone who several GOP senators had explicitly said “If Obama nominated someone moderate like Garland we would vote for him, but he won’t”. Turns out all of their pretty words were lies. What they really meant was “we don’t think that a black Democrat can be a legitimate president, and we will pull out every stop to prevent him from accomplishing his legislative agenda, harrass white house offices with bogus investigations, and block his foreign policy, executive authority, and court appointments”. That version doesn’t sound as good though. Ultimately their pretextual justification for blocking Garland basically boiled down to “The Senate shouldn’t do its Constitutionally specified job any time during the last year before an election, in case the American people elect someone we like better.”

And that’s of course not the whole context. There is also the government shut down stunts, the dozen bogus Benghazi hearings, the sabotaging of the ACA, the dozens of frivolous lawsuits they got state AGs to file against the EPA, and on and on.

In summary: one party is the party of “let’s try to respectfully compromise, and make government work”, while the other party is the party of “let’s break everything, sucks to be you”.

You can guess which of those leads to Trump.

[DanielT]

[chuckdee]

This is not a fair summary of historical events. Part of the reason we’re in this predicament is that every time the GOP pulls another stunt, everyone breaks out the “both sides do it” nonsense.

I wasn't trying to characterize it in any way, truthfully. Nor was I assigning blame for it, nor trying to look at it in any sort of partisan manner. In that way lies madness, and if this thread isn't proof of that, I don't know what is. The point is, if I wasn't clear enough, it was done, and with it, the reasons for trying to come to any sort of compromise or accord was artificially eroded. And that shouldn't be done again, whatever the reasons are. Bad things are done for good reasons, and/or when it seems that the correct way is too hard, or seemingly impossible. The Democrats chose not to do it for Supreme Court nominees when they were in power, and I laud them for that. I think the same example should be followed at this time, for the same reasons, a road too far and all that. Can't we thus discuss that in a non-partisan manner? Or have things gone too far on Deskthority for discussions, i.e. our own 'nuclear option' has been invoked?

[chuckdee]

But trump is called much worse in this thread and that is ok ?

In fact, I think it is. It's the difference between a public figure and a member of the forum. In one case, he'll probably never see it, doesn't visit nor contribute in any way shape or form to this forum. In the other case, though you might argue it, he's a member of the forum, and does contribute in other areas, as someone else has said. I might not like the partisan circle jerk, and try to break out of it at any turn, but I will defend (maybe not to the death) his right to have his partisan circle jerk. His continuing efforts to post non conversation on a forum reflects more on him than it does on the forum. Just as introducing special rules and the interjections into the thread reflect more on the posters than it does on him.

[jacobolus]

I wasn't trying to characterize it in any way, truthfully. Nor was I assigning blame for it,

Fair enough. But if you listen to e.g. Senator McConnell or Grassley, they have a big sob story about the mean old Democrats who wouldn’t let them keep filibustering dozens of uncontroversial Obama appointees for giggles.