Politics IS a philosophy forum!

That is the punchline of the joke.

Sure, tom's follow up where he called Bruce "a racist" is a personal attack. He should have said "His posts are racist." But that's not grounds for Bruce's emotional flip out, esp. when tom's post is read by someone openly playing the role of a racist on the internet who's remotely familiar with what the opposing side thinks.

I guess you're upset about my contrarian thing because you think those 4ish sentences are the best I've stated my case? I've dropped word bombs on the subject multiple times spanning multiple forums. If you need your own private word bomb on the subject, fine.

But wait, you guys are still parading the "Bruce is being a contrarian" line, so he should have been happy to be called a racist and not you know, threatened to ban everyone.

And the lolracism wasn't as bad as the loldefense by spank/foldn/swisssssssss

That 1,400 kids being abused has nothing to do with the BruceZ issue and its ridiculous to bring it up as if its a meaningful point.

I wasn't going to make another post on this topic, the time to move on has long since passed. However the framing of the situation presented in the last set of posts is too much. The idea that the crux of the issue is not Bruce's original posts nor his manner following them but that I said he was a racist rather than his posts were racist is ludicrous on it's face.

Nevertheless even taking at face value that it was my "personal attack" that was the major problem in all of this the logic fails. The person I was "attacking" did not exist. He was a creation of Bruce the contrarian. If I call Homer Simpson a fat idiot is that a personal attack on Matt Groening? The fact that the character had the same name as the creator was not my doing. My post was only a personal attack on Bruce if Bruce himself was the person holding those views and not his alter-ego Mr. Racist.

I would also question whether calling Mr. Racist a racist counts as a personal attack but am willing to concede that point for the sake of clarity. I didn't attack Bruce because Bruce doesn't agree with the posts that Mr. Racist posted. Right?

Hey look yet another mocker with a contentless argument.

Explain the psychological concept which supports the theory a casual philosopher should expect to be called racist with a smile and should perform this behavior 100% of the time like an inhuman machine whether the circumstances are expected or not.

I thought it might be, but I wasn't sure.

I don't know who "you guys" is supposed to include, but I have yet to formulate any sort of defense of Bruce's posts. You must have me confused with someone else.

Somebody quote the post again. It was not a personal attack.

He is helpful and can be a great guy. Nice guy. These sincere words are not an attack.

The post had a point: the racial barriers are maintained by nice people now, not by monsters.

The posts before Bruce came to hulk smash covered all the based. Ffs this is what an effective defense of Bruce looks like, not an attack.

This times infinity.

chez,

Here's a smattering of posts, all from the last year, where Politics posters use "apologize" as I did. It's really quite a common word to use when people are trying to explain away the indefensible acts or words of another party.

You can click through to all of these and investigate, but on all occasions, the author was understood.

Thank you.

That was one of the mains sources of anger. If you or Tom had clarified it early on then it could only have helped.

I don't know why you didn't and I dont know why Tom didn't but it was clearly causing anger and has continued to do so, so at best it was careless.

Your argument wasn't about whether the anger was excusable. The fact is it did cause a lot of anger as you knew it full well and your argument that the contrarian argument can be dismissed because of that anger is very weak.


its your argument. If you really think you can defend it then present it in its best light. The previous version was even worse, remember the one where you forgot Tom's personal attack.

This is not a personal attack. I bolded the hints in the post that make it clearly not a personal attack. There's a lot of them. Bruce is not the point of the post. The point is you make make a pretty big mountain with enough grains of sand.

You can't really be this obtuse, but I'll explain it anyway.

I'm not saying that Bruce was or was not simply being contrarian. I have no opinion on that.

However, it is flat out absurd to suggest that being a contrarian means someone has no emotional investment in what they're saying. Nobody is saying Bruce is a sociopath, so why are all of you assuming that having an emotional reaction somehow means he wasn't being contrarian??? The two have absolutely no connection. I mean, it's not even like he was necessarily consciously being contrarian, but even if he were, it still does not follow.

Also, not only is calling someone a racist an obvious personal attack and not some point that needs to be conceded. Calling someone's post racist is also a personal attack, because it amounts to basically the same thing. Something more appropriate would be "what you're saying seems racist to me, can you please explain what you actually mean?" Any approach that says you have already judged what they mean without allowing for misinterpretation is a personal attack.

Trying to frame the situation as an 'understandable but perhaps somewhat over the top reaction caused by the anger from a personal attack' does not square with the 'these are not Bruce's real views' frame. You have to give up one or the other to be at least logically consistent

You are presenting an insanity defense. tom fired such hateful words they excuse whatever comes after.

It's worth remembering the original incident was a man murdered by a police officer who will face no consequences. Bruce thinks those who identify with the victim should suck it up and not protest.

However the distinction between "racist posts" and "racist" applied to Bruce is an injustice that makes it OK to burn it all down.

Stone wall.

It is absolutely related to this entire situation. Get your head out of the sand, and if you haven't already read that article! Some have been saying for awhile you guys won't be convinced about Bruce, and I've conceded that. Jehovah, Budda, and St. Nick themselves could appear to us all right here, showing you they're real, but even they couldn't convince you Bruce and the rest of us aren't racists, much less that Thomas Jefferson was a swell guy. I've accepted that, and you should accept that's a big problem.

Given that you'll never budge on those issues, I'm pointing out a problem that stems from that, a consequence of that mindset, one that pervades these forums and is starting in on society at large. A mindset of blind PC thought that has potential to do as much damage as it attempts to prevent.

"I don't know who you're addressing, even though you clearly point it out on the next line, but I'll reply anyway!" Do you just have an auto reply script to reply to any post that contains the "BruceZ?"

I love how you can say "contentless" as you quote yourself and talk to your other personalities about nothing for pages on end. Really Spank?

If BruceZ was saying very outlandish, racist things that he in no way believes, why would he be so offended he has to take the ball and go home for being called a racist? Rather then waiting a week to be "Sorry guys for threatening to ban all of you! I was just saying those things because other racists would!" he might have, you know, done this within say...a week? And again, you're saying Bruce is like the captain of team math and philosophy. He doesn't post emotionally first, it's all logic and math. But that SMP stuff really falls apart when you use those arguments spank. Bruce is allowed to be the king of philosophy and math the second until he gets questioned, then he can fly off the rails and call people vaginas?

We've argued this every time, tom, but every time, we keep getting both conflicting counterarguments.

That's not the idea. Bruce has acknowledged what he did wrong. You're mistakes may have been lessor but you have never acknowledged them at all and that's an ongoing problem.

Firstly You knew your 'clearly racist' comment had made him angry so if it was being misunderstood you should have clarified it. if it wasn't a mistake then it should have been deleted if I understand correctly.

The second thing you should have done to reduce the anger was amend your original x-post to add the question and first line of the answer. Some including Bruce though that was important for context and there's no obvious reason not that i cans see. Why didn't you do that it was clearly causing anger.

That is idiotic. You were attacking Bruce, you didn't even know about the contrarian issue. If you had attacked the posts as you should have then its different but you were claiming Bruce the person and poster was a racist.

Your post quoted me...

Just give the best argument for it you have. Every version I've seen has been extremely weak and largely fallacious. Clearly you and Tom do believe its a strong logical argument so lets see it backed up for once.

Chez, you know all that goes out the window when instead of Bruce responding with "Sorry guys! I was just playing a character. But, I don't like being called a racist, it makes me look bad and my personal views actually do not reflect this." he goes "Hey, I'm going to ban you and delete any post that offends me" it skips that entire step. There isn't any room for the discourse you suggest when Bruce responds in the way he does. It would have been nice if it went down like that, but there was only a brief window in which it could have.

What in the world kind of logic do you speak of where taking someone's posts out of context with the specific intent of smearing that person shouldn't make him angry. And after that, he should just shrug off being called a racist? Unbelievable. What planet are you from??? And as if you would have ever believed him at any point after going all in like that, lol. You can't believe him because then you'll have to face what you've done, and what you are.