I used to be like you. I would hold court in several threads. Sometimes making long detailed, well researched arguments. It got old, saying the same things over and over again. New people, same arguments. Same effort and over time I got tired of being so involved.
I take a more ‘eastern’ approach. I speak a truth and let folks eventually figure out why it’s true.
It was rewarding at times, I would get private messages of appreciation. With the demise of private massages the satisfaction languishes. A ‘thumbs up’ isn’t quite the same as a ‘You really made me think about…’
I would like to see the return of private messages.
But I understand that some misused them, hence their demise.
There was a time when the forum was more fun.
"… For my part, I will do everything in my power to keep politics out of the confirmation process…
a) Bullshit and b) impossible.
(Hatch does say “she” in the piece a lot). Many feel that because Barrett would be the most controversial PIC…Trump is going to pick her. Any opportunity he has to be controversial and to say “F*#ck-You” to the Democrats…Trump takes it.
@ A contentious process and his mention of the 1987 Bork hearing. This was pretty painful to watch. I was kind of shocked that this was the way he spoke to a conservative in 1987.
@ Barrett. A litmus test on her religion, or on her stance on abortion. We already have quite a few Catholics on the court. One’s personal or religious view on abortion can differ from, do not always dictate, how they might vote in terms of public policy issues the effect the nation.
@ The previous talk about who cares for the poor. It’s pretty hard to knock Catholic Charities. Caring for the poor and being conservative are not mutually exclusive categories. My LDS mother-in-law ran a food pantry for a non-religious local charity for many years. It was an unpaid job for her. She’s not politically active, so she wasn’t protesting the recent situation with immigrant children, but she spent many hours every week running a program that feeds many poor immigrant families in SoCal. And she’s pro-life and belongs to a church with a very 2008 DNC stance on traditional marriage. wink. I guess Christ can sort it out and decide if her lack of political activism make her less of a disciple than someone who walks in a protest march. She’s certainly more conservative than I am on these issues, but she’s nearly perfect in my eyes with regard to caring for people in meaningful ways.
I’m not knocking political activism. And we all try to vote in ways that reflect our values.
I’ve often been slow to realize that when I would do this, and get a one or two sentence rejoinder back, that’s a form of trolling. It’s a debate tactic to keep you on the defensive, but there’s no real communication or exchange of ideas going on. The forum is worse for it.
It’s often times that the individuals long thought out post doesn’t warrant a long thought out response.
Take Pat’s post about forums above. It was an endpoint to Pat implying tnation is my life because I’m capable of following 4-5 threads with very low activity.
Even his further talks of a direct message system I disagree with, as I believe those behind closed doors atta boys contribute to people not having the balls to voice their opinion. Which of us is right? Neither. It’s just a personal preference and mentality on why we post. Does it warrant this drawn out response that will create a conflicting back and forth and provide no value? Pat clearly isn’t an idiot, so he’s imagined my thought process before, as it’s not very complex, he just disagrees.
To take it a step further to indicate “this is why they do it” demonstrates a clear lack of knowledge on the issue, that I wouldnt expect you to have because your forum posting style is one of blocks of texts instead of back and forth conversations
Points taken. I should have been more specific. I wasn’t thinking of you. I was thinking of other posters over the years. I’ve never thought you were trolling.
@ Back and forth conversations. Sometimes that’s hard because we’re often in different time zones and sometimes I don’t see something until a day later, and the thread has moved on. But yeah, that’s ideal.
The PM system allowed people to talk to each other personally, which had some positives.
It’s not my intention. I’m trying to be clear, and that often takes more than one or two sentences.
True, I often talk about several things in one post instead of splitting them up and that can be confusing or maybe just work, TLDR. ie. I started replying to LegalSteel but the last part of my post was related to other conversations further up thread, not the possibility of a Barrett confirmation.
Back and forths are much more commonplace on higher traffic forums. By nature of long thought out posts even existing on tnation, it’s essentially a testament to the traffic even being low enough to allow for it.
Probably spawns from being in the politics section of a bodybuilding site rofl.
That’s what I’m talking about though. In order for yourself to have a strong conversation, you need to explain your points in detail, as you won’t be posting 30x a day to clarify what you mean. It’s really just a difference in posting style
A record of actual legal decisions and/or a paper trail of writings is probably a better gauge (even though that can be “flawed” somewhat).
What legal decisions and writings tell you is about the process and precedent that a judge may…and I emphasize may use as he or she looks at the Law.
But again, even using “reasonable” criteria can be flawed.
Bork was qualified…and a legal scholar that had more writings on the Law than anyone who had come up for nomination. And those writings and opinions were used like poison darts at his confirmation hearings. (“Being Bork’d” is an actual term for a brutal confirmation hearing).
Barrett is “controversial” (for some) for two reasons:
a very thin record of decisions and writings, and 2) she has written about the moral conflicts facing Catholic judges.
Is being “religious” and a good judge mutually exclusive?
Of COURSE not. But since as mere mortals who can’t read peoples hearts and minds; we are left with their writings and responses to tough questions…and hope that they are being honest with their answers.
That’s not really true. In more than half of the states, there is a crime of fetal homicide. Homicide means killing of a human being. The supreme court however has ruled consistently with the concept that a fetus is not a legal person up to now.
There are a few older posters from way back when, the one- BostonBarrister comes to mind that would utterly crush on a lot of political subjects with some really well thought postings including citations from scholarly sources and all. There were a shit ton more posters and traffic on here at the time too. That was probably around '02-04 though.
The population on this sub forum is really sparse now. Pretty much just a smattering.
Oh well. Enough reminiscing. Back to the regularly scheduled “You’re right, but I’m Righter!” already in progress.
I’ve mentioned this before…the Back-and-Forth between @thunderbolt23 and Push gave me a greater perspective on the Constitution; our Republic ; it’s Founders; Liberal/Conservative…you name it…than reading books for YEARS had given me.
Also; @loppar and @Jewbacca have given me enormous “on the ground” perspectives on the Middle East.
The numbers are not as important as the quality of the posters…until (as you pointed out @SkyzykS)…we begin to lose quality posters.
That doesn’t change the definition of human being. Some states will treat feticide as a crime in some cases but I believe more pregnant women have been charged than an outside person. Pat believes that once there is autonomy it is a human being. He doesn’t know what autonomy means. It is normal for him to use words incorrectly. He thinks autonomy means it can be identified as having a separate genetic code from the mother. In other words, a zygote is a human being. A zygote is not a human being by the current definition. He can believe it should be defined as such but that doesn’t make it so.
Pat will post things that are flat out factually false as though they are true. When you reply with a short post pointing out he is wrong, because it doesn’t warrant a long response, he accuses you of trolling. That’s Pat’s response to facts: trolling.
We’ve lost a lot of good people. People who realized, that a least for a while, this forum was different. @forlife left in the middle of a really good convo with @kamui and myself.
He said he would be back and he disappeared. I hope he’s ok.
You’re a great poster though. Keep it up.
