Army suicide rate "terrifying"

[Felch]

So it's OK to hate gays as long as he's polite about it.

misportraying other people's points of their arguments

[MOBIUS]

They're your own words Felch. Here they are again...

I like Ben because he doesn't get all childish. He might hate gays, but he at least acts appropriately on an online forum.

You like him. You know he hates gays. But you think he's polite.

Therefore it isn't much of a stretch to say "So it's OK to hate gays as long as he's polite about it". Because that is basically what you're saying...

If I were misportraying other people's points, I might say something like "Look, Felch thinks hating gays is acting appropriately on a online forum - Felch hates gays!!!"

[Felch]

I think it shows a personal failing on his part, if he truly does hate gays. But I don't actually care about it. If he were harassing the gay members of this board, that would be different. If he were listing the names of gay posters he hated in his sig file, that would be different. But he doesn't. He seems to just hold an old-fashioned view on homosexuality, and nothing more.

Seriously he says retarded ****, and I know that. His line about Carter at the beginning was just off the walls stupid. But until I see him say something like "Homo fags need to die and burn in Hell," I'll continue to give him the benefit of the doubt. I can't control his personal opinions, nor can I hold him accountable for anything that isn't public. That's why I'm okay with him hating gays as long as he keeps it civil. As it is, the guy seems to be more the victim of widespread bullying on here than anything else.

[MOBIUS]

Man, you're a flat out idiot...

[Asher]

I'm not sure I'd call it widespread bullying, more like widespread rejection. There is a difference.

Bullying usually implies some degree of victimization. Ben invites the comments he receives openly with his blatant disrespect for the viewpoints of others. He masks his comments with a passive-aggressive smile and fake sincerity, but it doesn't take much to see past that veil and start putting all of the pieces together. Ben is somebody that genuinely has no respect for the viewpoints of others -- he doesn't even take the common courtesy to read what people write. He invents the positions of others and misrepresents what was said which is both insulting and immensely frustrating. He's shown no willingness to learn from his past transgressions or any effort at all to be more respectful to the opinions of others, so it really should be no surprise when people react with hostility to what really is one of the slimiest posters on this site.

The most offensive thing somebody can do on a site like this is slander people by ceaselessly constructing strawmen and trying to publicly display someone's opinion to be something other than what it is. Of course, the fact that he happens to hold bigoted beliefs and constantly makes up bull**** and ignores request to substantiate it just adds to the mystique that is Ben.

[Tuberski]

They just found out that I'm sleeping with their women.

Finding out my woman had an STD would depress me too.............

ACK!

[DaShi]

I'm not sure I'd call it widespread bullying, more like widespread rejection. There is a difference.

Bullying usually implies some degree of victimization. Ben invites the comments he receives openly with his blatant disrespect for the viewpoints of others. He masks his comments with a passive-aggressive smile and fake sincerity, but it doesn't take much to see past that veil and start putting all of the pieces together. Ben is somebody that genuinely has no respect for the viewpoints of others -- he doesn't even take the common courtesy to read what people write. He invents the positions of others and misrepresents what was said which is both insulting and immensely frustrating. He's shown no willingness to learn from his past transgressions or any effort at all to be more respectful to the opinions of others, so it really should be no surprise when people react with hostility to what really is one of the slimiest posters on this site.

The most offensive thing somebody can do on a site like this is slander people by ceaselessly constructing strawmen and trying to publicly display someone's opinion to be something other than what it is. Of course, the fact that he happens to hold bigoted beliefs and constantly makes up bull**** and ignores request to substantiate it just adds to the mystique that is Ben.

qft

[MrFun]

I'm not sure I'd call it widespread bullying, more like widespread rejection. There is a difference.

Bullying usually implies some degree of victimization. Ben invites the comments he receives openly with his blatant disrespect for the viewpoints of others. He masks his comments with a passive-aggressive smile and fake sincerity, but it doesn't take much to see past that veil and start putting all of the pieces together. Ben is somebody that genuinely has no respect for the viewpoints of others -- he doesn't even take the common courtesy to read what people write. He invents the positions of others and misrepresents what was said which is both insulting and immensely frustrating. He's shown no willingness to learn from his past transgressions or any effort at all to be more respectful to the opinions of others, so it really should be no surprise when people react with hostility to what really is one of the slimiest posters on this site.

The most offensive thing somebody can do on a site like this is slander people by ceaselessly constructing strawmen and trying to publicly display someone's opinion to be something other than what it is. Of course, the fact that he happens to hold bigoted beliefs and constantly makes up bull**** and ignores request to substantiate it just adds to the mystique that is Ben.

exactly!

[Felch]

I'm not sure I'd call it widespread bullying, more like widespread rejection. There is a difference.

Bullying usually implies some degree of victimization. Ben invites the comments he receives openly with his blatant disrespect for the viewpoints of others. He masks his comments with a passive-aggressive smile and fake sincerity, but it doesn't take much to see past that veil and start putting all of the pieces together. Ben is somebody that genuinely has no respect for the viewpoints of others -- he doesn't even take the common courtesy to read what people write. He invents the positions of others and misrepresents what was said which is both insulting and immensely frustrating. He's shown no willingness to learn from his past transgressions or any effort at all to be more respectful to the opinions of others, so it really should be no surprise when people react with hostility to what really is one of the slimiest posters on this site.

The most offensive thing somebody can do on a site like this is slander people by ceaselessly constructing strawmen and trying to publicly display someone's opinion to be something other than what it is. Of course, the fact that he happens to hold bigoted beliefs and constantly makes up bull**** and ignores request to substantiate it just adds to the mystique that is Ben.

As caustic as you are, you're usually right. So what should I do? Hate Ben? That hardly sounds like the way to solve anything. Talking to him is useless, hating him brings me to his level, and violence is unfortunately not an option.

In my ordinary life, *******s are generally avoided. Why doesn't everybody who finds him offensive just put him on ignore?

[DaShi]

If you're not with us, you're with the Bens.

[Asher]

As caustic as you are, you're usually right. So what should I do? Hate Ben? That hardly sounds like the way to solve anything. Talking to him is useless, hating him brings me to his level, and violence is unfortunately not an option.

In my ordinary life, *******s are generally avoided. Why doesn't everybody who finds him offensive just put him on ignore?

Because he's a disruptive influence on threads. I can put him on ignore, but someone will reply to him and then it'll be all for naught anyway. Threads get derailed when he posts in them because what he posts is so unbelievably stupid that it stirs a reaction in many, many people and thus, many responses. He's one of the better trolls on this site, and that's because he doesn't have to try to do it -- it comes naturally to him.

And he's got the best line of defense ever. No mod could ever ban him without looking like they were censoring his beliefs, because he doesn't use superficial insults like calling me a whore -- he just talks politely about how gay people can't be monogamous. It doesn't take a theoretical physicist ( ) to see that the implications are the same, but one gets a threat from Ming and the other just gets a collective sigh.

[Felch]

It's been days since he said anything in this thread, and we're talking about him, so yeah, I'd say he's a master troll.

If he's saying gays can't be monogamous, that's just a baseless statement. I suppose you could take heart in what Marcus Aurelius wrote in meditations, "If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now." Ben is a fool, and fools are only a danger to themselves. Until they reach the White House.

[Asher]

For me, personally, Ben represents a lot of things I've had issues with my entire life. Both on a personal level (polite religious people who just want to let me know I'm going to hell, but they can help me) and impersonal level (people who comprise a moral majority that legislate and/or lobby to take away and keep away my rights, who sociologically bully many people with their polite opinion). It makes it more difficult just to ignore him, because I know he's not the only one with this kind of backwards, offensive thinking and passive-aggressive polite manner of saying hateful and incendiary things. I can't say a lot to most people in my life who does what Ben does, but I sure can with Ben...its not something I can resist doing.

[Felch]

I hear you on that. Folks who get all moralizing about drug usage piss me off for the same reason. They're a personification of the society that spends billions of dollars a year ****ting all over me and my kind.

[Velociryx]

I'm not sure I'd call it widespread bullying, more like widespread rejection. There is a difference.

Bullying usually implies some degree of victimization. Ben invites the comments he receives openly with his blatant disrespect for the viewpoints of others. He masks his comments with a passive-aggressive smile and fake sincerity, but it doesn't take much to see past that veil and start putting all of the pieces together. Ben is somebody that genuinely has no respect for the viewpoints of others -- he doesn't even take the common courtesy to read what people write. He invents the positions of others and misrepresents what was said which is both insulting and immensely frustrating. He's shown no willingness to learn from his past transgressions or any effort at all to be more respectful to the opinions of others, so it really should be no surprise when people react with hostility to what really is one of the slimiest posters on this site.

The most offensive thing somebody can do on a site like this is slander people by ceaselessly constructing strawmen and trying to publicly display someone's opinion to be something other than what it is. Of course, the fact that he happens to hold bigoted beliefs and constantly makes up bull**** and ignores request to substantiate it just adds to the mystique that is Ben.

So...basically he's an extreme caricature of most of the debates on 'poly.

I mean, sure, he takes it to the next level, but after all, that's what caricature's are, at the core.