matthew330

...this is ridiculous. You guys can have your politics board. The only way for a thread not to get locked when a conservative wants to add his two cents is to approach every situation with "gee guys, you all have such wonderfull points of view that i've never considered, but i'd like to offer you this blah blah blah. Obviously i'm only posting this because i can't wait to hear some constructive criticism with my way of thinking.....blah blah blah.

Of course this approach still get some cocky little remark deserving of a bitch slap - just a bit more subtle.

I refuse to take an apologetic approach to my points of view. Just a simple, factual - no, your way off base..case in point Harmless and his "if your gonna quote limbaugh"

a. he didn't, because
b. Limbaugh never even said that

How pointing that out turned into a thread being locked is beyond me.

Of course this resulted in a liberal "WHAAAATT WHAAAAT, OH MY GOOOOD!!"

because this is becomming a recurring theme, in Hanxter's words...Night night. Enjoy your liberal love fest.

Superbelt

Actually that thread was locked, and deservedly for being massively off topic. Not because of any bias. I realized that when I continued on the tax path. I knew we had a very good chance of being shut down.
hanxter was just exerting a little bit of order. Don't take it personally, it was a reaction to the general trend, not any one poster.

Superbelt

You need to go to these links and get it directly from Limbaughs mouth. And you can make your own decision

http://mediamatters.org/items/200405130001
Yes it is Brock's media matters, but it is TRANSCRIPTS. Taken directly from Limbaugh's own site.

So read them. Excerpts.

He agrees that it is a college frat prank. Already there were reports of beatings, rape and sodomy.

And he equates the consentual relationship between Clinton and Lewinski.... to forced sodomy with broomsticks, chemical lights, joysticks and straight up male on femal rape.

The guy is scum.

I would like to see Limbaugh's reaction if he were to be on the receiving end of any of this shit. You too. Wonder what you'd think then.
The Red Cross estimates that the majority of the prisoners of Abu Ghraib were innocent and due to be released. So you can't say they deserved what they got.

onetime2

Been in meetings all day so I can't say I know what happened in the other thread but it should be fun to check it out.

While I agree that you can't say they deserved what they got, you also can't say for sure the victims of the torture were innocent. I suspect Limbaugh's aggreement to the "frat prank" equivalency theory is in the context of beheadings, suicide bombings, purposeful targeting of innocent civilians, etc. Not to excuse his words as I'm sure quite a bit of it is to generate discussion and cause a stir, but I believe the relative harm done on a seemingly small scale in Abu Ghareb is much smaller than the relative harm done done terrorists and their supporters.

__________________
Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Kadath

Okay, rather than get this thread locked too...
I think it's really funny that I was just as pissed as matthew330 that the thread got locked. I also think it's funny that liberals complain about the conservative bias amongst the moderators. Clearly there is no such bias either way, if the mods are pissing off both sides. But I say "Nighty night" to you, matthew330. I will send you postcards from the liberal love-fest.

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it's quiet in here

Superbelt

Doesn't matter if they are innocent or not anyway. There is absolutely no excuse for what happened. We don't treat even Charles Manson like that. Why Iraqi insurgents? As such the only option is to denounce the acts. I though moral equivocating is something Rush likes to rail on about Liberals anyway?
You know, things are either black, or white.
I also think the relative harm done is greater than you think from the Ghraib side of the picture. We have "lost" the moral high ground and are helping with recruitment towards anti american terrorism and insurgent iraqi fighting. This is roundly a bad development for our servicemen.

Hanxter

thank you, belt - now i think i'll have one

onetime2

There's no question that these crimes hurt our perception and help terrorists to recruit followers. But I don't agree that we ever had the "moral high ground" in anyone's thinking but our own. There is such a wide belief throughout the world that the USA can do no good and that they only do some good out of self interest that few give us any credit for doing something in the name of humankind or morality.

The fact is, what I outlined is not moral equivalency it's pointing out the different moralities of the situations. If you want to see an example of moral equivalency go to the thread where numerous people claim the torture at the hands of US soldiers was at least as bad as the beheading of Nick Berg.

In terms of relative harm to the world, Murder = torture is not the same as Murder > prisoner abuse/torture (I am not including the murder of prisoners in these abuse accusations since they appear to be different instances and at least one of the murderers has been brought to justice).

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

analog

Massively off-topic posts, no matter the party................ 2 pages

Thread closure due to people who ignore warnings............ 1 post

Reading and understanding the Tilted Politics Rules........... priceless.

In an internet full of bullshit- for everything else, there's TFP.

pig

I don't know what I missed, but people arguing about Rush Limbaugh sounds really really really unfun and generally all around bad. Which thread was this?

\rubber neckin'

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You don't love me, you just love my piggy style

HarmlessRabbit

You have no idea how funny this is, since I've exchanged messages with Analog arguing the exact opposite point.

Guess it's all a matter of perspective.

analog

I love it when points are made for me.

matthew330

...for the record i wasn't suggesting the mods had any bias and locked threads based on that bias...i understood exactly why hanxter locked the thread, of course i knew it was off topic. It's the holier than thou comments from the "other side" (i.e - the last argument with you) and the "go to your local library to get the facts". Trying to make a point when you want to say "F you" is too difficult...that coupled with the last three threads i've been in have been locked, well...so the story goes. Have fun guys.

smooth

/smooth zips big mouth for a change

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

HarmlessRabbit

I guess I don't see the point, here's what I saw happen:
- someone posted a misleading statistic (with no source)
- I pointed them to rushlimbaugh.com, where the "correct" misleading statistic is boldly, permanently displayed on the front page
- I intentionally didn't provide a URL, since the statistic was boldly on the front page and I really didn't want to derail the conversation any further, just pointing out that the statistic was wrong

Anyway, the discussion of "who really pays the most taxes" would be an interesting one. Feel free to start a thread on that topic.

Personally, I think many threads are doomed to be locked down just based on their trollish-titles. But, threads like the "torture or beheading" one sometimes prove me wrong.

pan6467

Eventually all threads are either locked down or moved on from.... it's not a sign of bias or anything, just politics brings out passion and passion sometimes makes people say stupid things.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Superbelt

Actually my quote wasn't quite so offensive.
And I only did that when you questioned the validity of the data that I posted. I gave you the source you needed to find out on your own whether or not what I posted was accurate or not.

I in no way was trying to be "holier than thou" I was trying to have an honest discussion.

pan6467

If us liberals worked as hard and put as much energy into the issues and putting out a true platform the people would buy, as we do arguing over Limbaugh's facts and trying to prove him wrong we'd have Congress and the WH.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Zeld2.0

I think when it comes down to it all...

We need to put it all into perspective that Rush and everyone else out there is out to entertain the audience. Regardless of how they really feel or act, they're out there to make money and say the things that please the people.

I really don't mind all that much about people saying what they want - if they look like an idiot, its fine for me. I'm saying in general we need to just realize that they're out to make money and say what people want to hear and to rile the other side up.

Superbelt

Yeah but there are way too many people who listen to Rush, Hannity, Savage et all and don't think they are idiots. Rather leaders.

And that's the problem. They are molding a lot of peoples minds with their lies and bigotries. My dad used to be fairly liberal. He is a truck driver and started listening to Michael Reagan and then Michael Savage on his daily route late at night. He did a complete 180 in a matter of months.

Now he thinks I'm evil.

Hanxter

laff my ass off - that was priceless

i'm an imus guy.- as you could prolly figure - he has insight and lets his take on politics run amok - right or wrong - he'll admit he doesn't have a clue and feels he doesn't have to apologize to anyone... bo dietl's vocabulary is priceless - the one who really runs his show is chuck...

don't really get into rush all that much but he can throw out some genuine gems at times along with his constant embellishment of the facts as a whole...

chris mathews has a very interesting take on political issues but he can't let the person he interviews get a word in - i find him a bombastic gas bag...

bill o'reilly can be entertaining but he's on fox and i can't stand fox news - they're just plain AWFUL...

tim russert to me is very well informed on the issues but the thing this past sunday with colin powell and his aide was a terrible take - russert could have made light of having the aide cut off powell however he emarassed himself as well as powell as happens all too often...