patrick.net

Dan's last post is fiction. No reason to comment about Fictional Dan from Fictionville, Notachanceland.

Danville - home of the whopper.

Dan8267 says

Jesus believed in redistribution of wealth, turning the other cheek when attacked by enemies, forgiving any person for any wrongdoing, and the only time he ever got pissed off was at the bankers. Jesus was far more left than Ted Kennedy. He would have been appalled at the idea of gun ownership, all of the wars America has fought, and the death penalty (which, I heard, he had a bit of first-hand experience with).

I too am probably more familiar with the bible than most fundamentalists. Yes, the bible does support the claims that you mentioned, but the bible is also contradictory, and when justifying any "philosophy" cherry picking is required. I may go so far as to say that any life philosophy, "moral" or not, could be supported by the bible.

Matthew 10
10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
10:36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.

Luke 14
14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Tenouncetrout says

Just an ignorant ass hole spouting nonsense

Your account is now disabled.

MarsAttacks! says

"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew" -- Barack Obama speaking before the Congressional Black Caucus over the weekend

At least he didn't flub it by saying "If asking a Jew to pay the same tax rate asa billionaire". Now that would have been bad.

It was a flub, he quickly corrected himself to say "janitor" instead of Jew. Why would you portray this as anything other than a flub?

Holy crap! Heads rolling left and right this afternoon!

Tenouncetrout says

Just an ignorant ass hole spouting nonsense

Your account is now disabled.

goatkick says

You're such a whiny bitch

Your account is now disabled.

Yup, I wish them well, elsewhere.

New rule: golden one. Actually a very old rule.

Please try to maintain a sense of good will and cooperation.

Tenouncetrout says

Just an ignorant ass hole spouting nonsense

Your account is now disabled.

I'm quite certain that is taken out of context, I didn't directly call anyone an ignorant Ahole.

Wasn't there an "other wise, you're" in front of that, and I wasn't addressing anyone in particular, other than closing what ever I was saying?

Nope, the context was pretty full of hate too.

Yup, I wish them well, elsewhere.

New rule: golden one. Actually a very old rule.

Please try to maintain a sense of good will and cooperation.

This is not the one, but I got one of these Dr. Bob paintings at my front door.

Wow, that's an excellent forum policy in a nutshell.

OK, I adopt it as the Patrick.net Forum Motto. Thanks!

MarsAttacks! says

Like when people say things like this?

I don't get what point you are trying to make, so I can't answer your question.

Bap33 says

Dan's last post is fiction. No reason to comment about Fictional Dan from Fictionville, Notachanceland.

Danville - home of the whopper.

With analysis like that, do I even need to make a counter-argument? The posting is simply an assertion with no specifics, no evidence, and no reasoning. Although, I really don't get why Bap33 would think anyone would believe his assertion when I consistently back up everything I say with references. It's like the conservatives on this site have some major blind spots to anything that contradicts their beliefs.

leoj707 says

Yes, the bible does support the claims that you mentioned, but the bible is also contradictory, and when justifying any "philosophy" cherry picking is required. I may go so far as to say that any life philosophy, "moral" or not, could be supported by the bible.

True, the Bible does contradict itself greatly. No surprise since it was written by many different people with many different social, economic, and political agendas. However, I would not go so far as to say that the New Testament, which is the basis of Christianity, could justify any philosophy. Many perhaps, but not any.

The New Testaments and particularly the Gospels, which deal most directly with the life and alleged believes of Jesus, is pretty consistent in philosophical, if not at all historical, content. The philosophy is basically love your neighbor, be compassionate, share everything you have, treat everyone like you would treat Jesus. Pretty much socialist philosophy. And again, this is coming from a hard-core atheist, so I'm pretty objective as I have no religious agenda unless you count promoting rationalism over mysticism.

Tenouncetrout says
Just an ignorant ass hole spouting nonsense

Darn, that message got deleted before I had a chance to read it. So, unfortunately, I cannot reply to it to show exactly why it's wrong, but I'm pretty sure from the quote above, it must have been a really lame argument.

All I can say is that good arguments go: point, counter-point, point, counter-point. Saying something insulting but ultimately vague and hollow like "just an ignorant ass hole spouting nonsense" is usually a pretty good indication that the speaker is on thin ice and has nothing substantial with which to counter his opponent.

In rebutting an opponent on any subject matter, you should address the specific points your opponent made and explain in concise, clear, and verifiable detail about why those points are wrong. This should be done one by one for each point you wish to counter. Ignoring those points and simply calling your opponent names has never convinced anyone. Debating isn't rocket science. Maybe I should debate myself just to show the conservatives how it's done properly. Naturally, I'd have to play devil's advocate to do so, but if it gets the ultra-cons to behave in a more productive manner, it would be worth the time.

Nope, the context was pretty full of hate too.

Whatever Tenouncetrout (or is it Done! now) said, I'm willing to forgive him in exchange for a small token of rationality. I've given a list of 10 reasons Obama is a really bad president. I could probably give about as many examples of bad decision making for just about every president up to and including Kennedy. (I'm really not enough of a history buff to go further than that.) Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter. They all make mistakes and most, if not all, sell out.

So Tenouncetrout, here's a little exercise you can do to prove to us that you are a rational person and not a wingnut like the Tea Party members. Give me an honest list of ten ways in which George W. Bush majorly fucked up as president. This should be a really easy assignment even for a Republican. I'll even give you a little help. You could use some of the items on my list of Obama no-no's. If you can't come up with a list of ten major Bush screw-ups, then how can we take your arguments seriously?

Dan8267 says

The New Testaments and particularly the Gospels, which deal most directly with the life and alleged believes of Jesus, is pretty consistent in philosophical, if not at all historical, content. The philosophy is basically love your neighbor, be compassionate, share everything you have, treat everyone like you would treat Jesus. Pretty much socialist philosophy.

Just a reminder that the passages I quoted "hate your family" "I bring not peace but a sword" are new testament Jesus quotes. ;)

Dan8267 says

Maybe I should debate myself just to show the conservatives how it's done properly. Naturally, I'd have to play devil's advocate to do so, but if it gets the ultra-cons to behave in a more productive manner, it would be worth the time.

I don't think that it would change the uber-cons behavior. While there are some good arguments from a conservative perspective, with which one could rationally argue, they still would get your alter-ego labeled as a RINO. While the teabagger/neo-con/ditto head types often start with good intentions I have not seen any arguments from them that could be made to realistically fit in your "good argument" model (without just looking like a straw man).

Nope, the context was pretty full of hate too.

The hate is swelling in you now. Give in to your anger. With each passing moment, you make yourself more my servant.

leoj707 says

While there are some good arguments from a conservative perspective, with which one could rationally argue, they still would get your alter-ego labeled as a RINO.

There was a time when Republicans could debate rationally. I guess all the rational people left the party.

The thing is there are good conservative issues out there. The national debt is a major problem. The current implementations of social security and medicare are screwed up. Even gun rights, to an extent, make sense.

The so called "Rinos" are the Republican Party's only hope of not being destroyed by the Tea Party. But I guess, at this point it's inevitable that the Republican Party is going to die and it deserves to.

The question is, what happens next? Does the Democratic Party become unchallenged and thereby worsen year after year? Do Democrats fraction off into two separate parties due to internal disputes now that they have no common enemy? Does a new party rise from the ashes of the Republican Party? If so, is it rising from the Rinos or the crazy as bat-shit droppings?

I think the fall of the Republican Party will be like the fall of Communism. It will replace an evil empire, a known enemy, with chaos as a power vacuum looks to be filled.

Dan8267 says

Darn, that message got deleted before I had a chance to read it. So, unfortunately, I cannot reply to it to show exactly why it's wrong, but I'm pretty sure from the quote above, it must have been a really lame argument.

I have a copy. So here you go:

OH My God, somebody posted pictures on the internet, I clicked on some of those links I swear I did, and I did not find one single Tea Party affiliated web site period. Just random websites, of random people posting pics that if Obama was anything but black, would be a non issue. Just some one bent out of shape with the current president and lampooning him or making digital effigies.

Even the only blatant racist sign on that page makes no political affiliation at all. Just an ignorant ass hole spouting nonsense or a Liberal doing it in his proxy.
I don't know, you be the judge. But there's nothing on any of the ten links I clicked on that even mentioned the Tea Party.

So how does it feel to have your ass handed back to you, for being a Nancy Pelosi Boy?

Nancy Pelosi Boy = Presents erroneous information they didn't read, that counters their argument, as facts and truths to make their argument.

Dan8267 says

I think the fall of the Republican Party will be like the fall of Communism. It will replace an evil empire, a known enemy with chaos as a power vacuum looks to be filled.

I think the US actually HAS a soviet-quality economy now.

They may have blew themselves up economically in the late 1980s, but they didn't have reserve currency status to abuse. Well, maybe they did, but only Cuba and some African shitholes would take their currency so the ruble wasn't much of a currency bloc.

When I was pooing my pants in the late 1960s per capita debt in the US was under $10,000 per person ($65,000 in today's money).

Now it's over $200,000, over 3X over inflation alone.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=2ua

We've got a fall coming here at home, too.

FWIW, the Reagan Era started with per-capita debt at under $30,000 and ended over $60,000.

Clinton: $80,000 & $130,000.

Bush Jr took that $130,000 and left it at $225,000.

The last most recent print for Obama has the per-capita systemic debt at $220,000.

> I did not find one single Tea Party affiliated web site period.

I'd be surprised if the Tea Party had computers or knew how to use them. Nevertheless, the pictures were taken at Tea Party rallies as numerous of the websites discuss. Google's image search lets you go directly to the image or to the web page that hosts it. So it's not hard to tell they people pictured were Tea Party protesters.

Of course, you don't even have to rely on the Internet. Television news coverage of Tea Party protests have shown amble examples of racism including many of the signs revealed in Google's image search.

- Just random websites, of random people posting pics that if Obama was anything but black, would be a non issue.

No, it's ok to lampoon someone who happens to be black. Thre are plenty of non-racist political cartoons about Obama. But when you make him out to be a witch doctor or a shoe-shine boy, it's not hard to read between the lines. The intent is to dehumanize him based on race. That intent is clear.

When a sign dresses Obama as a Muslim and calls him by his middle name Huessein, it's a transparent attempt to falsely associated Obama with Sadam Heussein, who was falsely associated with Al Qaeda by the Bush administration. It is also obvious that the false association with Islam is meant to invoke religious bigotry. But perhaps most disturbing is the acceptance of such blatant distribution of misinformation.

Personally, I don't get why anyone would distribute such easily disprovable disinformation in the Information Age. You say something ridiculous and you have to apologize for it for the rest of your life. The Internet preserves all of your mistakes, often in video format nowadays. That alone should make people more cautious about getting their facts right.

- Just an ignorant ass hole spouting nonsense or a Liberal doing it in his proxy.

Yeah, I don't get the utter paranoia about there being leftist planted in the Tea Party rallies to make the Tea Party look bad. The Tea Party has been pretty consistent in its vocalization including in heavily screened situations like the Republican / Tea Party Presidential Debate. It wasn't a leftist plant screaming out "YES!" to let him die.

Now there have been many occasions of the FBI infiltrating anti-war groups, radical groups composed of 67-year-old retired librarians and keeping detail records on them. That you can Google. Scary stuff.

But the left doesn't use these tactics. You're thinking of people like Andrew Breitbart, the pimp-wannabe would took down Acorn by secreting recording hundreds of encounters until he found something bad and then used that to imply that it was representative of the entire organization. The right does use such tactics, but the left is too busy eating brownies and smoking pot to get their shit together enough to pull something like that off or to even care enough to.

- there's nothing on any of the ten links I clicked on that even mentioned the Tea Party.

The image I linked to of Obama as a witchdoctor came from a Word Press article. Click the link and let the web page load. Then press Control+F and type "tea party" and click Next (I'm using Firefox, so adjust for your browser if different). You'll find many tea party references. You'll also see lots of ridiculously racist signs like "Obamanomics: Monkey see, Monkey spend". "Monkey" was a racist term for Africans -- see Clerks II and say hi to Pillowpants for me.

I can go to just about any of the images returned on the first page of Google's results and they pretty much all say the signs come from Tea Partiers. What other rally did you think would be using such rhetoric and imagery? Comic-Con?

- So how does it feel to have your ass handed back to you, for being a Nancy Pelosi Boy?

Yeah, I'm not getting why you feel like you've made a great argument. You certainly seem impressed by how you've rebutted my arguments, but what exactly is your thinking? You aren't even challenging me to think. From my perspective, this is more like a charity gig, like I'm a professional athlete running along side someone training to be in the Special Olympics in order to encourage him to run a little faster, meanwhile, the guy is yelling "you're so slow" while falling behind.

I'm deliberately dumbing-down the subject matter and taking it real slow so that you'll understand my points and be able to address them, or at least attempt to, and yet you still seem to be struggling. I mean, really, do you honestly believe that there's a good case to be made that the Tea Party isn't racist after all that we've seen?

You gotta recognize when some arguments have no where to go and are just better left discarded. I even gave you an "in" by stating that I thought the Tea Party is a vocal but small minority of the Republicans. You could have gone with that and distance yourself from all that crazy hate. Instead you embraced it. Can you see how that was a bad move?

By the way, I don't get your "Nancy Pelosi Boy" reference or why you define that term in such a way. I know conservatives hate Pelosi because

1. She's a woman
2. She's a Democrat
3. She's from San Francisco. You know that city with all the gay people! (And conservatives hate gays even more than they hate liberals.)
4. She had power because she was Speaker of the House.

But come on, is there any thing else that makes Pelosi craw up the conservative's butt so much?

And if you're implying that I'm somehow a Pelosi fanboy, you're wrong. I'd have to look her up on ontheissues.org just to find out what her policies are. So I have no idea about whether or not I'd vote for someone like her.

Bellingham Bob says

I think the US actually HAS a soviet-quality economy now.

Perhaps, but that's not the point I was trying to make. During the cold war, America had one enemy. It was a big enemy, but it was a rational enemy and one that we knew quite well. After the Soviet Union fell, all the former Soviet states started their old rivalries again including ethnic bigotry. Some of the nukes from the former Soviet Union were now in the handles of less stable states. So instead of having one large rational enemy, the U.S. had many small and irrational enemies. For a while it was a less stable and more dangerous situation.

Bellingham Bob says

When I was pooing my pants in the late 1960s per capita debt in the US was under $10,000 per person ($65,000 in today's money).

I wasn't even a twinkle in my parents' eyes at a Ramones' concert at that time. I only became aware of the national debt around 1985 and I was just a kid at the time but I knew Reagan was screwing things up by his deficit spending.

Fiscally, I am quite conservative. I guess I'd be a Rino if I didn't think the Republicans had been taken over by lunatics. Can a Rino be big on human and civil rights?

Then again, I couldn't be a Republican because I would shift the tax burden heavily onto the richest 0.5% of the population. The first $100k/yr you make would be tax free, but everything over the frist $1 million would be taxed at 90%. And I would reduce spending dramatically (see the NY TImes challenge in one of the older threads).

Capital gains would be taxed at 100% for anything held for less than a month. Each month the gains would decrease by 1% until 8 and a third years later, the capital gains are taxed at 0%. This would end all bubbles. But then, after the capital gains tax (whether 0% or more) is applied, all capital gains would be considered normal income and taxed appropriately. This would prevent CEOs from fleecing everyone and escaping taxation.

And I say any corporation large enough to make political contributions or hire lobbyists is large enough to be broken down by anti-trust laws. One of the prime purposes of anti-trust laws is to make sure that corporations don't become large enough to take control of government.

Dan8267 says

Then again, I couldn't be a Republican because I would shift the tax burden heavily onto the richest 0.5% of the population. The first $100k/yr you make would be tax free, but everything over the frist $1 million would be taxed at 90%. And I would reduce spending dramatically (see the NY TImes challenge in one of the older threads).

Capital gains would be taxed at 100% for anything held for less than a month. Each month the gains would decrease by 1% until 8 and a third years later, the capital gains are taxed at 0%. This would end all bubbles. But then, after the capital gains tax (whether 0% or more) is applied, all capital gains would be considered normal income and taxed appropriately. This would prevent CEOs from fleecing everyone and escaping taxation.

And I say any corporation large enough to make political contributions or hire lobbyists is large enough to be broken down by anti-trust laws. One of the prime purposes of anti-trust laws is to make sure that corporations don't become large enough to take control of government.

Interesting proposal.

And while we're into fact checking, what was Tenouncetrout/Done! thinking when he posted on this thread?

It's almost like he lives in an alternative universe where things are kind of the same as ours but with freaky differences like Obama still being a senator. OMFG! Tenouncetrout IS A SLIDER!!!

Dan8267 says

The posting is simply an assertion with no specifics

You are correct, your fairy tale post was that exactly. Maybe you didn't realize those same lame-o upbringing stories, that are text-book excuses for being anti-God, and anti-Conservative, have already been used on here by a few other self-proclaimed anti-right posters before you. Your side needs to figure out who gets to use that story and cut down on the copy-cat posters. Carry on.

MarsAttacks! says

But it sure does when a Tea Party hack says something equally stupid?

When a member of the Tea Party says something anti-semitic or racist, he probably means it. It is no coincidence that the Tea Party protesters happen to be descendant from slave owners, KKK members, and lynchers of black people.

Those in the Tea Party come from families that supported Strom Thurmond (the asshole who filibustered the Civil Rights Act), were pro-segregation, were against blacks having the right to vote, were against legal interracial marriages, and are currently against legal gay marriages. It's not a coincidence that all these things go together. They make up a culture of a few people having social, political, and economic control over another large group. And that culture is evil.

Of course, all the ultra-conservatives will try to deny the facts I presented and demand proof that the individual tea party members are descended from slave owners or came from families that supported segregation. They'll deny these facts even though it is painfully obvious to every one else that this is true.

Well, let them Google the evidence themselves. Even if I presented freakin' DNA lineages that would not sway the ultra-cons into accepting the ugly truth about the history of the people who make up the Tea Party. Ultra-cons want to whitewash history because any honest telling of the racial bigotry of the south doesn't make Southerners look very moral or upstanding.

The Southerns should try to make themselves look better by distinguishing themselves from their ancestors and renouncing all the old, stupid ideas. It would be a more effective strategy than white washing history.

Bap33 says

Dan8267 says

The posting is simply an assertion with no specifics

You are correct, your fairy tale post was that exactly.

Dude, that's the kind of lame, deliberate misinterpreting comeback my six-year-old nephew would make, if I had a six-year-old nephew. Please put more thought into your rebuttals.

Bap33 says

Maybe you didn't realize those same lame-o upbringing stories, that are text-book excuses for being anti-God, and anti-Conservative, have already been used on here by a few other self-proclaimed anti-right posters before you.

I have no freakin' clue what you're talking about here. Does any non-ultra-con have an English translation of this? I can't be the only one here who thinks this is gibberish.

Bap33 says

Your side needs to figure out who gets to use that story and cut down on the copy-cat posters.

First, I never copy-cat. If I want to reference something someone else says, I give credit due where it's due.

Second, I have no "side". Whatever side you think I'm on is simply a figment of your imagination and paranoia. I'm what political analysts would call a true independent. However, the Republicans have become so crazy that we independents cannot support them. And every time you post, you reinforce this perception.

Make no mistake. The tea party is made up of the people in the background of this picture and their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

And though most of the Tea Partiers have not lynched in their life, they come from the culture that did lynch, and it is that culture which drives their hate-filled politics.

TenPoundBass-TenOunceTrout-Done and I spent the better part of an afternoon "together" one day; him posting something (not sure what) while I attempted to figure out what he was saying.

He amused me and has been on patnet for years. I'll miss tot. Until the very end, he was ever-present and sometimes seriously funny. He was a friend, and I wish he wasn't gone. But I also didn't like what he said, nor watching him descend into anger so quickly over the last year of his patnet life.

This forum has become so polarized, and it's unfortunate. Every thread became about politics - if I posted a picture of a puppy and a kitty playing together it would have been politically tied, somehow. This is a gift from Shrek - the gift that keeps on giving.

It's only fitting that the thread that pointed out pervasive anger Shrek started was the "death" of others who subscribed to his style. RIP, dear bass-trout. If I'm ever in Florida I shall follow my nose and ears to the place of happy tunes and happy smoke.

ellie, please comment on Dan's last few posts of hate.

I think Dan has a point.

There wasn't much content in your comment, other than that you don't like Dan.

Could you be more specific?

I think Dan has a point.

I think that Dan has a good point, and I think that, outside Google searches for posters, there is probably ample data that would support his claim that the Tea Party is more racist than the general population.

Fore example: we know that the south is probably the most racist area of the country (if anyone disagrees I would be interested to hear the reasoning). So, what area has the highest density of Tea Party Caucus members? That's right, the south!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_Caucus#Members.2C_112th_Congress

I bet if we kept digging a mountain of data would continue to pile up, and continue to point to a racist Tea Party.

Dan8267 says

The Southerns should try to make themselves look better by distinguishing themselves from their ancestors and renouncing all the old, stupid ideas. It would be a more effective strategy than white washing history.

Off topic, but the Turks have a similar problem. They ruthlessly exterminated their Armenian population out of fear it would side with the Russians in WWI. But they have not admitted it to this day. They would look better if they were honest about it.

The south is nowhere near the most racist part of the country. Boston is notoriously racist and is almost certainly as racist as the south (see the fairly recent ESPN article about athletes' perceptions of racism). Alabama and Mississippi both have extremely large African-American populations, so they would be stupid states for racists to choose to live in. Have you ever been to a city in the south? Memphis is half African-American, Atlanta is over a third African-American. Over forty percent of the African Americans in Congress represent southern states. I'm not sure what more the south should do to prove it is no longer the confederacy than electing African Americans to represent them in congress. Racial harmony in the south is better than it has ever been. Is it perfect? No, nowhere near it. But when you consider the rampant racism against Latinos in much of the southwest, or the racism of many in the northeast against Haitians, or even the racism against those of Asian descent that I saw all the time in Seattle, I think you are pushing it to make a claim that the south is currently more racist than anywhere else. Are there no racists in San Francisco? http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=b5df7611cb906045c8c64ab91b4fbcc2 If your claim of racism in the Tea Party is true, the Tea Party should be very popular in San Francisco.

So, does the new Be Nice or Leave policy apply to the use of teabagger or not? Because there is page after page of uses of that word if you search the forums. You were talking about people avoiding the forums because of ShrekGrinch, and I don't doubt it is true. I always felt he was more of a liability than a help when discussing issues. But the attitudes of many long-time posters here and the animosity towards the Tea Party is just as causeless as ShrekGrinch's view of Obama, with common accusations that the Tea Partiers are teabaggers and Fascists.

Patrick, I also don't really see how on the one hand you ask for donations to keep this site alive, while on the other you make blanket statements such as "The liberals try to talk about facts and the conservatives couldn't care less about facts." You also literally compared conservatives to dogs. Why should I open up my wallet to donate to your site when you make such statements?

I was saddened when you broadened the scope of this site from real estate to opinions on health care, but I understood that it was important to you, and that it is your site. But you long ago jumped the shark on the politics section, and have broadened it from just health care to posting articles dismissive of conservatives in general. Again, why should I donate money to a site that believes I am an idiot for my political beliefs, and shares links to reflect that belief on a near daily basis.

I also don't understand how you are capable of holding mutually contradictory thoughts. How is that conservatives have no interest in facts, but liberals do, yet of the links you post, the ones most interested in facts and mathematics rather than just conjecture are to opinion pieces written by non-liberals such as Karl Denninger and Mike Shedlock? For example, Denninger and Shedlock both believe that the healthcare law is terrible for the country and must be stopped. Are you arguing that both of these men, who provide far more facts to back up their conjectures than anyone on this site, don't care about facts?

In short, I believe that this site has become a haven of hypocrisy, and that saddens me. What was once a wonderful place to read about the housing bubble has become an echo chamber of liberal ideology, and the posters have convinced themselves that they are somehow a brilliant elite that can make blanket statements about conservatives without any attempt to back those statements up with facts, while simultaneously accusing the other side of not having any facts. And all the while, every time I try to have a political conversation I risk being called a teabagger or a Fascist because I interpret the constitution differently, and have different beliefs regarding entitlements.

Perhaps this is the nature of the internet itself, that everything good eventually devolves into a shouting match. And I am the first to admit that my side is equally at fault (as much as I dislike being called names, I dislike even more having my arguments hijacked by my supposed allies with hyperbolic arguments or character assassinations), but I don't see it getting any better. Starting to read this thread had given me some hope that an attempt was going to be made to police the forums, somewhat like Denninger's policy that any claim not backed by actual demonstrable facts is cause for banning (strange that a site frequented mostly by people of a more conservative persuasion actually requires fact despite your claim that only liberals are interested in facts), but by the end of the thread we are back to conjecture that the Tea Party is more racist than the general population with nothing to back the claim but potential google searches and a strange logical jump based on geographical racism from fifty years ago.

I meant that Dan's point was that Bap33's comments lacked specifics.

TeaBagger seems to have started as a self-descriptive term:

http://theweek.com/article/index/202620/the-evolution-of-the-word-tea-bagger

You're an unusual conservative -- lately. I think there used to be more of your kind.

ahasuerus99 says

And I am the first to admit that my side is equally at fault (as much as I dislike being called names, I dislike even more having my arguments hijacked by my supposed allies with hyperbolic arguments or character assassinations), but I don't see it getting any better.

Lately, it's not at all equal. Your supposed allies far outnumber you, or at least they are far louder, and they're not coherent or reasonable. They do indeed hear arguments very much like a dog does, seeming to hear only tone and never the content.

ahasuerus99 says

non-liberals such as Karl Denninger and Mike Shedlock

I doubt either one would describe themselves as a Tea Party member now that it's been taken over by the haters. Denniger said as much:

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=2222649

You're very welcome to stay here because you're civil and reasonable. It would be nice to debate an actual conservative.

ahasuerus99 says

Alabama and Mississippi both have extremely large African-American populations, so they would be stupid states for racists to choose to live in

LOL, nice try I guess. The only problem with your argument is that racists are stupid, too.

Over forty percent of the African Americans in Congress represent southern states. I'm not sure what more the south should do to prove it is no longer the confederacy than electing African Americans to represent them in congress.

LOL. You *do* know that districts are gerrymandered, right? Yes, there are a lot of black people in the South, but they get lumped into a few districtis.

Alabama is over 25% black but only has 1 black representative out of 7.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?state=AL

Funny how that worked.

Southerners can win some anti-racist badges when they elect a black Senator, you dig?

The rest of your racist stuff is just trying to change the subject.

FYI, the three black Senators to win office since Reconstruction are from MA and two from IL, though Obama's win was something of an accident of history, and he's not that black if you ask me.

So, does the new Be Nice or Leave policy apply to the use of teabagger or not? Because there is page after page of uses of that word if you search the forums.

Teabaggers earned that name for themselves by their own actions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/14/tea-bag-terror-protests-c_n_186596.html

Tea baggers are profoundly stupid people who lack the self-awareness to not do and say stupid things.

How is that conservatives have no interest in facts, but liberals do, yet of the links you post, the ones most interested in facts and mathematics rather than just conjecture are to opinion pieces written by non-liberals such as Karl Denninger and Mike Shedlock?

KD and mish are ideological anti-government hacks talking their books.

Are you arguing that both of these men, who provide far more facts to back up their conjectures than anyone on this site, don't care about facts?

They marshal the facts they want. They ignore the facts that controvert their arguments.

n short, I believe that this site has become a haven of hypocrisy, and that saddens me.

Your sadness equally saddens me, too. This is supposed to be a happy place.

And all the while, every time I try to have a political conversation I risk being called a teabagger or a Fascist because I interpret the constitution differently, and have different beliefs regarding entitlements.

Make your arguments but try to leave the butt-hurt conservative act at the door.

but by the end of the thread we are back to conjecture that the Tea Party is more racist than the general population with nothing to back the claim but potential google searches and a strange logical jump based on geographical racism from fifty years ago.

fwiw I also try to defend the anti-Obama conservatives from unfounded allegations of racism.

You don't have to be racist to be an anti-government teabagger, but it helps.

Patrick,
I feel Dan told a fairy tale to support his anti-conservative, anti-God, anti-right postings. I say that due to the exact match his story had to every other libtopian story we get on here from posters such as Dan ... "I grew up super religous, nuns beat me, I got smarter by going to college, smart people know religion is crap, America sucks, smoking dope is great, my parents were right wing, and I'm not a lefty -- I'm an independant! And besides, all conservatives are racist bigot homophobe teabagger bastards!" (some paraphrasing).

So, based on the complete lack of originality, Dan COULD be a copy-cat and a liar. But, since Dan has no trouble suggesting that all TeaParty members ARE (not could be, but are) racists, then Dan can and shall be called a copy-cat liar for his fable.

Is that more detailed enough?

The only people that pay attention to race are those trying to gain power by choosing who wins and loses based on race. And that is 100% progressive/liberal/leftist/demoncrat racebaiting and class warfare - period.

ahasuerus99 says

Alabama and Mississippi both have extremely large African-American populations, so they would be stupid states for racists to choose to live in.

Isn't that akin to saying , "Why would black people live in the south, since there were so many lynchings there?"

Post Civil War, blacks continued to live in the south--their homes. Although many moved Northwards where they were treated on a more equal basis. Or at least, not killed for trying to vote.

Which, again, is why Reagan kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia and spoke of "State's rights". This, the site of the murder of the civil rights workers who were helping to register blacks to vote.

Bap33 says

ellie, please comment on Dan's last few posts of hate.

Wow, I have never seen such an unsophisticated and child-like attempt at manipulating people into thinking someone else has done something wrong. I can only image what went through your head when you wrote this post:

Man, I can't think of anything to counter Dan's arguments. He's just too good. If only I could get the community to turn against him. Hey, wait. Did Patrick just ban someone for being "hateful". Yeah, that's the ticket. I'll start a rumor that Dan is posting hateful messages. People will just read my message and be too lazy to read Dan's, so you'll be sure to conclude I'm right. Maybe even Patrick will ban him. Goodie, goodie, goodie!.

Seriously, your lame attempt to accuse me of hate speech is the conversational equivalent of a four-year-old throwing a tantrum when he doesn't get his way. And in case you haven't notice, I'm pretty good at spotting bullshit, calling people out on the bullshit, and explaining exactly why it's bullshit.

And quite frankly, if you ultra-cons can't get along with me, one of the most fiscally conservative people on this site, what chance to you have of getting along with everyone else?

Bap33 says

Dan8267 says

The posting is simply an assertion with no specifics

You are correct, your fairy tale post was that exactly. Maybe you didn't realize those same lame-o upbringing stories, that are text-book excuses for being anti-God, and anti-Conservative, have already been used on here by a few other self-proclaimed anti-right posters before you. Your side needs to figure out who gets to use that story and cut down on the copy-cat posters. Carry on.

This is another fine example of juvenile tactics. You deliberately misinterpret my statement to mean the exact opposite of what it does. This is the debating equivalent of Pee Wee Herman saying, "I know you are, but what am I." The problem with juvenile tactics is that they only work on juveniles. Most of the people on patrick.net are adults, and adults don't fall for such infantile displays because the adult thinking process is more sophisticated.

Seriously, Bap33, if you want to make a counter-point to any of my arguments, it would be far more productive to come up with a coherent idea backed by rational analysis and reputable references. Simply sticking out your tongue and saying "nah, nah, nah" doesn't work. I would be glad to debate you on any issue, if only you would say something intelligent.

As for me being "anti-god", that's ridiculous. I've made it well-known that I'm an atheist. I firmly believe, no, make that know that no god, as defined by any of the monotheistic or polytheistic religions in human history exists. Your god is a fictional character. As such I can no more be anti-god than you can be anti-Spiderman. What I am against is irrationality and the persistent and dangerous use of mysticism. And the reason I am against these things is that they have been causing death, destruction, and suffering throughout human history. And if you want examples of this, then watch Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It's on YouTube and is free.

As for me being "anti-conservative", I guess if your definition of "conservative" is "bat-shit crazy" then yes, I'm anti-conservative. I have seen little evidence from your postings or Shrek's that conservative means anything other than the delusional and persistent pursuit of failed philosophies, economic models, and ideas in face of overwhelming evidence that such pursuits inevitably end in further failure.

Of course, I don't think that conservative has to mean believing the Earth is 6000 years old and that Jesus would work for Goldman Sachs if given the chance. As I've said before in these forums, I think Eisenhower was a great president and I'd vote for him. I'd also would vote for Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Theodore Roosevelt (all Republicans).

The fact that in my lifetime the Republican party has fallen from every merit it ever had is the fault of the very extremists I have shown to be full of hatred and bigotry. It is those extremists who have redefined "conservative" in such a way that no rational human being could support it. Those extremists have forced out every clear minded Republican, or as they say "Rino", from the party, and in doing so have also made us independents recoil in shock. You are simply killing your own party.

ahasuerus99 says

The south is nowhere near the most racist part of the country. Boston is notoriously racist and is almost certainly as racist as the south (see the fairly recent ESPN article about athletes' perceptions of racism). Alabama and Mississippi both have extremely large African-American populations, so they would be stupid states for racists to choose to live in.

If I'm reading this correctly, you are saying that Boston is more racist than Alabama. Are you by any chance also a Slider like Tenouncetrout? Perhaps one where the south won the Civil War?

You're talking about Boston, right? The city with a Dunkin Donuts on every street corner. The city where the police can't tell the difference between a light-bright and a bomb. The city that's overflowing with MIT nerds dressed in Storm Trooper uniforms performing a musical (ok, maybe that's Cambridge)? That Boston? And you're saying that Boston is more racist than the South?

I don't know where the picture of the lynching I linked to was taken, but I know it wasn't Boston. In fact, I'm pretty sure it wasn't anywhere in New England.

ahasuerus99 says

You [Patrick] also literally compared conservatives to dogs.

Actually Patrick compared how conservatives hear liberal arguments to how dogs hear what humans say: they don't understand the language, but they perceive the tone.

Of course, comparing conservatives to dogs would be unfair. Dogs love unconditionally and bring joy to the world.

Also related to Patrick's point… There was a time when conservatives were intelligent and highly educated. Eisenhower was a very intelligent man. Unfortunately, he was the last Republican president with an I.Q. over 80, and this is precisely because today the Republican Party looks down on intelligence, education, science, and math. Republicans believe that thinking is "elitist". They even use the word "elite" as code for bad.

Bap33 says

I feel Dan told a fairy tale to support his anti-conservative, anti-God, anti-right postings.

You "feel" that I told a fairy tale? You need to stop feeling and start thinking. Thinking works better. It's more accurate, especially when it comes to facts. This is exactly what Colbert meant when he coined the term "truthiness", something that feels like it's the truth or that I wish to be the truth even though thinking doesn't support that. Use the frontal lobe part of your brain, not the reptilian core. Oh, Christ. You're not going to understand that because it is an evolutionary reference.

Bap33 says

I say that due to the exact match his story had to every other libtopian story we get on here from posters such as Dan

Exact match, eh? Well then, it should be easy for you to provide an example or two.

You see, when I disprove someone's incorrect assertion, I do so by giving a specific reason or counter-example. For example, when Tenouncetrout tried to make the point that the Obama as a witchdoctor picture I posted was never used by any Tea Party protester by saying

The OP posts that race baiting pic, then claims people are marching around holding signs with that pic. Well where's the picture of the tea party rally members holding the sign with that pic?

I simply posted a picture of a Tea Party protester holding up that exact sign. See, my counter-example clearly showed that the specific conjecture Tenouncetrout had just made was empirically wrong. That's how you prove a point. It's actually quite easy to do when you have the truth on your side. I suppose it's harder when you're just making shit up, but I've never tried that.

[Note to self… Hmmm. Proving the world is round: easy. Proving the world is flat: much harder. Then again, if I just repeat "The world is flat" over and over again, all the viewers of Fox News will believe it.]

Bap33 says

"I grew up super religous, nuns beat me, I got smarter by going to college, smart people know religion is crap, America sucks, smoking dope is great, my parents were right wing, and I'm not a lefty -- I'm an independant! And besides, all conservatives are racist bigot homophobe teabagger bastards!" (some paraphrasing).

> I grew up super religous

1. I did not grow up super-religious. I was raised Catholic. That does not mean super-religious.

> nuns beat me,

2. The nuns did not beat me. I said the nuns were strict and exercised full control over the behavior of the kids. You're misreading again.

> I got smarter by going to college

3. People are supposed to get smarter by going to college. That's kind of the point of college. However, my view of college is that it's nearly worthless. I learned a lot during college, but not from college. I taught myself how to program and was far more skilled in software development than any college professor before I ended my freshman year of high school.

So, actually, I don't have a particularly high opinion of college. It's a tax to get into the workforce (something I've written before on this site) and a sheepskin. A college degree and an education are two entirely different things.

Of course, if you would just start listening to people instead of forcing your prejudicial stereotypes on them than perhaps you would not have falsely assumed that I think college is great. However, your statement does lead me to believe that you did not attend college and given how low the standard for getting into college is nowadays (basically you just need a pulse), that does say something about your intellect.

> smart people know religion is crap

4. Yes, smart people do know that religion is crap.

People with higher IQs are less likely to believe in God, according to a new study

More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history. Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.

People who say they are "not at all religious" have about 6 IQ points more than those you say they are "very religious" and those who claim they are "very liberal" have an average of 12 IQ points over those who claim they are "very conservative". (Social Psychology Quarterly, Satoshi Kanazawa, evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics and Political Science) [Sorry, but occasionally I read print, too. Not everything is on the Internet.]

Professor Lynn, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Ulster University, said many more members of the “intellectual elite” considered themselves atheists than the national average. A decline in religious observance over the last century was directly linked to a rise in average intelligence, he claimed.

atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less in the prison populations (0.21%).

1997 Federal Bureau of Prisons Statistics reports prison population to be
o Catholic 29267 39.164%
o Protestant 26162 35.008%
o Muslim 5435 7.273%
o American Indian 2408 3.222%
o Nation 1734 2.320%
o Rasta 1485 1.987%
o Jewish 1325 1.773%
o Church of Christ 1303 1.744%
o Pentecostal 1093 1.463%
o Moorish 1066 1.426%
o Buddhist 882 1.180%
o Jehovah Witness 665 0.890%
o Adventist 621 0.831%
o Orthodox 375 0.502%
o Mormon 298 0.399%
o Scientology 190 0.254%
o Atheist 156 0.209%
o Hindu 119 0.159%
o Santeria 117 0.157%
o Sikh 14 0.019%
o Bahai 9 0.012%
o Krishna 7 0.009%

"If all atheists left the USA it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than a quarter of 1% of the prison population." (Reddit)

I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point.

> America sucks

5. America does not suck. About one third of Americans suck because they believe in things like torture. Luckily, the intelligent, rational people in America keep the Internet running and nuclear reactors from melting down.

Again, you like other ultra-cons here have consistently tried to force words down other people's throats. Since you cannot address the arguments we actually made, you try to trick people into thinking we made weaker and dumber arguments. This not only shows disrespect for the person you are debating, but it also shows disrespect for all the readers as you are implying they are stupid enough to fall for such an obvious ruse.

> smoking dope is great

6. I have never smoked dope or cigarettes in my life. Nor do I have any desire to. At this point you are just being "libel" as lawyers would say. To make me out to be a druggie with no reason, nonetheless evidence, is just a stupid, stupid thing to do. It's so easy to call you out on this bullshit. I have an extremely non-addictive personality type. Oh, and I hate to break this to you, but many red necks smoke pot and Rush Limbaugh is a druggie hooked on Oxycontin.

> my parents were right wing
7. My parents most certainly are not right-wing. They consistently vote Democrat. In my father's words, "In this country, you vote for the lesser of the two evils." Hardly praise for the Democratic Party, but since they are consistently the lesser of the two evils, what does it say about the Republicans?

So not only do you not get anything right about me, you also fail to guess at my parent's political stances.

> I'm not a lefty -- I'm an independant

8. Republicans, too embarrassed of their own party, are more likely to call themselves independents. I call myself an independent because I haven't registered under either party. I did consider registering as a Republican just so I could vote for Ron Paul in the primaries -- Florida is a closed primary state, so you have to be a member of a party to vote in its primaries -- but I'm glad I didn't because in Florida they just throw, er misplace, the boxes containing votes for Ron Paul.

Not that I agree with everything Ron Paul believes, but I do like the fact that he is honest, upholds the Constitution, and is for smaller government. Yep, that makes me a liberal. Smaller government is what liberal Democrats are always asking for. [Note to ultra-cons: that was sarcasm.]

Of course, the Republicans today don't want smaller government either. The Bush/Cheney administration proved that.

> all conservatives are racist bigot homophobe teabagger bastards!

It was I who said, "Now I don't know what percentage of Republicans are racist. I suspect it's a minority, but the ones that are racist are the most vocal. They are the Tea Party members holding up signs like this…"

However, many of your (Bap33's) comments are making think I might have been wrong when I said that. Perhaps leoj707 was right. You're certainly providing ammo for leoj707. But then again, maybe you're a leftist plant trying to make the right look like a bunch of idiots. [That was also sarcasm, maybe.]

So basically, Bap33, every single assertion you made in the quoted block above was completely off base. With aim that bad, you should sign up for the Nicks!

[Note to sports fans: I actually don't know if the Nicks suck or not. I was just referencing a joke from the game Deus Ex. Don't get upset if you’re a Nicks fan. I may not be a pot-smoker like Bap33 claims, but I am a smart ass. And I like to use humor to break up the monotony of logical arguments and make them more fun to read. Although the ultra-cons seem incapable of distinguishing the gags from the real arguments, so maybe I shouldn't.]

Bap33 says

So, based on the complete lack of originality, Dan COULD be a copy-cat and a liar. But, since Dan has no trouble suggesting that all TeaParty members ARE (not could be, but are) racists, then Dan can and shall be called a copy-cat liar for his fable.

Lack of originality? Geeze, and I thought some of my jokes were funny. Ok, maybe the Sliders reference was a bit out-of-date and nerdy, but did you read my witty reply to Tenouncetrout's claim that Biden, Obama, and Pelosi run the Senate? Doesn't that count as original?

I mean, it's one thing to call me a pot-smoking pussy that gets beat up by old nuns, but to say I steal my jokes. That was uncalled for.

> Dan can and shall be called a copy-cat liar for his fable.

Um, could you quote the source I'm copying and provide a link?

Btw, there's nothing wrong with copying something in a quote and referencing it, if that's what you're referring to. That's called evidence. It's generally considered a good thing because it shows your not pulling things out of your ass.

Bap33 says

Is that more detailed enough?

No. Showing what I copied would be "more detailed enough". And yes, I am making fun of your grammar. Just because you're writing on the Internet doesn't mean you should write like a 12-year-old girl texting her friends about Twilight. Ok, maybe I'm being a bit of a "Grammar Nazi", but slopping writing is evidence of slopping thinking.

Bap33 says

The only people that pay attention to race are those trying to gain power by choosing who wins and loses based on race. And that is 100% progressive/liberal/leftist/demoncrat racebaiting and class warfare - period.

Oh, geeze. Ok, let me start by admitting that I was wrong about something. When Obama was running for the Democratic nomination for president, I thought the press would make a needlessly big deal that Obama might become our first black president. I figured the press would milk this up not realizing that the whole civil rights stuff was settled back in the 1960s and no one gave a damn about race anymore. Hell no one even thought about race anymore. I thought that if elected, Obama being the first black president would be a minor footnote in history of little concern to a population with much more pressing issues like a devastated economy, multiple wars, the loss of Habeas Corpus, and so much more.

It turns out that I was completely wrong. As soon as Obama got the presidential nomination, all the racists came out of the woodwork. I thought that perhaps some old people who grew up in the 1930s would still be prejudice, but most of the racists where middle age or even young Americans. Some of them were even in their twenties. This shocked me.

How could it be that any 20-something-year-old would compare Obama to a monkey or tell him to go back to Kenya? WTF? This is the 21st century, right?

It's not the Democrats, the liberals, or the progressives that were calling Obama a monkey. It was wackos from West Virginia and central Pennsylvania. The same people who held up signs saying "keep your government hands off my Medicare". In other words, stupid hicks. The fact that there were so many of them blew my mind. It's like they've been silent since the 1960s and have been breeding like crazy.

So I was wrong when I thought America had moved passed racial bigotry. But the bigots are not in the Democratic Party. They are not liberals. And they certainly are not progressives.

Btw, to insulate that progressives are bad is just plain evil. Progressives are the ones who got rid of child slave labor and unsafe working conditions. They got us the 40-hour work week -- in the 19th century people had to work "turns" or 36-hour shifts in dangerous factories -- and paid time off. Progressives are the reason the middle class came into existence in the 20th century. Before that there were only the poor and the rich, something that the Republicans want to return to. We owe a lot to progressives.

------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, I've address most of the incorrect stuff posted by the ultra-cons. I skipped over some stuff that I thought was handled by others before me. My posting is already pretty big (9 pages so far), so I don't want to go on much further. I'll end with an anecdote that explains where these ultra-cons are going wrong with their communications.

Let's say someone asks a simple, non-controversial question like "Is the square root of two rational?". Being a bit of a math dude, I'd likely respond with something like this:

The square root of two is an irrational number as shown by the following proof…

12. We've concluded that both a and b are even, but this means they are not relatively prime. Therefore, we have violated our conditional premise stated in #1. Ergo, proof by contradiction, the square root of two is irrational.

Now, in a normal discussion, that would be it. Maybe someone would have a question about the proof or didn't understand a step. But when an ultra-con reads this post, he'll reply something like…

OH My God you are so stupid. Sorry, but you're just being full of shit. You say that the square root of two is irrational, but you use the number all the time. So that means you are irrational, too! You're such a hypocrite.

Hey Dan, how does it feel to have your ass handed back to you? Pawned!

So now it's 6:30 in the morning and I haven't gotten any sleep because I've been refuting ridiculous, unfounded, and ill-thought arguments from ultra-cons that sound like the one above. Oh, it's going to be a fun day at work getting the Python and Javascript to live together nicely in the same database record. Thanks a lot for keeping me up.

Hey ultra-cons, if you're going to make any more arguments, can you at least go through the minimum level of effort of having a sane human being read your words before you post them. And if they don't pass the laugh test, don't post them. I don't mind spending the time correcting an incorrect, but reasonable position. It's a learning experience for everyone. But I'm beginning to think it's a waste of time refuting all the ridiculous ones.

What you ultra-cons need to understand, is that people like me (INTJ rationalists) do not form opinions quickly. We argue every possible issue for and against a position before we decide. We relentlessly attack our own ideas with mathematical precision because we believe any idea worth having can withstand any such attack. We put considerable time and computational power into making sure our philosophies are without even the slightest flaw. Given all that, it is unlikely you will be able to find a fault with our logic unless you are highly intelligent and spend countless hours looking for one. For we are highly intelligent and have spent countless hours looking for faults in our beliefs.

And if by some miracle, you happen to find a flaw in our logic and demonstrate it, we are grateful for that correction for it allows us to perfect our worldview and gain greater understanding of the universe. However, we do not tolerate fools well. Finding faults where there are none because of incorrect facts, bad logic, or the complete lack of logic annoys us. It wastes our time, and it pollutes the knowledge space causing less adept minds to accept erroneous information and reasoning. This in turn diminishes our species and slows down progress. And that is why we spend time chlorinating the pools of knowledge.

God, I hope Patrick is using a varchar(max) for these posts.

Dan8267 says

but I was raised Catholic and taught by viscous Catholic nuns who would beat you with a ruler if you misbehaved

Dan8267 says

2. The nuns did not beat me. I said the nuns were strict and exercised full control over the behavior of the kids. You're misreading again.

Dan, you are a great writer and a bad liar.

You should take a job getting paid by the word ... like a lawyer. That fibbing ability and anti-God thing works well with lawyering too, don't it?

By the way, humilty is not your strong point is it?

Dan8267 says

God, I hope Patrick is using a varchar(max) for these posts.

I think you've beaten Shrek's record for longest post.

Also "viscous nuns", love 'em.

Dan8267 says

We put considerable time and computational power into making sure our philosophies are without even the slightest flaw.

wat

Damn Dan! That was an epic post.

Well, we INTPs know that precision is for self-delusion.