FIAMO June 10, 2009 4:07 PM   Subscribe

For those who do not want others to discuss the Holocaust Museum shooting that occurred today, this Metatalk thread is here for them to address their grievances, away from the original thread.
posted by Blazecock Pileon to Etiquette/Policy at 4:07 PM (554 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

For those who do not want others to discuss


???
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:11 PM on June 10, 2009


I feel like I'm partially to blame for this since there were three shooting threads by the time I saw the flags. As I explained to someone else over MeMail the first one had the weird Westboro Baptist stuff in it, but it was also the most commented in, and first.

So, I had to make an executive decision to keep the first one and ditch the later two which may not have been the best move. At least two of the people currently acting ornery in the shooter thread have been in contact with me over the decision to choose to leave the first post. So, my apologies. I was left minding the store and the first post didn't seem horrible enough to delete and leave the second one in its stead since there were already 40+ comments in it.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:11 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


And to be fair, the OP of the FPP has retracted the Westboro association in that thread.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:12 PM on June 10, 2009


???

There's a lot of meta discussion going on in thread about what is and isn't appropriate to discuss in that thread. Better moved here.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:13 PM on June 10, 2009


I feel like I'm partially to blame for this since there were three shooting threads by the time I saw the flags. As I explained to someone else over MeMail the first one had the weird Westboro Baptist stuff in it, but it was also the most commented in, and first.

So, I had to make an executive decision to keep the first one and ditch the later two which may not have been the best move. At least two of the people currently acting ornery in the shooter thread have been in contact with me over the decision to choose to leave the first post. So, my apologies.


***
And to be fair, the OP of the FPP has retracted the Westboro association in that thread.


Then maybe in this case editing the FPP might be justified? It's a pretty bold accusation.
posted by Bookhouse at 4:16 PM on June 10, 2009


The OP can contact me if that's what they want, otherwise no editing is no editing.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:17 PM on June 10, 2009


I feel like I'm partially to blame for this since there were three shooting threads by the time I saw the flags.

To be precise, there were two posts on the topic, and one stunt post by MetaFilter's resident hall monitor, who was apparently not satisfied with bitching in both the previous threads.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 4:19 PM on June 10, 2009 [6 favorites]


So many conversations like that thread happen on MetaFilter that when I see people in MetaTalk praising the high level of discourse here, I always think, "WTF?" My list of topics that I avoid reading on here gets a little bit longer every couple of weeks. "Better than most of the rest of the internet," sure, but that's a winner in a slow race.
posted by not that girl at 4:20 PM on June 10, 2009 [6 favorites]


Yeah, it was a connection that was born from pure speculation, without a shred of evidence. Sort of sullies the post, but if you, y'know, read the comments, you'd see that he was immediately called on it and, subsequently, he retracted his statements.

With that said, I'm pretty sure Blazecock Pileon erected this home for dios or, perhaps, Crabby Appleton. BTW, was CA's now-deleted derail against BP apropos of nothing? Or did I miss another deleted comment?
posted by defenestration at 4:21 PM on June 10, 2009


So, we're not supposed to talk about right-wing politics in a thread about an act of right-wing political violence. This is the third act of political gun violence by right-wingers in a year, but we're not supposed to point that pattern out, or discuss why that might be, because it might get some right-wingers upset, or lower the level of discourse.
posted by vibrotronica at 4:31 PM on June 10, 2009 [9 favorites]


I agree that the "don't politicize this!" comments were dumb.

My grievance is I don't have any pie. Also, I'm on a jury, but I'm an alternate. Grrrrr!
posted by rtha at 4:34 PM on June 10, 2009


Honestly if people want to talk about right wing politics it's totally okay with me, the site, whatever. What's not okay is when people make the jump from "talking about right wing politics" to "hounding dios personally" turning the thread into a big "fuck you, no fuck you" exchange. Honestly maybe I'm shook up because arco is an internet-librarian friend of mine and this whole thing was scary but I've rarely seen a thread go so toxic so quickly thanks to basically four people who don't seem to be able to "Help maintain a healthy, respectful discussion by focusing comments on the issues, topics, and facts at hand—not at other members of the site."
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:39 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


So many conversations like that thread happen on MetaFilter

So many conversations like that thread happen many places on the Internet, and based on several years of experience lurking and commenting here, I'd guess that on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being worst, contrasted with other Internet discussions, the worst it gets here is probably a 4 or a 5. I don't know what the solution is, but I seriously doubt that there is a platonic ideal of discourse out there to which a discussion thread can aspire to achieve a higher good. There is something inherent in the nature of the Internet itself that encourages and prods this kind of discourse. The only viable solution, as you suggest, may be to avoid absorbing or entering into any Internet discussion, period, and that solution only lets the irrational discourse fester and flourish even more deeply.
posted by blucevalo at 4:39 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


And to be fair, the OP of the FPP has retracted the Westboro association in that thread.

Yeah, at the beginning of the thread, I was actually impressed that what could have been a total derail to the thread was pretty quickly and succinctly quelled. I thought, wow, maybe we'll do this right for a change.

I guess I should be thankful that at least I had that brief moment of hope.
posted by Brak at 4:40 PM on June 10, 2009


Since I believe this thread is primarily in response to Dios's repeated "hall monitoring" of the previous thread, until he comes into this thread, I am not clear what good it will do.

I am, however, unclear on his points. I generally have a distaste for the way people seize on any public tragedy and try to use it as questionable evidence for their own political views, but, in this instance, I simply don't see how the event can be divorced from a broader discussion of politics, and that was a discussion begin and forwarded by the American right wing. It comes out of the report that segments of the right, especially ex-military, may mobilize themselves into homegrown terrorists -- a report that was commissioned by Bush and instantly pilloried by the right, but has shown itself to be prescient in the past few weeks. Today's shooter exactly fit the profile, and is the sort of person to whom many on the right addressed themselves, studiously ignoring the unpleasantness of his antisemitism while placating him with promises of smaller government and less taxes, and then demonizing Obama as a socialist who will reverse that. Until these past few weeks, the sorts of men who would murder a woman's health care professional or walk into a Holocaust museum with a long gun were actively and aggressively being courted by the right, and they haven't precisely taken steps to revamp their dialogue or alienate this extreme right-wing base.

It's all right to disagree with this assessment, but I'm not crazy to bring it up -- neither is anybody else -- and simply complaining that it is somehow unfair or premature strikes me as self-serving and disingenuous, rather than a call for reason. If you disagree, Dios, make your case, but simply tut-tutting people for having an entirely reasonable conversation comes off more as a silencing tactic than anything else.
posted by Astro Zombie at 4:47 PM on June 10, 2009 [27 favorites]


yifgtach said: ...how glad I am to live in this country and be part of this community, where all this discussion can freely and openly take place.

If you want really free and open discussion, you need to mix MetaFilter and FreeRepublic (maybe throw in some 4chan), because your choice of internet community is self-selecting to avoid people whose discussion contributions you really don't want to hear. I just want to say how glad I am that the MetaFilter community includes many good members from outside the U.S.ofA. Oh, waitaminute, yiftach never said that "this country" was the U.S.ofA. The thing that most makes me proud to be an American is that, after 27 years working in the private sector, when my life, body and part of my mind fell apart, I was able to qualify for Social Security Disability which is just barely enough for me to live in a place I enjoy.

delmoi said: 4chan is vastly more popular then metafilter.

So, if it were truly a matter of protecting "unpopular speech", wouldn't MetaFilter be in far greater need of protection than 4chan? If you believe that Lies, Blind Hatred and Provoking Violence need to be tolerated or even protected, you will never understand what I am trying to say. But I guess you have to tolerate it, or even protect it, right? (And none of you should EVER rely on me to defend to the death your right to say anything.)

And yet, I am in no way ashamed of my contribution to that thread, nor do I consider it nearly as "toxic" as some other recent MetaFights... even though a couple people did try to poison my Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper. I also didn't see the OriginalPost as a direct accusation of the Westboro Wackos but rather as relating non-violent protests and violent attacks when the people and places deserve neither. Too over-editorializing, yes, but not accusing.
posted by wendell at 4:48 PM on June 10, 2009


What's the deal with markkraft? The stuff he's said is pretty abhorrent. Do people usually just ignore him or what?
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 4:49 PM on June 10, 2009


The only viable solution, as you suggest, may be to avoid absorbing or entering into any Internet discussion, period, and that solution only lets the irrational discourse fester and flourish even more deeply.

Fun! I get to try one of those back-and-forth "please look and see what I said." I didn't propose avoiding internet discussion, period. I said that there is a small but growing list of topics that go back so quickly and so predictably on MetaFilter that I don't visit those threads when I see them come up in my RSS feed.
posted by not that girl at 4:50 PM on June 10, 2009


Sorry, link: 1 & 2
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 4:50 PM on June 10, 2009


With that said, I'm pretty sure Blazecock Pileon erected this home for dios or,

Too bad he didn't explain. Or stick around.
posted by smackfu at 4:50 PM on June 10, 2009


I don't know what the solution is, but I seriously doubt that there is a platonic ideal of discourse out there to which a discussion thread can aspire to achieve a higher good.

That's a good point. Beyond instituting a screening process whereby each and every FPP and comment has to be mod approved before it posts, we do what we can to keep it civil and talk people down when they're tailspinning.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:52 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


What's the deal with markkraft? The stuff he's said is pretty abhorrent. Do people usually just ignore him or what?

I certainly try.
posted by Brak at 4:54 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


simply complaining that it is somehow unfair or premature strikes me as self-serving and disingenuous
And more than that in itself a political position, unless you take a narrow to the point of absurdity definition of what politics is.
posted by Abiezer at 4:54 PM on June 10, 2009


I missed his first comment, but Markkraft's gonna drive that thread over the cliffs and into the jagged rocks below.
posted by boo_radley at 4:56 PM on June 10, 2009


Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper

I lost all respect for you right there.
Diet Dr. Pepper is ambrosia.
Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper is an abomination.
posted by Floydd at 5:04 PM on June 10, 2009


...simply tut-tutting people for having an entirely reasonable conversation comes off more as a silencing tactic than anything else.

You are very perceptive. It has been the standard modus opperandi of the commenter for as long as he has participated here and led me to believe a long time ago that his purpose all along was to either silence the discussion or make himself appear morally superior. A rather sophisticated methodolofy, but dig down far enough and you'll strike Troll.

As for markkraft, it takes some rather close careful reading to determine the WTFability of what he wrote and my eyes glazed over on my first read so I didn't get it. I should probably be mad at PostIronyIsNotAMyth for pointing it out to me. There are some odd dynamics among Radical Fundamentalist Christians, Muslims and Jews that while all being similar at heart, all hate each other, while some of the first group sometimes find themselves allying with one of the others against the other. It just shows how much logic and sense is absolutely forbidden from their ways of thinking.
posted by wendell at 5:05 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


I'd be amazed to see dios in a thread created by someone who called him an apologist for right-wing terrorists. (The implication is unmistakable.) Of course, that's a fine comment for MetaFilter, and, indeed, it hasn't gone away.

On the other hand, my first deleted comment implied that Blazecock Pileon has no concept of decorum (and it did not refer directly to his comment cited above). That was, evidently, a terrible comment for MetaFilter, and, indeed, it was deleted faster than anything I've ever seen deleted here before.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 5:06 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Floydd, I'm sorry I lost your respect, but you have to understand, while Diet Dr. Pepper is indeed the most palatable diet soda in existence, I had developed an uncontrolled addiction to Cherry Coca-Cola that the introduction of Diet Cherry Dr. Pepper became the only Methadone that worked for me. It is a weakness, and I'm certainly not proud of it, but it keeps me alive (which some others here would consider a negative).

And this is my favorite derail yet.
posted by wendell at 5:10 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


it was deleted faster than anything I've ever seen deleted here before.

You'd be surprised how fast things get deleted in a thread that has gotten so toxic people are saying fuck you to the mods.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:11 PM on June 10, 2009 [12 favorites]


As long as we're going into discussions around sacrelicious beverages, I used to drink gin with diet Mountain Dew. Let the flogging begin!
posted by Brak at 5:12 PM on June 10, 2009


Uh, Crabby, I was a little more direct than Blazecock in calling him an apologist for right-wing terrorists well before his comment. And I feel I deserve more credit.

Okay, THIS is my favorite derail yet.
posted by wendell at 5:14 PM on June 10, 2009


On the other hand, my first deleted comment

BP's comment was fairly assy, and I'd love it if I never, ever saw him mention or react to dios again, but it's a fast-moving thread and the back-and-forth off that became sort of embedded in the conversation. I have no problem saying both that (a) I don't like the comment and (b) I don't like the bullshit dios was pulling earlier on the site (including a fucking stunt post) that prompted it.

All that aside, intentionally extending the cycle of personal bickering is a total bullshit move, and you ought to know better by now. Crying that you weren't the first person to act like an ass is a non-starter. Just don't do that shit.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:15 PM on June 10, 2009 [5 favorites]


You'd be surprised how fast things get deleted in a thread that has gotten so toxic people are saying fuck you to the mods.

Maybe the reason the thread seemed less toxic to me was that I never caught the worst comments before they were deleted. I just hope that nothing I wrote there was ever interpreted by anybody as anything but a BIG HUG to the mods. My hugging practices do make people feel uncomfortable. Maybe it's the banana in my pocket.

(I'm having way too much fun now.)
posted by wendell at 5:22 PM on June 10, 2009


As long as we're going into discussions around sacrelicious beverages, I used to drink gin with diet Mountain Dew.

Gilby's Gin with A&W Cream Soda. That's right. Smooth as a velvet Elvis painting.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:23 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


I just hope that nothing I wrote there was ever interpreted by anybody as anything but a BIG HUG to the mods.

You hope wrong.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:23 PM on June 10, 2009


(I'm having way too much fun now.)

We aren't, really, and honestly you've been one of the more manic voices over there today, man. To strain the metaphor, hugging involves being hugged, which is something you should really make sure the huggee wants into before you clamp down.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:25 PM on June 10, 2009


HUG RAPE!
posted by Krrrlson at 5:26 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


Fuck's sake, K.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:28 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'm taking a few hours off, I've pretty much had it today and I can't remember the last time I felt that way about MetaFilter.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:29 PM on June 10, 2009 [9 favorites]


Stillbrook and iced tea.
posted by Sailormom at 5:34 PM on June 10, 2009


wendell: (I'm having way too much fun now.)

I'm so glad you've been able to find a special place on the internet that's all about you.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:34 PM on June 10, 2009


Have The Mods ever considered a merge option for threads, where the post and comments from doubles get placed in whichever thread is kept? Not sure how it would be implemented but some news events generate an inevitable post or flurry of posts, and it would be nice to keep comments. started to write what I intended to be a Gollum-like snarky post about precious, precious comments, but it was not worth keeping.
posted by theora55 at 5:35 PM on June 10, 2009


status.metafilter.com: all mods are taking showers
posted by DU at 5:35 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


When I saw a "FTFY" show up about one of my most controversial statements (and poorly worded ones), I thought to myself "didn't I already make a clarification/correction to that myself?" and discovered that was the one comment of mine that was deleted. Love the irony.
posted by wendell at 5:37 PM on June 10, 2009


It'd be a pain in the ass to implement and would result in a weird artificial mesh of unrelated comments, theora55. It's one of those things that's a likable idea but just doesn't really gel in practice; linking to a deleted double and specifically noting the extra comments/content there is probably the best bet, along with simply reposting good links from a deleted second post.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:37 PM on June 10, 2009


and discovered that was the one comment of mine that was deleted.

Yes, the one where you were digging even farther into your insistence that dios is a de facto agent of terror or whatever. If you want to try again without that angle you'd be fine, but I'd really like to see the interpersonal "U! NO U!" shit going on over there cut way back, and that includes you.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:40 PM on June 10, 2009


"So, we're not supposed to talk about right-wing politics in a thread about an act of right-wing political violence. This is the third act of political gun violence by right-wingers in a year, but we're not supposed to point that pattern out, or discuss why that might be, because it might get some right-wingers upset, or lower the level of discourse."

Y'know, I'll take a swing at why this is distasteful:

The first reason is because it becomes an excuse to pillory everything disagreeable to the petite-lefties that form the plurality of the site. Seriously, tossing in WBC is the most egregious example—something that's despicable for its own reasons, but has no real connection to the topic. This facilitates bad-faith argumentation, where if you disagree with attempting to link this one act with broader trends, then out comes the facetious bleating about how oh no, we can't lash out at everything because it might annoy one of those dreaded Rightwingers. It's bullshit and reads more like partisan circle-jerking than real conversation.

The second reason, which ties in with that, is that for all the cries about how we're totally just about to have this really interesting discussion on these violent right-wingers, man, and how Sean Hannity makes 'em all want to kill, that interesting discussion never materializes because it's all a bunch of bullshit zingers and facile attempts to infer patterns where they may not actually exist. So while it may not actually lower the level of discourse, it certainly doesn't raise it.
posted by klangklangston at 5:42 PM on June 10, 2009 [17 favorites]


Gilby's Gin with A&W Cream Soda.

SWEET LORD NO OH GOD NO
posted by GuyZero at 5:45 PM on June 10, 2009


yes, cortex, I do have the bad habit of trying to make two points in a single comment, one of which is intended to make things better while the other makes things worse. Like right now.

DarlingBri, MetaFilter/MetaTalk is only "all about wendell" when I get myself into a heap o'trouble, which only happens one or twice a year. My problem is that the only time I laugh at my own jokes is when people try to explain to me why they aren't funny. Or, maybe just the way they explain to me that my jokes aren't funny are funnier than my own jokes, especially since when I have to explain my own jokes, they end up so much less funny to me. Send in the beans.

Oh, and I have said nastier things about dios that were not deleted, but that was at least three years ago.
posted by wendell at 5:51 PM on June 10, 2009


So, cortex, you allowed your pique at dios to affect your subsequent decisions? Well, we're all human.

As for Blazecock, it seems to do no good to cite individual cases. There's always an excuse. So I'll just say this. On any other well-moderated site, BP would have been perma-banned long ago. All of the moderators should be ashamed that he's still infesting this site.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 5:52 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


No one's keeping you, you know ...
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 5:54 PM on June 10, 2009 [6 favorites]


The MeFi response to a senseless act of terrorism has left me with less faith in humanity than I had upon hearing about said senseless act.

Congrats.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:54 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


The second reason, which ties in with that, is that for all the cries about how we're totally just about to have this really interesting discussion on these violent right-wingers...that interesting discussion never materializes because it's all a bunch of bullshit zingers....

I tend to agree with this sentiment, though I also feel that it's a nuanced point; I would posit that this hypothetical 'interesting [political] discussion' would be totally legitimate for the thread, which I believe is what Astro Zombie is suggesting as well.

Nuance, of course, doesn't always go too well here. The instance in that thread that got me was felix betachat calling out Joe Beese for misrepresenting the opinion of one FR poster as the official position of said site. The nuance of this position--which I personally would consider to be moral high ground, regardless of the nature of the content being called out--was quickly lost under the barrage of misassessment that felix betachat was essentially acting as an apologist for opinions expressed on the FR website.

I guess, at the end of the day, I'd be happier in some of these kinds of threads if the bar for critical thinking was set a bit higher. I suppose it's a lot to ask for, and I generally feel like the tone managed in MetaFilter comments is better than what I'd find somewhere else.
posted by Brak at 6:02 PM on June 10, 2009 [8 favorites]


I'm sorry you feel that way, grapefruitmoon. I myself want so much for something to come out of our response to this deranged and horrific act ("senseless" doesn't say it for me) that will help prevent something like it from happening again (and that requires more than a "." for the victims), and I'm not seeing it.
posted by wendell at 6:05 PM on June 10, 2009


Just out of left field, I've read several news blurbs that make the point of mentioning that this man was specifically not a right-winger - that he was a Truther, that he had posted screeds about the Bush administration, things like that. More to the point, that he was not a left-wing nut job or a right-wing nut job, but more just a nut job nut job.

Of course, some of these blurbs may have come from places like Michelle Malkin, but I'm just saying.
posted by kbanas at 6:07 PM on June 10, 2009


That's very well said, Brak. Von Brun wasn't exactly a mountain hermit. He communicated, he had supporters and fans across several communities. A closer look at these communities and a discussion of what's going on there might help us understand why this crap happens.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:08 PM on June 10, 2009


And to that end, I think it's kind of interesting that this point was never even really discussed - it was just kind of assumed he had ties to the right-wing political movement, because he's a white supremacist, and that's just kind of a duh connection to make I guess.
posted by kbanas at 6:09 PM on June 10, 2009


So I'll just say this. On any other well-moderated site, BP would have been perma-banned long ago.

On a lot of other sites, a whole lot of people would have been perma-banned long ago. We're relatively permissive of people who act like jerks around here, concentrating more on trying to curtail the specifically shitty episodes where we can but giving people a chance to be decent and grow a little in the long run. BP and dios are two examples of people who, while far from perfect in their behavior, have actually displayed that capacity to grow some and become better community members over time.

As a policy it has its pros and its cons. Certainly, if it wasn't how we handled things, I wouldn't be stuck having this conversation right now.

If you dislike that policy, that's fine; if you dislike it enough that you have to leave, fare thee well. But don't imagine that your dislike of it exempts you from having your own shitty behavior culled and called out.

My feelings about dios' behavior, and that of a lot of other people today who both behave badly at times and at other times make good faith efforts to contribute positively to this place, are pretty complicated. Your apparent conviction that I'm fundamentally siding against him is off the mark by a country mile, and jibes very poorly with what wendell and I were just talking about.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:09 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


A man just shot up the D.C. Holocaust Museum and we are arguing about what?

Folks I'm gonna just throw this out there; I think we all may have more in common than not, and maybe we should put away our knives and take a minute to think about that.
posted by nola at 6:10 PM on June 10, 2009 [7 favorites]


My 10-foot pole seems to be working just fine. Anyone else?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:10 PM on June 10, 2009 [5 favorites]


Just want to say thanks to the mods for cleaning up all the toxic stuff so quickly; its a pleasure to read threads without all the hate and negativity.
posted by iamkimiam at 6:11 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


"Nuance, of course, doesn't always go too well here. The instance in that thread that got me was felix betachat calling out Joe Beese for misrepresenting the opinion of one FR poster as the official position of said site. The nuance of this position--which I personally would consider to be moral high ground, regardless of the nature of the content being called out--was quickly lost under the barrage of misassessment that felix betachat was essentially acting as an apologist for opinions expressed on the FR website."

Yeah, exactly. This is compounded by the fact that we have a mixed-bag of conservatives here, just as we have a mixed bag of liberals, but nearly all of the conservatives get treated like they're Anne Coulter. That the conservatives often aren't doing themselves a whole lot of favors—Dios gets petulant when pissed, the rotating-screen-name-crew spends half their time being dicks to mods, and drive-by morons—brings out the worst in the liberals, who often do get a free pass because hey, we mostly agree, and God, it takes a lot of energy to battle what feels like the whole site.

So, pretty much every conservative assertion gets attacked, and pretty much all of the dumb liberal shit gets to slide, and it turns into a dumb comment thread that's only a little better than Kos or TPM.
posted by klangklangston at 6:14 PM on June 10, 2009 [32 favorites]


Man that's the truth.
posted by nola at 6:21 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


So, pretty much every conservative assertion gets attacked, and pretty much all of the dumb liberal shit gets to slide, and it turns into a dumb comment thread that's only a little better than Kos or TPM.

Maybe I missed something, but I didn't really see a conservative position being attacked. Far-right extremism (read: not your dad's Republican Party) got criticized, yes, and we get one person telling everyone to shut up about politics, and another person strawmanning us by saying "hey not everyone on the right is evil you know".

I can appreciate it must be tough being a conservative on Metafilter but I thought we'd all be in agreement that extremism sucks. That a couple people took this sentiment as a blanket attack on everyone to the right of Hillary Clinton is kinda weird.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:22 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


Problems and solutions:

1. Pissy attitude towards the mods:
Solution: Cram it. They run the show. They make judgment calls in real-time based on imperfect information but also with an extensive institutional knowledge of the community norms and behavior, esp. on hot button topics. If you don't like the way they run things, be polite and send a private memail note. Otherwise, hit the bricks.

2. Minority opinion pile-ons:
Someone disagrees with you. That does not make them the enemy, or stupid. It doesn't make you smart. It doesn't mean they even dislike you, your lifestyle or your politics. Everyone has a story and a background that influences and shapes their opinions. Some people have a different background than you, or are looking at the issue from a different angle. So relax.

3. "Right wing" -third act of political gun violence by right-wingers
There is no such thing as "the right-wing". It's a word as devoid of meaning as "feminazi", "gay agenda" or "liberal media". It is a substitute for thought. It is a bucket to lump people into when you find they disagree with you on one thing, so you are insulated from hearing a different opinion. Tiller's killer was "right-wing", and so is Von Brunn. Does that mean Tiller's killer is a white supremacist anti-semite? Citation, please. Furthermore, does that mean all pro-lifers are? Does that mean all white supremacists are for the Iraq war? Or that they all love Fox News? Blaming Fox News for the attack on the museum is like blaming Iraq for 9-11. If you think that they do, then you are demographically and statistically wrong. Some do, some don't, and the explanation is complicated. Perhaps I should label all pro-choice activists and MSNBC viewers as Earth Liberation Front terrorists? Is that productive? Solution: Graduate beyond 8th grade civics.

What dios was complaining about was the naked attempt to attribute to anyone who holds anyright-wing opinion as holding all right-wing extremist opinions. You want to call this guy right-wing because you have defined yourself as left wing, and in your 1-dimensional political worldview, "right" is a far away as you can get from "left." That thinking is stunted. Do you really think Sean Hannity supports a guy going into the Holocaust museum guns blazing? If you think he does, then you are insane, and in need of immediate professional help.

This is no right-wing political violence, just like there is no Islamofacism, or whatever the phrase is. To use these terms implies some direct common control or common influences. Worse, it implicates people in horrific acts simply because they hold a reasonable political opinion on some unrelated issue that you disagree with. I don't want to nationalize healthcare, which is "right-wing", so that means I'm in the same category as these guys? And you're against the war in Iraq, so that means you're glad the US was attacked on 9-11. do you see how stupid that sounds?

To repeat these terms "right-wing," etc, suggests that you haven't thought them through, but are merely repeating someone else's label. Think for yourself.
posted by Pastabagel at 6:24 PM on June 10, 2009 [25 favorites]


felix betachat calling out Joe Beese for misrepresenting the opinion of one FR poster as the official position of said site

To the best of my knowledge: like our own, Free Republic's moderators do not post statements about the site's Official Beliefs. Free Republic the web site is nothing more or less than the collective voice of the... ahem, people who post there.

Now you're free to believe (or at least hold out hope) that there's a meaningful distance between that collective voice and the voice of I Want You To Live In Fear Guy. I'm free to believe otherwise.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:28 PM on June 10, 2009


And there's kids playing guns in the street
and one's pointing his tree branch at me
So I put my hands up
I say: "Enough is enough,
If you walk away I'll walk away."
(and he shot me dead)

posted by The Deej at 6:29 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


There is no such thing as "the right-wing". It's a word as devoid of meaning as "feminazi", "gay agenda" or "liberal media". It is a substitute for thought. It is a bucket to lump people into when you find they disagree with you on one thing, so you are insulated from hearing a different opinion. Tiller's killer was "right-wing", and so is Von Brunn. Does that mean Tiller's killer is a white supremacist anti-semite? Citation, please. Furthermore, does that mean all pro-lifers are? Does that mean all white supremacists are for the Iraq war? Or that they all love Fox News? Blaming Fox News for the attack on the museum is like blaming Iraq for 9-11. If you think that they do, then you are demographically and statistically wrong. Some do, some don't, and the explanation is complicated. Perhaps I should label all pro-choice activists and MSNBC viewers as Earth Liberation Front terrorists? Is that productive? Solution: Graduate beyond 8th grade civics.

This is incredibly facile, which is funny given that it's an attempt to look smart and nuanced.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:33 PM on June 10, 2009 [11 favorites]


wendell...I don't get how you can flip to this happy hug everyone have some beans and more injokes passive aggressive nauseating bullshit from your tone in the thread.

The man had just died and you managed to both "judge" his death and it's "merits" in some pretty inflammatory terms AND derail into some weird free speech tirade where you cite the mods as supporting your position, which is about as high on the horse as you can get around here.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:34 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


And for the record, the thread and ensuing flamey shit pissed me off too...but a man was shot. There's no reason to make comparative measurements about how much various shitty things make us lose our faith in humanity, since presumably that's a binary proposition. And this is a website, whereas this man is dead. I hope that once all the attention leaves the thread and people calm down, some of us can go back and maybe have a nice discussion.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:39 PM on June 10, 2009


Certainly, if it wasn't how we handled things, I wouldn't be stuck having this conversation right now.

Because, of course, I cause just as much trouble and angst on this site as BP does. Really, for you to put me in the same category as BP just says it all.

If you dislike that policy, that's fine; if you dislike it enough that you have to leave, fare thee well.

Well, there's policy, and then there's Blazecock Pileon policy. And if I don't like it I can fuck off, right?

But don't imagine that your dislike of it exempts you from having your own shitty behavior culled and called out.

Well, if I ever imagined such a thing, I've been disabused of that today, for sure. I expect my incredibly shitty behavior will be culled and called out. I'll never expect that to happen to BP, though.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 6:42 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Crabby, might I ask that your complaints about Blazecock and the way the mods handle it be taken up directly with the mods via email. I know it is tangentially related to this thread, as BP started it, but it striked me as being a bit of a distraction from the main point, and also seems to be specifically a conversation between you and cortex just now.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:46 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


Well, there's policy, and then there's Blazecock Pileon policy. And if I don't like it I can fuck off, right?

You know, I said exactly that about dios today.

Just for reference.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:46 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Because, of course, I cause just as much trouble and angst on this site as BP does. Really, for you to put me in the same category as BP just says it all. [...] Well, there's policy, and then there's Blazecock Pileon policy. And if I don't like it I can fuck off, right? [...] Well, if I ever imagined such a thing, I've been disabused of that today, for sure. I expect my incredibly shitty behavior will be culled and called out. I'll never expect that to happen to BP, though.
posted by Crabby Appleton

Epony... oh, forget it.

posted by scody at 6:46 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


We have some real prima donnas in this place.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:55 PM on June 10, 2009 [6 favorites]




Lazarus, the man who walked into the Holocaust Museum and murdered Mr. Johns in cold blood had done another shooting 25 years earlier and has spent most of the time inbetween publicly preaching hate, making money from it and getting a forum to do it from some "semi-respectable" institutions.

Mr. Johns died trying to protect others, but he was KILLED because so many Americans were working so hard to protect the First Amendment Rights of this deranged shooter, countless others like him and the media monsters who make big money encouraging them. I am not backing down one inch from that stand unless you show me solid proof that what I wrote in the first paragraph was seriously mistaken.

It's a very serious issue with me, but my usual nature is to avoid taking things too seriously, and flippancy is a frequent defense mechanism of mine to avoid despair. And if the consensus reaction to Mr. John's death (or Dr. Tiller's, or that of other similar victims) is to mourn and declare that we couldn't prevent it from happening and maybe we can lower ourselves to their level for "punishment" (I, for one, absolutely oppose the Death Penalty), we can't do anything to prevent the next one, well, the Terrorists Have Won big time, and I can't handle that much despair, thank you, I'd rather joke about hugs and Dr. Pepper.
posted by wendell at 7:13 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Because, of course, I cause just as much trouble and angst on this site as BP does. Really, for you to put me in the same category as BP just says it all.

Comment for comment, you seem to have a much harder time not being a jerk, and to be much less visibly making an effort to not be one. I'm sorry you dislike BP so much, but he's gotten up my shirt a number of times and I am so very, very far from cutting him the special slack you seem to be imagining, just as I have given dios a shitload more benefit of the doubt than you seem to imagine I'm willing to.

But I don't really care about whatever fixation you have on either of them except insofar as you seem to be willing to use it as an excuse to act like an ass and then blame others.

And if I don't like it I can fuck off, right?

Far be it from me to stop you. We're not exactly hurting for self-absorbed spleen-venting at this point.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:13 PM on June 10, 2009 [13 favorites]


i don't really understand what people think they'll accomplish by attacking the mods. i mean, if it's a flame out it makes sense - but if you're planning on sticking around it seems like you just want to be a victim of "the man" and will put yourself in that roll just to get smacked by a rolled up newspaper. the mods here are better than mods on 99% of the internet. sadly, i don't think we as the user remind them of this enough.
posted by nadawi at 7:40 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


Comment for comment, you seem to have a much harder time not being a jerk, and to be much less visibly making an effort to not be one.

My comment history is there for anyone who wants to check this out. So is BP's. (Please note that for reasons explained here, I don't make many comments reinforcing the MetaFilter party line.)

We're not exactly hurting for self-absorbed spleen-venting at this point.

No. No, you're not.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 7:45 PM on June 10, 2009


role, not roll. stupid homophones
posted by nadawi at 7:50 PM on June 10, 2009


WOW.
posted by gman at 7:51 PM on June 10, 2009


Nope. No such thing as right-wing political violence at all.

Yeah. You know who else gets into places and discharges machine guns? Muslims. They are normally associated with muslim culture, and muslim religious communities. And they make it clear that they are killing infidels because of what they believe in. You know who else is muslim? IRAN (cue power chord).

Now, imagine the thread going like "Another muslim goes into a building and shoots everyone", where everyone focuses on how he's a muslim, and how he's motivated by his Islamic ideology, and look at the islamic communities he frequented... and suddenly someone is wondering if Iran is involved. Now, imagine someone (make them a moderate muslim) shows up at the thread and asks "Hi, can you not make this about Islam, and just recognize the guy's a nutter?". Do you want to tell them "Of course it's religiously motivated! See how muslims talk about jews! Of course Iran is to blame for this. See how Ahmadinejad talks about the holocaust."

Does that sound ok to you? What exactly is the difference between this and the direction that thread went? Aside from right-wingers being soooo icky, like furries and emos and hipsters.
posted by qvantamon at 7:55 PM on June 10, 2009 [8 favorites]


"Nope. No such thing as right-wing political violence at all. Just a figment of my imagination. In fact, there's no such thing as the right wing at all! it's just figment of my fevered left-wing political imagination. Thanks for setting me straight, Pastabagel!"

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Way to both miss the point and to over-estimate the efficacy and impact of "right-wing violence." It's like Fox News talking about the threat of Islamic terrorism in America—Jose Padilla was more a 'tard than a threat.
posted by klangklangston at 7:55 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


The problem with comparing the American conservative community to the Islamic community is that Muslims have people in leadership positions and popular authors and spokesmen and so forth who aren't frothing batshit insane, while the American conservatives have a movement led by the Limbaughs and O'Reillys and so forth. Osama bin Ladin is not a mainstream voice in the Islamic world the way Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are in the American conservative world.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:00 PM on June 10, 2009 [8 favorites]


"My comment history is there for anyone who wants to check this out. So is BP's. (Please note that for reasons explained here, I don't make many comments reinforcing the MetaFilter party line.)"

Frankly, the only way you'd win that pissing match is if you included bad behavior from BP's previous screen names, and none from your own.
posted by klangklangston at 8:01 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Man Crabby,

I'm sorry MetaFilter has not lived up to your high personal standards. If you want, I'll PayPal you back your five bucks so you can feel like you won.
posted by WinnipegDragon at 8:01 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


Well, if I ever imagined such a thing, I've been disabused of that today, for sure. I expect my incredibly shitty behavior will be culled and called out. I'll never expect that to happen to BP, though.

Christ almighty. Anybody got some wood handy? This guy needs a cross to climb on.
posted by JenMarie at 8:02 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


"The problem with comparing the American conservative community to the Islamic community is that Muslims have people in leadership positions and popular authors and spokesmen and so forth who aren't frothing batshit insane, while the American conservatives have a movement led by the Limbaughs and O'Reillys and so forth. Osama bin Ladin is not a mainstream voice in the Islamic world the way Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are in the American conservative world."

Why don't you take a brief moment to think of a conservative whose positions you respect? A living one? Because if you can't think of any, you might not be a very good person to evaluate what is and what isn't mainstream conservative thought, or even what is and what isn't batshit insane.

I mean, come the fuck on, man.
posted by klangklangston at 8:04 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


More relevantly, klang, can you name one I should respect?
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:07 PM on June 10, 2009


role, not roll. stupid homophones

So now its ok to be homophoneaphobic on metafilter? WTF?
posted by shothotbot at 8:09 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


Garrison Keillor?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:09 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Nah.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:11 PM on June 10, 2009


I mean, honestly, there's plenty of conservatives out there who aren't frothing batshit nuts- please don't think that I'm saying everyone who is a conservative is batshit. They simply are not presently the leadership or the public spokesmen for the movement/position.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:12 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


So now its ok to be homophoneaphobic on metafilter? WTF?

don't even get me started on homonyms! damnit, words, pick a meaning! i'm sure all of us would like to be two totally unrelated things and to only be fleshed out with context clues, but it's just greedy!
posted by nadawi at 8:13 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Damn yo. I spend all day on this site, creepily clicking MF then AMF then MT, each about every five minutes, wishing something would happen that would help me waste some time. I go to play some soccer and the WHOLE WORLD BLOWS UP. Right before I left I checked to make sure the shooting was getting coverage...man.

I'd like to add that I really like that I can totally agree with some people sometimes and totally disagree with them on others. I mean, Brandon and Marissa come to mind as people I've mind melded with a few times and totally disagreed with on others.

I don't like or agree with a lot of what BP has to say, Wendell either for that matter. That said, I like having them around because the dichotomy is...compelling.

Name calling is for the playground though, and the mods have my props (cuz I know they were waiting for them) for laying down the proverbial smack to anyone who doesn't bother to argue with cuth.
posted by TomMelee at 8:13 PM on June 10, 2009


Since my last post, somebody has made a bomb threat against the abortion clinic in my neighborhood.
posted by vibrotronica at 8:14 PM on June 10, 2009


The only way this thread could be better is if dios was participating.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:18 PM on June 10, 2009


i feel like there should be a MetaMetatalk to call this thread out.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:19 PM on June 10, 2009 [5 favorites]


Were participating. There. Now we've covered grammatical hair-splitting. Who wants to Godwin this baby?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:19 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


You know who else liked to split hairs?
posted by lazaruslong at 8:20 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


And scene!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:20 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


/exits stage leftwing.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:23 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


dios should have been given a time-out for the stunt triple-post in the first place, never mind the outraged "but it is YOU who are being hateful to ME" hatefulness. Sometimes I think he really is Jeff Jacoby.
posted by yhbc at 8:23 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Frankly, the only way you'd win that pissing match is if you included bad behavior from BP's previous screen names, and none from your own.

Klang! Buddy! Wow, fancy seeing you here. Well, I suppose I have to bow to your superior expertise. After all, I've never had my own MetaTalk thread about what a dick I am, or been the proximate cause of a flameout. So I guess you'd know.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 8:24 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


INTERMISSION
posted by Bookhouse at 8:26 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


Crabby Appleton has no posts in mefi.

You sure do talk a lot of shit for someone who doesn't, you know, contribute.
posted by lazaruslong at 8:26 PM on June 10, 2009


There is no such thing as "the right-wing".

A lot of people self-identify as "right wing." Look at something like Right Wing News, The Right-Wing Professor, and lots of professionals, like Maggie Gallagher.

A lot of people self-identify as "left wing," too.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:27 PM on June 10, 2009


By "professionals" here, I mean "professional journalists." OH THE IRONY BECAUSE I IS ONE MYSELF.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:28 PM on June 10, 2009


Yeah, yeah, yeah. Way to both miss the point and to over-estimate the efficacy and impact of "right-wing violence."

I'm not estimating anything. I said there had been three recent cases of right-wing political violence, and there have been. And the people who committed those acts of political violence promised there would be more coming. I'm just taking them at their word, because I've heard right-wingers on the radio calling me a traitor for the last eight years because I opposed an illegal war of aggression, and people like Ann Coulter saying left wingers should be killed to physically intimidate them. And now it's happening. And I expect it to continue to happen.

And quatamon, I believe the standard conservative play when Muslims commit acts of terrorism is to insist that non-wacky Muslims denounce the terrorists and renounce violence. What do you think the conservative response would be if a Muslim simply said "Muslim violence does not exist"?
posted by vibrotronica at 8:29 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


I self identify as center-wing because I like to think of myself ungodly chunk of fried poultry that sometimes comes in the KFC bucket which no one can identify what part of chicken it is. I figure center-wing is a good name for it.
posted by qvantamon at 8:30 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


qvantamon: "I self identify as center-wing because I like to think of myself ungodly chunk of fried poultry that sometimes comes in the KFC bucket which no one can identify what part of chicken it is. I figure center-wing is a good name for it."

It's a keel.
posted by boo_radley at 8:31 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


Crabby Appleton: " I've never had my own MetaTalk thread about what a dick I am"

I found it overrated.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:32 PM on June 10, 2009 [9 favorites]


Extreme center-wingers like myself also hate grammar.
posted by qvantamon at 8:32 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Why don't you take a brief moment to think of a conservative whose positions you respect? A living one? Because if you can't think of any, you might not be a very good person to evaluate what is and what isn't mainstream conservative thought, or even what is and what isn't batshit insane.

No question, there are rational, relevant, essential so-called "conservative" voices out there. The problem, as I see it, is that the misfits, loony-tunes and squalid criminals of the right that we all love so much to HATE won't shut up long enough for any of these rational voices to be heard.

It's tempting to just shrug and say, "It's your problem, conservatives. Deal with it." But it's not just their problem. As today's events illustrate, people are getting hurt (and not just their feelings).

So ... how to neutralize the lunatic/evil aspects of the right, and enable the sane/good aspects? That is the question.

Isn't it?
posted by philip-random at 8:36 PM on June 10, 2009


I like to think of myself ungodly chunk of fried poultry that sometimes comes in the KFC bucket which no one can identify what part of chicken it is.

I would say "Pope's nose" but that would open a whole other Know-Nothing can of worms.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:37 PM on June 10, 2009


A living conservative I respect is Terry Nardin; a recently (well, close enough) dead conservative I respect is Michael Oakeshott. That Nardin wrote about Oakeshott is not a coincidence. I respect, though I often disagree with, Russel Kirk. More to the point, there are a great many people who I've interacted with, as a student or just as acquaintances, who are both conservative and respectable. I minored in political science, and I don't think you can do that without seeing a fair number of conservative thinkers who express themselves compellingly, even as you disagree with them.

As far as whether, say, Nardin is mainstream? Well, y'know, I consider Juan Cole as part of the mainstream of liberal thought, so I think it's fair to put Nardin out there as a mainstream conservative. But part of the problem that I see is a tendency to address conservatism as orthodoxy, when it really isn't—Nardin is an interventionist, which doesn't jibe with a whole bunch of his cohort (despite the folly of Bushism). I'm an interventionist, though that doesn't jibe with a lot of post-Bush liberals.
posted by klangklangston at 8:40 PM on June 10, 2009


Why don't you take a brief moment to think of a conservative whose positions you respect?

Uh, P.J. O'Rourke? Like, 30 years ago when I had a subscription to Rolling Stone?

I feel sick right now. This whole thing makes no sense, and Stephen Johns was just doing his job. He could have been any of us or our brother or best friend. This feels like war, and I don't care why these stupid, crazy fuckheads are so angry, I want to know what makes them think they have the right to do shit like this.
posted by zinfandel at 8:42 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Meanwhile, dios has given up but his role as "defender of the indefensible" has been quickly picked up by another poster, a self-proclaimed "Saint" who has the holier-than-thou attitude down pat, and claims to be unable to see anything hateful about Hannity. Well, that establishes her as a liar right off the bat. It's not worth my ten miniutes of Googling to find thirty or forty examples of hatefulness from Hannity worse than his attack on Penn, but I hope somebody does. She also got wrong what Hannity said Penn said. Penn called him a whore, not a bastard, and that was a totally accurate description of what Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter and all of those of their ilk do; whore themselves out to the opinions that make the big money. Sadly these Media Whores have totally crowded out responsible Conservatives from the Media. Except Shepherd Smith, and his presence is either pure tokenism or he has pictures of Roger Ailes teabagging Rupert Murdoch. But she has also played the "Moral Equivalency" card, which has been an obvious lie since the 1960s, when President Johnson effectively banished the non-repentant Southern White Racists from the Democratic Party and Nixon gladly welcomed them into the Republicans. Anyway, the new troll will probably follow in the proud footsteps of another famous member with "bunny" in her nick. Maybe the twentieth or thirtieth time she's revealed as a liar she'll finally slink away and try to con the easy marks at Metachat. And her greatest legacy here will be to reinforce the belief of many (including myself) that Religion in general now has more negative impact on society than positive. And I'll still be here when she's gone, as I have for most of the past 10 years and my doctors assure me I'll have at least 10 more, occasionally getting in trouble (but getting only one MetaTimeOut so far), frequently losing the respect of other prominent MeFites, declaring bullshit on the bullshitters less than half the time I observe it and loving this place for reasons that the Mods really don't feel comfortable about.
posted by wendell at 8:44 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


Sometimes when I'm sitting at my desk, fighting the urge to stand up and scream in exasperation as I'm confronted with the same idiots and the same omgcrisis I've dealt with a thousand times before in the course of my 9-5 daily grind, I get to daydreaming about how sweet it must be to make a living as a metafilter moderator. Then a thread like this one shows up and I dive back into my own responsibilities, satisfied that as much as I may dislike it sometimes, my job isn't really all that bad.
posted by Balonious Assault at 8:45 PM on June 10, 2009 [8 favorites]


I often feel that although they can be difficult, good things can come out of the really contentious threads. But that one.. what a mess.

From the weird editorializing by speculation of the FPP (which probably should have been enough to can it in favour of the double - although it is easy to second guess the work of the mods with the benefit of hindsight - and it is not my intention to belittle the good work they do) to the rapid devolution of the discussion.

Although such events can make all emotions run high, it was discouraging to see the bickering in a thread regarding what is pretty clearly a disturbing news story.

Wish it had gone to MetaTalk earlier.
posted by sloe at 8:48 PM on June 10, 2009


"Balonious Assault." Hehe.
posted by bardic at 8:50 PM on June 10, 2009


I do think that one of the difficulties in blanket statements about conservatives it that it often seems that there is an unspoken common understanding about what that means and who people are referring to. I suppose it's common when you are inside a community to recognize the nuances, and more difficult when you are an outsider of sorts. For example, my friends often talk about how it's issue-specific - conservative on fiscal issues, but perhaps not on social issues. Or perhaps issue-specific within social conservatism; say, against marriage between same sex couples, but for abortion. Or against abortion, but for marriage for all.

Anyway, it would be a shame if people assumed a single definition of conservatism, or determined that certain entities spoke for the entire conservative movement. Coulter isn't the alpha and omega of the conservative movement any more than Marion Barry is the sole or best example of black democrats.

Anyway, in terms of individuals who have self defined as some variation of conservative who I've been impressed by: I've been impressed by some of the thoughts/actions of George Will and Angela Merkel.
posted by anitanita at 8:55 PM on June 10, 2009


Why don't you take a brief moment to think of a conservative whose positions you respect? A living one? Because if you can't think of any, you might not be a very good person to evaluate what is and what isn't mainstream conservative thought, or even what is and what isn't batshit insane.

More relevantly, klang, can you name one I should respect?

A living conservative I respect is Terry Nardin; a recently (well, close enough) dead conservative I respect is Michael Oakeshott.


Thank you for bringing up these people, because until you had, I had never heard of either of them. Which does tend to prove a point I made about Conservative Political Thought... that the Media Whores had forced all the reasonable Conservatives out of the Media (not to mention any centers of Conservative Thought with any chance of having a political influence). So the Haters, the Whores, the Crooks and the Nutcases now "own" the Institutions of the Right, while Haters, Whores, Crooks and Nutcases on the Left have far less influence on their equivalent Institutions. But then, I said before that "Moral Equivalency" has been a lie since the 1960s, when President Johnson effectively banished the non-repentant Southern White Racists from the Democratic Party and Nixon gladly welcomed them into the Republicans, and the GOP has done zilch to recover from that moral disaster.
posted by wendell at 8:55 PM on June 10, 2009


Don't have time to read this whole mess, or the original thread(s), but when the first one was posted I was going to give it a dot for the tragedy and the guard, but figured someone would say it wasn't over and the guard wasn't dead.

Not going to do it now either. Horrible horrible tragedy.

Evil exists.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:56 PM on June 10, 2009


"I'm not estimating anything. I said there had been three recent cases of right-wing political violence, and there have been. And the people who committed those acts of political violence promised there would be more coming. I'm just taking them at their word, because I've heard right-wingers on the radio calling me a traitor for the last eight years because I opposed an illegal war of aggression, and people like Ann Coulter saying left wingers should be killed to physically intimidate them. And now it's happening. And I expect it to continue to happen.

And quatamon, I believe the standard conservative play when Muslims commit acts of terrorism is to insist that non-wacky Muslims denounce the terrorists and renounce violence. What do you think the conservative response would be if a Muslim simply said "Muslim violence does not exist"?
"

…Speaking of Terry Nardin, both he and Robert Pape (a liberal, at least to my knowledge) argue fairly convincingly that there is hardly any religious violence, especially Muslim violence in the modern age, religious violence being better understood as political violence.

What I take issue with, in your claim of "political violence" is that political violence exists to advance a political project, something that I don't think the Holocaust Museum Shooting qualifies for. It was called terrorism in the thread, but that seemed to be suffering from the over-broad definition of "terrorism" that took root during the Bush administration. What's Von Brunn's political program? What did he hope to accomplish by attacking the Holocaust Museum? Where's his manifesto? He had a clear political program when he attacked the Fed, muddled as it was. But just striking back at Jews or killing Jews isn't a program, there's no organization to it.

Not only that, but Bin Laden et al. promised there would be more acts of terror coming against the US. Sure, there have been, but are they serious threats to your well-being? As much of a risk as, say, drunk drivers or second-hand smoke or even global warming? This isn't to say that we shouldn't oppose them, just to have some perspective—something I feel cries about "right-wing violence" are sorely lacking.
posted by klangklangston at 8:56 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


And so it plays out-the regrettable human tendency to always divide people into the categories of "us" versus "them" never mind what "us" is or what "them" is (the categories being endless, as humans are so varied)....the fact remains that even while mourning the murder of a man in such a place as the holocause museum we humans persist in proving the point we can't just freaking get along with others.

You too, wendell.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:02 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


But just striking back at Jews or killing Jews isn't a program, there's no organization to it.
You'd suspect it's something along the lines of the tree of liberty needing occasional refreshment from the blood of patriots who have boldly attacked the symbols of ZOG blah-blah-blah, even if the reality was murdering a working man and scaring some schoolchildren.
posted by Abiezer at 9:04 PM on June 10, 2009


"holocaust" (I promise, I can spell, but better than I type, apparently.)
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:04 PM on June 10, 2009


And so it plays out-the regrettable human tendency to always divide people into the categories of "us" versus "them"

You have stated repeatedly that you believe that a very large percentage of human beings will burn eternally in hell. You of all people do not get to play the game you are trying to play here.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:05 PM on June 10, 2009 [21 favorites]


And so it plays out-the regrettable human tendency to always divide people into the categories of "us" versus "them"

Like your blathering about the "left-leaning media" and how none of us know any real Republicans, and that we shouldn't take the public statements of the Republican Party leadership as indicative of what Republicans really think? Or your statement that "I have been told" that MeFi is "a lefty site"?

Mote, beam, your eye.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:06 PM on June 10, 2009 [15 favorites]


"I've been impressed by some of the thoughts/actions of George Will"

As a conservative, George Will is one hell of a baseball writer.

"So the Haters, the Whores, the Crooks and the Nutcases now "own" the Institutions of the Right, while Haters, Whores, Crooks and Nutcases on the Left have far less influence on their equivalent Institutions."

Dude, you live in California with me! My choices in any local election are a batshit anti-tax white/latino version of Alan Keyes, or a corrupt machine Democrat who will invariably shift public money to his allies. They're not equivalent necessarily, but the Dems pull all sorts of bullshit here and only get away with it because the Republicans are totally gerrymandered. If Schwarzenegger wasn't such a goddamned moron and incompetent, I could vaguely support his Republicanism, but I don't see any good alternatives—though I recognize that he's pretty much the cream of the Republican crop, especially if you look at the state legislature, who only get elected because rural California runs on prisons and meth, guaranteeing a seat to any haircut who promises to be tough on crime and not raise taxes.
posted by klangklangston at 9:07 PM on June 10, 2009


Pope Guilty, everyone that believes in hell believes a large percentage of human beings will burn eternally there. That's the point of the place, I think. "There's a place called hell, full of fire and brimstone and cobwebs for all eternity" isn't a compelling religious argument.

Believing in hell, and consequently that a good part of human beings will burn there, is not the same as WANTING them to burn there. I believe a good percentage of Africa is going to die of AIDS and Malaria in the near future, but I certainly don't hate Africans.
posted by qvantamon at 9:12 PM on June 10, 2009


Believing in hell, and consequently that a good part of human beings will burn there, is not the same as WANTING them to burn there. I believe a good percentage of Africa is going to die of AIDS and Malaria in the near future, but I certainly don't hate Africans.

The difference is that Hell, by definition, has to have been deliberately created; if God didn't want there to be a Hell, there wouldn't be one. S/He could just as easily have the punishment for being wicked or an unbeliever or whatever be that you stop existing, or you get into Heaven but have to wear uncomfortable angel robes for eternity or whatever. So if there's a Hell, it is right that Hell exists, and that those who burn there do so. It carries a moral component absent from the AIDS and malaria epidemics in Afrida.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:15 PM on June 10, 2009 [5 favorites]


I'm a big fan of keeping people OUT of hell, actually, but that has nothing to do with this thread, now does it?
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:18 PM on June 10, 2009


It is relevant to the fact that you yourself believe in possibly the largest and most horrible us and them system that exists, and yet you decry such structures.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:20 PM on June 10, 2009 [6 favorites]


Yes, I decry people tearing into one another because they disagree on things. So you are saying you are a fan?
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:23 PM on June 10, 2009


Yes, I decry people tearing into one another because they disagree on things.

Your hypocrisy apparently knows no bounds. Seriously, passive-aggressive, condescending hostility is recognized by others as the hostility and hatred it is, and your gossamer-thin veil of "Jesus loves you!" fools no one.
posted by Sidhedevil at 9:25 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


Huh?

Dang, dude, way to prove my point.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:27 PM on June 10, 2009

Pope Guilty, everyone that believes in hell believes a large percentage of human beings will burn eternally there. That's the point of the place, I think. "There's a place called hell, full of fire and brimstone and cobwebs for all eternity" isn't a compelling religious argument.
But "There's a place called hell, full of fire and brimstone, and the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe is going to put you and billions of other people there to suffer for all of eternity" is a "compelling religious argument"?

I just want to make extra-special sure I'm understanding: It's a "compelling religious argument" in favor of worshipping this being?
posted by Flunkie at 9:28 PM on June 10, 2009


1. Pope Guilty - please don't try to make this about religion, this thread and the other are ugly enough already without you getting whatever jollies you get railing against Christianity. Do what Von Brunn didn't - love thy neighbor.

2. When I say there is no "right-wing," I do not mean there is no political violence. Obviously there is. My point is that the shooting at the museum and the killing of Dr. Tiller are not the same political violence. And to lump them together is to misunderstand both. If you misunderstand it, you can't stop it. Here's a hint - it is not by accident that the best hate group watchdog in the country is the Southern POVERTY Law Center.

3. Seriously people, stop watching so much Fox News. I'm convinced at this point that Fox gets its ratings from self-professed liberals who watch just to get their hate on.
posted by Pastabagel at 9:28 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


God, I will say that every time I start trying to say, no, wait, there are intelligent conservatives who, even if you disagree with them, are worth respect, along comes some conservative, trying to prove me wrong.
posted by klangklangston at 9:30 PM on June 10, 2009 [7 favorites]


this thread and the other are ugly enough already without you getting whatever jollies you get railing against Christianity.

It's not really so much about religion as it is about Alia and who she is and what she believes and how that impacts her arguments.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:31 PM on June 10, 2009


As I said on the main thread- i don't go around here consigning people to hell and I don't appreciate the accusation. Please stop it.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:33 PM on June 10, 2009


You just said that you believe that a large percentage of human beings will burn eternally there.
posted by Flunkie at 9:37 PM on June 10, 2009


man i am so drunk right now but i think i almost got this thread figured out
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:40 PM on June 10, 2009 [14 favorites]


This idiotic back and forth cat fight bullshit is bad for metafilter.
posted by ericost at 9:40 PM on June 10, 2009


You know who else believed in hell? That's right, Mother Theresa.
posted by qvantamon at 9:42 PM on June 10, 2009


my great-great grandmother died in the holocaust FYI and tho i never met her i'm pretty sure her response to this and the other thread would be:

wat
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:42 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


i don't go around here consigning people to hell and I don't appreciate the accusation. Please stop it.

Really? A consistent and coherent belief system is a bitch, ain't it? Don't play dumb. I know your stance on what you take to be the status of my "eternal soul" based on your comment history, so I can't help but wonder what your God would make of you playing dumb on this point in an attempt to appear "fair and balanced" on an internet forum. Look, either you think atheists like me are doomed to an eternity of hellfire or not. You don't get to play coy, and I'm only citing your own (admittedly cruel and infantile) theological rules. You don't get to eat your heathens-burn-in-hell and hey-we're-all-friends-why-can't-we-get-along cake and eat it too. Put up or shut up. Your soul rests on this, no?

I'll repeat myself: you are part of the problem. We're all in this together and you're with-us-or-against-us theology is precisely part of what drives people to fly planes into buildings and strap explosives on themselves before boarding a bus or shooting an OB/GYN in his fucking place of worship. There is no middle ground. Intellectual (and spiritual) humility is a virtue: look into it. Despite the fact I think you're woefully under-informed on theological and philosophical and spiritual matters, at least I don't harbor the fantasy that you'll be tortured for all eternity because you happen to disagree with me. That's all you. Somewhere, Yeshua ben Joseph is facepalming for all eternity. Way to miss the point.
posted by joe lisboa at 9:43 PM on June 10, 2009 [10 favorites]

You know who else believed in hell? That's right, Mother Theresa.
Actually, she didn't.
posted by Flunkie at 9:44 PM on June 10, 2009


Flunkie, no, what I said was I was a big fan of keeping people OUT of the place.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:44 PM on June 10, 2009


Joe, this isn't the time nor the place to hash out systematic theology, and I don't think it is inconsistent of me to a) want to play nice on the internet and b) to NOT want Joe Lisboa to spend an eternity in hell. Since I think we can all agree I am not the one who makes that decision, why bring it up here?
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:46 PM on June 10, 2009

Flunkie, no, what I said was I was a big fan of keeping people OUT of the place.
How magnanimous. But I quoted you essentially word for word. That you also said something else, at some other point, is neither here nor there.
posted by Flunkie at 9:47 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


I side with Mark Twain, who said heaven for the climate, hell for the company.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:48 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


You know who else believed in hell? That's right, Mother Theresa.

(Enter CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, staggering drunkenly.)
posted by Kinbote at 9:48 PM on June 10, 2009 [10 favorites]


Look, my views on what happens to any of us after death are not germaine to this post nor the original one on the Blue. So let's drop it, 'k?
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:49 PM on June 10, 2009


"You just said that you believe that a large percentage of human beings will burn eternally there."

Which doesn't mean that she's consigning people to Hell—she believes God consigns them to Hell, and that she's working to keep people out of it.

You can disagree with that as a matter of theology, philosophy or epistemology, but arguing that she wants people to go to Hell or that she consigns them to it is stupid and, no pun intended, bad faith argumentation.
posted by klangklangston at 9:50 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


why bring it up here?

Because this is precisely the sort of theological flip-flopping that a Jewish teenager named "Jesus" found so beside the goddamn point. Love. Love and mercy. That's it. Revenge fantasies of a cosmic nature are the hallmark of a poisoned soul. "The best revenge is not to be like that." Or so said a Greek man who, by your definition, is consigned to an eternity of hellfire for not having the good sense to be born after the arrival of some carpenter's son, however wise his life advice.
posted by joe lisboa at 9:50 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


I'm unclear on how this became about St. Alia.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 9:55 PM on June 10, 2009


You know, at this point, the only sensible and civilized thing for anyone to do is back away from these threads for a while. Good luck to all of you.
posted by boo_radley at 9:57 PM on June 10, 2009


MeTa is an okay place to come work out your grievances so you don't poison the thread, it's not a great place to air whatever grievances you have against people who aren't even in this thread. Please don't do that here. By which I mean I removed those comments and I'd really like to just go make a cup of cocoa and talk to my fella and not worry about freakouts here.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:57 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


I don't agree with some of what St. Alia says in the original thread, but I'm also unclear on how this became all about her. Rehashing debates from prior unrelated threads and using them to formulate ad hominem attacks seems really pointless, if nothing else.
posted by blucevalo at 10:01 PM on June 10, 2009 [6 favorites]


You know, at this point, the only sensible and civilized thing for anyone to do is back away from these threads for a while. Good luck to all of you.

Advice taken. I'm out. Apologies to the community and the mods (redundancy alert!) for my vitriol. I just have a hard time dealing with people in a conciliatory way who are willing to draw false equivalencies when a civil servant (and a medical doctor, etc.) have been killed as a result of the sort of the rhetoric invoked in the original thread. I could've been the bigger person. Then again, I could've been the sort of person who bent over rhetorically backwards to defend the rhetoric of those who made possible the death of a black American guarding the national Holocaust memorial. I'm not a black-or-white moral thinker in most situations, but the ability to disregard the truly human costs of such rhetoric drives me up a humanistic wall. I'm sorry. I'm not perfect. But I'm also not the sort of person who gleefully celebrates the fact that other imperfect humans have an eternity of torture "coming to them," either.

By their fruits you shall know them. And I think we have a pretty goddamn good idea of what said fruits entail. See? If I were playing for the other side, I could make a joke about "fruits getting what's coming to them" but I'm not. Love your enemies or shut the fuck up. That's all. And spare me the "love the sinner, hate the sin" bullshit. Your saviour was BFF with hookers and tax-collectors (i.e., Democrats, forsooth!) so give me a fucking break. I sincerely apologize for the foul language, I'm no author. I just happen to take the so-called Christian message of the value of the sinner's soul to heart and not merely to word. Good night, all.
posted by joe lisboa at 10:08 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


MetaTalk: We're not exactly hurting for self-absorbed spleen-venting at this point.

It had to be done.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:12 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


Normally I'm all for a good internet argument, but this one seems a little dubiously targeted. My be time to just grab some pie or something.
posted by Justinian at 10:15 PM on June 10, 2009


I'm glad you wish that as few people go to your Hell as possible. But, depending on your specific religious sect, you probably believe that all 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust are there.

As for Me and "Us" and "Them":

There are many many subcategories of the "Left Wing" I also have no respect for, including ACLU Liberals, Machine Liberals (like the Cal Democrats klang spoke lowly of), Communist Apologists and Google Apoligists. My own personal "us" is much smaller than my "them". My life experience has made me thoroughly out of step with all sides politically, and I have found so few other people, even those who went through similar experiences, that can recognize some of the things that I now find so obviously true. But if I have to prioritize the threats to my own personal well-being and those of people I care about or just generally around me, the greatest right now come from various factions of the American Right.

I grew up in a Republican family that I was perfectly prepared to follow in the footsteps of until I became a campaign volunteer for Nixon in 72, a year before I was old enough to vote, and got a rude awakening about GOP political ethics at the ground roots level BEFORE Watergate became public. Because I could not imagine becoming at Democrat, I dallied with Libertarianism, but saw too much in my work in the Private Sector to support Deregulation without guilt. My most lucrative job, with a financial company that collapsed in the Junk Bond Crash of 91, taught me never to totally trust the Free Enterprise system again. In my personal life, the people who did me the most damage were all deeply religious (one Catholic, one Jew, one Baptist, not a joke set-up); I've known bad people who were non-believers but they were so much easier to keep from hurting me personally - I learned that a confident spirituality makes you so much more effective at hurting people long before George W. Bush demonstrated it to the nation.

So, Saint Bunnyfire, or whatever you're calling yourself these days, know that I am totally impervious to the lies that make up 95% of what you're posting on MetaFilter. You may need a hug more than most of us (preferably one that immobilizes you for a long period of time), but you're not getting one from me.
posted by wendell at 10:20 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


These ACLU liberals, I do not know who they are. wendell, please elaborate?
posted by kldickson at 10:24 PM on June 10, 2009


Could someone please make a Greasemonkey script that filters out anyone that has commented more than, oh let's say, five times in any given political thread? Sure seems like it would greatly reduce the Smugly Petulant Asshole Factor.
posted by dhammond at 10:27 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


Mr. Johns died trying to protect others, but he was KILLED because so many Americans were working so hard to protect the First Amendment Rights of this deranged shooter, countless others like him and the media monsters who make big money encouraging them. I am not backing down one inch from that stand unless you show me solid proof that what I wrote in the first paragraph was seriously mistaken.

Logical debates don't work that way, wendell. You have to back up your claim, rather than making a claim and putting the onus on us to prove you wrong.

But I actually came in to say something towards a point you made on the blue: "words have consequences," you said, "and I don't think people get that."

The thing is, though, I do get that some words have consequences. I know full well. But -- our legal system has set up an exact point at which the consequences of those words are punishable. they have established the exact kinds of words which go too far.

Now -- that line may look lenient to you. But I accept it being lenient. Because it shifts the onus of responsibility for one's actions back onto the individual. Consider: those of you claiming that Hannity, Limbaugh, et. al. are promoting a culture of violence -- if that were really so, how come only one man out of the thousands who follow Hannity and Limbaugh did anything? If their words incited violence, why aren't we having thousands of such attacks?

Also consider: the Free Republic folk. I've seen people joke about the "two minutes hate" in here, but interestingly, the whole point of the "two minutes hate" in 1984, ostensibly, was to let people get all that agita out of their systems so they wouldn't just mentally snap. The talk on the Free Republic site is horrible -- but consider how many of those people might snap if they didn't have such a place to blow off steam? They get to go in there and strut like peacocks and talk a big game and have people cheer "you tell 'em!" and they get to feel smug and satisfied, like they did something -- and it gets out of their system and they go watch TV feeling self-satisfied. If they didn't have that outlet, how many more may just snap?

The best way to combat horrible speech is not to squelch it -- it is to make counter-speeches against it. Words have consequences, but silence has more.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:31 PM on June 10, 2009 [8 favorites]


blucevalo, I think this spin-off is because of odd attribution of this guy's bullshit and some dumbass apologism for the Limbaugh bunch.
posted by kldickson at 10:35 PM on June 10, 2009


Could someone please make a Greasemonkey script that filters out anyone that has commented more than, oh let's say, one time on any how many times someone else has commented in any given political thread? Sure seems like it would greatly reduce the Smugly Petulant Hypocritical Asshole Factor.
posted by joe lisboa at 10:36 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


kldickson, if you haven't figured it out from my disregard for First Amendment Absolutism, I'm not happy with anybody who treats the Bill of Rights with Religious-like devotion. I'm sure the Founding Fathers would be shocked at how much the "ACLU Liberals" takes what they wrote so seriously. And the last eight years of Patriot Acts, Gitmo and "enemy combatants" have shown how ineffective it is at actually protecting human beings.
posted by wendell at 10:42 PM on June 10, 2009


I think the founding fathers would be shocked at how many people think they know how the founding fathers would feel about how people feel about them. And shocked at me thinking they'd be shocked at that. Recursively.
posted by qvantamon at 10:47 PM on June 10, 2009


Actually, not would be - are. They're all shocked. In HELL. Bunch of heathens with their separation of church and state and discovering electricity.
posted by qvantamon at 10:52 PM on June 10, 2009 [1 favorite]


EmpressCallipygos, I made a statement of what I believe are FACTS in my first paragraph that you did NOT cut&paste, to explain my conclusions in the second, which you did. How seriously dishonest a way to make an argument.

I'd love to work with actual rules for debate. It would reduce the total wordage (including mine) by 90% if we were required to back up all our statements at least as well as I backed up the one you took issue with.

But then, you would never support reducing the total wordage, because you believe in MORE speech, not less. From my life experience, having to tell the truth ALWAYS results in less speech than being Free to Lie Your Ass Off.
posted by wendell at 10:53 PM on June 10, 2009


Hey, half of the guys who signed off on "All Men Are Created Equal" owned slaves. And they would've been the first to point all "All Men" is meant to exclude All Women. Got it? The First Amendment never was intended to apply to communication technologies that hadn't been invented yet... the Internet? Television? Never considered such things. And the arms in the Second Amendment never were meant to apply to the then-science-fiction of automatic machine guns. And they didn't want the Senate, or heaven forbid the President to be elected by anything resembling a popular vote.

Which reminds me, my Junior High History teacher was a football coach whose classroom lectures had enough patriotic bravado and bullshit to get him a timeslot on FauxNews today. "Stay tuned for Coach Klein, right after Glenn Beck." Took me almost 20 years to realize what a fraud he was, soon after I figured out how bogus the "Founding Fathers" devotion was.
posted by wendell at 11:07 PM on June 10, 2009


EmpressCallipygos, I made a statement of what I believe are FACTS in my first paragraph that you did NOT cut&paste, to explain my conclusions in the second, which you did. How seriously dishonest a way to make an argument.

What you BELIEVE are facts. That's the key point. You need to prove they ARE facts, people won't accept them just because you BELIEVE they are facts.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:10 PM on June 10, 2009


I mean, while we're speaking of dishonest ways to make an argument and all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:11 PM on June 10, 2009


This is the last time I will mention this: it's not okay to drag up old usernames. Please don't do that here. If you've got questions on what is or isn't okay, the contact form is a nicer way to go about it than "try reposting shit deleted elsewhere to see if it gets deleted here also"
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:15 PM on June 10, 2009


I was honest enough to admit I didn't have perfect provenance for my facts, coming mostly from others on MetaFilter lacking links, but with no one before taking issue with them, I used them to come to a conclusion. As of this writing, no one has yet argued that they are not true. Nice debating. Maybe even Master deBating.
posted by wendell at 11:16 PM on June 10, 2009


Could someone please make a Greasemonkey script that filters out anyone that has commented more than, oh let's say, one time on any how many times someone else has commented in any given political thread? Sure seems like it would greatly reduce the Smugly Petulant Hypocritical Asshole Factor.
posted by joe lisboa at 1:36 AM on June 11


I thought you went to bed?
posted by abc123xyzinfinity at 11:17 PM on June 10, 2009


It's eerily quiet here tonight like always.
posted by little e at 11:23 PM on June 10, 2009


*crickets*
posted by abc123xyzinfinity at 11:29 PM on June 10, 2009


jess, I was just assuming that the looser rules of MetaTalk would allow that particular breach of protocol that MetaFilter didn't, and I was wrong. But the way you worded that sounded like a confirmation that what joe lisboa and I both suggested was true?!? Okay, I'm shutting down before I get into any more trouble. Everyone can insult me in my absence for the next 12 hours at least.

I am genuinely sorry for that last offense. I don't apologize unless I really mean it, and I think I'm ultimately going to be apologizing for more things I posted today; or just for enjoying it as much as I did. Looking back at some of it right now, I can hardly believe I haven't been drinking. Better doublecheck my antidepressants for possible side effect of smartass.
posted by wendell at 11:30 PM on June 10, 2009


oops, I seem to have just stepped on a cricket.
posted by wendell at 11:31 PM on June 10, 2009


This whole thread would've flowed much better with a nice, professional white background.

But keep the font colors.
posted by empyrean at 11:33 PM on June 10, 2009 [4 favorites]


I was honest enough to admit I didn't have perfect provenance for my facts, coming mostly from others on MetaFilter lacking links, but with no one before taking issue with them, I used them to come to a conclusion. As of this writing, no one has yet argued that they are not true.

Well, okay then. Now someone is. I'm presuming this is the "first paragraph" you are referring to:

Lazarus, the man who walked into the Holocaust Museum and murdered Mr. Johns in cold blood had done another shooting 25 years earlier and has spent most of the time inbetween publicly preaching hate, making money from it and getting a forum to do it from some "semi-respectable" institutions.

Which I actually hadn't intended to talk about anyway, to be honest. The only thing that caught my eye was you trying to ask people to prove a negative in your second paragraph, and that's the only reason I commented on it. But now that I take a closer look at your claims, I would indeed want to see some links, at that. I'm not as likely to accept other Mefites' claims at face value, nor do I personally think it wise to consider an abscence of challenge to be proof of a claim.

But this was all tangential, because the thrust of my post -- which I admit I muddied somewhat by responding to that tangent -- was to respond to this:

Words have consequences. If they didn't, it wouldn't be worth using them. Yet, many "Defenders of the First Amendment" act like they don't. People like the moderators at MetaFilter know otherwise. And making people spreading Hate Speech responsible for those who listen to them and act on it will make it harder to spread violence and death, just as effective gun control would. But you're not likely to get that in a country which actually believes the Founding Fathers intended what was written in the Bill of Rights to be taken literally.

Now, I see these as opinions, not facts. And I responded with opinions of my own. Which is to say that "Defenders of the First Amendment" do know that words have consequences -- but that setting the controls on speech too tightly is far more harmful.

To be honest, it is all one to me whether or not you prove or disprove the "shooter was being paid off" claim. The most I can do is not agree, and that's fine. I am much more passionate about controls on speech. We already do have means in place for controlling certain avenues of hate speech -- they're called "internet mods banning people" or "advertisers pulling ads from television shows." We already have a means in place for people to decide among themselves as a private group that "you know, we really don't want you talking about that around us here, go somewhere else."

The fact that some people don't want to do that says something about those people, and the government trying to regulate it wouldn't teach them anything anyway, and may make things worse. Seriously -- what do you honestly think would happen if the government shut down Free Republic and prevented them from opening another forum? Do you think the Freepers would just shrug and say "oh, well" and go away? Wouldn't it be more likely that they'd claim their rights were being infringed and they'd feel more opressed, and thus more likely to take action?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:41 PM on June 10, 2009 [3 favorites]


I really wish that we could edit or delete comments, because I'm deeply embarrassed that I got involved in that shitflinger. I'm sorry. I know better, and I did it anyway, and now I'm having that feeling you get the day after the incredible party where you realize that you only thought you were awesome because you were way, way too drunk to realize that wearing a lampshade on your head isn't actually funny, and waking up in the front yard half-naked is a really bad idea when you're 37 years old.

And OH GOD THIS ISN'T EVEN MY VOMIT AIGH
posted by scrump at 11:42 PM on June 10, 2009 [2 favorites]


Well, you didn't want yourself to discuss it, so BP's title for this one kind of fits you. (that is, if you consider yourself as others)
posted by qvantamon at 11:54 PM on June 10, 2009


I have not heretofore bemoaned the lack of flagging options reading, respectively: "WTF!?" "Jesus H. Christ" and "You have got to be shitting me."

Is that covered under "Other"?
posted by Scattercat at 12:35 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


I, on the other hand, know and talk to real people in the party. My husband knows and talks to and associates with Republicans on the local and the state level. I think we have a better idea of what our core looks like than someone who only knows what he heard on the radio.

Hey, aren't you the one that claimed your gaydar and knowledge of gay people is so finely honed that you knew a certain preacher couldn't be hiring rent boys and fucking them because you knew he was straight?

Tell me more about what you "know".

I'm sorry you spend a lot of time hanging with people that celebrate murdering doctors and are a bit embarrassed by it, but getting upset at people for pointing out that your preferred political party is happy to market itself to right-wing terrorists and their friends isn't going to make it better.
posted by rodgerd at 1:07 AM on June 11, 2009 [5 favorites]


What I am saying is that neither the Limbaughs of the world [...] of the world have caused what happened today.

Yeah, and I bet you tell yourself at night that a political party that gets its votes claiming gays are second-class trash has nothing to do with Matthew Sheppard getting murdered.

Just like supporting segregation had nothing to with lynchings, right?

They rose to power at least partially because they had a popular economic platform.

The socialist elements were purged in an act of mass-murder. The "rise to power" occurred when Hitler traded his socialist economic policies for backing from the German right, who preferred him to the centre parties.

Please at least try and get your facts straight, even if it gets in the way of OMG HITLER WAS A LEFTY!
posted by rodgerd at 1:08 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


Pastabagel: "Do you really think Sean Hannity supports a guy going into the Holocaust museum guns blazing? If you think he does, then you are insane, and in need of immediate professional help."

Okay, then I guess I need professional help. Anyone else?
posted by UrineSoakedRube at 1:12 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


Christ -- somebody put something nasty in Metafilter's water supply today, no?
posted by Avenger at 1:21 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Wendell -

You said that the man who did the killing had a previous history of violence.

Granted.

You said he preached hate.

Granted.

You said he made money off of it.

Not certain, and no supporting link, but given the prior two facts were granted, it's not the biggest issue.

My problem is, you then went on to say that Mr. Johns was KILLED because "so many Americans were working so hard to protect" freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc."

Now, while it's not my intent to diminish the power of hate speech, which certainly can encourage and provoke violence, is it your assertion that Mr. von Brunn killed Mr. Johns by posting an article to his website, accusing Steven Tyrone Johns of being a gun-totin' n*gger-for-hire of the Jewish conspiracy?!

(It was, after all, a black man who died to defend the Holocaust Memorial... and von Brunn didn't like blacks either.)

As much as I agree with parts of how you feel, THAT is where you lost me... and I suspect it would be of small comfort to Mr. Johns' wife and twelve-year-old kid that free speech protections be gutted for everyone -- even further, by your own admission -- so that people won't post racist, hateful things online.

(In fact, I suspect if they would like any particular right not to have existed, it would've been the right for von Brunn to own a rifle, considering his prior armed criminal behavior.)

Mr. Johns' free speech, my free speech, and your own free speech are intrinsically linked. And, by and large, I think free speech saves far more lives than it kills. Indeed, I suspect if we severely restricted people's free speech rights, we'd see more violence, as it would be the obvious recourse for expressing such hatred and violence.

It's been a long day, and I'm heartsick and world-weary over this whole thing. I wish I lived around Washington, because I would like to be outside of Mr. Johns' house right now, lit candle in hand, if only to offer up some kind of simple gesture of my support for his family.

Maybe we, as a group, could all find a way to do something to help the family. Certainly, that's something we might all be able to agree upon, I hope?
posted by markkraft at 1:34 AM on June 11, 2009


Holy fuck. Happy full moon, everyone! MOONJUICE FOR EVERYONE!!!

doom. doom. doom-doom. doom-doom-doom. doom. doom-doom. doom. doom. doom-doom.
posted by loquacious at 2:28 AM on June 11, 2009


lalex beat me to it re: outing people's sock puppets. I can see why the mods want to support a "brand new day" policy for users who want a fresh start, but [name redacted] pretty much dared anyone at all to find where he/she had made some pretty outrageous statements about the fate of non-Christians under two previous handles.

IMO, a user who falls back into his/her former ways is actually abusing the good faith of the mods and getting a shield instead of a clean slate. Not fair. Or to put it another way, fair game.
posted by bardic at 2:29 AM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


I don't have the time to wade through this entire thread, but there seems to be a LOT of misunderstanding of the nut jobs on the white racialist right who perpetrate these horrible acts of violence. I spent quite a bit of time learning about the subject as a hobby so I want to correct several often repeated incorrect assumptions.

Extremist white racialists like this nut job:

1) See Rush Limbaugh, Bush & Co. and Fox as the same as Obama. They abhor the mainstream right as much as the mainstream left. And as much as some tend to revere Obama as the answer to the ills of US society, he is pretty much just a mainstream politician. It's absolutely incorrect to equate these extremists with the Republican party, neoconservatism, or any other brand of mainstream right wing ideology. These guys are way out there.

2) The reason the Republican Party and the Democratic Party fall into the same category for these guys is because both are seen to support Israel. The US government in their eyes is run by Israel. It's a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG). They hate Bush and Co. deeply for supplicating Israel. Their hate for Obama includes the ZOG idea but they also hate him because he's black. No surprise there.

3) Obama's being black to these extremists is proof that the US is losing touch with its White European roots. They want to reclaim to government from the Jews, and give states the power to make laws as they see fit, including sending black back to Africa.

4) They very carefully follow the "lone wolf" strategy laid out I believe by a militia group who studied a foreign terrorist primer. I cannot remember which. The thinking is that you can achieve more the fewer people know your business. This strategy is obviously very successful, if you look at the extremist right wing terrorism of the last two decades.

5) The SPLC asserts that the extremists are interested in cooperating with Muslim terrorists and have tried to make contact with Al Qaeda. Why? Because they share opposition to Israel and the Jews.

In my opinion cooperation is highly unlikely because US racialist extremists bring nothing to the table: they have no money, no training, no education, and ideologically they are all over the place.

So the idle speculation in these threads that these extremists would support Jews fundamentally misses the point of right wing extremism.

I could go on and on, but the key points are: 1) extremists willing to use violence hate Republicans as much as Democrats 2) Because both are part of the ZOG machine that is the US government 3) Any enemy of Israel is a potential ally of the racialists. 4) Lone wolf strategy is the way right wing terrorists work in this country.

Really, this serious problem requires more than lazy blaming everything on the Bushies and Rush Limbaugh. You'd be surprised to know that racialists hate Rush and Company just as much as you do.
posted by vincele at 2:29 AM on June 11, 2009 [7 favorites]


One final point: I feel that it is incredibly lazy and presumptuous to conclude that extremist right wing terrorists commit violence in the name or spirit of Bush, Cheney, Hannity, and Limbaugh.

These extremists are so far out there they have no common ground with what we think of as the "right wing." Bush's and Obama's administration are the same: the ZOG, as I said above.

I just wish we'd all learn a little more about what makes these nutjobs tick before lumping them into categories they don't belong in and jumping to conclusions about their motivations.

The bulk of the shooter's writings are available in at least one thread on Stormfront.
posted by vincele at 2:59 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Wait a minute. She's outed herself, but it's off-limits to mention a fact that the poster herself makes absolutely zero effort to hide or deny?

Is this like the cartoons where a guy puts on the glasses with the big nose and fake mustache and we're supposed to pretend no one recognizes him?
posted by 0xFCAF at 3:05 AM on June 11, 2009


Homer? Who is Homer? My name is Guy Incognito!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:17 AM on June 11, 2009 [5 favorites]


No doubt a hardcore Turner Diaries reader is not your average Republican, but it's fair to point out that Republicans revel in eliminationist rhetoric. Anne Coulter writes a book called "Treason" about anyone who doesn't vote "R." Hannity has a regular spot called "enemy of the state."

I think you make some good points, but it's also impossible to deny that the GOP cultivated some pretty outrageous (and for that matter, completely un-American) ideas after 9/11, and that spreading that kind of poison certainly doesn't prevent a "true" radical from blowing away three cops, shooting up the Holocaust Museum, blowing away people in churches in Tennessee and Kansas, etc.
posted by bardic at 3:21 AM on June 11, 2009

Well, there's policy, and then there's Blazecock Pileon policy. And if I don't like it I can fuck off, right?
You don't think Dios would have been banned as well under the "get rid of everyone annoying" rubric you seem to be advocating?
Mr. Johns died trying to protect others, but he was KILLED because so many Americans were working so hard to protect the First Amendment Rights of this deranged shooter, countless others like him and the media monsters who make big money encouraging them. I am not backing down one inch from that stand unless you show me solid proof that what I wrote in the first paragraph was seriously mistaken.
No offense, but are you fucking retarded? What do you think would have happened in 2003 if Karl Rove had been in charge of policing speech? Where would the country be today if all those right wingers calling liberals and Iraq war opponents traitors and stuff had had the law to back them up and had actually been able to silence their critics legally. Why do you assume the speech you like would be let through?
Also consider: the Free Republic folk. I've seen people joke about the "two minutes hate" in here, but interestingly, the whole point of the "two minutes hate" in 1984, ostensibly, was to let people get all that agita out of their systems so they wouldn't just mentally snap.
That's not the case at all. The whole point of the two-minute hate was to increase hatred of the state's enemies. The point wasn't to hate, it was who was being hated: Emmanuel Goldstein, as a stand in for everything big-brother opposed. And the point wasn't to "relive stress" it was to amplify and extend anger by expressing it in a social setting.

Also in the real world (I don't know what Orwell thought about it) the catharsis theory has been disprove. Engaging and wallowing in hate and anger only amplifies it. Ignoring it and thinking about something else makes it go away.
posted by delmoi at 3:30 AM on June 11, 2009 [5 favorites]


The idea that extremist white racialists don't like Limbaugh is pushing it. I just checked out a few quotes from Stormfront's website, and they tend to be quite favorable to Rush... although I don't want to link to the site. If you really want to find them, you can Google 'em. thanks.

"I like Rush's show, but unfortunately, he's hung up on the terrorists attacking our "freedoms" as well. I was hoping that he'd show a bit more balls."

"I can't help but to like the guy. Of the three radio talk show hosts that I listen to, Bob (alias, Jew-Lover) Grant, Sean(alias, Jew-Lover) Hannity, and El Rushbo, Rush has 'em beat hands down. . . I'm convinced that deep down, he knows."

"that is incredibly sad (that he's losing his hearing). I have been a listener for many years. No one is gonna come out on national radio to expose the "jew conspiracy" even if there IS one. ( it is HARD to believe, but keep sellin, I'm always open to a good conspiracy! LOL) Lets face it. If everyone in the country was AT MINIMUM, a conservative, notice I did not say "republican", then we would not be in the fix that we are now."

"I'm glad to see that people here have been sympathetic (to Limbaugh losing his hearing)..."

"I like Rush personally, although he's careful not to criticize the Jews."

"Sometimes I cringe when listening to his shows. I just know he has to believe some of our points but refuses to say them on the show. He comes SO CLOSE!!!"

"I just paid to subscribe to his pod cast.. I've listened to Rush for years. I feel like I owe him something.."

Stormfront have also specifically targeted Limbaugh listeners in the past. From their e-activism forum:

Rush Limbaugh Usenet Group - Come Post Pro-White Messages
Please bombard the following Rush Limbaugh Usenet group with pro-White messages..."

posted by markkraft at 4:02 AM on June 11, 2009


"interestingly, the whole point of the "two minutes hate" in 1984, ostensibly, was to let people get all that agita out of their systems so they wouldn't just mentally snap."

Yeah... no. Delmoi is absolutely correct. I noticed it too, but thought it was pretty tangental to the larger point, so I didn't address it.

"Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were - in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State....

In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen....In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic...


i.e. Fox News.
posted by markkraft at 4:21 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


wendell: I find it more than a tad disingenuous that you would cry in with "I'm sorry you feel that way!" about losing faith in humanity when it is mostly your behavior that I'm referencing when I talk about the disappointing MeFi reaction.

Your horse, sir, it is a tall one.

Sorry I'm late. I, y'know, slept through the night. Like you do.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:25 AM on June 11, 2009


Heard the one about a Saint, the Pope, and Sidhedevil walking into a thread?

Shit punchline.
posted by gman at 4:32 AM on June 11, 2009


I'm unclear on how this became about St. Alia.
posted by LittleMissCranky at 9:55 PM on June 10 [+] [!]


Because, under whatever username she's using this month, if Ms. Jesus of the Bunnies is in the thread it is always, be definition, going to be about her.

We're dealing with a narcissistic personality disorder here, not a person of good faith or good will. There is no point arguing with this type of person. She's been soundly defeated in dozens of debates here, with her special blend of obtuseness, denial, subject-changing, and special pleading -- and when all else fails, her God talk.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:41 AM on June 11, 2009 [6 favorites]


And speaking about hate speech... Here's Rabbi Morton Pomerantz of New York, commenting on the attack:

"Our new president did not tell a virulent anti-Semite to travel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to kill Jews, but he is most certainly creating a climate of hate against us. It is no coincidence that we are witnessing this level of hatred toward Jews as President Barack Obama positions America against the Jewish state.

Just days ago Obama traveled to Cairo, Egypt. It was his second trip in a short time to visit Muslim countries. He sent a clear message by not visiting Israel. But this was code. . .

Just last week, Obama told his worldwide audience -- more than 100 million people -- that the killing of six million Jews during the Holocaust was the equivalent of Israel's actions in dealing with the Palestinians. ( note: PATENTLY UNTRUE!) This remark is incredible on its face, an insult to the six million Jews who died as a result of Hitler's genocide, and it is a form of revisionism that will bode evil for Jews for years to come. . . .

Perhaps it was not lost on James W. von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist identified as the alleged attacker Wednesday at the Holocaust Museum.. .


Maybe it's just me, but something tells me that white supremacists don't like taking advice from uppity (youknowthewords).
posted by markkraft at 4:48 AM on June 11, 2009


Hannity maintains -- at most -- 1 or 2 degrees of separation from the overt radical anti-Semites on the right:

Sean Hannity urges armed revolt. (C&L)

Hannity's relationship with Hal Turner (neo-Nazi racist recently arrested for making threats against elected officials).

Sean Hannity, Robert Gibbs, and anti-Semitism. (Salon)

Personally, I look at the guy and I see someone with a big secret -- a Ted Haggard-sized secret, or worse. And one of these days, we'll find out what it is.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:50 AM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


Re 1984 and the two-minutes hate: huh. I stand corrected. I think I may have just gotten a weird read on it based on something Julia said in passing; thanks for pointing that out.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:53 AM on June 11, 2009


Because, under whatever username she's using this month, if Ms. Jesus of the Bunnies is in the thread it is always, be definition, going to be about her.

so, are you saying that she was also sixcolors?
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:13 AM on June 11, 2009


No, I'm pretty sure she's white.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:34 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


I believe that there is a significant difference between Sean Hannity and a James Von Brunn. Hannity is as ignorant, bigoted, and hate-riddled, of course. But he's far too much of a coward to deal with physical rather than rhetorical violence. [i.e. slinking away from his offer to be waterboarded for charity]

I suspect Von Brunn would consider him a pussy.
posted by Joe Beese at 5:41 AM on June 11, 2009


I believe that there is a significant difference between Sean Hannity and a James Von Brunn.

Yeah, von Brunn is only responsible for the death of one person.
posted by DU at 5:44 AM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


Because, under whatever username she's using this month, if Ms. Jesus of the Bunnies is in the thread it is always, be definition, going to be about her.

She is the greatest troll that has ever lived. It's astounding that she's not permabanned, but at least she is able to show all of us what a truly masterful trolling technique looks like. A living monument to the art, really.
posted by cmonkey at 5:49 AM on June 11, 2009 [6 favorites]


Maybe it's just me, but something tells me that white supremacists don't like taking advice from uppity (youknowthewords).

Neither do certain rabbis.

Oh, and I have a new username I want to register:

Saint Aaliyah of the Rabbis.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:54 AM on June 11, 2009


And OH GOD THIS ISN'T EVEN MY VOMIT AIGH

I find this line to be surprisingly hilarious and wish to thank you for having written it. That is all.
posted by aramaic at 6:12 AM on June 11, 2009


yeah sorry that was me.
i just woke up next to a fire hydrant, stumbled back into this thread and discovered this gem: "No offense, but are you fucking retarded?"

oy vey, im going back to bed.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:27 AM on June 11, 2009


re: outing people's sock puppets. I can see why the mods want to support a "brand new day" policy for users who want a fresh start, but [name redacted] pretty much dared anyone at all to find where he/she had made some pretty outrageous statements about the fate of non-Christians under two previous handles.

IMO, a user who falls back into his/her former ways is actually abusing the good faith of the mods and getting a shield instead of a clean slate. Not fair. Or to put it another way, fair game.


I am only going to say this one more time.

I have not, will not, and did not go around here consigning people here to Hell and it is a disingenuous and wrong thing for people to go around here saying.

I understand that the very fact I happen to be a Christian believer offends some of you. I happen to have observed that orthodox Christian doctrine is upsetting to some of you. But what either of those really has to do with these two threads is a puzzle to me. Because it is some of YOU saying these things and NOT ME.

I AM INTERESTED IN PEOPLE NOT GOING TO HELL, not in telling people they are going there. I am not God, I don't know the future, I don't know what is in a particular human heart, and again I AM NOT GOD.

So can we PLEASE drop it????
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:36 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Other than gays who fail to repent of their sinful ways.

See, in order to be concerned that someone *not* go to hell, you have to think in advance that if they don't change their ways they will go to hell.

Same old song. Using your shriveled, ignorant brand of "Christianity" as a justification for condemnation and hatred of people who don't believe what you believe, and then retreating back behind your "who, little old me, I'm just a nice Christian lady" mask.

If I had a religion, it would center on the hell that awaits trolls and pathological narcissists. But since I am a proud atheist, all I can say is welcome to hell on earth. You're welcome to stay a while, but your ass will get burned.

/last time I take the thing from your hand
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:53 AM on June 11, 2009 [5 favorites]


What a contemptible place this thread makes Metafilter look like.

It isn't, most of the time, but good lord people. Don't drink any more of loquacious's moon juice, please.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:59 AM on June 11, 2009


I understand you're INTERESTED IN PEOPLE NOT GOING TO HELL, but do you think non-believers are going to hell and it's your duty to save us?
posted by gman at 7:01 AM on June 11, 2009


...This thread all got started in response to someone who took issue with others based on their religion went on a shooting spree.

So...some people think the proper response to this is...to take issue with another poster based on her religion.

For fucks' sake, people.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:03 AM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


This is so fucking ugly.
posted by Bookhouse at 7:04 AM on June 11, 2009


Sigh. Only three-and-a-half more years before Obama is re-elected and we get a brief respite before St Alia's next reincarnation.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 7:05 AM on June 11, 2009


Empress, there is a history here. You present the proposed moral equivalence out of context, and thereby misrepresent it.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:05 AM on June 11, 2009


I'm sure von Brunn feels justified by his sense of history too.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 7:10 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


Empress, there is a history here. You present the proposed moral equivalence out of context, and thereby misrepresent it.

Oh, I'm well aware of what you call "the history here". And I think that connecting the grudge match to the incident at hand is itself a misrepresentation.

Using this incident as an excuse to pile on someone else and indulge in another round of GrudgeMatch is utterly reprehensible. I can't tell you not to beat up on another poster -- but, did you really have to go there now? In this thread? Really?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:12 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


...This thread all got started in response to someone who took issue with others based on their religion went on a shooting spree.

So...some people think the proper response to this is...to take issue with another poster based on her religion.


I think we must be reading a different thread. The thread I read had a particular poster talking about how this guy didn't REALLY represent the beliefs of her political party. People took issue with this blatant, demonstrable falsehood.

I will grant you that there seems to also be a side topic about religion, but I think we can agree that no one is in imminent danger of being shot over it.
posted by DU at 7:18 AM on June 11, 2009




If you choose to characterize it as a "grudge match," that's your choice. I think of it as standing up to a bully who demeans and diminishes our community with her thinly-disguised agenda to evangelize hateful views.

And if not in this thread, where better? Are we supposed to be silent in the face of a hate crime when an apologist for the community that supports crimes like this as justified shows up to spin it as something other than a hate crime, and as something other than a predictable effect of the right wing politics of the moment?

Fine to disagree about whether this incident connects to the history of violence and intimidation the Christian right has fostered, and to the chief defender of the Christian right in this site's long history of debating these issues. But striking the moralistic pose -- "utterly reprehensible" and all those italics in your final sentence (yes, really) makes you a player of the game you decry.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:21 AM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


I also want to be clear: my issue here, at least, isn't religion as such. It's the perverted use of religion to support terrorist agendas. I have no idea whether this Nazi creep held a religious thought in his Mensa-capable brain (barf). But we're also discussing a palpable rise in hate speech and hate crimes coming from the right, with the murder of Dr. Tiller less than two weeks in the past. "Christianity" has become a political ideology as well as a religion -- hence the rise of "Christianist" terror to perfectly match "Islamist" terror.

One of the key tactics used by a certain person I won't mention is to link her right wing views to the humble practice of her religion, from whence she also derives her air of certitude and her ultimate argument for her right wing views (because God is on her side, and she knows the Truth and is just trying to tell us before we burn in hell).

Fuck that.
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:25 AM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


fourcheesemac, if you think you are going to intimidate me from participating in this site, you are sadly mistaken.

I think it is wrong and silly of you to hijack this thread in order for you to vent your spleen against Christianity. Because that is all you are doing. It is inappropriate, ridiculous, and annoying. But, you know, this is meta, and hey, if it keeps the Blue all peaceful, have at it.

Just don't expect me to take your words to heart, because I don't. And neither do the fairminded members of this site.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:32 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'm unclear on how this became about St. Alia.

Just yesterday, while Limbaugh was yukking it up over the latest conspiratorial craze on the right--the birth certificate nonsense--a man who believed such nonsense, apparently, was murdering people in cold blood.

Rush isn't to blame for the murders, obviously, but Rush and the people who spread such nonsense or encourage people to believe it or incite the believers are responsible for convincing the nuttier among us that they are at war with "liberalism" or George Soros, the New World Order, or "the Kenyan Usurper." And sooner of later one or more of those nuts will act on that belief. The real horror is that a louder and louder fraction of the American right is becoming indistinguishable from those nuts.

So it's pretty rich for the homophobic Rush Limbaugh fan to come into this thread and moan about "the regrettable human tendency to always divide people into the categories of 'us' versus 'them'." Speck/beam/eye and all that, you know.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:32 AM on June 11, 2009 [11 favorites]


Supporting controls on speech with a reference to "effective" gun control is a laughably poor argument. Forgetting the overwhelmingly heavy constitutional prohibition against them - and the fact that "hate speech" is not a constitutionally cognizable category - gun controls have done exactly jack shit to reduce violence becuase the type of person who would shoot another person doesn't pay attention to niceties like licensing. The one and only study that suggested that gun control here in DC was marginally effective was quickly torn apart for being so shoddily performed and every subsequent analysis of gun violence has suggested that even the total ban on handguns here, while it existed, didn't reduce crime.

Back to the Constitutional argument: as the Framers recognized, the only people who want speech controls are those too stupid to participate effectively in conversation.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 7:38 AM on June 11, 2009


It seems absurd to expect people to pretend that her extensive history of bomb-throwing invective doesn't exist, especially since it's clearly a wink-wink open secret.

It seems absurd as well that people can not get the fuck over their collective reaction to St. Alia. Agreed that in this case it's not a case of carefully kept secret—we're not trying to force people to blindly, stupidly pretend Brand New Day is an unconditional, air-tight rule or something. I get that aspect, trust me.

The problem is that people fixate on her and pile on her and seem to more or less justify that on the basis of who she is, and the "we know your history!" thing is used as a lever to justify that. I'm sick of seeing shitstorms rise up around her, and as personally obnoxious as I find some of her discursive habits in her contributions here, the length of the (almost by definition wildly derailing and distracting) reactions to her opening her mouth on any politically- or religiously-charged subject is often all out of proportion to what she actually said. People indulging in that do so to the detriment of the readability of the thread for anyone not dedicated to that particular brand of tired go-around.

Ignoring her or dismissing her if you find what she's saying foolish or uncompelling or whatever would be a big improvement over a collective pileon, and her account history doesn't make that no so. Trying to make that history itself a lynchpin of and excuse for furthing piling on is bad form and, open secret or not, pushing pretty hard against the general principle around here of not making shit about the user but rather focusing on the actual substance and content of the discussion.

Some of this may seem like, I don't know, a fairly overt reaction from our end if you're new to the dynamic in question, but there are a few people over here and over in the thread on the blue who have long history with her and specifically have a long history of really badly and consistently mixing shit up with her, and we've seen way more of that than we ever need to. Folks who should know better by now need to act like it, because it gets to feeling like this is, whatever specific thing(s) they're choosing to react to, in part just about having a live, concrete target to throw some of the hell of yesterday's events at. Fuck that.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:41 AM on June 11, 2009 [24 favorites]


I also want to be clear: my issue here, at least, isn't religion as such. It's the perverted use of religion to support terrorist agendas. I have no idea whether this Nazi creep held a religious thought in his Mensa-capable brain (barf). But we're also discussing a palpable rise in hate speech and hate crimes coming from the right, with the murder of Dr. Tiller less than two weeks in the past. "Christianity" has become a political ideology as well as a religion -- hence the rise of "Christianist" terror to perfectly match "Islamist" terror.

Well, I'm not convinced that a) you can incontrovertibly connect the entirety of Christianity with political ideology and b) you can incontrovertibly connect St. Alia with any of the politically active far-right groups. So from where I'm sitting, yes, this does look like your issue here is religion as such, and that you're attacking St. Alia for her beliefs.

Now, that could be due to anything from my being unclear about your choice of words to your unconsciously having a bias of sorts that you hadn't realized you had. Only you can determine that. I'm just telling you what this looks like to me -- which is pretty damn ugly.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:42 AM on June 11, 2009 [6 favorites]



I'm really in no mood to keep fighting, and most certainly not with the Voice of God. I apologize for the heated tone in my replies to you, Empress, although I stand by the points I was trying to make. I've said my bit and will back off for now.

Blood pressures raised all around. The troll wins again. Shit.

posted by fourcheesemac at 7:43 AM on June 11, 2009


Note: Everyone here needs a grilled cheese sandwich.
posted by WalterMitty at 7:54 AM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


Are you offering to cook?
posted by Lemurrhea at 8:00 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


i'm beginning to think that the biggest problem in today's world are people who are self-righteous and will go to any lengths to prove it, including mccarthyism
posted by pyramid termite at 8:06 AM on June 11, 2009


DU, Fourcheesemac— You're being stupid and you're being dicks. C'mon. You're smarter than this, especially you, Fourcheesemac.
posted by klangklangston at 8:06 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Engaging and wallowing in hate and anger only amplifies it. Ignoring it and thinking about something else makes it go away.

Now let us never speak of this again.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:10 AM on June 11, 2009


Where is keyboard cat when you need him most?
posted by yeti at 8:16 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Where is keyboard cat when you need him most?

He's only one cat, give him time.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:16 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


DU, Fourcheesemac— You're being stupid and you're being dicks

?
posted by DU at 8:21 AM on June 11, 2009


Engaging and wallowing in hate and anger only amplifies it. Ignoring it and thinking about something else makes it go away.

I've actually seen -- or, heard tell -- of a third outcome, interestingly: letting others express their hate and anger sometimes ends up with them hanging themselves.

The example that leaps to mind concerns the Rev. Ian Paisley, the abrasive mouthpiece for the Loyalist faction, in Northern Ireland in the 80's and 90's. At the time that Northern Ireland was voting on the Good Friday agreement, polls predicted that only 25% of the voters would reject it. As it turned out, 28% rejected it.

And Ian Paisley took to the streets in a victory parade, crowing that the Loyalists had gained a full three percent more voters than had predicted - and this was proof positive that they were right and they were going to win the day, just you wait!

But rather than rallying people to his cause, his display backfired -- most people saw this and had the epiphany that "...Wow. I guess I never really noticed before that this guy is nuts." And after that, Paisley's political influence waned rather a good deal.

Sometimes it actually works to let people have a platform to speak, so they can prove to others all by themselves what fools or what bigots they are.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:22 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


So, wait, am I going to hell or not here?
posted by kbanas at 8:25 AM on June 11, 2009


Sorry, blame my not previewing—your comment about Hannity being responsible for more than one death was still pretty fresh, and Fourcheese hadn't backed down yet.
posted by klangklangston at 8:25 AM on June 11, 2009


Now let us never speak of this again.

Starting this thread and then just watching and silently favoriting and not participating was not at all cool, BP.

I rarely wake up to email from people asking me why I cut their hatefest short and being upset at me for them not being able to fully hate on other members of the site, on the site.

To the best of my knowledge, no one's email is broken. Generally speaking if you have an issue especially a longstanding issue with one other member of the site that's not even MeTa-worthy it's just "take it to email" or "get a room" This gets complicated when it's many members who have an issue with one particular member.

The Brand New Day policy is supposed to help people get a new start here. Generally speaking it works. There are a few members for whom it doesn't work particularly well. That said, I think it's possible to cite old-username stuff in response to a specific query. THAT said, I can see only a few narrow ways of doing that that aren't basically against the rules. Sorry abotu that. I never figured we'd have to deal with this "cites please" sort of nonsense.

SAotB: the only way the brand new day policy works is if you yourself don't start this sort of "I never said that" gameplay. I'd like to personally ask you to help us help you have a brand new day here. That is not going well so far. I am sleepy and I am upset and I would like this to start winding down not winding up. It is your choice certainly.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:17 AM on June 11, 2009 [6 favorites]


Folks who should know better by now need to act like it, because it gets to feeling like this is, whatever specific thing(s) they're choosing to react to, in part just about having a live, concrete target to throw some of the hell of yesterday's events at. Fuck that!

I agree with this sentiment. It is very difficult to stop this particular reaction in people.

I remember the reaction to the World Trade Center attacks on this site very clearly as I joined at time. It was ugly, knee-jerk lashing out at any target. The same can be said of the US government's reaction. A lust for blood.

I certainly support your attempts to assuage this urge in the commenters on this site. I hope some people learn something from it.

There are some *incendiary* personalities on this site that enjoy courting controversy or have other reasons for contrary behaviour. It can be fun to read*, but ultimately doesn't help build community amongst us. The majority of people carry them and soften the edges such that we continue to function as a community. This is healthy, I think. Problems occur when our heretics lean hard on the good will of the community and particularly the moderators. It can feel like the material that binds the community is wearing thin, which scares some of us. I don't think that we will ever smash the plate of beans here, though. Ten years since cat-scan and still going strong! Hugs all round!

I know that many of my opinions are not consensus here, but I have also learned that everyone has some shared experience or idea. People who I would put straight against the wall when the revolution comes for some of their expressed ideas are also great sources of knowledge about some esoteric subject which I have a keen interest in.

Even *commenter everyone loves to hate* thinks baby rabbits are cute and fluffy. I think we can all agree on that. Or at least the fluffy part.

*Speaking personally. Argument and confrontation are ways of working out ideas. Some people argue to win, others argue for the enjoyment, some people don't like to argue at all. We are all on the spectrum somewhere.
posted by asok at 9:20 AM on June 11, 2009




So, wait, am I going to hell or not here?

When I see the site have days like these, I begin to wonder if we aren't already there.
posted by never used baby shoes at 9:24 AM on June 11, 2009


Even *commenter everyone loves to hate* thinks baby rabbits are cute and fluffy. I think we can all agree on that. Or at least the fluffy part.

I'll thank you to not project your pro-rabbit and pro-fluffy POV onto me. I like my critters spikey. Hedgehogs, porcupines, Gordon Ramsey, it doesn't matter.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:27 AM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


Jessamyn, all I was trying to do there is get them to put up or shut up, not to give you or the other mods a headache.


People who I would put straight against the wall when the revolution comes for some of their expressed ideas are also great sources of knowledge about some esoteric subject which I have a keen interest in.

It takes all kinds to make a Metafilter. There is no need for any of us to demonize any of the rest of us. There are people here who can discuss and debate ideas with me-and before some of you got so nasty were actually causing me to think hard about some of the things media on the right of the aisle say. I'm a work in progress, too. But I still think that it is wrong to take this murder at the Holocaust museum and use it to rail on Limbaugh and Hannity. There will be other threads here for that, I'm sure.

Now, since I have to be at work in half an hour (free morning! Yay!) I'll take my leave and wish the rest of you a good day.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 9:28 AM on June 11, 2009


Starting this thread and then just watching and silently favoriting and not participating was not at all cool, BP.

After Crabby Appleton's goading, there wasn't much point to commenting. I preferred to let the community speak as to the appropriateness of his and his friend's behavior.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:29 AM on June 11, 2009


Or if you are looking for something a bit more hopeful, Mefites heed this piece of pop theology from a former Go Go.
posted by barrett caulk at 9:36 AM on June 11, 2009


all I was trying to do there is get them to put up or shut up

knowing full well that when they did "put up", they'd be breaking the rules of this site in doing so and knowing that some people would not be able to resist doing so
posted by pyramid termite at 9:38 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Jessamyn, all I was trying to do there is get them to put up or shut up, not to give you or the other mods a headache.

Now that you know that they do not shut up, you have a choice in your activities. I would like you to put "not give the mods a headache" higher on your to do list, and I'd like you to consider dropping topics if they are not being productive for you or other people. The site has 40,000+ members and MeFi threads should not be turning into a referendum on you and your beliefs.

This goes for a few other people in this thread as well. I appreciate that we all have bad days and it's just a little messy that sometimes people's combined bad days sort of magnify into a very bad day for the site.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:39 AM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


I still fail to see what is gained by making this thread (spilling over from the original thread, which was already overflowing) a referendum on the views of St. Alia -- even if the argument can be successfully made that she herself encouraged that development, which is debatable.

I don't see the point. Particularly when we're supposedly talking about the events of yesterday, which also occurred, not improbably, at least partly, because people in the United States (and, increasingly, on this site) are almost constantly shouting past each other instead of LISTENING to one another.
posted by blucevalo at 9:46 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


My granddad died at 93 years old. Raised in Kentucky, he quit school in the 3rd grade to work as a helper in the coal mines. The last year of his life, he gave me a word of wisdom I try to live by: "The more you stir up shit, the more it stinks."
posted by The Deej at 9:50 AM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


"Because, under whatever username she's using this month, if Ms. Jesus of the Bunnies is in the thread it is always, be definition, going to be about her."

You and others contribute to making that happen.
posted by HopperFan at 9:50 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


the events of yesterday, which also occurred, not improbably, at least partly, because people in the United States (and, increasingly, on this site) are almost constantly shouting past each other instead of LISTENING to one another.

Oh really? Do tell. I'd love to hear more about our theory.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:53 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


our = your.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:53 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


ThePinkSuperhero: " I'd love to hear more about your theory."

Maybe the theory is that Krrrlson can only call people things like "a truly vile excuse for a human being" for so long before things start to get unpleasant.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:08 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


I've tried to skim this thread twice and I keep landing on these "this [Metafilter] is disgusting" comments, which both at once makes me want to read this thread and not read this thread.

Brothers, sisters, can't we all just, well, you know, get a ling ling?
posted by cavalier at 10:09 AM on June 11, 2009


I preferred to let the community speak as to the appropriateness of his and his friend's behavior. [Emphasis mine.—CA]

I've said what I wanted to say in this thread and wouldn't have responded to BP at this point, except that I want to address the bolded words quoted above.

dios isn't my friend and he isn't not my friend, either. I don't know him from Adam. I've never sent him MeMail (or communicated with him in any way, other than implicitly via my comments in MetaFilter), and he's never sent me any. I'm not saying this to dissociate myself from dios. I'm saying it to dissociate myself from the clique-y, gang-y, pile-on-y element at MetaFilter, which I hold in utter contempt. That high-school mentality is an embarassment to MetaFilter.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 10:12 AM on June 11, 2009


Lighten up, Francis.

Everybody: GIANT SWING ~ GIANT SWING!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 10:18 AM on June 11, 2009


Brothers, sisters, can't we all just, well, you know, get a ling ling?

Little late for that, isn't it?
posted by juv3nal at 10:21 AM on June 11, 2009


Maybe the theory is that Krrrlson can only call people things like "a truly vile excuse for a human being" for so long before things start to get unpleasant.

Maybe the theory is that in a fast moving thread we do the best we can and everyone can cherrypick one thing that did or didn't get deleted as supporting evidence to their own particular thory of Mod Loves You Best.

Maybe the theory is that if people would stop with the eye-rolling-masquerading-as-"so let me understand you" plaintalking, this would all be going much better.

Let me be plain: if you have an issue say it out loud and don't just link to a comment in the middle of a shitstorm thread and then overgeneralize as if everything else didn't happen. Want an explanation? Feel free to ask for one like normal people. I'm pretty much full up on sneering emails and passive aggressive comments.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:24 AM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


No offense, but are you fucking retarded?

DELMOI, you're either my favorite humorist or ... ? Nah, not worth going there. You're my favorite humorist.

EVERYBODY ELSE, thanks for sharing. seriously. I've been tracking all this since yester-evening sometime and have found it, quite simply, epic. I'm of the opinion that these eruptions do desperately need to happen.

yes, politeness, respect, compassion, rules of order are all essential to the glue that holds this (and any) community together ... but suppressing the truth about how we really feel about something (even if it's a batshit-insane truth) isn't physically or mentally healthy. It just isn't. I'm not saying rudeness, disrespect, callousness etc are useful means toward getting to any kind helpful place. I am saying that, like coughing, sneezing, hacking etc are to a body sorting out an ailment, they can have their purpose. That which does not destroy us makes us stronger and all that.

keep on rocking in the free world. don't trust anyone that wears rubber.
posted by philip-random at 10:25 AM on June 11, 2009


Maybe the theory is that Krrrlson can only call people things like "a truly vile excuse for a human being" for so long before things start to get unpleasant.

Harsh words, but that was not the thread to go fleshing out theories about how Jews contribute to murderous anti-Semitism. In fact, I'm trying to imagine where that thread is, and coming up empty.

Certainly better would have been to call the words vile.
posted by palliser at 10:35 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


There is little new to be said to or about those two trolls that the community hasn't already done an admirable job of saying here, and I'm genuinely grateful and relieved that others have made similar observations. Thanks to those of you who did not appreciate their bullying.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:37 AM on June 11, 2009


Maybe the theory is that Krrrlson can only call people things like "a truly vile excuse for a human being" for so long before things start to get unpleasant.

Maybe the raging antisemitism of a member whose first statement attempts to blame the Holocaust museum attack on the Jews and who is generally inches away from quoting straight from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to the deafening silence of the vast majority of Metafilter, including the mods, does not qualify as "unpleasant" to you. It is beyond the pale to me. A year or two ago, amberglow's frequent homophobia callouts were usually accompanied by: "Metafilter would never stand for this if it were about blacks or Jews." Well, that little myth has been soundly put to rest now.
posted by Krrrlson at 10:38 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


Mod Loves You Best

If Joe Beese and I were drowning, who would you save?

No, if you couldn't save both of us.

No, that's the whole point, you can't save both of us.

I think you do know, but you're not saying.
posted by palliser at 10:39 AM on June 11, 2009


Krrrlson, just out of curiosity - can you point to any comment in that thread praising or agreeing with markrafts assertions? Because I'm seeing no favorites on that comment, and quite a number of people calling him out on it.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 10:41 AM on June 11, 2009


"There is little new to be said to or about those two trolls that the community hasn't already done an admirable job of saying here, and I'm genuinely grateful and relieved that others have made similar observations. Thanks to those of you who did not appreciate their bullying."

Pot, Kettle.
posted by HopperFan at 10:41 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


More of Mark Kraft's delightful Holocaust comedy stylings, this one to the resounding approval of #1 himself.
posted by Krrrlson at 10:41 AM on June 11, 2009


(checks link)

That's...not....something Mark Kraft posted, though.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:45 AM on June 11, 2009


palliser, of course we would save Joe Beese, but then we would dive into the water, pull your drowning carcass from the waves and resurrect you just at the moment when all hope seemed lost, in kickass Abyss style, and you would be crowned Queen Bitch of the World.
posted by misha at 10:47 AM on June 11, 2009


wait wait wait. Is mark_kraft insomnia_lj? is that what Krrrlson is saying?
posted by shmegegge at 10:50 AM on June 11, 2009


scuse me: markkraft.
posted by shmegegge at 10:50 AM on June 11, 2009


YOU ARE ALL WEIRDOS.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:52 AM on June 11, 2009


is that what Krrrlson is saying?

That depends on whether the mods think it's more important to enforce the "brand new day" coverups, or to deal with racism on their site.
posted by Krrrlson at 10:54 AM on June 11, 2009


jessamyn: "Maybe the theory is that in a fast moving thread we do the best we can and everyone can cherrypick one thing that did or didn't get deleted as supporting evidence to their own particular thory of Mod Loves You Best. ..."

There was no criticism implied of the moderating in either that thread or this one. I was mostly tweaking blucevalo's, to my mind, rather silly suggestion that intramural scuffles here have any bearing on the actions of violent white supremacists - with an added hint that Krrrlson could probably have toned it down a bit there. If you'd prefer I make it explicit...

blucevalo, that's silly.

Krrrlson, that's too much.

I know that this has been a really shitty day at the office for you - and no one could fault you for associating my name with mod-grief. But I really don't feel that this is one of those times.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:54 AM on June 11, 2009


That depends on whether the mods think it's more important to enforce the "brand new day" coverups, or to deal with racism on their site.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that I always associated insomnia_lj with self-obessessed livejournal self-links (and creepy TMI "you don't understand my BDSM lifestyle!" type rants), and markkraft with anti-semitism, but not vice versa. it seems odd to me that they'd be the same person.
posted by shmegegge at 10:59 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


That depends on whether the mods think it's more important to enforce the "brand new day" coverups, or to deal with racism on their site.

I think whether the mods will take a complaint seriously depends on whether or not people actually have the balls to speak plainly about it, or whether they want to continue with the passive-aggressive "but maybe the mods are doing x y and Z and oh, goodness, I'm just an innocent little bystander who's noticed something funny, I'm just saying, tra la la..."

Jesus. I'm not even a mod, and I even get pissed off when people I agree with pull that shit. Go, or get off the pot. Don't dither like that, it just pisses everyone off.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:00 AM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


At least, it pisses me off. I have a hunch others are sick of it as well, though.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:01 AM on June 11, 2009


palliser, of course we would save Joe Beese, but then we would dive into the water, pull your drowning carcass from the waves and resurrect you just at the moment when all hope seemed lost, in kickass Abyss style, and you would be crowned Queen Bitch of the World.

On reflection, I think actually the mods would stand on the shore and watch us all drown. Except Miko.
posted by palliser at 11:02 AM on June 11, 2009


I'd bravely dive into the water and save each and every one of you so long as I don't get my hair wet because then I could catch a cold or something, and I really hate being sick.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 11:04 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


That childish "Pot. Kettle." stuff might have worked a few years ago, but no more.

I don't throw a tantrum in a thread when they are having a discussion I don't like. I don't start stunt posts to make a point. I don't try to bully the community into silence, and when I have a problem with a post or comment, I flag it and move on, or I take it to Metatalk, as I did here. I don't believe I have ever been the direct subject of a call out, unlike at least one of the subjects of this thread.

And so I'm grateful to those who are honest and recognize the differences between myself and those two.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:04 AM on June 11, 2009


On reflection, I think actually the mods would stand on the shore and watch us all drown. Except Miko.
posted by shmegegge at 11:05 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


never mind that comment. meant to delete it entirely before posting.
posted by shmegegge at 11:05 AM on June 11, 2009


So are you implying Metafilter is some sort of a seething cesspool of antisemitism from the top down? Then why in the hell would you stick around?
posted by tkchrist at 11:06 AM on June 11, 2009


"That childish "Pot. Kettle." stuff might have worked a few years ago, but no more."

You don't get to make that determination, but nice try. I was actually being a little jokey, but I'm sure I could find quite a few examples of you being trollish.
posted by HopperFan at 11:09 AM on June 11, 2009


To have something to talk about at Likud cocktail parties.
posted by klangklangston at 11:10 AM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


Mod Loves You Best

My feelings for Paul Weller are no laughing matter, thank you.

More of Mark Kraft's delightful Holocaust comedy stylings, this one to the resounding approval of #1 himself.

Um... you may want to sit down for this, but there's a popular comedic film that was made into a popular Broadway play, and it's got a little song that drives everyone wild, and it goes a little something like this.
posted by scody at 11:11 AM on June 11, 2009


And so I'm grateful to those who are honest and recognize the differences between myself and those two.

man. you know, there are people in this thread who have been trying to point out that the larger problem is inter-mefi identity politics, rather than larger world politics. and you were doing yourself a huge favor by not coming in here and making this about individual users. but nooooooo, you just couldn't leave it at that, could you? as much as I fucking hate crabby's resorting to his tired routine again, I really really hate it when you do shit like this, too. I know I know, my opinion doesn't count for much. but really, the whole POINT was that some people were being fuckers and making this a personal crusade, and now that they've been called out for the hypocrisy implicit in doing so, you're gonna come in here and say "whew! well thank God someone's pointed out how much better than them I am!" welcome to the losing team, kid. I hope that "nyah nyah" was worth it.
posted by shmegegge at 11:15 AM on June 11, 2009 [6 favorites]


That depends on whether the mods think it's more important to enforce the "brand new day" coverups, or to deal with racism on their site.

Cover-up? Call Woodward and Berstien!
posted by tkchrist at 11:15 AM on June 11, 2009


Us and Them
posted by no_moniker at 11:17 AM on June 11, 2009


More of Mark Kraft's delightful Holocaust comedy stylings, this one to the resounding approval of #1 himself.

Plus it's five years old.
posted by smackfu at 11:20 AM on June 11, 2009


Us and Them
posted by Joe Beese at 11:21 AM on June 11, 2009


That depends on whether the mods think it's more important to enforce the "brand new day" coverups, or to deal with racism on their site.

It's not hard to make the markkraft connection, and I'm not making any significant effort to keep it a secret, and he got banned back in 2006 for being a huge axe-grinding pain in the ass which it feels like is coming back around again lately and that's a problem.

That said, there's been way too goddam much pushing on the "but it's okay to talk about old accounts because x" button for me the last day or so, and being angry at someone for being an axe-grinding jerk doesn't make you not an axe-grinding jerk yourself.

The grudgey identity shit in here is tiring. It's probably the most tiring thing we have to put up with on the site, and the people most responsible for directly perpetuating it are the ones apparently least inclined to or capable of recognizing their own discussion-poisoning role around here. A week like this tests the shit out the conviction that even jerks deserve the benefit of the doubt.

That's amazingly fucking frustrating to deal with, and if expediency was something we were really into as administrators, yes, we'd have dropped a lot more bans a lot sooner just to be done with the shitstirring and the headaches and the personal insults we've had to wade through as our reward for treating people with behavioral problems with flexibility and tolerance over the years.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:23 AM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


This is one of the times where I think a great new feature for the site would be some kind of PayPal button like "send the mod on duty a fruit basket" or randomly select a book from their Amazon Wish List, a tin of gourmet cocoa mix, etc.
posted by adipocere at 11:25 AM on June 11, 2009 [26 favorites]


On reflection, I think actually the mods would stand on the shore and watch us all drown. Except Miko.

On reflection, I think the mods just expect us all to fucking learn how to swim on our own, already.
posted by misha at 11:28 AM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


Oh, and not piss in the pool.
posted by misha at 11:28 AM on June 11, 2009


If I'm drowing, I'm going to urinate. At least give me that.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:32 AM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


Then why in the hell would you stick around?

So he can make all cap rape quips, of course.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:35 AM on June 11, 2009


FWIW, and it appears not to be much, one can find random quotes on Stormfront that support for Limbaugh. But if one follows the links and reads the star "thinkers" on the extremist right, one quickly sees that Limbaugh=Obama=Bush. Hell, many threads on Stormfront make that clear. The majority over there hates him.

About Christianity and the extremist right. I said this before, but religion is a divisive issue for them. A large number vociferously reject Christianity. Popular flavors include: Christian Identity (created in 1970s), Creator (a Skinhead atheistic creed), Neo-paganism, atheism, Neo-Celtic beliefs, and Radical Traditional Catholicism. They do not support mainline Protestantism in any large numbers. That tells us a lot. These extremists are a breed apart from the Bushes and Limbaughs and Fox News watchers. So when it comes to white racialist extremism, it is incorrect to blame "Christianity" for their actions.

The SPLC, ADL, and Wikipedia do an excellent job explaining how each of the religious or anti-religion movements evolved into hate-fests. The evolution happened rapidly since the late 1970s and early 1980s when several skinheads and leaders of The Order were jailed for murder and armed robbery.

I have no idea how this comment fits into the above shitstorm about religion and users. I'm just contributing something about the background of white extremists.
posted by vincele at 11:37 AM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


Metafilter: I have no idea how this comment fits into the above shitstorm
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 11:40 AM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


I'm just glad all this stuff moved over here, as there is a fascinating discussion happening in the original thread about whether racism is a mental illness that might have gotten lost in the shuffle otherwise.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:43 AM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


This is one of the times where I think a great new feature for the site would be some kind of PayPal button like "send the mod on duty a fruit basket" or randomly select a book from their Amazon Wish List, a tin of gourmet cocoa mix, etc.

Or a bag of weed.

I thought they were free floating torsos suspended in gelatinous fluids hooked up to a morphine drip — Minority Report style — that automatically increased dosage every time somebody types certain key phrases like "FUCK YOU TROLL!"
posted by tkchrist at 11:43 AM on June 11, 2009


Metafilter: I have no idea how this comment fits into the above shitstorm

I dunno either, but I've got a sneaking suspicion mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey was formerly mr_crash_davis.
posted by gman at 11:45 AM on June 11, 2009


Metafilter Mods: You put the weed in there.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:45 AM on June 11, 2009


honestly, I didn't know this thread existed till (stalker alert) they both started posting tweets about how frustrating metafilter has been recently.
posted by shmegegge at 11:46 AM on June 11, 2009


man. you know, there are people in this thread who have been trying to point out that the larger problem is inter-mefi identity politics, rather than larger world politics. and you were doing yourself a huge favor by not coming in here and making this about individual users.

Criticized for saying something, criticized not for saying something. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I guess.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:51 AM on June 11, 2009


they both started posting tweets about how frustrating metafilter has been recently.

I haven't talked about this particular issue at all, actually. The "breaking the week mark" with no timeouts/bannings, that was something special that got busted.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:51 AM on June 11, 2009


I was actually being a little jokey, but I'm sure I could find quite a few examples of you being trollish.

This was an example of you trolling me, I guess. Shame on me for falling for it.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:53 AM on June 11, 2009


Criticized for saying something, criticized not for saying something. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I guess.

well, that's one way to look at it. another way is that jessamyn's earlier comment, which I assume you're referring to, is quite a bit more nuanced than that.

so let's try another viewpoint: if you have nothing to say, don't start a meta thread as passive-aggressively worded as this one. if you have something to say, say it plainly and civilly and try not to make it personal/fighty/flamey/etc...

see, now that's an interpretation that fits both comments without making you the martyr! it's the best of all possible worlds.
posted by shmegegge at 12:01 PM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


I haven't talked about this particular issue at all, actually. The "breaking the week mark" with no timeouts/bannings, that was something special that got busted.

you know, it's my bad for bringing up your online presence elsewhere at all. apologies.
posted by shmegegge at 12:02 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Well Blazecock I thought you showed quite a bit of restraint in not saying things you could have in this thread. I keep on coming back to this thread and alternately thinking to myself "why do I waste time reading this site?" and then I think "I really should comment, this argument person X is making is ridiculous" and then I refresh and there's 30 more comments. :-( Guess I'm not fast enough for MetaTalk.
posted by Happydaz at 12:02 PM on June 11, 2009


BP writes: I don't believe I have ever been the direct subject of a call out [...]

Really?
posted by Crabby Appleton at 12:05 PM on June 11, 2009


IT'S A TRAP!
posted by klangklangston at 12:06 PM on June 11, 2009


if you have something to say, say it plainly and civilly and try not to make it personal/fighty/flamey/etc...

As I said before, the community has already called out the bad behavior of those two trolls, which (as much as this post exists to give them a place to shit anywhere but in the original thread) was a great side benefit. Hopefully we can have fewer of these call-outs, but in the end that's up to Crabby Appleton and Dios.

without making you the martyr!

That's a pretty uncharitable, skewed and dishonest interpretation of this thread, from one comment (one comment) I made in response to someone's childish "nyah-nyah" throwaway. But I'm not surprised by this stuff, at this point.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:11 PM on June 11, 2009


Really?

Sorry, I should clarify: I haven't been the subject of repeated call-outs.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:13 PM on June 11, 2009


I was mostly tweaking blucevalo's, to my mind, rather silly suggestion that intramural scuffles here have any bearing on the actions of violent white supremacists

I misspoke, and I apologize. I did not mean to imply in any way that our discussions on mefi contributed to the events of yesterday. I meant to say only that "increasingly, on this site," arguments are getting superheated, not that because of that superheating, events like yesterday are occurring.

I wrote quickly and heatedly, and I did not edit enough before I hit send. It was indeed a stupid, silly, and inadvertent mistake.

Again, I apologize.
posted by blucevalo at 12:26 PM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


"FIAMO?", I thought, "Sounds Italian to me. I wonder what it means?"

I'm still not sure, but this page is now #4 on google for the word.
posted by boo_radley at 12:29 PM on June 11, 2009


"Flag it and move on", boo_radley.
posted by barnacles at 12:31 PM on June 11, 2009


No, I've just found a site that claims it's an Italian curse, like biting your thumb at someone. There's even a little hand motion involved.
posted by boo_radley at 12:33 PM on June 11, 2009


Although there's apparently more than one interpretation, because FIAMO IS FOR LOVERS.
posted by boo_radley at 12:34 PM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


I must have not been following MetaFilter enough because "St. Alia" never even registered on my radar until yesterday, but her highly refined trollish behavior got my goat as she had often in her previous incarnations.

But on September 11th of last year, she was threatening to invade my privacy in the name of "helping" me and I (privately, via MeFiMail) promised her I would never engage in dialogue with her again, on MetaFilter or not. So when I realized who I was wasting my time trying to explain my opinions to... well, it couldn't have been more effective at making me feel foolish if she and the rest of the site had set it up as a practical joke.

I am seriously saddened and totally baffled at grapefruitmoon's accusation that my specific conduct had damaged her faith in humanity more than anyone else's in the thread. Well, the things that have most damaged my faith in humanity are heinous acts like the one perpetrated by a man who had attempted a similar crime years ago and had used the Internet and The First Amendment since then to make fans out of other haters. And while others call this an isolated incident, I look at human nature and the psychology of this hater's fans to sadly predict that this will be the first of many. There is nothing about what happened yesterday that will not encourage others like him from committing more atrocities in his name.

Maybe it was my insistence that this not be called a "tragedy". I have a narrow view of the definition of Tragedy that excludes intentional acts of malice. Whether this shooting, the "9/11" attacks, assassinations or genocide, lumping them in with sad but not-maliciously-caused events makes them seem unavoidable, a part of the natural order of things when they are absolutely not. The way we use words like "tragedy" contribute to the mindset (like the "we can't compromise the First Amendment without doing even more harm" argument) that makes these heinous acts and many many more to come possible and inevitable. But since that mindset helps bring the terrible acts of others upon ourselves, that does fall under the Classic definition of "Tragedy". Interesting.

Anyway, I didn't see the Bill of Rights preventing the Bush Administration from doing every malicious thing it wanted to do, did you? But that's an argument nobody wants to hear. So maybe I should go back to enjoying my First Amendment Rights by reading hate websites, Google Ads for fraudulent products and sick humor like "Scott Meets Family Circus". I can sell "all rights" to what I write and watch editors change the meaning of what is published under my name, and get 100,000 Google results on a topic, 90% of which contain flat-out lies about it, and not put political bumper stickers on my car that might upset the neighbor who talks a lot like the man who shot the guard at the Holocaust Museum. I feel so free.
posted by wendell at 12:34 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Fuckit. I am multi orgasmic.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:35 PM on June 11, 2009


That's a pretty uncharitable, skewed and dishonest interpretation of this thread, from one comment (one comment) I made in response to someone's childish "nyah-nyah" throwaway. But I'm not surprised by this stuff, at this point.

no, it's a realistic, honest and reasonable interpretation of one comment (one comment) you made in response to my comment.

that comment of yours again: Criticized for saying something, criticized not for saying something. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I guess.

so yeah, you're playing the victim when all that happened was two people pointed out how your behavior ain't all that flawless.

But I'm not surprised by this stuff, at this point.

my, how could anyone think that you're acting like a martyr!
posted by shmegegge at 12:36 PM on June 11, 2009


Now featuring "Lady and the Tramp Mondays"! Three course spaghetti and meatball dinner for $29.
posted by boo_radley at 12:38 PM on June 11, 2009


no, it's a realistic, honest and reasonable interpretation of one comment (one comment) you made in response to my comment.

No, you were responding to a different comment, in a manner that was completely disproportionate and out of context to what I said.

my, how could anyone think that you're acting like a martyr!

And there you go again. Unbelievable.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:41 PM on June 11, 2009


No, you were responding to a different comment, in a manner that was completely disproportionate and out of context to what I said.

ok, let's look at it again. the part of your comment I responded to:

And so I'm grateful to those who are honest and recognize the differences between myself and those two.

which I responded to by saying:

man. you know, there are people in this thread who have been trying to point out that the larger problem is inter-mefi identity politics, rather than larger world politics. and you were doing yourself a huge favor by not coming in here and making this about individual users. but nooooooo, you just couldn't leave it at that, could you? as much as I fucking hate crabby's resorting to his tired routine again, I really really hate it when you do shit like this, too. I know I know, my opinion doesn't count for much. but really, the whole POINT was that some people were being fuckers and making this a personal crusade, and now that they've been called out for the hypocrisy implicit in doing so, you're gonna come in here and say "whew! well thank God someone's pointed out how much better than them I am!" welcome to the losing team, kid. I hope that "nyah nyah" was worth it.

how. dare. I. I've gone completely beyond the pale, here.

or, I'm trying to point out a single instance of your behavior maybe not contributing all that well to the tenor of the conversation.

And there you go again. Unbelievable.

I know! I'm so clearly out to get you! Watch out for shmegegge!
posted by shmegegge at 12:47 PM on June 11, 2009


how. dare. I. I've gone completely beyond the pale, here.

Just for the record, what you said here was completely different from what you said here, which is what I was pointing out. In any case, you're overreacting about the former, which wasn't even directed at you.

Can you allow me the courtesy to respond to someone's comment directly in the course of a thread?

I know! I'm so clearly out to get you! Watch out for shmegegge!

You seem not to even know what you're responding to, let alone overreacting to whatever it is you think it says, but you also seem fit to throw around snotty comments and snark. Maybe you should dial it down a notch.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:57 PM on June 11, 2009


Anyway, the two trolls in question stopped shitting in the original thread. So this worked, all things considered.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:01 PM on June 11, 2009


"This was an example of you trolling me, I guess. Shame on me for falling for it."

That wasn't trolling. shmegegge put it much better than I did, but you're not having it, either way.
posted by HopperFan at 1:01 PM on June 11, 2009


You know what this thread needs?

More

moé!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:03 PM on June 11, 2009


You know what this thread needs?

An enema.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:04 PM on June 11, 2009 [7 favorites]


I vote for more Moët, myself. Probably help mellow the aggro just a bit.
posted by shiu mai baby at 1:08 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Just for the record, what you said here was completely different from what you said here, which is what I was pointing out. In any case, you're overreacting about the former, which wasn't even directed at you.

you're going to have to remind me which comment wasn't directed at me. If you go back through the thread, you'll see that the former I'm overreacting about is a response to a comment in which you directly quoted me before replying.

frankly, I think you're getting confused about who said what, here. further, I'd like to point out that at most I'm getting a teensy bit sarcastic because you're implying that I'm out to get you - which is absurd. this is not a dialed up shmegegge.

but for real, at this point I don't even know if you're ever going to realize how the way you say things hurts your overall point and the tone of discussion here generally. if you want, you can check my favorites. you'll see I'm favoriting comments that you'd probably also agree with, and that we may even share some favorited comments. I'm pretty much entirely with you about how some people handle discussions around here. That I haven't tried directly talking to them, here, as I have with you, is largely because a) I don't think it would do any good with certain people and b) they stopped commenting yesterday or earlier and I only just arrived. I tend to avoid dragging up old comments when I can.

So go ahead and see this as some kind of lunacy on my part if you want. There comes a point where I wonder if you'll ever see any kind of criticism any other way.
posted by shmegegge at 1:13 PM on June 11, 2009


Crabby Appleton: "Really?"

A comment from that thread I found of interest:

Being able to walk away from someone being churlish is a really necessary party of MeFi as hobby versus MeFi as lifestyle.

posted by jessamyn at 8:16 AM on September 24, 2008 [4 favorites +]

posted by Joe Beese at 1:19 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


you're going to have to remind me which comment wasn't directed at me.

You know: This one.

frankly, I think you're getting confused about who said what, here.

By all appearances, it looks like you're the one who is confused about what's been said. Anyway, I've linked to it so that you can figure out your timeline for yourself.

So go ahead and see this as some kind of lunacy on my part if you want. There comes a point where I wonder if you'll ever see any kind of criticism any other way.

If I'm going to get criticized for not saying anything, then please don't call me a "martyr" just because I made the mistake to respond to the one comment that was, by its writer's own admission, weak trolling.

At this point, you seem to have been looking for one thing to respond to (and it looks like you don't even know what it is you're really responding to, anyway) by recasting it in the most uncharitable way possible.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:25 PM on June 11, 2009


"mistake to respond to the one comment that was, by its writer's own admission, weak trolling"

If you meant my comment to you, I admitted no such thing.
posted by HopperFan at 1:29 PM on June 11, 2009


So I guess this thread has downgraded from "does talking about the motivations of a shooter enhance or detract from the conversation" down to "which other MeFite is being mean to me."

Fair enough. (walks away)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:35 PM on June 11, 2009


Note: Everyone needs a hug timeout.
posted by Balonious Assault at 1:36 PM on June 11, 2009


More moe, Marissa? Where has there been any in this thread to begin with?
posted by cimbrog at 1:38 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Did somebody say "more moé"? Because I think I heard somebody say "more moé".
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:39 PM on June 11, 2009


Mmmmm...mole poblano!
posted by ericb at 1:49 PM on June 11, 2009


You know: This one. ah. the original link in your last comment was borked pretty badly and I had to try to infer.

no, of course that comment wasn't directed at me. is that the angle you're taking now? look, you post in a metatalk thread, and anyone can respond to you. so yeah, I still think that comment was pretty weak sauce. that's the whole point of this long ass discussion we're having, you and I. that comment was weak, and it was an example of what's wrong with the very thread you've called out, here. that was my whole point, you went from being mostly just the guy who posted a slightly passive-aggressive (but still pretty much a good thing, in my book) metatalk callout to the guy who decided to make it about personalities and individual users. so I said that you were doing great till you went that route. there's no real disconnect there.

If I'm going to get criticized for not saying anything, then please don't call me a "martyr" just because I made the mistake to respond to the one comment that was, by its writer's own admission, weak trolling.

again, since the criticism for "not saying anything" is presumably jessamyn's comment here (and correct me if I'm mistaken, since this would now be the second time I'm making that assumption and I still don't know for sure that's what you're referring to.) I'll reiterate that you're robbing her comment of some pretty crucial subtext, here. I don't think anyone has a problem with when you don't comment. I feel confident that it's the general tone of the original callout coupled with sitting back and just favoriting the comments you agree with that can be seen as - though not exactly the worst thing ever - kind of a weak move. so no, it's not really a "damned if you do" situation here. it's just that there are many ways to act kind of poorly.

also, nobody thinks that comment was trolling but you. (and don't bother linking to this comment. that's not an admission of trolling, as HopperFan points out here.) then again, you use that word more often than the billy goats gruff.

at this point I'm not sure how thoroughly you're reading my or anyone else's comments.
posted by shmegegge at 1:50 PM on June 11, 2009


You two are so tsundere for each other I think I'm gonna die. Exchange MSN addies and get it over with!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:53 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


yeah, this has gotten pretty ridiculous. I'm going to take some pretty decent advice and let this go.
posted by shmegegge at 2:00 PM on June 11, 2009


the original link in your last comment was borked pretty badly and I had to try to infer.

I'm not sure how thoroughly you're reading my or anyone else's comments

*sigh*
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:03 PM on June 11, 2009


OH MY GOD.

i know I should just back away. I know he's just fucking with me on purpose. I know I know.

but FUCK.

this is the link you posted. that's what I mean by borked.

go check it out in your god damn comment.

if you're going to be a prick about something, do it when you can make your links properly.
posted by shmegegge at 2:06 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


shmegegge, you should do what I did - go and have a fun 15 minutes reading about tsundere. Much more enjoyable than this.
posted by HopperFan at 2:17 PM on June 11, 2009


if you're going to be a prick about something, do it when you can make your links properly.

OH FOR FUCKSSAKE

You accuse me of not reading properly when you can't even be arsed to remove a few letters from a goddamned link. Are you doing this on purpose or what?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:24 PM on June 11, 2009


You accuse me of not reading properly when you can't even be arsed to remove a few letters from a goddamned link.

Did you bother to do that yourself? Go check which comment it goes to when you remove those few letters.

Christ, you're a lazy and contentious asshole.
posted by shmegegge at 2:25 PM on June 11, 2009


Christ, you're a lazy and contentious asshole.

Likewise.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:26 PM on June 11, 2009


Whatever, fuck it. *walks away*
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:28 PM on June 11, 2009


(CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS awakes, gropes blindly for lightswitch)
posted by Kinbote at 2:30 PM on June 11, 2009




(CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS awakes, gropes blindly for lightswitch)

...reads this thread, and asks to be waterboarded again.
posted by The Deej at 2:39 PM on June 11, 2009




Okay so I'd like to point out that this thread is called 'Flag it and move on' and it's really, really funny, given the contents.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:41 PM on June 11, 2009 [8 favorites]


The principle of FIAMO assumes a mod able to respond to the flag. I think ours may have given up and are preparing to nuke the site from orbit.

It's the only way to be sure.
posted by Joe Beese at 2:46 PM on June 11, 2009


And I was expecting this.
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:46 PM on June 11, 2009


I think ours may have given up and are preparing to nuke the site from orbit.

You'd be wrong. Matt said no.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:51 PM on June 11, 2009 [26 favorites]


And I was not expecting this.
posted by aihal at 2:54 PM on June 11, 2009


DAMMIT, Joe Beese, you're out to get me, you know I hate that.

[I keed, I keed]
posted by HopperFan at 2:56 PM on June 11, 2009


Matt said no.

Matt's been compromised!
posted by shakespeherian at 2:57 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


You know what's really awesome? Reading through this thread (and the other, but mostly this one) and sputtering and spitting at all of the A-1, first-class, forehead-smacking, pond-scum-smelling codswallop. And copying those lines, the most hypocritical ones, in preparation for pointing out the tortured logic, or the absence of any attempts at logic, or the absolutely glaring hypocrisies that seem to be evident to everyone except for the person blindly and blithely exhibiting them. And then getting to the point of actually constructing that comment and realizing that IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER, AND IT'S NOT FUCKING IMPORTANT, and saying "Eh, fuck it."

That? Is really awesome.
posted by mudpuppie at 3:01 PM on June 11, 2009 [10 favorites]


And I forget how many flag we get in a day.

No way to participate in either of these threads without flagging about every third comment.
posted by cjorgensen at 3:01 PM on June 11, 2009


Okay so I'd like to point out that this thread is called 'Flag it and move on' and it's really, really funny, given the contents.

FIAMO has been superceded by FIWDIL.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 3:02 PM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


And with that, one last dollop of moé.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 3:02 PM on June 11, 2009


pony request: removing favourites from MetaTalk. It's pretty inappropriate.
posted by litleozy at 3:10 PM on June 11, 2009 [6 favorites]


I am looking for the mashed potatoes. Anyone? I was told there would be mashed potatoes.
posted by everichon at 3:10 PM on June 11, 2009


I was told there would be mashed potatoes.

They're not too hard to find, really. Although, they're really more "post-digested" than "mashed."
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:13 PM on June 11, 2009


I was told there would be hardcore taters, and I'll be damned if I still don't know what they are.
posted by scody at 3:23 PM on June 11, 2009


Scody, I think you're a wonderful person.
posted by Ryvar at 3:52 PM on June 11, 2009


Aw, thanks!

so was that a tater? Taters are friendly comments on the internet? Did you just sexually harass me? If so, I liked it.
posted by scody at 4:02 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


If I knew it was going to be that kind of a party...
posted by klangklangston at 4:12 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


I am seriously saddened and totally baffled at grapefruitmoon's accusation that my specific conduct had damaged her faith in humanity more than anyone else's in the thread.

I didn't mean to imply that you were unique in the thread or that I found your comments to be the most damaging. My apologies there. There's plenty of blame to go around on that one, and it's not worth naming names, other than your response to a previous comment compelled me to point out that you were part of the problem I was speaking of.

What bothered me about your comments in the thread was that you slid rather quickly from making cogent statements about the situation to going on some bizarre diatribe about Free Speech and blaming the Right Wing for this. (Note: The whole thread went down this road, which yeah, saddens and baffles me.) I suppose that I felt the need to point that out to you over here rather than running off a whole list of names because you're a member who I really honestly respect and I felt "let down" in a way that your contributions to the thread turned contentious and wonky.

As for THIS thread: It's like we're dredging up everyone's previous incarnations and it feels kind of like Night of the Living Sockpuppets over here. I can hardly keep up with who used to be what, even though I think I've figured out that Christopher Hitchens is Batman.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:34 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Batman = Christopher Hitchens
Foucault = Michael Pollan
Berkshire Mountain Distillers Vodka = delicious
posted by sleevener at 4:41 PM on June 11, 2009


You know, it took me a really long time to figure out that it's pronounced Blazecock Pile On, not Blazecock Pill-Ay-Ohn.

I always read it Pill'-ee-uhn, and it has a vaguely 18-century feel to me, which I think adds a certain je ne sais quois to comments such as "Whatever. Fuck it."
posted by palliser at 4:41 PM on June 11, 2009


or 18th. and quoi. whatever. fuck it.
posted by palliser at 4:44 PM on June 11, 2009


Nazis are super wack.
posted by Divine_Wino at 4:55 PM on June 11, 2009


This is in response to the MeFi thread, and it most certainly belongs over here instead. I know I'm late, I know, I know. I was at work today, and so this is the first I've had the chance to catch up on the internet. I don't mean to dredge up old fights, or start new ones, but there's this shit and I'd like to get it off my chest.

I don't have cable, and I don't listen to the radio that much. Apparently that's a good thing.

So, that would mean you have no direct knowledge of this "left-leaning media"...

St. Alia, I generally like you and have more respect for your opinions than a lot of people on this site do. I have family members whom I love dearly who are staunch Republicans and devoted Christians, so I have some familiarity with your background.

I have resisted responding to your comments as I generally don't think you "mean" to provoke the reaction that you do, but here... you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. You're telling us as a "lefty" site that our only knowledge of the Republican party is through the "left-leaning" media. For myself, this is flat out false. Like I said, I have family members who think that Sarah Palin is the Second Coming. I disagree with them, but I've heard them out and have more than a passing familiarity with the "party line" such as it is.

But then! You tell us that YOU don't listen to the radio or have cable! So how on earth could YOU know what the "media" is telling US? What if they are, in fact, telling us the truth? You wouldn't know!

This sort of commenting is exactly why you've developed a reputation as a troll on this site, and it puzzles me that you feel the need to continue doing it rather than either sticking to sites with a general political philosophy more like your own, or simply NOT ARGUING with the peanut gallery here anytime the Republican party truly, legitimately gets caught with its dick in the mashed potatoes.

This guy was not "to the right of center." This guy was to the right of Pol Pot. I don't know if you're trying to kid yourself or us, but the latter isn't working out so well.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:57 PM on June 11, 2009 [5 favorites]


People twitter about metafilter? That's like masturbating about jerking off.

And just so we're all clear, my other account is "dios."
posted by bardic at 5:19 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


grapefruitmoon - with all the very obvious bad blood in here as you're just talking to one mefite - it could have gone in a memail, yeah? to reduce the instances of shit being thrown or dredging up old fights? metatalk is certainly a place to get shit off your chest, so you're totally in your right to do this here - but 400 comments in, i just wonder if your relief of having it off your chest is worth stirring the shit?
posted by nadawi at 5:21 PM on June 11, 2009


Cortex: Temp Bannings for all!
Audience: BOO!
Jessamyn: Okay... Temp Bannings for none!
Audience: BOO!
matthowie: Hmmnn... Temp Bannings for some, tiny American flags for others!
Audience: YAAY!!!

(for some reason, my mind swears it was "tiny american flags for everyone", but the internet disagrees with me)
posted by nomisxid at 5:43 PM on June 11, 2009


400'th comment!
posted by Balisong at 5:44 PM on June 11, 2009


But then! You tell us that YOU don't listen to the radio or have cable! So how on earth could YOU know what the "media" is telling US? What if they are, in fact, telling us the truth? You wouldn't know!

I DO have high speed internet and links to such places as Metafilter and Drudgereport.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:44 PM on June 11, 2009


nadawi: Yeah, I thought three or four times before posting it. Maybe I should have thought a fifth time, I'll admit. I'm sorry that it's 400 posts in, but this is the first time I've had an opportunity to read through the whole thread, let alone post in it. Perhaps I should make a personal time-limit for posting after I've been at work or something, but I had something to say and I've said it and I'm sorry if it's "too late" or whatever. I have been known to err on the side of saying too much, and your point is taken.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:47 PM on June 11, 2009


I am looking for the mashed potatoes. Anyone? I was told there would be mashed potatoes.
posted by everichon at 3:10 PM on June 11 [+] [!]


There are. Right here on my plate (I am eating a late dinner in front of the computer.)

They're good.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:47 PM on June 11, 2009


Do I need to bring more moé?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:02 PM on June 11, 2009


liketitanic: "You know, it took me a really long time to figure out that it's pronounced Blazecock Pile On, not Blazecock Pill-Ay-Ohn. I see what you did there!"

But there are mysteries yet to be uncovered, young one. How do you suppose "Blaze" is pronounced? Only with that knowledge can you truly achieve enlightenment.
posted by team lowkey at 6:02 PM on June 11, 2009


Sometimes I really hate that the flag button is right next to the favorites button.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:05 PM on June 11, 2009


I have always read it as Blazecock Pigeon. Seriously. I am now amazed that my eyes betrayed me like that.
posted by cider at 6:24 PM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


"I DO have high speed internet and links to such places as Metafilter and Drudgereport."

Yeah, um, if those are your sources of news, you may as well consider yourself media illiterate.

It's like saying, I know all about Christianity—I watch Benny Hinn and read UU newsletters.
posted by klangklangston at 6:29 PM on June 11, 2009 [8 favorites]


Hey now, are you dissing Benny Hinn? He's sacre-tainment. DEMON OUT-TAH!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:34 PM on June 11, 2009


Drudge takes me directly to MSNBC and ABC news, plus lots of columnists. Fox News, if I wanted to go there. I generally prefer to read my news instead of hear it.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:36 PM on June 11, 2009


MSNBC and ABC are leftist now? Someone e-mail Counterpunch!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:41 PM on June 11, 2009


It's like saying, I know all about Christianity—I watch Benny Hinn and read UU newsletters.

Everything I know about Christianity I got directly from the source. By which I mean copious amounts of bread and wine.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:45 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


It's like saying, I know all about Christianity—I watch Benny Hinn Hill
posted by nola at 6:49 PM on June 11, 2009


*Mmm... sacrilicious!*
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:50 PM on June 11, 2009


"Drudge takes me directly to MSNBC and ABC news, plus lots of columnists. Fox News, if I wanted to go there. I generally prefer to read my news instead of hear it."

Look, I come from print media. I love print media, even when it's delivered online. But here's what I mean by media illiterate:

All media outlets have biases, institutional, structural, editorial… They choose stories, they frame stories, and some explicitly offer analysis and comment.

That's something that you have to be aware of reading regular news sources, especially the selection bias which is more insidious and subtle than the others.

Then, by using a news aggregator like Drudge, you're magnifying those biases—Drudge selects with an agenda, uses poorly-sourced material, frames things explicitly and doesn't even attempt to be comprehensive or objective. What Drudge values is getting to stories first, and aggrandizing Drudge. So in order to get the most use out of Drudge, you actually have to be more savvy, not less.

And, frankly, you're not very savvy. You do things like aledge that the mass-media is left-leaning, which is both factually wrong and would over-simplify mass media concerns even if they did lean left. You're a credulous person who, from your comments here, simply lacks the critical thinking skills to engage with the media in the way a citizen should.

This doesn't make you unique—there are a lot of people, both left and right, who are functionally media illiterate. And it's not something that I think is likely to be remedied—you could take some communications classes at your local community college, but I don't think that's going to happen. But I would keep in mind that when you say that you read Drudge and Metafilter, you're not actually providing bonafides, and anyone who has dealt with the media in a neutral, critical way will immediately know that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Better to be thought a fool and remain silent than to speak up and confirm it.
posted by klangklangston at 7:25 PM on June 11, 2009 [17 favorites]


I'm a fool. Wait... DOH!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:28 PM on June 11, 2009 [3 favorites]


I have taken communication classes, for what it's worth. And Drudge has a lot of links. So does mefi. They aren't the only two places I go fwiw, but I have no great need to prove myself to you. I read Huffpo sometimes, I read Neil Boortz, I read Arts and Letters Daily, I read NYTimes links....I even drop in on the Bangkok Post once in a great while.

What I do NOT do is stay glued to Fox News or Rush Limbaugh altho I have the occasional exposure at the gym or in the car.

And I assume that everyone I read has an agenda. Everyone. With the bit of journalism experience I got in college, (and fwiw being the subject of a feature at my own local paper years ago) I learned to not trust what I read because there is always a layer or two or three between what is written and reality.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:49 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


"Maybe the raging antisemitism of a member whose first statement attempts to blame the Holocaust museum attack on the Jews..."

Clearly, you missed my point entirely.

I prefaced by saying that von Brunn's attack was radical terrorism, and completely unacceptable and senseless. I feel awful for the family and son of the guy who was shot, because it was so incredibly tragic, pointless, and unnecessary. He died because he was killed by an ultra-nationalist racist who wanted to form a purely white, Christian America, and who hated both blacks AND jews.

I think the worst outcome this attack could have would be to provide propaganda for the loony, fear-mongering fringe of the Zionist movement so that they could encourage fearful, angry Jewish-Americans to leave their country and settle illegally in the West Bank, with the goal of creating a Jewish greater Israel, as supported by the racist, thuggish ultra-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman... whose party, incidentally, oversees the two leading immigration organizations.

It's not that I'm against American Jews immigrating to the within the 1969 borders... retiring to Tel Aviv, etc. It's that I'm against them being radicalized by right-wing ultra-nationalists, and settling in illegal settlements.

Our President and basically every other country in the world feels that illegal settlement is not only an impediment to peace, but also an incitement to future senseless acts of violence.

You may not *like* that, and may not feel that the radicals on the Arab side never seem to need much in the way of encouragement to be violent... but to deny that further incitement doesn't make the problem worse for Israelis, Americans abroad, and any other innocent person who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time kinda defies logic.

In short, this problem is bigger than you, than the Jewish people, than the Israelis. We're all getting screwed on this one, and we, the great majority of the world, resent the stubborn radicalized leaders of both Israel *AND* Palestine, as well as all the idiots who keep them in power.

We see very damn well that it is unreasoned fearmongering and hatred -- combined with hostilities and indignities from both side that never seem to end -- that gives them power over those who advocate for peace... but seriously, enough. Peace has got to start somewhere.

If you want to point out where my claims are factually inaccurate, or assure me that the Jewish community in America will see to it that the more extremist ultra-nationalist Zionists out there -- such as Lieberman and his cronies -- won't use this attack as a way to encourage more immigration -- a considerable portion of which is illegal under UN declarations, well... please, go ahead. By all means, deal with the issues I bring up with actual links and information to refute them.

But when you start calling me "a truly vile excuse for a human being", just because I suggest that violent,senseless acts of terrorism that threaten America's Jewish community leads to more fear, more hate, and VERY BAD THINGS, well... I take offense with that.

(I didn't stoop to your level with personal insults, mind you, but I still take offense.)

Is it asking too much that you not resort to personal ad-hominem attacks? This isn't the first time you have been called out on it, you know... Aren't you disappointing *yourself* yet?!

Do I call for Jews to die by the thousand like Lieberman proposed with Palestinian prisoners? No. Hell... I wouldn't even call for his death. And yet, you habitually have nothing to say about such people.

Indeed, I call for Jews to live in our country in peace, with full, equal rights, in safety and security... and to practice their religion freely. By all means, invite your overseas relatives... bring them all, as far as I am concerned! I *like* immigration, especially when the immigrants are educated, or at least committed to make a good life over here, learn enough English to get by, and they try to better their lot in life.

But don't expect me to ever agree that the State of Israel was a wise idea. Ethically, it was always a shortsighted mess. That's not to say that it's not a reality, or that we can't try to make the best of it. We just can't expect it to ever be perfect. A border needs to be drawn and stuck to by all sides involved... which, of course, won't be easy, as there will always be someone who violently disagrees.

Violence is inevitable -- most likely, on both sides -- in the search for peace. It would be a nice things if the politicians realized that, and didn't use terrorist violence as an excuse to walk away from negotiations one more time. Quite literally, the only solution is for a balanced arbiter to force both sides to keep negotiating, no matter what. If that means that ultra-nationalist Israeli idiots and radical Muslim terrorist sympathizers curse Obama's name for the next hundred years, sof*ckingbeit.

But please, let there be a peace... even if it doesn't help the cause of the ultra-nationalist Israeli idiots and radical Muslim terrorist sympathizers. ESPECIALLY if it doesn't serve their cause.

So no, there was absolutely nothing antisemitic or hateful about what I said. To me, it's very similar to what I said the day after 9/11:

"what makes me mad is the inevitability of it all... how the violence has escalated on all sides. How the might of the U.S. government will now be turned against not terrorists, but nations, and probably on a fundamental basis against the entire Arab world. How we will, through a need for security, probably have to give up that much more freedom in the process. How violence and repression against Arabs will only further polarize their nations, making sane, progressive Arab leaders appear to be "the enemy" to their own people, while giving more power to the radicals... breeding a new generation of terrorists and making sure the violence never ends. What makes me mad is how peace and justice will be trampled in a largely futile attempt to strike back against an invisible enemy that cannot be vanquished. We will target the effect without addressing the cause... we're going to make more martyrs for Allah and create a whole new generation of young Arabs that want to grow up to become terrorists."

The fact is, the people who were yelled at after 9/11 for daring to suggest that it sure would help if we didn't incite more hatred by rubberstamping Israel at the UN in opposition to every other nation, weren't so biased towards Israel, weren't propping up every cheap Arab dictator we could, in exchange for oil rights...

Well, I was one of those people... and I feel pretty certain that we were right.

But you're free to disagree with me... politely and rationally, ideally with interesting supporting links. Cause that's how we roll.
posted by markkraft at 7:59 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


we just passed 420 comments, everyone take a hit! (maybe that will calm some of the hysteria down)
posted by nadawi at 8:02 PM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


liketitanic: "now you're going to tell me that it's pronounced "matt haughey.""

Blazecock Pileon originated from a misspelling of blasé. You just put the accent in the wrong place.
posted by team lowkey at 8:06 PM on June 11, 2009


Fine, markkraft, you get Chobits. I hope you're satisfied.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:22 PM on June 11, 2009


"That depends on whether the mods think it's more important to enforce the "brand new day" coverups, or to deal with racism on their site."

Racism against who? Islam? Jews? Christians? Americans? Non-Americans?!

Just tell 'em "I've seen it all on the Blue!"

To me, it sounds like you're saying :
"Who is going to stand up for the right for hateful zealots not to be called hateful zealots... quite often by other hateful zealots?!

Let me be perfectly clear and unequivical. I have never called for violence against Jews, have never advocated for them having anything other than equality, encourage their immigration to the U.S., and have zero problem with them settling within the U.N. approved borders of Israel, a state I acknowledge the existence of.

And let's also be absolutely clear...
You preach hatred.
posted by markkraft at 8:27 PM on June 11, 2009


"Fine, markkraft, you get Chobits. I hope you're satisfied."

I *heart* Chobits.

Chi!

Underpants!
posted by markkraft at 8:28 PM on June 11, 2009


You see people? And you doubted the calming power of anime.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:30 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


"You see people? And you doubted the calming power of anime."

Someone should tell Obama about this.

It would make for a great way to break the ice between Benjamin Netanyahu and Khaled Mashaal
posted by markkraft at 8:34 PM on June 11, 2009


Little known fact: Netanyahu? Big Lucky Star fan.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:37 PM on June 11, 2009


Lucky Star?!

Infidel! Burn in hell!
posted by markkraft at 8:38 PM on June 11, 2009


It's hard not to appear an at best dubious obsessive crank when your first response to a murderous assault on a Holocaust museum by a hardcore anti-Semite is concerns about Jewish extremism.
Let me be perfectly clear and unequivical. I have never called for violence against Jews, have never advocated for them having anything other than equality, encourage their immigration to the U.S., and have zero problem with them settling within the U.N. approved borders of Israel, a state I acknowledge the existence of.
Cheers for that then, big man. I'm sure Jewish people are greatly relieved by your magnaminity, even as you problematise them as an ethnic group. Jewish best mate, by any chance?
posted by Abiezer at 8:39 PM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


[name redacted] writes: "I learned to not trust what I read because there is always a layer or two or three between what is written and reality."

I'm glad we agree that the Bible is a poor choice for making moral decisions.
posted by bardic at 8:40 PM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


Little known fact: Netanyahu? Big Lucky Star fan.

Obama's still trying to figure out how anybody could find Serial Experiments Lain confusing.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:50 PM on June 11, 2009 [4 favorites]


Thank you for the best shout-laugh I've had all day. I can completely picture him sipping an iced tea watching it on the big screen in the White House mini theatre, alone, thinking, "How does Biden not get this? Can't believe he actually recommended Paul Blart Mall Cop to me."
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:57 PM on June 11, 2009


Drudge takes me directly to MSNBC and ABC news...

Oh, the irony, St. Alia of the Bunnies. One of your primary news sources, Matt Drudge, is gay!
posted by ericb at 9:03 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


But when you start calling me "a truly vile excuse for a human being", just because I suggest that violent,senseless acts of terrorism that threaten America's Jewish community leads to more fear, more hate, and VERY BAD THINGS, well... I take offense with that.

To see past this pathetic charade, we can just recall the time Mark Kraft linked to neo-Nazi propaganda to support his claim that Jews view all non-Jews as subhuman. This isn't even closet anti-Semitism, and I wonder if he would have been re-banned a lot sooner if his frothing anti-Israeli copypasta weren't so popular around here.
posted by Krrrlson at 9:03 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


If my concern was that violence not beget fear, hate, mistrust, and more violence.... which, frankly, is usually my concern about ANY act of violence... it seems to me that I offered up the most likely Next Bad Thing that could occur as the result of this violence.

Honestly, I don't see violent Jewish-American gangs beating up skinheads, do you?! I am concerned that they give in to fear and allow themselves to be radicalized, because I think that's a very real problem.

I am also concerned about the shooter being held as an example to other white supremacists, which is something I also expressed, when I said, in reply to:

"If it is so that this evil old man has died, rest assured that God is sorting him out. "

I said:

"Or, alternately, you could accept that -- separate from your faith -- you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, think it likely that with a fatal wound, von Brunn probably felt a sense of accomplishment and only a mercifully brief moment of pain and little fear before slipping into unconsciousness, realize that he will soon be a hero and martyr to those who promoted his flavor of hatred, even as they feel compelled to publicly deny harboring such sentiments"

The fact is, Americans as a whole already feel irrationally afraid... a culture of fear, encouraged by the media. And this irrational fear has radicalized and stoked the worst excesses of modern conservatism, turning it into a fearful, vengeful, hateful conservatism that is so far off the charts that it hardly qualifies as being truly conservative anymore.

And this trend towards fear, hatred, and tolerance to government acts of violence is a major problem, vis-a-vis Israel. That said, there is still hope..
posted by markkraft at 9:10 PM on June 11, 2009


I'm sure Jewish people are greatly relieved by your magnaminity, even as you problematise them as an ethnic group.

Yes, this. It's locating the essential source of all kinds of problems -- including hardcore violent anti-Semitism -- in the "Jewish community." Right, you don't advocate hardcore violent anti-Semitism, but when confronted with an example of it, you think it's a good time to turn the mirror on certain Jews and how they "contribute to" it. Perhaps more disturbingly, in the "here's an interpretation of the Talmud I found lying around" comment, you ascribe your problems with Israel to some stereotypical notions of Jewishness: Jewish theology and Yiddish sayings expose the arrogance and inhumanity of Israel. You don't like Israel, that's one thing. Ascribing its failings to what you perceive as essential traits of Jewishness is another.

Finally, I actually don't think the rest of us ought to parrot your style of link-barrage argumentation. Frankly, it screams "crank," not "fair-minded and informed."
posted by palliser at 9:10 PM on June 11, 2009 [2 favorites]


(* °д°)
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:15 PM on June 11, 2009


DON'T FUCKING PATRONIZE ME MStPT I AM ON A ROLL
posted by palliser at 9:17 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


All I know is that it's time for the alphabet game.
posted by zinfandel at 9:17 PM on June 11, 2009


I keed. Queen Bitch of the World, over 'n' out.
posted by palliser at 9:18 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


You see people? And you doubted the calming power of anime.

Yeah, real calming.
I'm feeling pretty yandere for Metafilter right now, gotta say. Off to get my cleaver.
posted by cimbrog at 9:22 PM on June 11, 2009 [1 favorite]


Yeah, real calming.

I know, I spoke too soon. I'm having an Osaka moment.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:39 PM on June 11, 2009


I've read this entire thread and: Wow.

Thar she blows!
posted by ob at 9:55 PM on June 11, 2009


"To see past this pathetic charade, we can just recall the time Mark Kraft linked to neo-Nazi propaganda"

No, Krrrisson. I linked to a quote out of the Babylonian Talmud... which, unbeknownst to me, happened to be on a website not at all obviously associated with anything neo-nazi.

But if you want a neutral source for the same text, there's this one.

The difference between the two texts are:
"The graves of Gentiles do not defile, for it is written, And ye my flock, the flock of my pastures, are men;5 only ye are designated 'men'."

vs. p. 304 on this site:

"graves of idolaters do not defile, as it is written [Ezek. xxxiv. 31]: "And ye, my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men," which signifies that ye are called men, but not idolaters."

I am more than willing to cede the difference in texts, even though the meaning is essentially the same. As I pointed out in that comment you cited, "Of course, *ALL* old religions have offensive dogma."

Hell, I'd even be willing to say all religions probably do. Offensive to someone else's beliefs or lack thereof, in any case.

Never the less, you accused me of "resorting to tactics from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion playbook", for citing from a Jewish religious text. You attacked a source of that text that I wasn't aware of, but not the text itself.

Other Chobit-loving MeFi'ers made it abundantly clear
that your baseless accusations of racism and attacking the messenger to kill the larger message were dragging the conversation into the gutter, but you didn't listen then... and now you're bringing it up all over again, with the hope of getting me kicked off the board?!

Really?!

Tell you what...

You clearly want me gone from MetaFilter. So here's your chance.

Swear to God and all the rest of the site that I am a hatemonger -- and that you aren't -- and I will go.

Failing that though, I am more than willing to reject and denounce *ANY* author of neo-nazi websites that you want, even if they're one of the most prominent links to the Babylonian Talmud.

I'm not even asking you to denounce anything, though a general admission from you that, yes, old religious texts are invariably biased towards one group and potentially quite offensive to others would be a good start.

...and then, perhaps, we can get back to talking about things, sharing information, and posting links?

Sounds good?!
posted by markkraft at 10:33 PM on June 11, 2009


Play us off, keyboard cat!
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:35 PM on June 11, 2009


Swear to God and all the rest of the site that I am a hatemonger -- and that you aren't -- and I will go.

I dunno. Another guy made a rule that anyone wanting to interview him had to sign a statement saying the interviewee didn't think he was a misogynist. That didn't go too well, either.
posted by ShawnStruck at 11:00 PM on June 11, 2009


That didn't go too well, either.

I dunno, it did inspire a petition.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:07 PM on June 11, 2009


Now here's some good news. If somebody had taken a good look at vonBrunn's writing on his own site and on FreeRepublic with an eye toward making a similar complaint against him YEARS ago, Mr. Johns would still be alive today. THAT is what my "Free Speech" ranting was all about. And I didn't just blame the Right Wing, I blamed all the "ACLU Liberals" and Free Speech Absolutists on the Left.
posted by wendell at 11:31 PM on June 11, 2009


"Ascribing its failings to what you perceive as essential traits of Jewishness is another."

You mean that if I have a problem with those Jewish radical Zionists who illegally settle outside of the '67 borders, or the people -- and prominent Israeli politicians -- who encourage them to do so, that's okay.

But as soon as I point out that a lot of them say "this land is ours!" based on the Torah, that's a racist problem... even if its also a fact?

But that makes it hard to separate anti-zionism from antisemitism, doesn't it? Let me get this straight... is anti-Zionism inherently antisemitic, or is it only antisemitic when you mention that Zionists feel that they have the right to illegally settle in Palestine, because they have an old book that says it's exclusively theirs? (Excuse me, but do I and the rest of the world get any kind of say in this matter?!)

Well... all I can say is that it sure is a good thing nobody ever associates previously obscure Islamic beliefs like jihad with the justifications used by radical Islam, because that would be racist!

Really... why the double standard? What inherent Jewishness are you accusing me of criticizing in the post this MeTa is supposed to be talking about other than that?

Fear, hatred, violence? Those are universal, trust me.

(Oops... that's antisemitic too, I bet!)
posted by markkraft at 11:31 PM on June 11, 2009


I wish I had an old book that said some stuff was mine too.
posted by WalterMitty at 3:32 AM on June 12, 2009 [4 favorites]


So, you know how I warned. . . "there are those on the rightwing of the Jewish community who do -- knowingly or unknowingly -- contribute to this kind of cycle of fear, mistrust, anger, and violence" and that "what this attack does is push American Jews . . . towards Aliyah... which contributes to a further radicalization of Israel and more illegal settlements which help to further inflame random acts of senseless violence"?

Well... here's the blog of an American rabbi I found while doing a google search:

"Today we witnessed the bursting out of the seams of anti-semitism in that I have been speaking of for quite some time, yes in the United States. A white supremicist Nazi. . . we see today the reason why I am making aliyah and why I encourage every Jew to get out now before it comes into our homes, stores, businesses and Synagogues. . . . They will say that it can't happen here, when they are terribly wrong for it is happening right before our eyes.

I warn every Jew to get out of the exile now. It has never been this easy to make aliyah, so do it. Do it before it is not that easy and before immigration into Israel is hindered and eventually stopped according to the impending circumstances. Holocaust in this country and Europe, say it can't happen? . . . those foolish Jews who live in Germany, those Nazis there can and will team with American and Canadian and French Nazis . . . the framework for the third wave is already in notion. . . I warn, get out now, before it explodes in our faces.. . What happened today was a pure indication that what Rav Kahane . . . did was so very right. . ."

"Obama is an Arab, he loves the Arabs and he is playing right into their hands. It's clear to see that Obama doesn't like Israel or Jews to settle in their own rightful G-d given homeland. . . Obama will try, but Israel needs to stand strong and especially the right. If Obama wants this war, we'll gladly fight it. This is our one land and Obama has no concept of . . . how much we too want this war with power hungry demogogues like him. . . we will only continue to build in the West Bank in Judea and Samaria and we will build outposts, which will turn into major settlements. There is no stopping it and Obama can make statements all day long . . . but the people living in these areas are committed to them and devoted to Eretz Yisrael..."

posted by markkraft at 3:50 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Pro-tip: Stop doing this.
posted by Jofus at 4:47 AM on June 12, 2009 [4 favorites]


(Note for those playing along at home: They aren't going to stop doing this)
posted by shakespeherian at 4:51 AM on June 12, 2009 [5 favorites]


thank YHWH - i just ordered a containerload of kosher popcorn!
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:19 AM on June 12, 2009 [3 favorites]


markkraft, please don't use this tragedy to forward a discussion about Zionism. It's not directly related, and it makes you sound ax grindy, especially in light of past links that you have made that were, charitably, ill-advised.

I explained this earlier, but, again charitably, I am going to assume that you missed it, so here goes: The Talmud is not a compendium of Jewish law. It is a huge and frequently contradictory collection of rabbinic opinions about law whose function is to teach rabbis how to think Talmudically, so that they can look at the 613 commandments found in the Old Testamant and apply it to their own community. Linking to one quote by one rabbi, out of context, doesn't prove anything about how Jews, or rabbis, or anybody, understood the world, it just proves you haven't even done rudimentary research on what the Talmud is. The fact that you linked to it on an antisemitic site shows that you're not overly concerned with context, and you need to be. Because taking one Talmusic quote out of context to score a point against the Jews isn't what people who are concerned about a fair argument due. It is, in fact, historically what antisemites do, which is why you are now facing that charge.

I am not going to assume you are antisemitic. But your behavior is consistent with some historically antisemitic behavior, hopefully unknowingly, and you might want to both check that and educate yourself on the nuances of Judaism before you wade into a thread about a muderous antisemitic attack to speculate on the unrelated subject of some possible future Zionist extremism, which, frankly, is tone deaf to an astounding degree.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:41 AM on June 12, 2009 [28 favorites]


munch munch munch
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:49 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


markkraft, you are unfuckingbelievable.
posted by rtha at 5:56 AM on June 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


on lack of preview: *hugs Astro Zombie*
posted by rtha at 5:58 AM on June 12, 2009


Well, this argument will certainly feed my internet addiction for awhile this morning.

*refresh refresh refresh*
posted by josher71 at 6:04 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


it makes you sound ax grindy

HAHAHA
posted by graventy at 6:10 AM on June 12, 2009


Not certain I understand your respose, graventy. Care to elucidate?
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:13 AM on June 12, 2009


bit more butter; hell, why not?
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:13 AM on June 12, 2009 [3 favorites]


I implore Krrrlson to "swear to God and all the rest of the site" that markkraft is a hatemonger. Just do it. Please.
posted by gman at 6:13 AM on June 12, 2009


...and don't forget that part about you not being one. *like I did. whoops.
posted by gman at 6:16 AM on June 12, 2009


I like to work it work it. I like to work it work it. I like to work it work it.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:40 AM on June 12, 2009


Markraft: Let me see if I understand you.

You believe that Metafilter, and its mods, can be accused of anti-Semitism because they allow for postings which you believe to be anti-Semitic. Not because they themselves post it -- but because they feel differently about the nature of those posts, and as such, permit them to remain. It's an indirect association, but it's close enough to be taken as indirect support.

However - following that logic, I could argue that, since you have come to this conclusion but still remain an active member of Metafilter, you also support anti-Semitism. After all, you actively post on a board which -- as you claim -- posts anti-Semitic posts time to time. It's close enough to be taken as indirect support.

....Would you say that, following this logic, that it is accurate that you are anti-Semitic?

My bet is you would deny this. So then my follow-up questions are:

a) why is your association with this "hotbed of antisemitism" blameless, but others' isn't?

b) if you are truly convinced that this IS a "hotbed of antiSemitism," why ARE you associating yourself with it?

For the record, I don't quite see that this is a "hotbed of anti-Semitism". I believe mods let posts stand which others may find questionable because they value giving people the opportunity to speak out on topics and respond to these topics, positively and negatively, to give the individual a chance to further their own analysis of said topics and develop their own opinions. And to me, that is one of the most valuable things an information provider can do. Perhaps they let posts which you find objectionable stand because those posts give others the chance to make testimony about their own experiences with these matters, testimony which will also convince others that these particular matters are objectionable. The chance to speak out against the ills of the world is always a good thing, if it teaches others that these ills are things we still need to be wary of.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:40 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


I'd like to take this opportunity to say that for purely linguistic reasons, I really like the term 'antisemite.' It's like being the Bizarro Superman of an entire race. 'Oh, you're a semite? Well I'm an antisemite!'

But for reals, racism sucks.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:46 AM on June 12, 2009


Racism sucks for everybody, not just reals.
posted by gman at 6:54 AM on June 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


Is Keyboard Cat sleeping?
posted by jerseygirl at 6:56 AM on June 12, 2009


Racism sucks for everybody, not just reals.

[NOT REALIST]
posted by shakespeherian at 6:57 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Is Keyboard Cat sleeping?

He's just one cat. Can't he catch a break now and then?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 6:58 AM on June 12, 2009


[NOT REALIST]
posted by shakespeherian


eponysterical!

you know, shylock, yeah?
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:00 AM on June 12, 2009


For the delectation of everyone here who hasn't had a grilled cheese sandwich recently: SIXTEEN keyboard cat videos.

I propose that the 17th be preceded by clips angry MeFites posting excessively long, agenda-ridden posts to MetaTalk in quick succession.
posted by WalterMitty at 7:01 AM on June 12, 2009


eponysterical!

you know, shylock, yeah?


Technically, shakespeherian is from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, and isn't a direct reference to Shakespeare. Start about here.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:12 AM on June 12, 2009 [3 favorites]


I can sort of believe all the personality / identity / whatever MeFi drama.

I am astounded that we have been trolled by an anti-semite fuckwad in a thread related to a holocaust shooting.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:18 AM on June 12, 2009 [3 favorites]


MetaTalk: Or a bag of weed.

Or what the f, how about both?
posted by fourcheesemac at 7:21 AM on June 12, 2009


I am astounded that we have been trolled by an anti-semite fuckwad in a thread related to a holocaust shooting.

i agree. gman must go.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:23 AM on June 12, 2009


Not certain I understand your respose, graventy. Care to elucidate?

You've taken the high road with your comment. This entire thread has me itching to yell at people I don't really know, and so I've been resisting, but I found the implication that markkraft (and his counterpart, Krrrlson) are not ax grinding here to be humorous.

Everyone seems to have used that thread to axe-grind.
posted by graventy at 7:25 AM on June 12, 2009


To be fair, some Mefites have very dull axes.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:32 AM on June 12, 2009 [5 favorites]


i agree. gman must go.

Only if 500 people call me an anti-semite fuckwad.
posted by gman at 7:34 AM on June 12, 2009


that's an oblique reference to Milton, in case you missed it.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:34 AM on June 12, 2009


damn, i was distracted by the 500 people here chanting "gman, gman, he's our man, if he can't be an anti-semite fuckwad, nobody can!"
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:36 AM on June 12, 2009


Was that also an oblique reference to Milton, Ubu?
posted by shiu mai baby at 7:44 AM on June 12, 2009


more of an oblique reference to vang vieng, that famous taoist writer from northern china.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:46 AM on June 12, 2009


...you know who else used a tragic terrorism thread to exhibit his hatred of Jews?
posted by gman at 7:54 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


You've taken the high road with your comment. This entire thread has me itching to yell at people I don't really know, and so I've been resisting, but I found the implication that markkraft (and his counterpart, Krrrlson) are not ax grinding here to be humorous.

Thanks for the clarification. I thought you might have meant that I am likewise historically guilty of ax grinding, which would have been perfectly fair.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:55 AM on June 12, 2009


He's just one cat. Can't he catch a break now and then?

He sleeps all day in the basket of clean dark laundry. His life is full of catching breaks. All I ask in return is for some comical outro music at needed times.
posted by jerseygirl at 7:55 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Keyboard Cat is busy right now, terrorizing suburban youth.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:57 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Astro Zombie:

"please don't use this tragedy to forward a discussion about Zionism. It's not directly related..."

If I were to have commented regarding an attack by Israeli settlers on Palestinians, and said:

"I hope that this senseless attack isn't used as justification by radical Islamists -- and those amongst them who promote hatred -- to attack Americans", would that be relevant/related enough for you? Because frankly, I don't see much of a difference, even if it does feel axe grindy to you.

"Linking to one quote by one rabbi, out of context, doesn't prove anything"

Did you read the context of where I originally posted it, as a refutation to the idea that saying Hamas' Charter "calls for the downfall of Israel" is in any way a fair accusation, because that text was also taken out of context, as, as I explained in that post, "*ALL* old religions have offensive dogma".

You're taking me out of context -- the context of an entirely different post altogether! -- to lecture me *now* about the Talmud, when all I did was point out that the translation I cited was essentially accurate?! Explain the sense in that? (Nine MeFiers thought the point I made back then was a good one, btw.)

"The fact that you linked to it on an antisemitic site..."
...has never really been established on MetaFilter.

What has been established is that the creator of the come-and-hear site appears to have used the same version of the Talmud as one photocopied out of major copyrighted translation, which was stuck into a book by a person who was charged -- but not convicted -- of being a part of a global Nazi conspiracy. (The law the charges were based upon was later judged to be unconstitutional, btw.)

Other than that, it a rather plain site, indistinguishable from others, with a translation that is apparently good enough for major religious scholarly institutions. It's even cited by that prominent anti-semite Alan Dershowitz!

So, before you start attacking me for doing what major published Jewish authors do, shouldn't you fully know the context yourself, and at least cut me a modicum of slack?

Just sayin'.
posted by markkraft at 7:59 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Ok, so long as he's busy and not just sleeping all day.
posted by jerseygirl at 8:00 AM on June 12, 2009




I'm not really here to argue with you, markkraft; merely to point out why your behavior reads as antisemitic. You are welcome to agree or disagree with my assessment of whether you effectively used links or quotes or whatever, but I hope you understand my points that it's coming off differently than I think you mean it. That might be worth some reassessment on your part, rather than defensively throwing up even more links.

By the way, just because Alan Dershowitz does something, it does not mean that just anybody can do it in any context. I would caution you that "but a prominent member of a despised minority did it" has never been a good justification.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:07 AM on June 12, 2009 [3 favorites]


"What? What's the problem? That joke killed when Chris Rock said it."
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:08 AM on June 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


"I am astounded that we have been trolled by an anti-semite fuckwad"

Where?! Let's give him a fair trial, and a quick hangin'!

(Oh, and by the way, you should be suspended for resorting to such senseless, baseless attacks.)
posted by markkraft at 8:11 AM on June 12, 2009


Where?! Let's give him a fair trial, and a quick hangin'!

That's a hell of a lot more than my grandmother got.
posted by gman at 8:15 AM on June 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


"merely to point out why your behavior reads as antisemitic"

So, basically, my behavior "reads as antisemitic" like Alan Dershowitz, except, unlike Alan, I don't say that Iran needs to be defanged.

I merely wanted to point out that your behavior reads as jumpingtoconclusionistic and essentially ignorant.

Someone screams "anti-semitic!" with zero evidence, and you shout "How high?!"
posted by markkraft at 8:17 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Dear markkraft:

I am not going to address anything that you said. And what I am about to say applies even if you are 100% correct about everything you have ever said:

SHUT UP AND WALK AWAY FOR YOUR OWN SAKE
posted by shakespeherian at 8:17 AM on June 12, 2009


All right. Have it your way. Obviously, people who are misreading you are the ones with the problem. I apologize for having brought it up, and hope you have a lot more luck down the road when you repeatedly and angrily have to explain to people that you are not the antisemite, they're just monsterously unfair.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:18 AM on June 12, 2009 [4 favorites]


markkraft: "It's even cited by that prominent anti-semite Alan Dershowitz!"

Despite being a Jew, I don't really feel like I have a dog in this fight. But I humbly request that you avoid citing that torture-apologist asshole as any kind of representative of my peeps.
posted by Joe Beese at 8:19 AM on June 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


a prominent member of a despised minority

Despised, perhaps, but are attorneys really a minority?
posted by theroadahead at 8:22 AM on June 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


"That's a hell of a lot more than my grandmother got."

I'm sure she deserved neither.
posted by markkraft at 8:23 AM on June 12, 2009


Has anyone cut off his hand yet?
posted by Mid at 8:25 AM on June 12, 2009


If you want your axe to be sharp, you have to grind the cutting bit. Just saying.
posted by WalterMitty at 8:25 AM on June 12, 2009


I cut off my hand, but I didn't want to make a fuss.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:26 AM on June 12, 2009


Or better yet, use a laser cutter. I hear they're all the rage these days.

Pew pew
posted by WalterMitty at 8:26 AM on June 12, 2009


Well this is going just super.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:30 AM on June 12, 2009 [6 favorites]


"I humbly request that you avoid citing that torture-apologist asshole as any kind of representative of my peeps."

Anti-semite!

In all seriousness, though... can we agree that Dershowitz, Lieberman (both the Israeli and even the U.S. version), that nutty, racist Kahaneist rabbi I cited, and every American Jew who wants to basically tell the U.S. "well, yeah, I know it's in direct opposition to my government's foriegn policy and I might have to move in a few years if peace comes, but I want to settle knee deep in Palestinians"... can we just agree that these people also aren't particularly good representatives for your peeps?

Because, after all this... your comment is the first one I've seen suggesting that there's anything wrong with any of the above.
posted by markkraft at 8:31 AM on June 12, 2009


STOP TALKING
posted by shakespeherian at 8:33 AM on June 12, 2009


can we agree ...

I can agree with that, but, to some extent, again, I am not clear what it is doing in a thread about a shooting at a Holocaust museum. Do you honestly think the best policy of all, in general, is to find threads about murderous attack on Jews and say, hey, but look at the bad things Jews do? There's no tone deafness at all that you can suss out there?

It was a black security guard that died yesterday. Perhaps there are some example of African Americans who you think are wicked that you might like to bring up as well?
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:36 AM on June 12, 2009 [5 favorites]


"If you want your axe to be sharp, you have to grind the cutting bit. Just saying."

Are you people misinterpreting my statement that his grandmother deserved neither a trial nor a hanging?

Because she probably didn't deserve either of those, you know. And I don't mean she deserved anything else bad either.

Anyone else think that this whole thing would've been so much better if only the Nazis gave out hugs and warm cups of tea with chocolate biscuits?
posted by markkraft at 8:37 AM on June 12, 2009


*sits with face buried in a bowl of grape Jell-O, sobbing*
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:37 AM on June 12, 2009


Now I want Grape Jell-O.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:40 AM on June 12, 2009


*smears bacon and lobster on popcorn*

It's sacre-licious!
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:40 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


There's no tone deafness at all that you can suss out there?

This, about a thousand times. Seriously, markkraft, I don't know what broken thing in your head made you think starting into this shit in the thread on the blue was a good idea or what makes you think keeping at it like some "no, we really need to talk about the Jews' culpability" juggernaut is a good idea, but for fuck's sake, give it a rest.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:42 AM on June 12, 2009


Anyone else think that this whole thing would've been so much better if only the Nazis gave out hugs and warm cups of tea with chocolate biscuits?

What whole thing? The Holocaust?

Do you find that you get punched in the face a lot when you go outside? Do you go outside?
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 8:50 AM on June 12, 2009 [6 favorites]


AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH STOP ENGAGING
posted by Skot at 8:55 AM on June 12, 2009


If you were Captain Kirk, you would have said "disengage."
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:58 AM on June 12, 2009


"find threads about murderous attack on Jews"

It wasn't a murderous attack on Jews. It was a murderous attack on any American -- or indeed, any one -- who happened to be in the museum, and a black guard got killed, leaving behind a wife and his twelve-year-old son.

I haven't been to D.C. since the museum was built, but my wife has... she's an agnostic, but the experience still sticks with her. She remembered one part in particular where they walk you through one of the train cars, which still sticks with her strongly. It could've been her if she were there, or really, any American... because the Holocaust Museum draws 1.7 million visitors a year.

That's an awful lot of sympathetic countrymen.

That's not to say that it wasn't meant to send a message to Jews in America to get out or else, but it would be ridiculous and cowardly to give people like this angry old racist his victory. America isn't like that anymore, and this attack will increase, not decrease, tolerance in this society.

It may not stop racist attacks in America anytime soon, but the thing is, these people know that they're losing the war... they just don't want to go down without a fight.

It's tragic that a good American had to die, but if it takes one good American to kill one absolutely dedicated racist, well... we've already come most of the way. Let's be brave and see if we can't finish the job, ideally with as few deaths as possible.
posted by markkraft at 8:58 AM on June 12, 2009


Joe Beese, so you're the one keeping Wright from talking to Obama?

My irony meter is off the charts when Wright says some asshat thing, then someone uses this same rhetoric to justify murdering someone.

I feel compelled to point out the first line of this comment is a total joke.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:58 AM on June 12, 2009


Man I'm so happy this thread is about MarkKraft again and not about St. Alia. Carry on, I'm gonna go grab some popcorn.
posted by Happydaz at 9:00 AM on June 12, 2009


Here here, Marisa. Replace that Jell-O with your favorite cereal. It'll make you feel better!
posted by cimbrog at 9:01 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Perhaps I misspoke, markkraft; it may not have been exclusively an attack on Jews. It was, however, an explicitly antisemitic attack. Now I have clarified my point, and thank you for pointing that out. However, since you fixated on what should probably be considered a minor misstatement on my part, rather than the larger point I was making about what seems to be tone deafness on your part, I will assume you don't really want to have that conversation, and so I will disengage.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:02 AM on June 12, 2009


Anyone else think that this whole thing would've been so much better if only the Nazis gave out hugs and warm cups of tea with chocolate biscuits?

If by "this whole thing" you mean "the world from the 1930's on" then yes, I do think that this whole thing would have been better if the Nazis gave out hugs and tea and biscuits. Who the hell wouldn't?

Speaking of, I'm going to go have some of the tea I was recently gifted. Proper green tea with honey, from Nepal!
oh god now someone's going to bring up China.
posted by Lemurrhea at 9:05 AM on June 12, 2009


In all seriousness, though... can we agree that Dershowitz, Lieberman (both the Israeli and even the U.S. version), that nutty, racist Kahaneist rabbi I cited, and every American Jew who wants to basically tell the U.S. "well, yeah, I know it's in direct opposition to my government's foriegn policy and I might have to move in a few years if peace comes, but I want to settle knee deep in Palestinians"... can we just agree that these people also aren't particularly good representatives for your peeps?

For God's sake, why? Why on earth do you want to make this distinction when we're trying to talk about a lunatic who's hatred of Jews is not dependent on Israeli settlement policy? It's not like he shot up the holocaust museum because of Palestine.

no. on second thought, don't answer. it doesn't matter why you want to bring it up. what matters is that you're being a colossal jerk about this. Just go away. By all means, start your livejournal group about how awful jews are, and take this there.
posted by shmegegge at 9:07 AM on June 12, 2009 [3 favorites]


Thanks, cimbrog, I'm nearly out of Azumang-Os, so that would do nicely.

By the way, if anyone was confused by my use of the term "tsundere" upthread, Minoru from Lucky Star explains it quite well, as well as the endless internet debate over the old and new meanings of the word (at 0:32).

In the older sense, "tsundere" was a character who appeared to be cold, aloof even arrogant, but over time developed a softer, more caring side. In the newer sense, it's been used to mean a character who appears to be cold, aloof and arrogant on the outside but is actually, on the inside, filled with feelings of love and affection, usually for the character they're coldest with.

You can see the new sense of the word used with frequency across the interwebs, as in, "markkraft is tsundere for Israel". Orthodox anime fans would never say this, because they'd see this as an incorrect use of the definition - to them, markkraft can't be tsundere for Israel until he outwardly expresses his affection for it.

"Yandere" is a whole other plate of beans, but in a nutshell, this is a character who starts out playful and gentle but then gradually becomes increasingly and violently insane. As in cimbrog's example, "I've grown yandere for Metafilter."

I hope we can now talk about anime tropes for the remainder of the thread. Because I'm running out of Jell-O.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:19 AM on June 12, 2009 [4 favorites]


Regarding anime tropes, what's the deal with young women in anime sometimes holding their hands by their cheeks, as though imitating cats' paws or the paws of some other animal? This most often happens when the characters are having their picture taken. Can anyone explain this to me, or point me to an explanation? Thanks
posted by sleevener at 9:32 AM on June 12, 2009


can we just agree that these people also aren't particularly good representatives for your peeps?

no - we've all paid our 5 bucks here and can speak for ourselves, whatever peeps we belong to

we don't need no stinkin' representatives
posted by pyramid termite at 9:33 AM on June 12, 2009


Marisa, would you like some of this grape Flavor-Aid I just mixed up? I've got plenty!
posted by Night_owl at 9:34 AM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Regarding anime tropes, what's the deal with young women in anime sometimes holding their hands by their cheeks, as though imitating cats' paws or the paws of some other animal?

is it a gesture like this?
posted by pyramid termite at 9:38 AM on June 12, 2009


I would care for a purple Otter Pop.
posted by jerseygirl at 9:40 AM on June 12, 2009


So, Marisa, who would be in your Metafilter harem anime and what roles would they fill?
And they all can't be tsundere lolis.

I nominate Cortex as the stern, responsible one.
posted by cimbrog at 10:11 AM on June 12, 2009


Ugh. That was always the worst flavor of otter pop. Blue raspberry ftw.
posted by Happydaz at 10:11 AM on June 12, 2009


That explains why the plentiful inventory of purples left in the freezer.
posted by jerseygirl at 10:12 AM on June 12, 2009


It is an Asian pose cliche.
posted by graventy at 10:15 AM on June 12, 2009


I wonder what color a bacon otter pop would be.
posted by rtha at 10:45 AM on June 12, 2009


Does anyone know what taters means?
posted by ob at 11:40 AM on June 12, 2009


Is otter bacon kosher or halal?
posted by Balisong at 11:42 AM on June 12, 2009


I don't know, but it's delicious.
posted by fourcheesemac at 12:10 PM on June 12, 2009


Wolf nipple chips! Get 'em while they're hot!
posted by grapefruitmoon at 12:11 PM on June 12, 2009


Hmm. Bacon which is fundamentally comprised of shellfish, but kept very clean, and from an animal that could be said to resemble like a rabbi. Gevalt that's a toughy.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 12:12 PM on June 12, 2009


So, Marisa, who would be in your Metafilter harem anime and what roles would they fill?

I nominate Cortex as the stern, responsible one.


Well, I don't want to hog up the roles others could pick, but I'd nominate Astro Zombie as the wisecracking, unconventional adult. Miko would be the level-headed intelligent one. I don't know what harem character gman would be, but he's always reminded me of Yotsuya. Not because I think he's a little perverted, but because he's mysterious - and his appearance is always unexpected.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:27 PM on June 12, 2009


Call me Yukari-chan.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:32 PM on June 12, 2009


cjorgensen: "Joe Beese, so you're the one keeping Wright from talking to Obama? ... I feel compelled to point out... this comment is a total joke."

Sometimes I've wondered how one becomes a "made mensch" in the Great Jew Conspiracy we keep hearing about. Controlling everything must be a lucrative racket. I picture it as the Carlyle Group but with funnier jokes.

And I feel bad for markkraft because I suspect he truly isn't anti-semitic in any important way. [No worse than T.S. Eliot, at any rate.] Besides I... uh... have some tendencies towards tone-deafness myself.
posted by Joe Beese at 12:41 PM on June 12, 2009


Besides I... uh... have some tendencies towards tone-deafness myself.

You fucking bigot.
posted by shakespeherian at 1:35 PM on June 12, 2009


that was a joke
posted by shakespeherian at 1:36 PM on June 12, 2009


Not only am I worried about non-believers going to hell, but I'm worried about them not getting any presents from Santa.
posted by mullingitover at 2:46 PM on June 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


A wish for my future self:

If I start digging myself into a monumental hole in Meta, Astro Zombie will happen along and throw me a rope.
posted by mosessis at 3:38 PM on June 12, 2009


SCREW YOU!

ohmanIknewIwasgonnasnap
posted by Astro Zombie at 3:50 PM on June 12, 2009


that was a joke

even so, speaking as a person with tone deafness, i wish others would stop using us as some kind of term of abuse.

perfect pitch & tone deafness are innate, just like being black or gay, and we shouldn't be constantly derided for something beyond our control.

and even if one chose to be tone deaf, that's a choice that should be respected, too.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:11 PM on June 12, 2009




even if one chose to be tone deaf, that's a choice that should be respected, too.

I know generally speaking you're trying to make a joke here, but one of the responsibilities with being tone deaf, just like being color blind, is to trust other people to tell you when you're doing it wrong.

I don't assume that people will automatically know when they've gone too far, or even when it looks like they're about to go to far. However, what I really don't get is when people are told by well-meaning, non rancorous people "hey man, I think you've had enough" and still valiantly press on.

If you're tone deaf, fine, we're all awkward spazmos in some area of our life. But since we're a web community and nominally at least a little bit friendly towards each other, find a friend who can maybe tell you "hey, leave it alone" because it's really better them than one of the mod team, and better we mention it than we toss up our hands and just start timing people out. We really tried, in this case, to not just willy-nilly shut people up and I feel that went pretty much okay, if maybe at the expense of some aggravation on our part and maybe the community at large.

That said, if you can't self-police, find a sponsor or some other way to keep it in line if you don't know where that line is. Thanks!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:48 PM on June 12, 2009 [2 favorites]


Uh, I think UbuRovias means tone-deaf in the literal sense of not being able to distinguish between musical notes.
posted by lore at 5:52 PM on June 12, 2009


yes, and proud of it, although along the lines of jessamyn's suggestion, i try to restrict my singing to the shower.

it's gotta be better than having perfect pitch, though - have you ever been to a gig with a perfect pitcher, and you're enjoying the music fine, while to them it's like fingernails on a chalkboard: "oh, GOD, the e-string is a micromillinanotone too sharp! FUCK! GAAAAH!!! SOMEBODY BUY THIS GUY A TUNER ALREADY"
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:56 PM on June 12, 2009


I rely on autotune.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:09 PM on June 12, 2009 [1 favorite]


Yeah, it must suck to have perfect pitch-- at the symphony, the instruments' tuning changes throughout the performance slightly simply because, for example, the brass instruments warm up and expand slightly. So even if the whole thing starts off being okay for Mr Perfect Pitch, they aren't going to stay that way. It's like a super power that is its own kryptonite.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:01 AM on June 13, 2009


Maybe everyone's heard this already, but I think it's interesting that three Minutemen American Defense militia members (border vigilantes) have been charged with first-degree murder for deaths that occurred during a burglary of a hispanic family's home.

What with the MAD murders, the Von Brunn rampage, and the Tiller killing, it's been a very active few weeks for the right wing nutballs.
posted by jayder at 10:31 AM on June 13, 2009


jessamyn: spazmo? I use the word to refer to my recurrent, unpredictable stomach cramps, but apparently the British take it differently

(Is not spastic, but is lame [literally])

and a seppo

posted by jtron at 10:33 AM on June 13, 2009


jayder: They seem to have been surging in activity since Obama's inauguration:
Wednesday, January 21 -- the day after the inauguration -- 22-year-old Keith Luke goes on a rape and killing spree in his Boston neighborhood. He rapes and kills one woman, and kills the sister who tries to help her. He then goes out onto the street and shoots a passing homeless man. Police intercept him on his way to a local synagogue, where he tells them he intended to "kill as many Jews as possible during bingo night." He also tells investigators that he was fighting the extinction of the white race, and had stockpiled 200 round of ammunition to that end.

Tuesday, February 10 -- In Belfast, Maine, radioactive "dirty bomb" materials are found in home of James Cummings, who had been killed by his wife after years of domestic violence. Cummings was an admirer of Adolf Hitler; a large collection of Nazi memorabilia and a filled-out application for the National Socialist Movement were found on the scene.

Thursday, February 26 -- In Miramar Beach, FL, 60-year-old Dannie Baker walks into a neighboring townhouse where 14 Chilean students -- all in the US legally -- are gathered. He fires, killing two and wounding five. Those who know Baker describe him as a mentally ill man obsessed with the fear that immigrants are taking over the country.

Sunday, April 5 -- Budding white supremacist and recently discharged veteran Richard Popalowski shoots and kills three police officers following a standoff in Pittsburgh. They were responding to a domestic disturbance call. He believed they had been sent by the Obama Adminstration to take away his guns.

Tuesday, April 28 -- US Army Reservist Joshua Cartwright shoots and kills two sheriff's deputies in Fort Walton Beach, FL. His wife called police from the emergency room after he beat her. In the incident report, his wife reported that her husband believed the U.S. Government was conspiring against him, and was severely disturbed that Barack Obama had been elected President.

Wednesday, May 6 -- Stephen P. Morgan of Middletown, CT kills former NYU classmate Johanna Justin-Jinich, whom he had been harassing since at least 2007. A diary found in his belongings included an entry: "I think it's ok to kill Jews and go on a killing spree" and "Kill Johanna. She must Die." Justin-Jinich was Jewish, and the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor.

Sunday, May 31 -- Dr. George Tiller is shot to death while ushering at his Lutheran church in Wichita, KS. His killer, Scott Roeder, is captured by police within hours. Roeder is found to have ties to several violent right-wing groups, including the Montana Freemen and the Sovereign Citizen movement. He had also been committing acts of vandalism against abortion clinics for years, most recently just days before the assassination.

Wednesday, June 10 -- Well-known anti-Semitic blogger James Wenneker von Brunn walks into the national Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC and opens fire, killing a security guard. Von Brunn had been prominent in Holocaust denier circles for several decades, and considered Holocaust museums to be a crime against white history.
from Orcinus
posted by jtron at 10:36 AM on June 13, 2009 [11 favorites]


FFS, jtron, you can just rock me to sleep tonight. Wow.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 1:41 PM on June 13, 2009


Well, my girlfriend is out of town... but all the credit has to go to the good bloggers at Orcinus, as linked above.
posted by jtron at 3:07 PM on June 13, 2009


« Older They have giant tubes of beer!   |   Update on Singh "bogus chiropractics" story Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments