What does 'cheese-eating' mean?

Sort of hate speech--it refers to the idiot uproar at the time of the plan to invade Iraq in late 2002 when Chirac, acting as a democratically elected leader should, refused to join Baby Bush's coalition, which eventually did invade Iraq in early 2003. The French people were opposed, so Chirac was opposed. The response by the vociferous troglodytes of the right in the U.S. was to condemn all things French, and to refer to the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys." Some people went so far as to refer to french fries as "freedom fries," but that didn't get any traction.

Yes, I'd say rule seven applies, but it's not as though that would sink in with anyone who uses such an epithet. Consider that we're talking about a failed meme from 15 years ago, and you've got the measure of someone who uses such an expression.

EDIT: Snowflake is another such effort at a sneer against alleged liberals, and it's just as lame as cheese-eating.

Should the mods remove posts where either a previous poster, or "liberals" in general, or denizens of "shithole countries" are called "cheese-eaters", or sanction the poster, or do nothing?

Around here, they are likely to do nothing, unless it is unambiguously addressed to a specific individual.

I recall at the time that some writer suggested this new language rule would leave us with "freedom tickler".

I'll bet Trump loves "freedom kissing" those all those starlets — I can almost smell the Tic-Tacs.

I'd love to edit out all those "cheese-eater" references, especially when the whole point of the post is just for the sake of insulting someone, but I think that starts to smack of ideological censorship, and in effect it would be giving the guy more ammunition.

Read your own posts...

It seems to me that the abusive name-calling on this site comes far more from the liberal side. Setanta calls someone an "idiot" or attacks their intelligence on pretty much every other post. Then there is "rape apologist" (my personal favorite), and various attacks on religious faith.

There is one epithet that is particularly relevant in this thread - hypocrite.

Silly in-crowd... you want the rules to apply to anyone who disagrees with you.

Vox populi, vox dei

The very definition of group think. Thank you Centrox, you make my point better than I do.

It is a good question Centrox; Do you think the rules should apply to everyone... or is this a "vox" popularity contest.

I kind of stopped getting involved when it became the in thing to do to redo various politician's names. Such as the widespread usage of Plump for Trump, tRump for Trump, Shrub for Bush, etc. etc.

That along with those who refer to Democrats and Republicans with obvious and continual changes.

It diminishes the value of any conversation these persons put forth. Not liking a person or a political group is not an issue. Disparaging, is. Constantly calling a member here a clown or idiot too, depletes value. If that particular member dislikes another so much, then either put them on ignore or just don't reply/respond to the disliked one.

(the exception on the ignore, for me, is broken when the person makes a snide or insulting remark directly toward or about me)

Could not agree more.

this

which is one of the reasons the discussion side of the forums here have deteriorated as much as they have

most of the lively wits have abandoned the site

Which I find terribly disappointing.

This site has an advantage in that moderation is done in-house. For the most part, moderators here are familiar with posters and their posting histories. At the Washington Post, moderation is out-sourced to companies who are not necessarily even in the US and who know nothing about the evolved community who post. So, for example, posts from someone with a satirical style will commonly be deleted by moderators. And many functions are automated - some person with a strong partisan bias will "report" a post and that report will usually result in a deletion of the targeted post.

Trolls are a problem everywhere, certainly in political discussion groups. And trolls most often post in a manner which avoids the moderators software programming. If (as is the case at the Post) reports automatically result in deletions, trolls will and do use that mechanism with bad intentions.

Further, because the moderation is so distant/disconnected from the community, challenges to deletions or banning cannot be effectively presented and disagreements with moderation policies go nowhere.

There's no question that moderation is a very tough problem. But I am not a free-speech absolutist and I would be much quicker to get rid of trolls than this site is. But it's not my site.

The problem isn't trolls. The problem is entrenched group think.

There is a core group of people here with a decidedly left of center political ideology who attack anyone who express any perspective that differs from their own views. The response is as you would expect. The result is entrenched positions and constant personal attacks.

Whether someone is considered a troll depends far more on their viewpoints than their behavior, some pretty abusive behavior from popular members are praised. People who express the "wrong" opinions or perspectives are attacked no matter how respectfully they express themsves.

The community here has a choice. Is this a place for one big liberal faction to attack all other viewpoints and a smaller conservative faction to attack back? Or is this a place for people to respectfully discuss interesting ideas from different perspectives.

Most people seem to prefer the former.

I disagree. Because in the absence of trolls, I've seen ideological skirmishes break out between members of the "core group of people here with a decidedly left of center political ideology." One can always find things to argue about, even in a discussion between people with similar viewpoints.

I have only seen this on a few occasions, and only when there's been a long-simmering personality clash between two members. And in these cases the people involved are usually eager to continue trading punches. I haven't seen a new person show up and get subjected to abuse unless they are particularly ill-informed and/or combative, hardly the sorts of people you refer to who express themselves respectfully. And if someone does show up on a political thread and pushes a line which seems counter to the prevailing sentiment — what, everyone else is supposed to agree with him? Ignore him? Seems to me the respectful thing to do would be to analyze his arguments and counter them with any available facts and figures. That's what political discussion is for. Attack the argument, not the person.

oralloy and I once discussed the possibility of having heavily-moderated threads where name-calling is forbidden. If layman wanted to refer generally to "cheese-eaters" or if hightor wanted to call some Trump supporters "opioid-eaters", fine. But specifically addressing a member this way would not be allowed. The problem is that some people are easily offended and others are really thick-skinned so there would always be people who would feel that they were unfairly censored — but maybe this wouldn't be that high a price to pay???

I think it's possible that the election of Trump has a lot to do with the forum climate in that he and the alt-right have really reveled in that "gloves off, take no prisoners" type of discourse. Conversation has been coarsened throughout the whole society, not just on A2K. I don't believe we'd be seeing this level of vitriol with someone like Romney or Jeb! in the White House.


Social Media is Making Us Dumber

what Robert has posted about the next generation about A2k suggests this will be handled more easily by individual members - sort of like forum silos with silo leaders determining who's allowed in and whether blocking will be allowed in their silos

I've been reading a bit recently about the positive effect of removing outliers from on-line discussions. People end up getting more information from other perspectives instead of less.

___


it builds on the arguing to win v arguing to learn research

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-toxic-political-conversations-changing-how-we-feel-about-objective-truth/

I love the article, EhBeth. I didn't see anything there about removing outliers.

The idea of removing outliers always concerns me. There was a time, not too long ago, when people who supported same-sex marriage or woman's sufferage were the outliers. The people who who get to define who are the outliers weild great power to shape discussion and even opinion.

I have a science education, and a strong belief in scientific institutions. I believe in climate science, this doesn't mean I am unwilling to engage with people who deny climate change... and I certainly don't want them silenced. I choose to either engage or ignore depending on whether a specific discussion interests me or not.

The need to attack and silence rather than ignore or engage is what I see as the main problem here.

I like that differentiation lot!

I'm trying to find a free article about the connected research. It's interesting stuff.

The basic idea is that if you pull out the farthest fringe elements, you're more likely to be able to listen to / debate with people you don't agree with. Less likelihood of enforcing the bubble. Good good stuff.