Electoral Idiots...

Drew_TNBD

Emp_Fab said:

1. I'm sorry but I just can't accept that any sane person would vote for Trump.   

Well Kevin, you need to accept it.

DREW SELF EDIT: Because modmins asked nicely! xx

Emp_Fab

Dear God man.... is this the only way you know how to behave ?  How old are you ?  Seriously.  Your ability to converse is crippled by your seemingly bottomless cesspit of expletive-laden ad hominems.  It's quite obvious you keep trying to outdo yourself with the insults.  Kind of like a 'shock-jock' who's show is going stale.

Seriously - it would be interesting to discuss your thoughts and opinions, but time and time again you've proved yourself utterly incapable of doing so.  You can barely get a sentence down before exploding into a rage with some tedious potty-mouth phrase.

I'm trying to have a discussion here and you are like a needy child stamping his feet screaming "Pay attention to MEEEEE!".

Grow up or fuck off.  Jeeez.

Drew_TNBD

Emp_Fab said:

Seriously - it would be interesting to discuss your thoughts and opinions

Sorry man, just too much poor form on your part for me to even be bothered with that; even your objection to funny words and piss-taking is poor form in my eyes. I tried to keep this marriage going, but you just kept sleeping around and hitting me. I wont take it anymore.

Back to popcorn land with me!

JezWynd

Emp_Fab said:

Well, what words would you use to describe people who cast votes - that can easily change the outcome of what government we all get and the direction the country takes for the next five years - without really understanding why, because they haven't bothered to read anything about what the parties stand for or are voting because of any of the reasons I mentioned in my first post.  I think lazy and idiot is appropriate (even though 'idiot' is a tad strong I'll admit, but again it was a play on 'American Idiot') - either way doing something that affects the lives of everyone without understanding what you're doing is pretty idiotic.

Does it really matter what words I use to describe the people we're talking about anyway ?  Whether I tippie-toe around it and use genteel language or do a Drew and go full 'fly infested c*nts' on it, it doesn't change a thing.  The question still stands.

..or are you saying you're only willing to discuss things if the disparaging monikers used meet your parameters ?

You do appear to be be saying that they should meet yours. Pot, kettle?

Emp_Fab

No.  Sporky was explaining that he felt that personal insult responses were down to my choice of teminology - i.e. 'lazy' and 'idiot' and said that "(I had) set the parameters myself".  i.e. if I call some of the electorate 'lazy' or 'idiot' then that justifies people on the forum calling me some choice names.  I found that interesting because it is perfectly fine to criticise non-forum folk or groups but personal insults are not permitted on the forum.  So in effect, he was saying that it is OK for the rules to be broken when people feel like it. (or at least was explaining why it happened, not necessarily agreeing with it).

I then asked whether discussions could only take place if the terms used (for the electorate) fell within his parameters of acceptable terms.

I'm not saying anything about requiring disparaging monikers to meet my parameters.  Personal insults are not allowed on the forum.  There are no parameters to meet - and even if there are, they aren't mine.

chrispy108

Emp_Fab said:

the only reason people voted for Trump was because they are weapons-grade fuckwits.

You seem pretty happy to throw out insults for someone who states they ruin debate. I don't buy your viewpoint that you insulting half a country is perfectly ok, but someone calling you a bobber is a hideous crime.


You also seem pretty insistent with the idea that people just started throwing personal insults at you, they really didn't, the thread is full of people arguing with your points. The attacks started when you made your whinge on page 3 which was basically another case of you telling people they're doing the internet wrong because they didn't type what you wanted them to.

Emp_Fab

No.  It's fine - in my book - to call half a country fuckwits.  That's not a personal insult.  A personal insult is telling you (or whoever) that "you are a retarded septic bellend and I hope your next shit is a porcupine sideways" (sorry, I can't reach "Level Drew" at this - he's much better at it :-) ).

Personal insults are against forum rules.  That's 50% of it.  The other 50% is that once the personal insults start, the thread is effectively dead as it just turns into a bar-brawl.  Calling someone an "arrogant c*nt" or whatever contributes absolutely nothing to the debate.

chrispy108

Right, there you go again. The fact that you've just decided that a large group of people are "fuckwits" means that you aren't making a shred of effort to understand them or why they do the things they do. You're totally closed minded, when you claim to be all up for open debate.

And no, the thread wasn't a bar-brawl, seriously, go read it again, lots of people eloquently debated your post, and no one swore at you until the third page, after you'd whinged about being attacked.

Sporky

Emp_Fab said:

So in effect, he was saying that it is OK for the rules to be broken when people feel like it. (or at least was explaining why it happened, not necessarily agreeing with it).

The latter, which is very different from the former.

Emp_Fab said:

No.  It's fine - in my book - to call half a country fuckwits.  That's not a personal insult.  A personal insult is telling you (or whoever) that "you are a retarded septic bellend and I hope your next shit is a porcupine sideways" (sorry, I can't reach "Level Drew" at this - he's much better at it :-) ).

Though that argument suggests that institutional racism (for example) is OK, because it's not personal?

Emp_Fab

It would indeed, were it not for established rules that say racism / sexism etc is bad, which almost everyone abides by.  Beyond the borders of these 'hard' rules lies the ambiguous swampland of 'Political Correctness'.  At one end, you can't say someone is a "nigg*r", and at the other end you could be mocked for refusing to use the phrase "gentleman of colour".

Jalapeno

Emp_Fab said:

No.  It's fine - in my book - to call half a country fuckwits.  That's not a personal insult.

At one end, you can't say someone is a "nigg*r", and at the other end you could be mocked for refusing to use the phrase "gentleman of colour".

Following your logic use of the generic term n*ggers is acceptable but targetting an individual as a n*gger is not. Doesn't really hold water IMNSHO.

Drew_TNBD

Emp_Fab said:

No.  It's fine - in my book - to call half a country fuckwits.  That's not a personal insult.  A personal insult is telling you (or whoever) that "you are a retarded septic bellend and I hope your next shit is a porcupine sideways" (sorry, I can't reach "Level Drew" at this - he's much better at it :-) ).

Personal insults are against forum rules.  That's 50% of it.  The other 50% is that once the personal insults start, the thread is effectively dead as it just turns into a bar-brawl.  Calling someone an "arrogant c*nt" or whatever contributes absolutely nothing to the debate.

*sighhhhh* I just can't resist. Okay...

PART ONE:

Taking my attack-attack-aggressive-pisstaking helmet off.. let me ask you a set of very real and very pertinent questions:

Why do you make this distinction between the personal and the non-personal, and why only in the context of insults?

You've torn me a new one constantly for taking jabs at a generalised group such as feminists (for example; let's not get side-tracked into THAT discussion, let's stay on point) yet when you do the exact same sort of thing with a generalised group such as 'half the country' you somehow think it's acceptable?

Are you guilty of not following your own code of ethics here, or is there some hidden context that I am not seeing?

You state that your opening gambit doesn't qualify as a personal insult, but you don't disagree that it's an insult nonetheless. So should the forum rules be changed to encapsulate one of the moderators viewpoints?

IE: Should it be changed from 'personal insults are not allowed' to 'personal insults ARE allowed' or 'insults are not allowed' or 'insults ARE allowed' ?

And by my count, no-one has called you an 'arrogant c*nt' - not even me. But you have said the following to people in this very thread:

- What the fuck have you been smoking to come to that strange conclusion ?

Is the implication that someone must be mentally incapacitated by a drug, in order to hold the opinion they do, not considered a personal insult?

- Are so many here really incapable of rational, logical discussion of theories
True that this was not leveled at an individual, rather a group. But is it not still a set of personal insults? Claiming someone isn't rational because they disagree with you seems pretty insulting to me.

Almost every single time you've objected to insults being used it's been immediately after you've insulted people either directly or indirectly. The only difference I can spot is that some people use filthy language and you, to your credit, mostly don't. So it seems to me that there is something else going on here.

I'd like to posit that it isn't necessarily personal insults that you find offensive. Because you do insult people on an impersonal level, so we know it can't be the 'insult' aspect that is an issue for you. We also know that you have personally insulted people in this thread and past threads, and whilst your language was not filthy when you did it, they were insults all the same. So we know it's not the 'personal' that offends you either.

So it seems to me that you have this cognitive dissonance when it comes to filthy language. You're perfectly fine using it yourself, but when others use it you find it base, demeaning, and offensive. You might want to reflect on this.

PART TWO:

I've been on forums since I was 12. So for at least 20 years now. Gaming forums were the thing when I was a kid, then it was music forums. My method of communication has changed, but I can see that there is this fundamental root that I find difficult to change. It's that whole mischievous 'Loki' character that lives within my soul. I like to prod and poke, antagonise, and satirise. It's my mode of being.

Now that might be obvious to some, but just in case it isn't - yes! I'm totally aware that I act like a child!! And no, I don't wish to change. The only thing that has changed is my arguments and ability to distill an issue down to it's core elements has improved.

When I go back to the dead forums I used to post on (and as an aside; make no bones about it.. this place will die too) and read my comments, I do come across like an absolute retard. Every now and then there is a nugget of interesting comments, but mostly it's pretentious waffle that I should be put inside a fire for. I think my signal to noise ratio has improved slightly with age though.

Communication is a very interesting thing. When you isolate any single aspect of it, it often produces undesirable results. Like text without body-language for example. I find it best to read forums with a viewpoint that most people are trying to be a standup comedian. It's funnier and more tolerable that way. If you approach forums with the classic thinking that it is a 'pub' then you're going to have issues. Because the bottom line is there are things that are done and said online that would never happen in a pub. That's literally just the meat and bones of communicating on the internet. Everyone needs to accept that, because it's a torrential wave of misery, loathing, and disgust. It will never disappear - it's ingrained in us. The human condition.

So when you complain about how people communicate, you're really doing two things:

1 - Encouraging them to communicate like that in future, because it's how they know they can get the exact response they want from you.
2 - Engaging in a Sisyphean quest of changing the world. But in reality you're just going round and round in circles.

Don't try to change people, or the world. Only try to change yourself.

PART THREE:

I wasn't going to tackle the opening gambit. I found it so obviously trite, dull, and pointless to do so. But after four pages now there are some things that have not been pointed out very clearly. So let me try and do that:

1. You can't assume that just because someone voted for Trump or Brexit (for example) that they were misinformed or that they did no research or that they were too lazy to think for themselves. Not everyone is the same. We all have different needs, desires, life experiences and backgrounds, living scenarios and situations, different emotions and different propensity's for bowing down to those emotions, and the whole gamut of things that makes a human a human.

You're doing yourself and the entire world a disservice by reducing your argument down to pithy one-liners.

2. It has been said, but let's clearly state it: Taking away people's right to vote is not democratic. It's fascism.

3. Refusal to analyse your assumptions on the "60% of voters who don't know what they're doing" is exactly why you've had so much push back in this thread. Sporky's initial cartoon covered it really. No-one else really needed to respond. By the very definition, your words here are extremely arrogant and sophistic. If you truly are walking the earth thinking that you're the only one with your eyes open to the world, and that you're the only one who does their research on political matters, then I really do fear for you. It's going to lead you down a path of unhappiness and misery, because you're going to feel so hopelessly alone that your brain will start to rationalise all manner of unhealthy patterns of thinking.

Read some Nietzsche and some Jung. Or crack one out. I don't know which the better option is.

Sporky

Drew_TNBD said:

Read some Nietzsche and some Jung. Or crack one out. I don't know which the better option is.

I don't recommend trying to crack one out while reading either of those. They're just not saucy enough.

(also: epic post)

Garthy

Emp_Fab said:

1. I'm sorry but I just can't accept that any sane person would vote for Trump.   He's an uneducated oaf.  There were enough alarm bells ringing clear and loud before the election that he was unhinged.   If you vote for such a candidate, your sanity has to be questioned.

2. My name is not Kevin.

I can't fathom how you could criticise Trump voters after posting that you'll vote for Labour. Both have manifestos that promise the moon on a stick, to be paid for by anyone else. People who pair Trump and May together are just being taken in my pop stars with nothing to say and saying it too loudly.  Clinton was the right (or rather further right) wing candidate in that race.  

There are some similarities with Corbyn and Trump, both are telling naive voters what they want to hear, and both invented a bogeyman to rail against. Trump's was the political establishment that to be fair had ignored the inland states and small town America but 5 months in it now shows that his inexperience is quite troubling.  Corbyn's bogeyman is basically "the rich" except he's not just referring to the Philip Green's or Lord Farquaard. The same money has been promised 12 times over for various ideas.

His speech on Friday about his stance on Trident was absolutely ludicrous, it was like a satirical sketch without the canned laughter, or a punchline. I'm no fan of May when she speaks as she hooks onto repetitive sound bites and rams them home, Corbyn though sounds like a very angry man struggling to remain calm so mumbles a mono drone speech that reeks of a disguise. 

His links with the IRA are also a scandal, for a pacifist he has kept some very unsavoury company in his time. Remind you of anyone?

TheBlueWolf

@Emp_Fab ;

I disagree with your view that 60% of the electorate are 'fuckwits". Sure, there needs to be more education on our voting system in terms of doing your own research and coming to an informed conclusions, but lumping over half the country into "fuckwits" because you disagree is silly. And let's face it, you've got form for threads like this lol

I still luvz you though lol xoxox

JezWynd

To address the OP. There would be more sense in performing competence tests on the candidates rather than putting the onus on the voter to sift through the endless promises and emotional bullshit that gets spewed out at election time. For instance, I'm certain that Trump would have failed any basic competency test and thus saved the world from potential disaster.

bingefeller

JezWynd said:

To address the OP. There would be more sense in performing competence tests on the candidates rather than putting the onus on the voter to sift through the endless promises and emotional bullshit that gets spewed out at election time. For instance, I'm certain that Trump would have failed any basic competency test and thus saved the world from potential disaster.

Trump is a smart guy, I'm sure he would have passed a "basic competency test".  

Drew_TNBD

I mean... I'd like some kind of response @Emp_Fab. C'mon. Don't chicken out.

chrispy108

He's probably busy digging a boat of out the beach or laying some laminate floor.

Emp_Fab

Drew_TNBD said:

I mean... I'd like some kind of response @Emp_Fab. C'mon. Don't chicken out.

Naah.  I couldn't be arsed to read your post to be honest. Waaay too long.  I'm heading up to London now anyway.  Driving and forumming is frowned upon.