I've Had It

Your kidding, right? I don't know what the numbers are, but the mudslinging is pretty wide spread. Have you noticed H2Oman or gungsnake or a list of others?

I certainly don't put you in that group, I usually read your posts and consider them, not necessarily agreeing. Derision is unfortunately a common activity here, for both 'sides'.

True. There are many sensitive egos here. To think it only happens to 'you' is a little overly sensitive.

I more or less like Finn, sometimes, and from time to time agree with him, but he excoriates liberals routinely over and over again and again and again, so I usually skip along. I do put him, from long experience, in the derisive group.

I like at least some conservatives here, whether or not I agree at a given moment, have been known to myself to listen.

But as many of us know, liberal and conservative as american words are just too simplistic to bear the weight. So the castigating is often silly, whoever does it.

That's it! By golly!

we have mostly decided that these culture wars are to the death. compassion, understanding, mutual respect, civility and restraint are all thus useless and not valued

the trouble with that is both "camps" say the same things and neither attempts to understand the other. E are a microcosm of our unions government and our polarized society.

Jespah made a good point at the beginning of this thread. There is a good deal more going on here than just political discussions, or nonsense like Hawkeye's chicken little routine. Many people here who may be labeled conservative by Finny participate in those other threads. O'George and i vehemently disagree on politics, but i've had many great conversations with him. I was just re-reading, yesterday, some of his contribution to one of Boomer's map threads. Roger and i have disagreed in the past, but Roger actually spend little of his time in political dust-ups, and when i see that Roger is the last person to have posted in a thread (I always use the "New Posts" link), i immediately go see what he has to say. He's intelligent, thoughtful and very witty. His ironic sense of humor is excellent. JPB is definitely conservative, although not in the reactionary wing-nut way that too many of the conservatives here are. She doesn't post that often any longer, but she has things to say worth reading.

But more than that, Finny was, as usual, erecting a strawman. He ignored the conservatives like Mysterman (often worthy of reading), David, Gunga Dim, Waterboy, Miller, and Foofie (if Foofie is not actually Miller's sock puppet, as i believe she is)--there are far more conservatives here than Finny was attempting to claim.

As Contrex's initial post points out, this is not a "liberal" site. Only in terms of the extremist views of rightwingnuts are the majority of members here "liberal." Quite apart from that, in most of the world, Liberal (with the capital "L") means someone who is centrist or even right of center. From the point of view of most of the world, people Finny would label liberal are conservatives. I was raised by my grandparents, and they were conservative Democrats. Card-carrying, even--my grandfather was the Democratic precinct committeeman. I have taken on "the left" at this site when i thought they were wrong.

This is just a typical Finny tempest in a teapot. As my experience of his "contribution" is that he comes here looking for a fight, i sincerely hope that he doesn't let the door hit him in the ass.

I was in the center of Finns melt down. He blamed me for
siding with a "known liberal" At that time I was very tired yet unabe to sleep (I was anticipating a long drive home).
So I got into it with Finn about how he tried to "use me" to support an insult on glitterbag.
The very substance of Finns point, we all agreed upon, that's the hell of it. I had posted exactly what Finn had later said in the first page of the subject thread and glitterbag agreed, she and Finn were , instead, hell bent on an insultathon between them for (probable) past srguments. So Finn, somehow felt betrayed because I wouldn't join him in his petulance and insults. SO, while the substance of the series of posts that led to Finns departure were in full agreement, Finn actualyy started melting down because he was (I believe) embarrassed at ascribing his own petulance to others in an attempt to presnt some degree of fake solidarity to a combatant.

When you look at the entire thing that had gone on (And now these rather partisan analyses of the situation) it appears that EVERYBODY has missed the point.
The argument that grew into some generalized screed on "Libtards" or "Repuglicans" had nothing at all to do with anything. Two people had a major dislike of each other (you had but to go to other threads where Finn and glitterbag appeared) and there youd see that these two just hate each other.

Glitterbag took an opening shot and Finn immediately got insulting and he tried to imply that I was insulting in agreement with him.

Its amazing how some of our most famous "dust-ups" between folks are spawned from some deeply felt mistrust between individuals. It often has nothing to do with political camps until a bit later when everybody tries to fortify their arguments.

It was entertaining for me because I was in the middle of a lost sleep cycle and now when I finally woke up after about 15 hours of sleep (With maybe two brief periods of inter-estivatory wakefulness)
Ive seen how this whole thing has become another EMBLEM of the two camps. If only you all knew that this entire thing, including Finnsy's departure , had only to do with two people, both of whom hate the other, and both chose to act badly.
Silly really.

You shold all go visit the James Gandolfini "Obit" thread.

In summary, my point is that both glitterbag and Finn acted somewhat childishly in public and the whole thing got elevated into what it was NOT. The conclusion that Finn drew was that I was an apologist for "known" liberals and therefore this whole site is rotting from some imaginary core.

Both Finn and Glitterbag should just try to be civil and not slam the doors, they both have good **** to add (when they stay on topic and avoid the petulance)

Weve got too few, really passionate spokespeople for our various camps. So just rolling up our bedrolls and moving out doesn't solve anything (it actually diminishe
s the spectrum of opinions that each of us feels is valid)

Id hate to see Finn go, his ideas are always a bright portion of the spectrum . He often brings some really sharp theories to the menu, and he debates em well. However, both he and glitterbag have really hot tempers and this was more an example of them exercising bad humors.

I disagree about Finny. I've never seen him add anything worthwhile which was prefaced by snarky comments and attempts to pick a fight. Perhaps i just grew disgusted with him before he decided to take his light out from under the bushel, but i don't see your claim at all.

Ive found many of his views on the constitution more enlightening than thosw of Dave (who said that he was a practicing constitutional barrister).

He (Finnsy) does like to bait folks and that's really what got him into the present unpleasentness. However, we all do that from time to time.

He often blatantly trails his coat.

Since the day i first noticed his presence, i've seen him attempt to pick fights and slander people. The first time i got into an argument with him, he began calling me pooch and offered to kick my dog. Oh yeah, that was really enlightened.

He recently told me that I was wise to not pay the Mensa test fee, since disappointment would have been inevitable.

Whenever i think of Mensa now, i think of David, and conclude that Mensa is not a very demanding organization.

It's a self-selected subset of a larger group of people who have done very well on at least one standardized test -- and that's all. Everybody who said they were a Mensa member that I've met has been, conspicuously, an insecure arsehole. Likewise non-members who still mention that they would qualify as members.

Yes, and self serving.

I appreciate your analysis in the fact that I don't have to read the thread. I accept that you are probably spot on. As far as the above statement, that can be applied to all of us and it would be nice if the threshold for petulance could be higher.

Finn has been with us since Abuzz. Therefore I think he will stay here.

he's quit before.

I think he needs a hug.

(somebody else will have to do it...)