IS IT GETTING MEAN AROUND HERE??

@izzythepush,

Quote:

Have you considered that individuals all came to the same conclusion, that you're a snide, passive aggressive, duplicitous arsehole who does not deserve respect? That's what I think. Merry Andrew is proof that it's possible to disagree with someone without resorting to insults.

I love irony.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

If it parrots the teabagger line it is a teabagger. End of story.

Closed minds are a wonderful thing - impervious to the threats presented by new facts, ideas or arguments presenting them in a new light. One doesn't even need to retain a sense of irony with respect to human affairs: all that one in posession of a closed mind wants to know is known, and nothing is questioned. Very peaceful - somewhat like being dead.

3 Replies

@maxdancona,

You don't understand irony, the fact you use that glib phrase so often is very ironic.

Try to say something original for once, that means not repeating the same jaded cliché over and over again.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

I thought you said I was back on ignore. That doesn't seem to be working too well.

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

The problem is not just closing their own minds.

On Able2Know Izzy, Setanta and others are making a concerted effort to punish certain opinions with personal attacks. There is a core group of people on Able2Know who are in near lockstep agreement with Izzy and Setanta who launch personal attacks at anyone who offends them.

The personal attacks generally aren't in response to anything other than someone expressing an opinion they don't like. And they are cheered for doing so by a significant clique of people who haven't been driven away by the meanness.

This is how intellectual discussion on Able2Know dies... with thunderous applause.

0 Replies

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Fully agree. I recall, in the early days we could argue like partisans but it never got personal. I think your point of attracting "like minds" is a thing Ive seen all over the interweb. Its gotten kinda dicey even on gardening boards. ("OH YEH?!?! ANY IDIOT KNOWS THAT MANDEVILLA ARE HARDIER THAN CREPE MYRTLE""). I saw that kind of disagreement on one of the gardening sites I visit.
Ive found that many of the really intense subject boards, like Civil War History, trades mostly to zealots who mostly have a very small life outside the board.

I agree. A prolongued, moderately adult multiparty dialogue with tolerable levels of personal invective, but also balanced with a rational exchange of ideas and arguments (as opposed to sweeping conclusions, 'all right wingers/teapartiers/etc. are evil idiots' ) is possible. However, it requires the renewed consent and participation of enough people to sustain it.

Unfortunately they lately appear to be outnumbered by those who prefer shouting sweeping conclusions to discourse, and who respond to disagreement with shrill invective. There are multiple examples of both on the last two pages.

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Maxdancona wrote:

The problem is not just closing their own minds.

No, it's not a problem as many posters remain with an open mind, despite having divergent opinions from your own.

That cliques implicitly form is a fact, people tend to associate, sometimes unconsciously, with those who express ideas or feelings similar to theirs.

Still, many posters can, and do, talk in all civility to people of different inclinations.

However, to perorate like you do is a bit over the top.

I remember vividly when you called people schizophrenic and told them if they were not happy, they should leave A2K on the spot.

What intellectual discussion is that, I cannot fathom..

1 Reply

@timur,

Quote:

I remember vividly when you called people schizophrenic and told them if they were not happy, they should leave A2K on the spot.

This is factually, and demonstrably wrong.

Everything I have ever said on A2K is on record and is easily searchable (the search button is on the top right of your screen). I just did the search-- there is nothing I have said that is close to that. You can do the search too (it takes about 3 seconds). I wish you would do such a search before making claims like this.

I have been very careful to never make personal attacks here (and I believe I have been successful except maybe on the rare case when I was responding to particularly egregious attacks against me).

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

A teabagger IS a closed mind. You cannot argue the truth into one of them, you have to beat them at the ballot box.

2 Replies

@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

A teabagger IS a closed mind. You cannot argue the truth into one of them, you have to beat them at the ballot box.

QED
(or pot, kettle)

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

I knew you were one all along. Good luck.

0 Replies

@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

A teabagger IS a closed mind. You cannot argue the truth into one of them, you have to beat them at the ballot box.

Just imagine what would happen if there were people who felt the same way about "libtards" that you feel about "teabaggers".

Then Americans would be bitterly divided leading to a government unable to make progress in any direction and a political discourse filled with anger, personal attacks and name-calling.

There must be a better way...

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

Geo1 just admitted he feels that way, dude.

0 Replies

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

Closed minds . . .

Speaking as someone who gave up on politics a long time ago and hardly posts in this forum anymore: Closed minds are found on both sides of the political spectrum, and in abundance. Not to mention intellectual dishonest and an unwillingness to face up to past errors, mistakes, and wrongs. Today there is no room in American politics (at least) for truly independent thinkers. Each side has its own party line, and each sides defines its own reality. An illusionary sort of reality that is maintained by media such as Fox News and MSNBC. Political ideologies are actually a form of false religion.

3 Replies

I have not bad mouthed all other political ideologies. Only the one.

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@wmwcjr,

I partly agree. I believe that the quality of discourse on A2K has declined markedly in the last few years - much more than has political discourse in the country as a whole. That is likely a result of the fact that A2K is a relatively small collection of individuals, and a few can make a big difference.

It's harder to make an accurate conclusion about the country as a whole. We know a lot about the sound and fury of contemporary politics, while the filters of history tend to insulate us from much of the similar disputation and invective of the past. No TV in those days, but available newspaper records of politics in the period since the Civil War do indeed suggest there were effective print counterparts to Fox & MSNBC in those days.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

There is no "Just imagine" about it. Your hypothesis happens to be the current reality in politics; and, actually, it's been that way for a very long time. It's enough to make me wish there were a legitimate third party and ideology, but that's just a pipe dream.

0 Replies

There are more than two ideologies to choose from. Unfortunately, conservative Democrats and Teabagger Republicans have the upper hand. But they are not all that is out there.

0 Replies

@wmwcjr,

wmwcjr wrote:

Political ideologies are actually a form of false religion.

Then we can equate agnosticism to those that don't vote?

1 Reply

@wmwcjr,

Quote:

Political ideologies are actually a form of false religion.

The term "false religion" is interesting. It implies that there is a true religion (or else the word false has no meaning).

This is relevant since if there is a true religion then personal attacks to silence people who follow false religions aren't completely out of place.

Maybe "true religion" explains what is what is happening.

1 Reply

IS IT GETTING MEAN AROUND HERE??

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