The disintegration of American democracy thread

[_honorentheos]

I agree Shades was biased in unfortunate ways when it comes to his treatment of ludwigm and his sock puppets. But that also includes the acknowledgment lud was not without fault.

If you track it back, I think it comes down to a couple of points with the first being the most critical.

Point 1
1a - Lud posted cartoons showing cartoon genitals and sex acts with cartoon nudity in forums where NSFW content isn't allowed,
1b - When moved to another forum and told to stop, lud got belligerent with Shades and argued he was uncultured or something of the sort.
1c - I don't know if that's a cultural thing or where it came from, but I think most of us in the same position would know we were in the wrong, would do a mea culpa on it to move on instead of turn it into a war. That's not how lud chose to respond and even when he would get let off queue status he seemed intent on winning the argument by pushing Shades in the hopes others will defend him and force Shade's hand rather than just moving on from it.

That's dumb.

Some here may also remember there were other posters around the same time challenging Shades on similar but not exactly the same issue. Shades was against nudity in art in ways reminiscent of BYU or the LDS church but it is what it is. It got zeezrom put on queue. MrStak had his stone penis avatar as part of the protest. If anything, Shades seems to have been consistently unwilling to give to anyone on the issue or care what they thought. So.

This is essentially what is behind the hostility between the two. It went both ways, too. The board lost out for it, and as the board proprietor I tend to think it is up to Shades to recognize when he is the key to resolving such hostilities. But I wouldn't pretend that ludwigm did nothing or that Shades was completely irrational.

Grumpy old men, in three words.

Point 2
Second Amendment - Shades has a tendency to miss nuance in posts, including sending posts to the off topic forum that most people could read between the lines and see how they were not only on topic, but probably more so for their oblique take on the topic at hand.
2b - Ludwigm tends to be oblique in his take on most subjects rather than direct which I think many posters found witty, but clearly they were a miss with Shade most of the time.
2c - Given Shades usually doesn't move Moksha's oblique posting, it seems the requirement to have some cultural interpretation or knowledge to make the connection is missing for him to assume even if he didn't get the nuance it was still likely there.

But again, ludwigm challenged him in ways that went pretty far towards undermining his authority on the board and I don't expect Shades takes that casually. That he began to be singled out after that shouldn't be surprising. Life kinda works like that. Add to that ludwigm was on the opposing side to the United States during the Cold War which involved living in a polar opposite worldview when it comes to the US projecting power in the world, and has said plenty of things that would rub someone wrong who was on the US side of that propaganda effort that becomes just one more thing to add fuel to this fire. Personally I think it is good for the board to have a voice from outside our cultural norms including someone who was not spoon fed on American greatness, etc., etc. But I don't expect everyone to respond well to it when it shows up as rawly as it has at times. Lud never missed a chance to take a shot at the US being the only nation to use a nuclear weapon in war, for example, and leveraged this in discussions. If that bothers someone, it's probably going to really bother them. Again, life is like that.

[_EAllusion]

It looks like the Navy Secretary is being forced out over his mild rebuke of Trump pardoning war criminals. I've seen some crowing about the military standing up to Trump, but that's not how this works. It just means that the military is being gradually purged of people insufficiently pliant to what Trump represents.

[_Res Ipsa]

It looks like the Navy Secretary is being forced out over his mild rebuke of Trump pardoning war criminals. I've seen some crowing about the military standing up to Trump, but that's not how this works. It just means that the military is being gradually purged of people insufficiently pliant to what Trump represents.

I think it’s worse than that. The article I read said he offered to let the soldier keep a pin if the executive wouldn’t interfere. That’s apparently a firing offense. Compare and contrast at your own risk.

[_EAllusion]

It looks like the Navy Secretary is being forced out over his mild rebuke of Trump pardoning war criminals. I've seen some crowing about the military standing up to Trump, but that's not how this works. It just means that the military is being gradually purged of people insufficiently pliant to what Trump represents.

I think it’s worse than that. The article I read said he offered to let the soldier keep a pin if the executive wouldn’t interfere. That’s apparently a firing offense. Compare and contrast at your own risk.

Yeah, reporting is still moving on this one. That seems to be the story. The resignation letter out and it is more of a passive aggressive acknowledgement of being forced out than you typically see. It not so subtly accuses the President of threatening the rule of law.

It's just another opportunity to promote someone who will put party and Trump before America as the Trump admin gets better and better at transforming the federal government to this end.

[_Res Ipsa]

But why is his offer to do a soldier a solid if the president doesn’t interfere with the military justice system a firing offense, while offering to do a foreign leader a solid if he’ll interfere an election campaign aok?

[_EAllusion]

But why is his offer to do a soldier a solid if the president doesn’t interfere with the military justice system a firing offense, while offering to do a foreign leader a solid if he’ll interfere an election campaign aok?

It's not. It's the mildest of mild rebukes and look where it got him.

[_Res Ipsa]

Here's an epic tweet storm by the former director of the Office of Government Ethics, who resigned in 2017. https://Twitter.com/waltshaub/status/11 ... 1730256897 I think it fits in this thread very nicely, listing the many ways in which he thinks our Republic is disintegrating.

[_Dr. Shades]

It's a shame our one Hungarian poster was run off the board. It'd be nice to have him right about now.

??? "Run off the board?" He left of his own accord. Prior to that, I practically performed the Twelve Labors of Hercules to convince him to stay.

I’m still absolutely flummoxed by Dr. Shades’ autistic hate for him.

??? Requiring off-topic material to be posted in the Off-Topic Forum (of all places) magically equals "autistic hate?"

Please explain.

We have American fascists posting memes left and right, we have an openly racist neo-Nazi, we have one guy openly supporting Communism, I’m admittedly a middling hateful r____, and we have a Mormon who routinely subverts and slides threads that rub him the wrong way. But ____ that Hungarian guy, amiright?

The latter Mormon guy is problematic, of course, but have you noticed that all those other offenders remain on topic?

Edit: Also, it’s pretty ____ hypocritical for Shades to hate on a Hungarian who just wants to share bits of his culture . . .

He was politely asked, ten times the power of ten thousand, to "share bits of his culture" in the Off-Topic Forum only. He could've done that to his very heart's content. But I guess that was just too much to ask for some unfathomable reason.

when Shades has some odd duck obsession with his waifus, to the point of stickying a thread . . .

??? The thread ISN'T stickied.

(And did you notice that the thread is in the Off-Topic Forum?)

Shades was against nudity in art in ways reminiscent of BYU or the LDS church but it is what it is. It got zeezrom put on queue. MrStak had his stone penis avatar as part of the protest. If anything, Shades seems to have been consistently unwilling to give to anyone on the issue or care what they thought. So.

All that was simply because I know how message board users operate: "When given an inch, take a yard." When I said that true art (as opposed to ludwigm's cartoon rape scenes) of the kind that would hang in the Louvre could be posted, the very first thing someone did was post a painting of a woman's spread-eagled vulva. So, since I want this site to be 100% safe for work, I had to reluctantly do what needed to be done.

The board lost out for it, and as the board proprietor I tend to think it is up to Shades to recognize when he is the key to resolving such hostilities.

Oh, how I tried, how I tried, how I tried to resolve the hostilities. But giving one guy a free pass to ignore the rules that everyone else must follow is not the way to do so. . . but unfortunately, he would accept nothing less.

[_EAllusion]

Shades,

You repeatedly gated, moved, and placed inordinate focus on his posts in a way that no doubt felt harassing to him.

You did this because you were personally annoyed by what seemed to you be a pattern of off-topic, derailing posts about Hungary. What you never quite got is that a lot of those "off-topic" posts had topic-relevant points that others appreciated. That others kept telling you this never really moved your opinion enough to matter. It is because you are literal-minded to a fault.

[_Lemmie]

....But giving one guy a free pass to ignore the rules that everyone else must follow is not the way to do so....

Cough-jubilee-cough.......