patrick.net

Buster says

I also just noted your comment policy: "Comment Policy: Insult Another User, Go To Jail" Please send rootvg to jail. Thanks.

So, how's it going?

Buster says

I also just noted your comment policy: "Comment Policy: Insult Another User, Go To Jail" Please send rootvg to jail. Thanks.

Did he deliberately insult another user?

Buster says

I also just noted your comment policy: "Comment Policy: Insult Another User, Go To Jail" Please send rootvg to jail. Thanks.

Did he deliberately insult another user?

Well, calling anyone who's gay subhuman...

Bigsby says

Well, calling anyone who's gay subhuman...

Ah, OK I found a quote of that comment. Looks like he deleted the original.

"Subhuman" is definitely not a polite way to express an opinion. It's a dilemma between allowing comments that are pointlessly rude and censoring someone's opinion.

Well, this thread got "interesting."

It's a dilemma between allowing comments that are pointlessly rude and censoring someone's opinion.

Yeah, it can be tricky. Our first amendment allows anyone to express an opinion, no matter how offensive it is (unless it can be classified as defamation of character). However, it only states that the government and its various subsidiaries cannot stop someone from expressing themselves. Private parties certainly can, such as newspapers, TV news and sites like this.

The folks that are most offended presumably want it removed because they are afraid that someone will be "turned" by his thoughts & become bigots or something. That is completely illogical! If the comments are as mindless as the offended folks say, then nobody is going to be swayed by them and they certainly aren't going to get support from anyone with half of a brain. If anything, it seems most logical to allow someone to be openly bigoted on the internet because it outs them to everyone on the board!

I wouldn't be half surprised if this was a game rootvg was setting up to prove his think vs feel point. People FEEL strongly because of something and then demand action because they feel offended, but for illogical reasons. Other than being offensive, what possible other threat do his comments pose to anyone? Hell, people here were trying to figure out where he works so that they could try to get him fired! Trying to cause personal harm to someone because they said something offensive is pretty thoughtless, and goes well beyond asking for him to be banned from a site. Yes, his opinions are bigoted, but he never indicated anywhere that he has ever DONE anything to a gay person other than dislike them.

If he has set this up as a game, at least a few people have played right into it. Yeah, the dude's a big old bigot. However, his point that people feel more than they think has been proven in here, and I even agree that it is a problem in our society. Trying to eliminate bigotry by reactionary emotional responses isn't going to work, and all it has proven to do is elicit emotional knee-jerk responses back from the bigots. Bigotry can and should be fought with thought and logic. There are some logical reasons for why Patrick should censor the guy, and nobody has even started to go down that road. Honestly, from reading this thread, rootvg has proven that he is better at the thinking game than his opponents. It is a mistake to totally write-off someone that expresses bigoted views under the assumption that "no person with a brain could possibly be a bigot" because they may just be one or two two steps ahead of you once you fire up the emotions. Assuming that being "anti-bigot" automatically makes you enlightened just means that you turn your brain off, and then the bigots win.

"Subhuman" is definitely not a polite way to express an opinion. It's a dilemma between allowing comments that are pointlessly rude and censoring someone's opinion.

Give the guy a break. He's been under attack from all sides since announcing he did the unthinkable and actually bought a house.

Well as far as rootvg is concerned, he seems to take delight that Patrick and others support his pointless hate mongering. While I find him loathsome, I can easily ignore such drivel. The point I was trying to make is that this is supposedly a blog about real estate and that is why I visit it. If you choose to make this just another, of many, blogs about right wing crusades to turn america into sharia or christainist theocratic kingdoms, than so be it. Perhaps I just need to find a real estate blog that, well, is focused on real estate.

Lastly, Patrick, if you are not going to enforce your very own stated comments policy; "Comment Policy: Insult Another User, Go To Jail", then you should remove this statement entirely.

Buster says

Well as far as rootvg is concerned, he seems to take delight that Patrick and others support his pointless hate mongering. While I find him loathsome, I can easily ignore such drivel. The point I was trying to make is that this is supposedly a blog about real estate and that is why I visit it. If you choose to make this just another, of many, blogs about right wing crusades to turn america into sharia or christainist theocratic kingdoms, than so be it. Perhaps I just need to find a real estate blog that, well, is focused on real estate.

There are plenty of threads here that aren't directly about real estate. Compared to other places I've been, posters here are fairly well informed. I see the typical Bay Area left wing dreck here and there but on balance, it's not a bad site.

Buster, nobody hates you.

I don't support pointless hate mongering. But I'm also sensitive to accusations of censorship, so I try to avoid deleting things. You can always put the guy on ignore.

But you're right that discussions about other topics belong in one of the other forums. I created the Politics and Religion forums exactly for that stuff.

Buster says

Lastly, Patrick, if you are not going to enforce your very own stated comments policy; "Comment Policy: Insult Another User, Go To Jail", then you should remove this statement entirely.

Did he deliberately insult you personally?

Precisely why I don't visit the politics and religion forums and stick to the real estate forums. I really don't see where epitaphs that he uses such as 'faggot' or 'subhuman' is contributing anything constructive to a thread supposedly about real estate. But in the end, it is your blog and you are the master of your universe. Sad. I will find another that better suits my interest in real estate and one that doesn't encourage stupid and hateful bigoted rants. Signing off.

Buster says

Well as far as rootvg is concerned, he seems to take delight that Patrick and others support his pointless hate mongering. While I find him loathsome, I can easily ignore such drivel. The point I was trying to make is that this is supposedly a blog about real estate and that is why I visit it. If you choose to make this just another, of many, blogs about right wing crusades to turn america into sharia or christainist theocratic kingdoms, than so be it. Perhaps I just need to find a real estate blog that, well, is focused on real estate.

One user being very open with his opinions hardly makes this a mouthpiece for Fox News. From what I can tell, more than 75% of users in here probably consider themselves to lean left-of-center. Unless you think that roovtg's views somehow have merit, you shouldn't really be worried about his presence, because he isn't going to convince anyone to pick up his views. You may be offended, but you shouldn't e worried about anything. That is just letting "feeling" take over for "thinking" since there is absolutely no demonstrable logic that could show this site to be turning into a board for the Westboro Baptist Church or something.

Buster says

Lastly, Patrick, if you are not going to enforce your very own stated comments policy; "Comment Policy: Insult Another User, Go To Jail", then you should remove this statement entirely.

He never made a personal attack that was directed at you, specifically. If you are gay, I certainly do not blame you for being offended, but he never made a personal attack on you. The comment policy is pretty specific, "Insult Another User, Go To Jail." There is a huge difference between insulting someone and offending them.

rootvg seems to be keenly aware of the rules, and it seems to me that he has probably been trolling the easily-offended in this fashion for quite a while because he is pretty good at it.

"Think, don't feel" is exactly how to deal with him, and is why this is silly. It's plainly obvious that "think don't feel" is the way to deal with him, but he comes out saying that it is the answer knowing that once he says something unpopular people will go attacking him, and that precludes them from ever acknowledging that "thought over feeling" is how to deal with it since it would make him "right." Suck it up & chock one point over to him, because he won this round before it even started. He wanted to prove a point, and he did.

@patrick. Rootvg's comments pasted below sure seem like a TOS to me. There are alot more anti gay remarks posted too.

rootvg who has 128 comments said:

wthrfrk80 says

1sfrenter says

The anonymity of the web lets people show their true colors, and the homophobia and racism on many blogs is astounding.

There is no such thing as "homophobia." That word is a purely political term.

I'm not phobic at all. I don't like them. I think they're subhuman. They're chronically angry at the world, perpetually unstable emotionally and aspire to corrupt everything they touch. They hate middle America and everything it stands for.

They also just about own the Democratic party.

It used to be a faggot couldn't get a security clearance to do defense work because someone could blackmail them but I understand that's no longer the case. Secret has always been fairly easy to get but I can't speak for TS and above. A lot of things have changed since I was in that world.

bmwman91 says

"Think, don't feel" is exactly how to deal with him, and is why this is silly. It's plainly obvious that "think don't feel" is the way to deal with him, but he comes out saying that it is the answer knowing that once he says something unpopular people will go attacking him, and that precludes them from ever acknowledging that "thought over feeling" is how to deal with it since it would make him "right." Suck it up & chock one point over to him, because he won this round before it even started. He wanted to prove a point, and he did.

You keep saying that, but any thinking person knows he won nothing and that his sort of comments don't simply require the pressing of an ignore button; they deserve a response. And how exactly is he thinking as opposed to feeling? He is simply posting up his bigoted views - there is no reasoning behind them, no explanation and absolutely no context for spouting his nonsense. He just puts them out there to clearly annoy others. It is just completely unnecessary.

And Patrick, your question about whether he insulted anyone personally strikes me as somewhat redundant. If you have any gay contributors on this site, then he clearly did insult them personally.

Saying that gays are subhuman is clearly thoughtless. However, as far as I can tell, his point was initially that BA people / "liberals" operate primarily on emotion rather than critical thought. He made a very unpopular statement, and the reactions that it has drawn seem to prove his initial point.

I guess that I disagree that his statements "require action." It just seems like an overreaction driven by a feeling of being offended. Stick him on ignore, problem solved on this site. You can't stop bigots from existing, and making a big fuss over their inane ramblings only serves to empower them in the end.

This thread probably belongs in the politics section at this point!

I agree with bmwman91. Just put the guy on ignore if you don't like him. I even extended ignore to ignore threads as well as comments.

Bigsby says

And Patrick, your question about whether he insulted anyone personally strikes me as somewhat redundant. If you have any gay contributors on this site, then he clearly did insult them personally.

Maybe they feel insulted, but I don't think he was directing his comment at anyone in particular on the forum.

bmwman91 says

Saying that gays are subhuman is clearly thoughtless. However, as far as I can tell, his point was initially that BA people / "liberals" operate primarily on emotion rather than critical thought. He made a very unpopular statement, and the reactions that it has drawn seem to prove his initial point.

No, that comment about feel/think came after his homophobic posts and the responses to them.

The problem was that:
a) he called people with a different sexual preference to his own subhuman.
b) he then castigates others who don't appreciate his views for 'feeling' rather than 'thinking' as if his bigoted nonsense was the consequence of deep thought whereas our response was based simply on feelings.

His comments are bloody ridiculous and to be honest, your comments haven't exactly reflected what has been going on.

I agree with bmwman91. Just put the guy on ignore if you don't like him. I even extended ignore to ignore threads as well as comments.

Bigsby says

And Patrick, your question about whether he insulted anyone personally strikes me as somewhat redundant. If you have any gay contributors on this site, then he clearly did insult them personally.

Maybe they feel insulted, but I don't think he was directing his comment at anyone in particular on the forum.

Not anyone in particular, but anyone who is gay.

It's your forum, but I really don't think his comments have any place whatsoever here or anywhere come to that. You can let him carry on posting his bigoted nonsense (and tell us to press the ignore button) or you could at the very least tell him that those sort of comments don't have any place on your forum and that if he does it again, he'll be banned.

Looks like he deleted the original

I don't think so.

rootvg says
316 Fri, 2 Mar 2012 at 2:18 pm Quote Like Dislike (1) Permalink Share

I'm not phobic at all. I don't like them. I think they're subhuman. They're chronically angry at the world, perpetually unstable emotionally and aspire to corrupt everything they touch. They hate middle America and everything it stands for.

They also just about own the Democratic party.

It used to be a faggot couldn't get a security clearance to do defense work because someone could blackmail them but I understand that's no longer the case. Secret has always been fairly easy to get but I can't speak for TS and above. A lot of things have changed since I was in that world.

Come'on rootvg, keep sharing your opinions about your fellow Americans with us. Stand by your remarks.

Buster says

I really don't see where epitaphs that he uses such as 'faggot' or 'subhuman' is contributing anything constructive to a thread supposedly about real estate.

+1

I got disgusted and stopped watching this thread although it was my original post that got the homophobia thing going.

Here is the real estate context: many many people choose to buy or rent in a certain area because of demographics.

I would never live in a place like Danville or Livermore because those places have too many people who live there so they can be away from all the gays in the city. (I'm sure there are plenty of really nice, tolerant people there, too, but the bigots ruin it for everyone)

I choose to live in such an expensive place (SF) when there are many other cheaper places to live because I do not want to live in a neighborhood where I have to deal with neighbors who hate the fact that a family with gay parents has moved in. I would no more put my kids through that than I would choose to live in a neighborhood where there is gang violence and bullets flying.

Gay people get harassed, discriminated against, shunned, and physically assaulted. Go search for some statistics about hate crimes - they occur everywhere - but life is worse for gay people outside of big, liberal cities. I'm not playing victim here, just saying that I would like to raise my kids in a place where we are accepted.

Most of us will go out of our way not to move to a place where we will be a minority. For some, this is simply about comfort, but in other cases it can truly be a safety issue.

So yes, I'll pay top dollar to live here in my city by the Bay. Where we ultimately decide to live, whether we rent or buy, is never only a financial decision, there will always be issues of race, class, education level, politics, etc. that make some places more desirable than others for each of us.

B.A.C.A.H. says

Looks like he deleted the original

I don't think so.

OK, I deleted it.