3 stooges writ large

[_moksha]

Beastie, I enjoy all three of those guys you named. I have like LDSfaqs after having read his website and learned of his troubles and aspirations. Bc has always seemed a very likable person to me. Droopy seems more up and down. I can imagine playing poker with him and he upending a table on a bluff gone bad and storming out of the house, but after he calmed down also returning and offering to clean up the mess.

When you filter out posters it not only seems that you are invalidating their personhood, but also limiting yourself to an insular viewpoint. When I listen to something disagreeable, it soothes me to realize I am just hearing someone else's story and knowing that the disagreeable is not a part of me, it allows for greater compassion.

[_beastie]

Beastie, I enjoy all three of those guys you named. I have like LDSfaqs after having read his website and learned of his troubles and aspirations. Bc has always seemed a very likable person to me. Droopy seems more up and down. I can imagine playing poker with him and he upending a table on a bluff gone bad and storming out of the house, but after he calmed down also returning and offering to clean up the mess.

When you filter out posters it not only seems that you are invalidating their personhood, but also limiting yourself to an insular viewpoint. When I listen to something disagreeable, it soothes me to realize I am just hearing someone else's story and knowing that the disagreeable is not a part of me, it allows for greater compassion.

Maybe the secret is to not even try to interact with them on a serious level. I just don't see how to do it. I was shocked when droopy cited an article, praising it, just two pages after I had cited the same article, praising it - and he wasn't even aware of it. In fact, when he cited the story he specifically said I would never even consider such a reasonable article. How do you deal with that sort of behavior and remain positive?

[_beastie]

Beastie, I enjoy all three of those guys you named. I have like LDSfaqs after having read his website and learned of his troubles and aspirations. Bc has always seemed a very likable person to me. Droopy seems more up and down. I can imagine playing poker with him and he upending a table on a bluff gone bad and storming out of the house, but after he calmed down also returning and offering to clean up the mess.

When you filter out posters it not only seems that you are invalidating their personhood, but also limiting yourself to an insular viewpoint. When I listen to something disagreeable, it soothes me to realize I am just hearing someone else's story and knowing that the disagreeable is not a part of me, it allows for greater compassion.

Moksha,

I've thought more about what you've said, because I respect you. But, in the end, I disagree. I don't think putting someone on ignore invalidates their personhood at all. I think it's drawing personal boundaries. In life, we sometimes meet people with whom we have unhealthy relationships, and one has to make decisions about what kind of relationships to have with that person. Sometimes we have to accept that it's not possible to have a functioning relationship with a certain individual, and we have to respect ourselves and our lives enough to recognize that.

I also don't think that means you're limiting yourself to an insular viewpoint. There are other ways to expose oneself to an opposing viewpoint. And, frankly, some viewpoints are so extreme that one can't really engage them in a meaningful way, because the viewpoint is an expression of an illness or dysfunction of some point.

[_Analytics]

Moksha,

I've thought more about what you've said, because I respect you. But, in the end, I disagree. I don't think putting someone on ignore invalidates their personhood at all. I think it's drawing personal boundaries....

I agree with this. Here is how I draw boundaries:

Droopy: I always imagine he aspires to be a professional right-wing editorialist. As part of the job description, you have to be one-sided and provocative. By understanding he writes the way he does in order to be interesting, you don't have to take it too literally. And he tends to follow the examples of newspaper editorialists by just broadcasting his opinion and not interacting with others in a meaningful way. Sometimes I'll write an editorial in response, but the audience is always the general reader and not Droopy himself.

bcpace: When something off-topic comes up, such as watching the Hobbit in 48 fps, I find him quite interesting and likeable. Otherwise, he is almost always in troll mode: he just spurts out assertions with the sole objective of pulling other people's strings. Sometimes out of morbid curiosity I'll follow one of his links, and I'll occassionally post something just to say it. But I typically find him a bit boring.

ldsfaqs: He feels the need to rant against the evils he sees in the world. What more can you say?

[_ajax18]

Sometimes we have to accept that it's not possible to have a functioning relationship with a certain individual, and we have to respect ourselves and our lives enough to recognize that.

That's why many of us want our own country.

[_Quasimodo]

Sometimes we have to accept that it's not possible to have a functioning relationship with a certain individual, and we have to respect ourselves and our lives enough to recognize that.

That's why many of us want our own country.

There are many countries that are more right wing than the U.S. Have you considered moving? Waiting for Texas to secede may take longer than you have years to live.

The only trouble is that those countries are all Third World countries (could be a lesson for you in there, somewhere).

[_Tarski]

Sometimes we have to accept that it's not possible to have a functioning relationship with a certain individual, and we have to respect ourselves and our lives enough to recognize that.

That's why many of us want our own country.

You can't have it.

You can pay taxes, obey the rules and laws of the United States of America, you can leave the country, or you can go to jail.

Here is what will happen:

Church and state will remain separate. Laws, government and society in general will be increasingly secular.
Same sex marriage will become legal and not be seen as deviant.
The federal government will continue to use taxes for infrastructure, basic research and myriad worthy social programs.
Global efforts to overcome real social, political and environmental problems and to reach compromise and consensus will continue.
Decades upon decades will pass without any biblical end of days.
Though their numbers will dwindle, the far right will become even more like their Islamic counterparts (teaching children propaganda in special schools and seeking to to impose religious rules on everyone etc.)

The haters will keep hating.

[_ajax18]

You can pay taxes, obey the rules and laws of the United States of America, you can leave the country, or you can go to jail.

And you can just go back to your teachers lounge and moan about the fact that even I earn more money than you do.

[_Bret Ripley]

You can pay taxes, obey the rules and laws of the United States of America, you can leave the country, or you can go to jail.

Nyuk nyuk nyuk.

[_beastie]

Nyuk nyuk nyuk.