Banter Voices

How Much Can We Trust A President To Kill?

By Oliver Willis · February 08,2013

| 1310 Views | Foreign Policy

The drone/targeted killing debate is not as simplistic as either side of it would have you believe. I’m not even sure that there are clear and defined “sides” to this as we usually define such things.

I’m largely in favor of the policy, though I believe the administration does need more transparency and possibly more oversight. For what its worth, my perspective hasn’t changed from what it was during the Bush years. I favor a strong executive branch, with appropriate oversight from Congress no matter the party in charge.

My biggest quarrel with the Bush administration wasn’t necessarily over civil liberties, but that administration’s faltering efforts to fight terrorism. I felt that the invasion of Afghanistan was necessary, but the invasion of Iraq took time and resources away from the wider war against Al Qaeda-based terrorism.

I also felt it was a huge dodge of the Bush administration to claim that the goal in Afghanistan was more oriented around opening schools for girls and the like. It was about killing and capturing Al Qaeda, and not much else. (The inability to find WMD in Iraq also ushered in rounds of “but look, they’re voting” stories as well.)

In addition to being the cause of the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, the Iraq War took away from the wider fight against Al Qaeda.

It’s impossible to go back and do this, but a lot of these questions would have been easily resolved if we had simply made a formal declaration of war against Al Qaeda after 9/11. We’ve gone to war against stateless entities before – The Barbary Wars – and had we formally declared war, many of the civil liberties issues are much clearer distinctions.

For instance, an American allied with Al Qaeda would very clearly be part of an enemy army and what we can and can’t do would be clearly defined. That didn’t happen, and its not going to happen now, 12 years later.

So we end up with drones and targeted killings and it becomes very messy, to say the least.

When I support something like this, I always have to think — would I also trust George W. Bush with this power? As I consider him one of the worst leaders in world history, it turns out to be a pretty good litmus test.

But I did, in fact, support policies like this under Bush. The fight to destroy Al Qaeda has, and should, transcend party while also adhering to our rules of law.

I also feel like one of the arguments against Obama doing this is based on wishful thinking. I often hear people describe Obama as “anti-war” but that’s patently incorrect. Obama was against the Iraq War, but not the concept of war. He said it himself in 2002 as he opposed the Iraq War at a rally in Illinois:

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don’t oppose all wars.

After Sept. 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

This is very clear. This is not ambiguous and yet some people were reaching for the fainting couch as Obama increased our presence in Afghanistan — even as he ended the war in Iraq, as promised. I still don’t understand how people just heard what the heck they wanted to hear.

For me, the question of drone warfare and targeted killing comes down to this: Do we expend American lives and engage in long wars with an enemy who will never sit down at a table to sign a treaty? Or do we use technology and do what we can — accepting the loss of innocent lives that comes along with this uncertainty — to eliminate the members of the organization who wants to destroy us and our allies?

That’s why I would support that type of warfare, under leadership of either party. Under this president we’ve eliminated more Al Qaeda than ever. Their capacity to do us harm has considerably diminished and we aren’t involved in military distractions that lead to loss of life and security. It isn’t perfect, and whenever we can do better we should. But given the choice, this is the best path to be on.

http://www.facebook.com/Alyson.Chadwick Alyson Chadwick

Well done.
http://www.facebook.com/sharin.khosa Sharin Khosa

Oliver Willis, clear and honest assessment. Well done.
Dennis

Identity Thief Zython-

Andy Borowitz is a comedian, and he wrote that as a spoof.

That’s what he does for the New Yorker. It’s a satirical column. One of the obvious-enough clues to that had you looked was that under the name for the column that you just linked to it says “The news, reshuffled”.

You are a complete moron, my friend.

100% to completion.
- Zython
  
  Since my comment is STILL in moderation, I’ll post this one without any links.
  
  Huh, looks like you’re right. My hubris got the better of me, and I should read the whole article before linking it next time.
  - Dennis
    
    You didn’t just link it, you used it twice, then you declared victory and taunted me with it. Said you proved whatever point it was you were making, and then said I must prove otherwise. And then you called me a freak.
    - Zython
      
      You didn’t just link it, you used it twice,
      
      You’ll notice that one actually has a link while the other doesn’t. This was, again, an issue with a comment being stalled by moderation. So I posted the 2nd as a summary. I believe you’ve done the same here on this thread.
      
      Said you proved whatever point it was you were making, and then said I must prove otherwise.
      
      Which was unwarranted of me.
      
      And then you called me a freak.
      
      Which was completely warranted.
    - Pawtrax
      
      Dennis, twice in this thread you used the wrong statistic in the service of an argument that doesn’t make any sense in the face of long term NICS trends. Any response to that at all?
      - Dennis
        
        I have enough stalkers, Pawtrax. And I don’t think the difference between actual sales and background checks is all that different to convey a different impression about the reality that gun sales are most definitely up since Obama took office. Not all his fault, that wasn’t the purpose of my post. But Gun sales are way up since Obama took office, and Background checks are way up since Obama took office. And the industry is booming. And Obama pays little more than lip service to making any real change and his handlers and advisers and the rest the Democrats and the liberal media use the issue to bash the right and act like they care, when they know it benefits them. Whether you agree with Zython and Andy Borowitz that the rise in sales is all due to paranoid conservatives or not, the fact of the matter is the photo he put out of him shooting a big shotgun was an idiotic publicity stunt meant to do nothing other than keep him from looking foolish. And Joe Biden admitted on camera, on open mike, not a gaffe but being very honest, candid and frank in his mannerisms and speech, that the measures they are working on will have no meaningful impact on lowering the number of mass shootings or murders by guns nationwide in any way. But that doesn’t stop him using parents of slain children as shameless props and from using friends of the murdered Newtown children to ‘stand up and be counted’ at the same tim that he’s telling he is going to lower those numbers.
      - Pawtrax
        
        Dude, it’s pretty clear you’ve crawled into the heads of a lot of people here for some reason but asking you to respond to a comment you posted on an open web forum hardly constitutes stalking. Especially when you repeatedly browbeat other posters for “running away” from arguments. So I guess either I’m stalking you or I’m running away? Tell me then, when does the actual discussion start?
        
        You posted something as a fact that was actually a complete misreading of the data. I pointed it out because there is indeed a distinct difference between NICS sales and actual gun sales. It is actually the gun industry and its supporters, by and large, that like to obfuscate that distinction because it allows them to obscure the real number of gun sales every year in this country–information that the industry itself keeps secret. You’ve got yourself all in a twist over Obama’s skeet shooting photo but what’s your opinion of an entire industry hiding its sales numbers from the public when its products have a direct impact on public safety and policy?
        
        What the actual data shows is that NICS background checks have gone way up under the Obama administration BUT they also went way up the Bush administrations. The upward trend began in 2002 with the number of background checks going up every year since then. The rise in NICS checks then has been largely independent of who’s in office UNLESS you want to make the case that “that the rise in sales is all due to paranoid conservatives.” But that isn’t the argument you’re trying to make or is it?
        
        Can i ask you, without being accused of stalking if you support universal background checks? I do. And here’s the thing: If we actually passed universal background checks, NICS checks would indeed skyrocket as every gun show sale would then be subject to the system.
        
        By your logic this rise in NICS checks would somehow be evidence of Obama’s failure and not what it actually was: a more rational approach verification and enforcement.
      - Dennis
        
        Here’s what you don’t understand, Pawtrax, every single poster here on this blog, and many, many more who no longer post here, have done nothing but blame conservatives for every single gun shooting that’s occurred, including OW. And they still do. I don’t have the answers, I don’t have a gun and don’t care to own a gun and there has never been anything about guns that I’ve found remotely interesting. No one here speaks intelligently about the issue, but they know there’s a gold mine in there somewhere for the Democratic Party if they play their cards right, and so that’s what everyone here does. And I think the Democratic party does nothing but pay lip service to the issue and the problems. And the people here, and it seems like you too, as well, are perfectly fine with that.
      - Pawtrax
        
        I’m not fine with lip service which is why I support the rather comprehensive gun control proposal put forward by the Obama administration. It includes everything from gun safety education programs, mental health funding, universal background checks, restricting magazine capacities, restoring the assault weapons ban, and banning future sales of armor piercing ammunition. Not only is the Obama plan comprehensive, some of its central proposals have majority support of the American people including 88 percent who support universal background checks.
        
        If you put the recent polls on gun control together with the increasing trends in NICS checks you’ll find that the country seems perfectly comfortable with individual gun ownership within the context of a pragmatic, comprehensive regulatory regime. The Obama administration plan is largely in tune with that sentiment. And yet when it was announced, it was met on the right with completely ahistorical (and hysterical) comparisons to Hitler and Stalin.
        
        And there’s the other conservative response that seems to think the only thing Obama has done on the issue is release a photo of himself skeet shooting because it’s all they talk about. you appear to fall into this camp (In addition to failing to correctly understand the data at the FBIs NICS site. It’s certainly okay not to have the answers but when you cite facts that you clearly don’t understand that’s a totally other thing.)
        
        But look, even if you don’t want to believe that Obama shoots skeet regularly or at all, if you look at his actual proposal, you’ll find that it is entirely compatible with expansive gun rights and reasonable regulation. It allows skeet shooters to keep shooting skeet and it allows anyone who wants to build a small arsenal of semi-automatic handguns and rifles to build a small arsenal of semi-automatic handguns and rifles.
        
        It would also create a more rational system of background checks, one that doesn’t allow a large percentage of gun sales to go completely unchecked while, at the same time, promoting gun safety and supporting mental health care.
        
        Will it reduce the number of mass shootings we have? I don’t think anyone could say for certain but it’s definitely a step in the right direction without trampling on anyone’s Constitutional rights.
      - Dennis
        
        Not only is the Obama plan comprehensive, some of its central proposals
        have majority support of the American people including 88 percent who
        support universal background checks.
        
        People are in such a mood that they’re going to support anything right now. That doesn’t negate the notion that Obama is and has been doing little more than paying lip service on the gun issue and taking advantage of the situation politically, which he and Joe Biden have certainly done. If Joe Biden tells you the measures are not likely to make a difference, why are you so proud of he and Obama? Please answer that honestly. Please tell me why you defend Obama’s handlers putting out that photo of him shooting a shotgun and then telling his detractors to ‘go ahead and make our day’? Seriously, Pawtrax, take off your ideological binders and explain that to me in terms outside of right and left.
      - Pawtrax
        
        I suppose people are in a mood for “anything” so thank goodness that Obama hasn’t proposed just “anything.” The Obama proposal is not some random or extreme hodge podge of whatever. Will it end gun violence for all time? Of course, not. And anyone who would who suggest otherwise is the person paying “lip service” to you. Let’s look at Biden’s full quote:
        
        “Nothing we’re going to do is going to fundamentally alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting or guarantee that we will bring gun deaths down to 1,000 a year from what it is now,” Biden told reporters Thursday afternoon after he spent over an hour lunching with Democratic senators at the Capitol. But there are things that we can do, demonstrably can do, that have virtually zero impact on your Second Amendment right to own a weapon for both self defense and recreation that can save some lives.”
        
        That is exactly what anyone who wasn’t lying to you would say about any piece of proposed legislation about anything: We can’t guarantee that this is going to end the problem entirely but it is a good step towards addressing the problem. There are, of course, plenty of politicians who will try to tell people whatever they want to hear: “My fellow Americans, this three strikes and you’re out law will put an end to crime forever!” Is this the kind of politician you trust?
        
        I can only assume that you would not have changed your mind about the proposals had Biden lied and said that they would definitively end gun violence in American forever, so it’s unclear what your beef is. There is absolutely no question that expanding background checks will stop more people who can’t legally own a gun from legally purchasing one. Could they still buy a gun on the black market? Sure, but there path to acquiring a gun is made more complicated and that’s a good thing. It also increases the likelihood that they will be caught at the point of purchase–before they ever actually get their hands on the weapon. Again, not a 100% guarantee but can it, as Biden said, “save some lives”? You bet.
        
        How about banning armor piercing bullets? is banning armor piercing bullets going to end mass shootings? No. But does it reduce the likelihood that a mass shooter will be less of a threat to armed first responders who will most likely be wearing body armor of some kind? Will that, as Biden said, “save some lives”? Again,m you bet.
        
        Will expanding funding for gun safety program reduce gun deaths? Yes.
        
        Will expanding funding for mental health service reduce gun deaths? It’s unclear, but certainly improving identification and treatment of mental health conditions is good thing to do anyway and it just might mean someone who could turn violent is given the attention they need.
        
        But with all of these specific gun control proposals to discuss, you still want to discuss the skeet shooting photo? Obama shoots skeet, dude. Get over it.
      - Dennis
        
        I don’t think he does, and I am over it, but the photo release was ridiculous and the challenge by Plouffe even worse, and the sigh of relief from liberals that ‘thank God they had that photo lying around’, even worse still. The other thing you don’t understand is that the hit-and-run folks here were also quick to call any doubters of Obama’s overtures with regard to guns the very kind of people who want to see more children murdered. That’s they way they approached it right after Newtown, and I was one of those accused of that here. By Zython, actually, Mr. ‘Andy Borowitz Proved My Point’. Just a point of reference since you’re interested where I was coming from with this topic. But thanks for the civil response to a difficult topic, I appreciate that.
      - Pawtrax
        
        So you have absolutely nothing more to say about the president’s actual gun control proposals?
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Don’t ask Dennis to provide any POV, all he likes to do is engage in degrading liberals, not realizing how crazy his comments become as a result.
        
        It’s a feature, not a bug.
      - Dennis
        
        DA, when even your liberal brethren at you beloved Amanda Marcotte blog tell you that you’re nothing but a cissexist cretin dirtbag, you gotta believe to take a real hard look at your life and do some serious soul-searching.
        
        Hahahahahaha!
        
        Bwahhahahahhahaaha!
        
        I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. Thank you!!!
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Dude, it’s pretty clear you’ve crawled into the heads of a lot of people
        here for some reason but asking you to respond to a comment you posted
        on an open web forum hardly constitutes stalking. Especially when you
        repeatedly browbeat other posters for “running away” from arguments. So I
        guess either I’m stalking you or I’m running away? Tell me then, when
        does the actual discussion start?
        
        So you got somebody to believe your sick lies, Den-Den. Revel in your victory, because, I gotta hand it to yah,
        monitoring my responses in Disqus and
        
        getting someone on the blog to agree how mean I was
        to your buddy Frank DiSalle when I never made mention of his sexual preferences
        
        was the ~~sickest~~ greatest day of your life. Please feel free to share your victory with your family, and any other relatives or residents of your tiny little hamlet where you currently abide.
        
        See you later on the internets, cowboi. And please, continue to stick up for the rights of transexual people, I’m glad to see you’re not one of those sick nutty freaky conservatives who listen to Rush Limbaugh.
      - Dennis
        
        I actually felt sorry for you when you begged the site monitor to take down your comments, almost like your beatdown by the liberal transgendered person had gone too far. You were stuck because they had proven you not only to be a dirtbag, but a liar and weasel to boot. All these things that I know already, they figured you out right then and then and there, and had proof and stuck right in your fucking face. Right on Amanda Marcotte’s blog, and you had to sit there and just take it. And own it. Oh my God, I’m not sure how I could’ve drawn it up any better, but it all just unfolded right there in front of me. Beautiful. DA exposed for the dirtbag he is. And the thing is, you did it all to yourself.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I didn’t beg to have them taked down, I observed that I wouldn’t mind if they’re zapped. Unlike you, I understand how these things work on someone else’s site besides mine.
        
        Why don’t you tell me what a sick freak I am, why didn’t you tell your lovely wife and your two lovely daughters about how you finally triumphed over that unemployed parasitic dirtbag?
        
        Please, Dennis, keep gloating, I’m sure that you need something to keep your mind off of being a middle-manager cubical drone these days.
        
        Happy trials, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        Cissexist pig, you, Dark Avenger.
        
        All you had to do was be honest, and you couldn’t even do that.
        
        All you needed was a simple ‘Hey, sorry, I was wrong to say that’ and you didn’t even have it in you to say even that. Unlike this place, Raw Story has liberals that won’t tolerate your freakishness and your blatant bigotry at their expense and the liberals there won’t hesitate to call you out for being a liar and a fraud when you try to weasel your way out when you prove yourself one.
        
        You got exactly what you deserved, Dark Avenger. Nothing more and nothing less.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I’m certainly please that you found a new buddy at Pandagon to bond with, Dennis, perhaps you can arrange a date between that buddy and your little friend Frank DiSalle, you know, you could drive them to the local Dairy Queen and let them get to know each other,
        
        Thanks for getting up at 5 in the morning just to give me your vitally important message.
        
        See you around, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        Nothing danah gaz said sunk in with you. You still want make to make fun of her and her kind. You’re too cickenshit to go apologize to her for calling her male-gendered names, so you come to this blog to keep bashing her. Even when she explained to you that all she was asking for was the same respect any human would ask for.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Yes, Dennis, I showed her the same respect that you’ve shown to other commentators here over the years, except I didn’t call her sick and a a twisted freak,.
        
        You still are the gold standard as far as name-calling and put downs, Den-Den.
        
        See you around, cowboi.
      - Zython
        
        ‘Hey, sorry, I was wrong to say that’
        
        You expect me to believe that you would care if he apologized? Really?
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Den-Den would take it as a sign of weakness, Zython. You know how the bully mentality rolls. He would just use it as another excuse to call me a sick freak.
      - Dennis
        
        You’d be less of a sick freak if you apologized to her for trying to berate her by calling danah gaz male-gendered names, DA. Less of a sick freak and more of a human being. You’ve chosen not to because you’re afraid someone might think it was a sign of weakness. That pretty much tells you and everyone else all they need to know about you.
        
        When Zython stole the identity of a conservative blogger and posted racist screed trying to pretend to quote her, once he realized that the bloggers at Sadly No had his IP address and knew it was him (Zython) who had posted it, he at least came back on there and apologized. He only apologized to the people at Sadly No for embarrassing the blog, not to the conservative blogger, but it was a good start. He was just barely out of high school when he did it, though, DA. You’re in your mid-50s. You’re going to be a sick freak whether you make the right decision and apologize or not. Seems like a pretty easy choice for the rational-thinking person.
        
        Do the right thing.
        
        Unless you like being known as a cessixist pig on Amanda Marcotte’s blog.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        F8ck you, Stalker Denni.
        
        You follow me to Amanda’s blog, tell a lie about one of the few things I didn’t criticize your dry drunk little buddy, get a couple of people to agree with you and you still think you can bully me into agreeing with you after your so called victory.
        
        He was just barely out of high school when he did it, though, DA.
        You’re in your mid-50s. You’re going to be a sick freak whether you
        make the right decision and apologize or not. Seems like a pretty easy
        choice for the rational-thinking person.
        
        And you’re still going to follow me around on different blogs, a sick freak, despite your risible claim to be some sort of ‘rational-thinking person’.
        
        You can’t get quit of me, can you?
      - Dennis
        
        It’s not a lie, DA. You stalked Frank’s Facebook account to find out about his personal life and bash him over the head with it here on this blog. You and burn both did it. Relentlessly. And you thought ‘so what if it’s demeaning to transgendered people?’, because you didn’t really care. And you did it on your blog, too. That’s why you took down the comments on your blog, to erase all traces of it.
        
        As for following you, your comments are right there just by clicking your name here. You’re the one who said he was monitoring my comments. You’ve followed me to other blogs. Either you’re for that or you’re against it. but it’s kind of silly to act outraged after you’ve bragged about doing it, don’t you think? And you brag about going to other people’s Facebook accounts for ammunition against them. And that of their children. So how is it you’re now upset that someone would see a blatant lie of yours on Disqus and go right to the place where you told that lie? That makes no sense.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        You stalked Frank’s Facebook account to find out about his personalv life and bash him over the head with it here on this blog.
        
        And you brag about going to other people’s Facebook accounts for ammunition against them.
        
        Gee, why would any child of Franks’ quote the Joker about being beaten by a drunken father.? Why would that be, Den-Den?
        
        Nope, I did post from his ADULT offspring’s Facebook page, but his despeciable father never had an operational Facebook page when I check.
        
        And you thought ‘so what if it’s demeaning to transgendered people?’,because you didn’t really care. And you did it on your blog, too. That’s why you took down the comments on your blog, to erase all traces of it
        
        Show me where on my blog I made fun of Frank Disalle because of his sexual tastes, Den-Den.
        
        You haven’t been able to because I didn’t make any.
        
        I did change your little comments on my blog mocking my neighborhood, but that’s different.
        
        You’re such a drama queen, even Harvey Fierstein would tell you to tone it down.
        
        Have a good vacation, Den-Den.
      - Dennis
        
        Gee, why would any child of Franks’ quote the Joker about being beaten by a drunken father.? Why would that be, Den-Den?
        
        Who cares? The fact of the matter is you stalked his kids’ Facebook account for information on him. That constitutes sick and obsessive behavior. It doesn’t matter if his kids are older than 18 yrs old. It doesn’t matter what they said on their Facebook pages. None of that justifies stalking them so can report back personal information on your blog and this blog about Frank D. and what his kids have to say about anything, you sick predator moron.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Who cares?
        
        You do, Den-Den.
        
        The fact of the matter is you stalked his kids’ Facebook account for information on him.
        
        If his adult child is foolish enough to put something of Facebook for all the world to see, that’s not my fault.
        
        It doesn’t matter if his kids are older than 18 yrs old. It doesn’t matter what they said on their Facebook pages.
        
        Sure it does, Den-Den. It demonstrates what an ass your little buddy was to his child.
        
        >None of that justifies stalking them so can report back personal
        information on your blog and this blog about Frank D. and what his kids have to say about anything, you sick predator moron.
        
        Sorry, Den-Den, but I don’t give a flying fig what you think. Here I am, a sick predator moron, whom you feel compelled on your vacation to engage with instead of spending time with your lovely wife.
        
        See you around, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        If his adult child is foolish enough to put something of Facebook for all the world to see, that’s not my fault.
        
        No matter what you found out about Frank from his children’s Facebook postings, it doesn’t mean you’re not a sick bastard for looking them up in the first place.
        
        Why would you even be curious enough to look on a kids’ Facebook page in the first place? Psycho stalker.
        
        And then you report it here. Gawd. Even if you tried, you couldn’t be more disgusting. The liberals at Raw Story were disgusted by you. One day you need to wake up and smell the coffee, my friend. I pegged you as the Aqualung character right from the very beginning, years ago, and that call is turning out to be quite apropo.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        No matter what you found out about Frank from his children’s Facebook postings, it doesn’t mean you’re not a sick bastard for looking them up in the first place.
        
        Just as you’re a stalking sick freak moronic bastard for using Disqus to follow me around on the internet and spread lies about me, Den-Den.
        
        Why would you even be curious enough to look on a kids’ Facebook page in the first place? Psycho stalker.
        
        Why would you follow me to the Pandagon blog when you’ve never posted there in the first place? Psycho freaky sick moronic stalker.
        
        And then you report it here. Gawd. Even if you tried, you couldn’t be more disgusting.
        
        And you keep responding to me, even though I’m a freak moronic sick psycho stalker.
        
        The liberals at Raw Story were disgusted by you.
        
        Yes, about 4 or 5 of them , unless you’re one of the folks who did a downvote on my posts. So many liberals I disgusted.
        
        One day you need to wake up and smell the coffee, my friend. I pegged you as the Aqualung character right from the very beginning, years ago, and that call is turning out to be quite apropo.
        
        And what do you call someone who follows the Aqualung character, Den-Den? What do you call that?
        
        You still can’t get quit of me, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        Nothing I said was a lie, DA, it’s all true.
        
        You chastised Frank mercilessly here about his having ever been friends with transgendered women, when he never once mentioned it here. The only way you knew that was from going online and finding out what you could about him. You bragged about it having done that. You and burn both did it.
        
        You can deny it all you want, but your comments are still online. It’s just that you thought there were no transgendered people looking at comments here when you were using them to bash Frank DiSalle for it. Turns out there were. And they didn’t like it. And when one of them told you what an ass you were for using them in your sick, creepy obsession (her words) with Frank DiSalle, you started to calling her male-genders takes on her name.
        
        Sorry, but that’s psychotic behavior, and you’re a sick. twisted stalker psycho, my friend.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        You chastised Frank mercilessly here about his having ever been friends
        with transgendered women, when he never once mentioned it here
        
        Another commentator might’ve mentioned it, but you haven’t demonstrated where and when I made these posts, Den-Den. You can’t even find one post from my blog where I did make fun of his sexuality, because I didn’t, period end of line full stop.
        
        You bragged about it having done that. You and burn both did it.
        
        And you went online and found my cell phone number and called me, Den-Den.
        
        So who is the scarier stalker, the one who gets a little information people leave online, or the one who was determined to find my phone number and call me?
        
        I’m sorry you don’t want to call me up so that we can settle this like peaceable men. Why is that?
        
        And when one of them told you what an ass you were for using them in your sick, creepy obsession (her words) with Frank DiSalle, you started to calling her male-genders takes on her name.
        
        Hey, you don’t see anything wrong in name-calling unless the recipient is transgender, right, Denny? You sick twisted perverted psycho moronic stalker?
        
        Sorry, but that’s psychotic behavior, and you’re a sick. twisted stalker psycho, my friend.
        
        And here you are, engaging with a sick, twisted stalker psycho, Denny.
        
        See you around, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        That phone call was three and a half years ago. You had posted your name and your function as the president of the local Democratic club, and I called the number associated with your post there during business hours. It was a friendly call done after you had freaked out on this blog one day and announced that you were leaving this blog for good. After a 15 minute chat tyrying to explain to you that nothing said on a political blog should ever bother you, you thanked me for calling you and you encouraged me to start a blog, that you would support it and that you would encourage the other guys here to support it, too. And that was it. Now you use that call to justify bad behavior on your part. You’ve now called my house a total of 12 times and you are rude to my wife every time she tells you politely that I’m not there, instead of you jus t simply hanging up. Whatever your obsession is, it shoukd be limited to me, but you’ve broadened it iut to my wife and kids. And that’s bizarre.
        
        You’re a stalker creep, DA. The last thing I care to do is talk to you and encourage your sick, twisted obsessive, creepy, family-stalker desires.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        You had posted your name and your function as the president of the local
        Democratic club, and I called the number associated with your post
        there during business hours.
        
        Yes, I posted it to be a contact for the Democratic club, not for a sick freak like you to phone me up out of the blue, using a restricted number that I couldn’t call back from my number.
        
        It was a friendly call done after you had freaked out on this blog one day and announced that you were leaving this blog for good.
        
        So, why did that lead you to call me? Afraid that you were being deserted again?
        
        After a 15 minute chat tyrying to explain to you that nothing said on a political blog should ever bother you
        
        That’s comedy gold, coming from you, Dennis. You get bothered by what Ollie writes here all the time.
        
        You’ve now called my house a total of 12 times and you are rude to my wife every time she tells you politely that I’m not there, instead of you jus t simply hanging up.
        
        Sorry, Dennis, but I wanted to settle this between us instead of you following me on other blogs and creeping other people out. But since you don’t want to talk to me even when you’re in the house, I’ll just quit responding to your posts here and elsewhere in the future.
        
        Deal?
      - Dennis
        
        Well, no, sorry, I don’t make deals with psychotic family-stalker freaks who harass me and my wife at home, DA.
        
        That’s because despite all your other psychoses, the worst one of all is that you’re a completely dishonest dirtbag. I called you that day, once, over three years ago, because I thought one of the conservative posters here had gone over the line commenting about your wife from a picture you had posted of her here, linking to your Flickr page. You had also mentioned that you went to Wash U in St Louis, and it had coincided with me being in St Louis at the same time, that I had gone to SLU for my grad degree instead of Wash U since I got more credit hours transferred from my undergraduate work than Wash U would allow. I called you because you declared you were leaving after those comments about your wife, and I wanted to tell you never to let those things get on your nerves. I told you right up front when you answered that if you didn’t appreciate the call, that I’d hang up and never bother you again, which I haven’t, despite your calling me over 12 times now at home. The call was friendly, but a week later you decided to come back to this blog, and you decided to use the call against me after having spoken to me for a good fifteen minutes, thanked me for calling, and told me to call again any time. THAT’S WHY YOU’RE A DISHONEST DIRTBAG, DA!! A fucking slimeball, never to be trusted, by anyone, ever, at any time.
        
        Just like you’re lying now about Frank DiSalle. You’re trying to dance around the fact you used your acquired knowledge about his friendships with transvestites to bash him over the head on this blog, when you certainly did and anyone who reads this blog with any regularity knows you and burn both did that. No one here cared that you did it, but they know you did it, that’s why none of them will defend you now.
        
        I don’t want to settle anything with you. Understand that. You are not a trustworthy person in any way, shape or form. I once thought you were. Once. Three years ago. I was wrong.
      - Dennis
        
        I’ll just quit responding to your posts here and elsewhere in the future.
        
        You’ve made that promise at least twenty times before with me.
        
        They say your word is your bond. Your word is shit, though, DA.
        
        That’s why there is no discussion, and no dealing with you. Your word means nothing to me, because it means nothing to you.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Then why keep up the responses, aside from a need to endless demonize me, puppet?
        
        Only you can stop responding, or you’re just a puppet of the non-rational portion of your brain.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I called you that day, once, over three years ago, because I thought
        one of the conservative posters here had gone over the line commenting
        about your wife from a picture you had posted of her here, linking to
        your Flickr page.
        
        Really, Dennis, you keep changing your story about why you called.
        
        I called you because you declared you were leaving after those
        comments about your wife, and I wanted to tell you never to let those things get on your nerves.
        
        I don’t remember that part, Dennis. I do remember that initially in the call you admired that I was able to call you out on your claim that a picture that Ollie posted here of a Teabagger at a protest wasn’t photoshopped because of the angle of the light and other little clues in the photo to someone with a smattering of phot
        
        But let’s cut to the chase:
        
        The call was friendly, but a week later you decided to come back to this blog, and you decided to use the call against me after having spoken to me for a good fifteen minutes, thanked me for calling, and told me to call again any time. THAT’S WHY YOU’RE A DISHONEST DIRTBAG, DA!! A fucking slimeball, never to be trusted, by anyone, ever, at any time.
        
        Nope, Dennis, after some hostile comments on your part after this phone call, I merely stated that if you called me again, I would call the cops over on D street here in Porterville.
        
        I don’t want to settle anything with you. Understand that. You are not a trustworthy person in any way, shape or form. I once thought you were. Once. Three years ago. I was wrong.
        
        But you still can’t resist responding to me, Dennis. Dance, puppet, dance.
        
        Frankly, you engage with someone who isn’t trustworthy.
        
        Dance, puppet, dance,
        
        Understanding why you’re like that would be a waste of time.
        
        Dance, puppet, dance.
        
        Calling me was the biggest mistake in your life.
        
        Dance, puppet, dance.
        
        Keep it up, Dennis, let’s see what’s gonna happen.
        
        Dance, puppet, dance.
      - Dennis
        
        Nope, Dennis, after some hostile comments on your part after this phone
        call, I merely stated that if you called me again, I would call the cops
        over on D street here in Porterville.
        
        And so I haven’t. In three and a half years. And I won’t.
        
        But you’ve called me twelve times. And been a total dick to my wife.
        
        Can you understand why you’re a creepy, family-stalker psychotic? I’ve told you several times on here that I have no interest in speaking with you, that you’re a dishonest dirt-bag who is not to be trusted in any way, shape or form, yet you’ve continued to call my house and harass me and play the creepy Aqualung character with my wife like the sick fuck stalker that you are.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I’m sorry, puppet, but I wanted to see if we could settle our differences without using this blog, but you weren’t available at any of my calls.
        
        It is obviously more satisfying to attempt to put me down using someone else’s blog than talking out our differences, man to man.
        
        Dance, puppet, dance.
      - Dennis
        
        DA, when you’re dishonest with someone, there is no man to man settling of differences over the phone. You’re a congenital liar and nothing you say is the truth. Not even your recollection of the phone call. You stayed away from the blog for two weeks after that call, then the first post was when you came back on gleefully telling everyone that I had called you, using it as a card to play, when I had not even addressed you. You’re lying now to say you did it out of a hostile comment I made. You weren’t even posting then because you left the blog.
        
        That’s why there’s no rational reason to discuss anything with you, you’ll just use it as a card to play at a later time.
        
        You’re a dirt-bag. And you were a dick to my wife. It’d be lunacy to talk to you now. That’s just fucking bullshit, DA. Try to understand that.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Thanks for sharing, puppet.
      - Pawtrax
        
        Jesus. You two are the internet version of this: shutuplittleman[dot]com. Only without so much “poignant absurdity and stark hilarity.”
      - Dennis
        
        Pawtrax, you do realize that since you signed up on Disqus that I am the only guy you’ve addressed. 100% of your posts. Every single one of them. You even followed me to another blog to address me. That’s sad, little buddy.
        
        It’s like you think he’s doing so bad at it that you want to tap Dark Avenger on the shoulder and ask him if you can sub in for him, to give him a blow on the bench or something.
      - Pawtrax
        
        Yeah, well, my apologies for interrupting your lovefest with Dark Avenger. I’ll leave you two to continue screeching at one another.
      - Dennis
        
        No, Pawtrax, just trying to encourage you to diversify yourself. Broaden your horizons. Find a life outside of worrying what Dennis says. You know, stuff like that. I think you have it in you, you just need a little self-confidence.
      - Pawtrax
        
        Seeing as you’re the sole conservative, or at least, oppositional voice here, I figured you might be goaded into an actual discussion involving facts and things. I see my error now. What you’ve got going with Dark Avenger is just too dark and co-dependent. Who knows. Maybe someone will turn you two into cult figures one day.
      - Dennis
        
        You lifted that word ‘co-dependent’ from danah gaz. I’m giving you a down-vote for that. Please try to be original, it’s just a political blog.
      - Pawtrax
        
        This is how I imagine you both: www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=yJspYSFBxtk
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Don’t worry, Dennis can take care of hisself.
      - Zython
        
        You’d be less of a sick freak if you apologized to her for trying to berate her by calling danah gaz male-gendered names, DA. Less of a sick freak and more of a human being.
        
        If it’s anything like the other times people have apologized for the behavior you called them out on, you’ll just throw it back in their face and whine like a spoiled brat. Why should we believe this time will be any different?
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I apologize for forcing Den-Den to stalk me on Pandagon and spread lies he knows are false both here and there. I’m sorry Dennis is seemingly compelled to respond to my posts telling me how horrible I am.
        
        I apologize for forcing Ollie to use his bandwidth to host Den-Den’s endless vitriolic, moronic, and bullying rants.
      - Dennis
        
        Zython, do you think it’s appropriate and fair game to call a transgendered person with a female name by made-up male-gendered names? Are you defending that? That’s what DA did. Because the woman calked him out for using transgendered people as props for bashing Ann Coulter. And she called him out for his obsession with Frank DiSalle and his blog dedicated to that obsession. This woman knew that DA had chastised Frank for being friends with transgendered women and she knew that DA had bashed himover the head about it here because she said she used to post here and she was well aware of what went on here. DA was busted and he tried to lie his way out if it. He even begged to have the comments taken down. On one post, he whined that he didnt have enough time to prepare a defense. If I needed something to throw back in his face, believe me, a justified apology from him to that very intelligent woman would be way down on the list. Moot point anyway, because he’s incapable of doing anything that decent.
        
        Keep on defending him, though.
        
        Liberals for cissexism. Just another day at Ollie’s blog.
      - Zython
        
        Are you defending that?
        
        Uh, no. Try actually reading my posts some time? I’m pointing out that, given your past in regards to these situations, that your demands for an apology are hollow and two-faced.
        
        That’s what DA did.
        
        You keep saying that, but so far, all we have to go on is your word (wich is worthless).
      - Dennis
        
        I’m pointing out that, given your past in regards to these situations,
        that your demands for an apology are hollow and two-faced.
        
        What example could you cite, Zython?
        
        You keep saying that, but so far, all we have to go on is your word (wich is worthless).
        
        That’s not true, it’s all up there for your verification at Raw Story, Zython. Raw Story. Amanda Marcotte. “Conservatives Have Issues, Part One Million.
        
        Put ‘danah gaz’ in your search bar and read her banter with the cessixist Dark Avenger as he tries to weasel out of using transgender stereotypes to bash Ann Coulter. When the two of them argue over it, her telling him to kindly STFU with the trans-bashing, DA calls her ‘dan ganz’.
        
        Here it is c&p’ed. I’d link it if I could….
        
        The Dark Avenger danah gaz • 3 days ago
        I don’t remember any one appointing you my political conscience, dan ganz.
        
        And here’s another person who flagged DA for doing it…
        
        Nimravid The Dark Avenger • 3 days ago
        In case a mod is wondering why I flagged it, Dark Avenger keeps finding various ways to masculinize danah’s name.
        
        ——
        
        So now you have more than my word, you have proof, and other witnesses. This is the guy you’re rushing in to defend, Backwards B Zython.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I don’t remember any one appointing you my political conscience, dan ganz.
        
        Yep, because making fun of a commentators’ name is a worse sin when they’re a transexual than calling someone Aqualung.
        
        Give it up, Dennis, nobody believes in your little mock fits of rage anymore.
        
        Backwards B Zython.
        
        Poor Dennis, having to associate with such a faker. You know, it’s almost like…………nah, he can’t be that psycho, can he?
        
        Dance, puppet, dance!
      - Dennis
        
        Yep, because making fun of a commentators’ name is a worse sin when they’re a transexual than calling someone Aqualung.
        
        Funny how you’re always pointing to your perceptions of someone else’s transgressions in order to justify yours.
        
        Here’s what danah gaz told you, why she told you the issue is so important to her and her friends, and you responded to her by calling her male-gender names, DA……….
        
        2 in 5 of us attempt suicide. 1 in 12 of us are murdered, many more are raped.
        
        It’s not a good idea to contribute to a culture where this kind of
        thing is perpetuated. Cissexism, even casual cissexism, is simply not
        okay in the face of such overwhelming violence.
        
        Until that changes, this isn’t simply a hot-button issue, or a matter
        of being rude. It’s about a culture that is so utterly toxic and
        dangerous that it amounts to genocide. Not figuratively. Not
        rhetorically. Literally.
        
        For us, this isn’t some sort of abstract hypothetical. It’s not just
        fodder for comments on some blog. It’s very real. It’s a fear of leaving
        our homes. It’s terrifying, being trans, and even the micro-aggressions
        and casual dehumanization in the aggregate turn into violence, because
        they make the ongoing violence that much more okay to the people who
        would choose to engage in it. Something is wrong with this picture. All I
        ask is that people don’t perpetuate it on purpose, and if they do so
        accidentally, apologize and move on.
        
        You chose to perpetuate it on purpose, to continue degrading her and demeaning her. Right there on Amanda Marcotte’s blog, the woman you go around telling everyone here you have “a very healthy relationship” with.
        
        You’re a sick and demented fuck, DA.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Funny how you’re always pointing to your perceptions of someone else’s transgressions in order to justify yours.
        
        You’re the one who admitted calling me Aqualung so long ago, Dennis. If you want to argue that it was just an affectionate nickname, like how a 6 ft 7 inch guy is known as “Shorty” to his pals, that would be interesting.
        
        You chose to perpetuate it on purpose, to continue degrading her and demeaning her. Right there on Amanda Marcotte’s blog, the woman you go around telling everyone here you have “a very healthy relationship” with.
        
        In the perception(s), as you put it, in some of the commentors there, enough to get 5 or 6 downturns in my comments there.
        
        If you’ve flagged my comments there and they are still standing, you have my blessing to complain to Amanda about them.
        
        Dance, puppet, dance!
      - Zython
        
        What example could you cite, Zython?
        
        I made some nasty comments to you (which I wont repeat, lest I hurt your fee-fees). You demanded an apology, which I gave. You then whined about how my apology wasn’t good enough, so I rescinded it. You then whined about me taking back my apology. Remember now? Or did you blast that memory out with more Jagerbombs and meth?
        
        That’s not true
        
        Yes it was. Read my comment you quoted again.
        
        “You keep saying that, but so far, all we have to go on is your word (wich is worthless).”
        
        Up until now, you had taken the existence of these comments as a given. So yes, I was right in saying that all I had to go on was your word.
        
        Here it is c&p’ed.
        
        Copypasta freak.
      - Dennis
        
        I was under the assumption that you weren’t a complete idiot and could follow Dark Avenger’s comments from his Disqus account, especially since you and he are both big fans of Amanda Marcotte. So far you could claim to only have my word because you chose to stick your head in the sand and pretend what I said wasn’t true. Now that you know what I said was true, and DA did in fact call a transgendered woman by male-gendered names out of spite and hate-filled meanness, you go silent. What a great advocate for minorities you are, just as long as they’re on your side in a political fight.
      - Zython
        
        As of right now, DA has over 1k comments. I got better things to do than sift through that. Apparently, you don’t.
        
        What a great advocate for minorities you are, just as long as they’re on your side in a political fight.
        
        Just like how you chastised duftholm for his homophobic and anti-semitic comments. Wait…
        
        I would care more if this whining wasn’t a blatant part of your vendetta against DA for…something.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Hey, guys, Frank DiSalle issued an invitation to link with him on LinkedIn in my e-mail today.
        
        Whatta think, should I give him a second chance?
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Jeremiah 13:23
        
        Can the Cushite change his skin, or a leopard his spots? If so, you might be able to do what is good, you who are instructed in evil.
        
        Notice how Dennis doesn’t deny how he’s behaved when offered an apology in the past?
        
        He’s not that stupid, give him that much. But he is rather obsessed about responding to both of us, Zython. Almost like he can’t help responding to sick stalker freaks, except when it doesn’t suit him.
        
        Dance, puppet, dance!
      - Zython
        
        DA, when even your liberal brethren at you beloved Amanda Marcotte blog tell you that you’re nothing but a cissexist cretin dirtbag,
        
        Uh, what the fuck are you talking about? This post of yours only proves DA’s point…
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I made a joke about Ann Coulter, and someone believed Dennis’s lies about how I tried to shame his dry drunk little buddy(Frank DiSalle) about his (real-life)sexual tastes, when I never even had one post about the subject on my blog. His bullying ways finally found the receptive audience that he never had here.
        
        Give Dennis his little ‘victory’, if he’s incoherent that’s because he’s drunk on what he thinks is my defeat.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        “Crickets”
      - Dennis
        
        You’re being manipulated by Obama, Pawtrax. I don’t know how to get that through to you. I’d be glad to tell you more about how I think Obama’s gun proposals are little more than superficial measures designed to perpetuate his lip service to folks like you who then praise him willingly for it. The Vice President told you exactly that. Obama has a very low view of you, but he knows you’ll keep on cheering for him as long as he puts out some measure here that goes into law. And you will clap and argue for the liberal side. And kids will keep on being murdered. And you will blame conservatives for not doing enough to have prevented the next one. And on and on it will go, and you will love every minute of it, the lofty speeches from Obama, surrounding himself with precious little kids instead of substantive arguments for meaningful gun control measures, the resounding applause for telling these human props to stand up and have their votes counted……the whole kabuki theater manipulation of your very being, your dignity and everything you think you stand for. And you will love him for it.
        
        As for me? No thanks, Pawtrax. Not buying it.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        So, Dennis, nothing to say but anti-Obama blovating?
        
        Why am I not surprised?
      - Pawtrax
        
        Then what are you buying? You’re accusing me of falling for Obama’s “lip service” instead of demanding he propose “meaningful gun control measures” but what exactly would those be? You haven’t said. But would you even support them if Obama presented them? The president has proposed comprehensive and MODEST gun control measures. Would you prefer he announced a plan to confiscate every firearm in the country and ban future sales? Is that the kind of “meaningful gun control” you’re expecting me to demand and that you would support?
        
        Obama’s proposal represents meaningful gun control. It’s comprehensive and would be effective at reducing gun deaths, accidental and intentional across the country. Let’s just look at
        universal background checks which are meaningful gun control and have 88 percent support in recent pools.
        
        Until 207 Missouri had a state law that required a background check on every concealable weapon sale in the state. It applied not just to licensed dealers but to every sale by anyone in the state. That law was repealed in 2007 and here’s what happened:
        
        According to Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, that stipulation on individual sales may have saved lives. Testifying before the Senate on Tuesday, Webster said he conducted an analysis that found the expiration of the “permit-to-purchase” law was followed by a 25 percent spike in homicides over three years.
        
        “Preliminary evidence suggests that the increase in the diversion of guns to criminals linked to the law’s repeal may have translated into increases in homicides committed with firearms,” Webster said in his written testimony to the Senate. “From 1999 through 2007, Missouri’s age-adjusted homicide rate was relatively stable, fluctuating around a mean of 4.66 per 100,000 population per year. In 2008, the first full year after the permit-to-purchase licensing law was repealed, the age-adjusted firearm homicide rate in Missouri increased sharply to 6.23 per 100,000 population, a 34 percent increase. For the post-repeal period of 2008-2010, the mean annual age-adjusted firearm homicide rate was 5.82, 25 percent above the pre-repeal mean.”
        
        Webster also said those changes were inconsistent with the national firearm homicide rate, which reportedly dropped 10 percent during that 2008 to 2010 period.
        
        Now if you read that paragraph really, really carefully, you’ll see that there were still gun crimes in Missouri before 2007. It’s shocking, I know, but the fact is no one expected universal background checks to stop all gun crime. Lifting the law, however, was followed by a spike in firearm homicide when national trends were going in the opposite direction. The law had an impact on gun deaths.
        
        Do you actually want to respond with any specifics are you just going to keep repeating the same patronizing nonsense?
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        That’s Dennis all over, no constructive criticism, and DEMS ARE BAD!
        
        SS,DD.
The Dark Avenger

He posted something from www(dot)pulledoutofmyass(dot)com?

How surprising!
Zython

Winston Smith writes about Marcotte on his blog.

If you consider the following “writing”:

- Reveling in willful ignorance (“I haven’t read that (obviously stupid) book. I don’t care about these (obviously stupid) people.”)

- Feeling the need to opine on a subject he has a limited understanding of (“The core of her view, as I understand it–though I haven’t read much of what she’s written sinceWho Stole Feminism?”)

- Using anecdotes with crucial details missing as evidence (his whole party story)

- Claiming that Amanda lied without giving an explanation of what the truth is.

- Strawmanning (“Radical feminism”)

But considering your posts here, you probably do.

and the guy literally rips you a new asshole

Wow, this guy tracked DA down, stalked him, and then physically assaulted him? That’s unhinged as fuck.

It really, really bothers you

I can’t speak for DA, but unwarranted arrogance does, in fact, bother me.
- The Dark Avenger
  
  Dennis is a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect at work.
- Dennis
  
  Identity Thief Zython- You are trying to speak for DA, but you’re not doing a very good job of it. That post of his on someone else’s blog defending Amanda Marcotte in his own voice without the aid of Goggle is a clear example of what I was talking about with his obsessive infatuation with her. And you can’t accept that. If I was Dark Avenger, I’d be mortally embarrassed having an identity thief such as yourself giving a half-assed defense of me. But none more so than if I was Amanda Marcotte and in a committed relationship with another guy and I find out that there are not one, but two creepy weirdos on this blog going way overboard trying to defend her, with one of you claiming to have a healthy relationship with her, and the other guy jumping on to defend that.
  - Dennis
    
    Dark Avenger, the only one guy who will come defend you now, the one guy you are thanking for coming to your defense, pulled a hit-and-run tactic just like you did with Winston Smith after getting your ass kicked to the curb. He posted spoof information from a satirical blog from a comedian, Andy Borowitz in the New Yorker, not once, but twice, and used it to claim victory in an imaginary argument he made up all on his own. When called out on it, he ran away, just like you did.
    
    Now you thank him for trying to be your savior?
    
    Do you have any idea how pathetic you two knuckleheads are?
  - Zython
    
    Huh, All I did was:
    
    1. Point out that the guy you were lauding is a hack.
    
    2. Make fun of your poor understanding of the word “literally”.
    
    3. State that the main reason I post the comments that I do is because I hate arrogance.
    
    You seem to take great offense to the 3rd one. Weird…
    - Dennis
      
      If you hate arrogance, why do you enjoy being arrogant? You’re not even good at it. Every time you try to be good at it, you do something really, really stupid, like quoting Andy Borowitz as real and not the spoof that it was.
      
      That guy is fifteen times smarter than you and one-fifteenth the hack. Why do you call people hacks when what you did last night with that Andy Borowitz article was the most clownish hack think on the internet that I think I’ve ever witnessed.
      
      Your logic still idiotic. Whether you think the guy is a hack or not, you challenged me and called me out for not having what I just supplied to you, and then you proceeded to move the goalposts. That’s what hacks do. Arrogant hacks.
      - Zython
        
        If you hate arrogance, why do you enjoy being arrogant?
        
        I don’t enjoy being arrogant. Hell, I admitted fault at the Borowitz thing. When have you done the same for the countless idiotic things you’ve written?
        
        Why do you call people hacks when what you did last night with that Andy Borowitz article was the most clownish hack think on the internet that I think I’ve ever witnessed.
        
        If that’s the worst you’ve seen on the internet, then consider yourself lucky.
        
        Whether you think the guy is a hack or not, you challenged me and called me out for not having what I just supplied to you, and then you proceeded to move the goalposts.
        
        What the fuck are you even talking about? Are we arguing or making a drug deal?
      - Dennis
        
        Hell, I admitted fault at the Borowitz thing.
        
        I don’t think you did. It’s not on this blog, anyway.
      - Zython
        
        Hmm…my comment is still in moderation. Remind me who thought it was a good idea to have a political blog auto-flag comments with links?
      - Dennis
        
        I have no idea who suggested that. But if it prevents idiot Copy and Paste artiste’s like Dark Avenger from crapping them out incessantly on this blog, then it will have been a good thing. As it is, he’ll just have to amuse himself with his weird passion for posting pictures than nobody can make out unless they have a 60″ HD monitor.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Dennis is too stupid to click the pictures so they open up into a new tab or window so that a 60 HD monitor isn’t necessary to see them as they are.
      - Dennis
        
        For a guy that swore he was going to ignore me, you are doing a heck of a job, DA. Heck of a job, picture boi. Good God in Heaven, you are 54 years old, and you post pictures like a 12 year old kid at the back of the classroom who picks his nose and sniffs glue and who is always falling down in his chair from leaning back on it. You are still that kid.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Dennis is being especially freaky and sick today.
- The Dark Avenger
  
  Thanks for sticking up for me, and notice how Dennis doesn’t address any of the points you made?
  
  Poor Den-Den, he still can’t get quit of me even when I don’t respond to his loathsome accusations.
  - Dennis
    
    DA, you picked that fight and you got beat, so you ran away. Fighting it again with someone else isn’t going to make you look any less cowardly. I have no interest in that topic, and even if I did, I don’t like to beat another man when he’s down. I just don’t have it in me to do that.
Dennis

63,376,373 guns bought since Obama took office

Heck of a job, Obama. Heck. Of. A. Job.

Great time to put out another picture of you posing at a shooting range just so folks know you’re down with guns and go skeet shooting “all the time”. Maybe we should all go out and get one. For our wives and kids, too. I mean, why not, the president does it. All the time.
- Pawtrax
  
  This is how you spend your vacation?
  - The Dark Avenger
    
    That’s the way he rolls, ask him about getting banned from Sadly, No!
    - Dennis
      
      DA, Amanda Marcotte’s boyfriend is curious as to why you’re on this blog announcing that you have ‘a very healthy relationship’ with his girlfriend.
      - Pawtrax
        
        Before you duck down that rabbit hole again, can you provide some kind of source for your very specific number of gun sales since 2008: 63,376,373?
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Don’t ask him for factual data, he’s not up to it.
- Zython
  
  Now you’re blaming Obama for making you guys paranoid? A new low for you, Dennis.
  - The Dark Avenger
    
    He’s scared of all the gun violence in his little hamlet, and can you really blame him?
  - Dennis
    
    63 million, Zython. Kinda hard for you to make the case that it’s “you guys”.
    
    Especially when he feels compelled to put out a photo that he thinks shows he’s down with guns, too. Because he goes shooting “all the time”. Did he do that to lower that number, you think?
    - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
      
      How is it Obama’s fault that a bunch of people bought guns? And he put the photo out because a bunch of people claimed that his statement about skeet shooting wasn’t true. Hell I SOLD a gun two weeks ago, and it had nothing to do with who is or isn’t president, it was simply that I no longaer had a need for it.
      - Pawtrax
        
        The trend toward increased gun sales actually began in 2002. Here’s the facts from a conservative writer at Forbes:
        
        But the thing is the surge is gun sales didn’t begin in 2008. Over the last 10 years (from 2002 to 2011) there has been a 54.1 percent rise in the number of NICS checks and the increase hasn’t all taken place since 2008. In 2005 there were 8,952,945 NICS checks. In 2006 the number topped 10 million. In 2007 NICS checks pushed passed 11 million. In 2008 NICS checks passed 12 million, and then hit the 14 million mark in 2009. They increased slightly (4 percent) through 2011.
        
        The author of that article actually argues that Obama’s election and then re-election are only a small part of a sea change in attitudes towards guns in the US that began around 2002. (Just google the above graph to find the article)
        
        But notice also how this author is using NICS stats to chart the increase? He isn’t using actual gun sales data because actual data on gun sales is not released by the industry nor its lobbying groups, as far as I’m aware. Which is why I’m curious about where this Dennis dude got such a specific number: 63,376,373.
      - Dennis
        
        He put that photo out because he didn’t like being teased about making a stupid statement that he shoots skeet “all the time”, Frothy. His photo didn’t support his claim that he goes skeet-shooting all the time, and if that photo encouraged more people to go out and buy guns in order to go shooting anything because that’s what the president does, then it was a pretty stupid move on his part. All because he’s a thin-skinned egotist who doesn’t like being made fun of.
      - Pawtrax
        
        Since you’re clearly very, very concerned about well supported claims: where’d you get that gun sales stat?
      - Zython
        
        For the record, the arguments we have now are:
        
        Before Obama claimed to shoot skeet: “Obama doesn’t even know what a gun IS!”
        
        After Obama claimed to shoot skeet: “Obama’s a liar! He’s never used a gun in his life!”
        
        After Obama showed photographic evidence of him shooting skeet: “Obama’s a thin-skin egoist!”
        
        So in summary, the very idea that you might actually be wrong about something continues to elude you.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Why is Dennis against the 2nd Amendment? How did Obama get all those non-conservatives to buy guns in the first place?
        
        America wants to know!
      - Dennis
        
        Your first two statements were never intimated by me, so again, your argument is all wrong.
        
        Obama stated in no uncertain terms that he goes skeet-shooting “all the time”. Does that photo convince you that his statement was true?
        
        Yes, or no?
      - Dennis
        
        And your premise is so cute, Admitted Identity Thief Zython. You say “for the record”, when there exists no record of either me nor anyone saying those things.
      - Zython
        
        Really? No one ever said those things? Then why did Obama claim he shot skeet or show the picture? Kicks & jollies?
      - Dennis
        
        Because someone asked him if he’d ever shot a gun. Before his handlers put out that picture, no one could recall him ever mentioning a penchant for shooting skeet. Amazing you’re not the least bit embarrassed to come on here and argue about something you don’t even know the basics of.
      - Dennis
        
        And you ask “really?” You’re the one who said it was for the record. You had no record of it, you just blurted that out.
        
        You’re an idiot, Zython.
      - Zython
        
        Because someone asked him if he’d ever shot a gun.
        
        Right, which proves that there were people who said my first statement.
        
        Before his handlers put out that picture, no one could recall him ever mentioning a penchant for shooting skeet.
        
        Which proves that people said my second statement.
        
        It’s amazing that someone as foolish as you could live this long. Astounding, even.
      - Zython
        
        It proves that he’s shot skeet more times than you’ve been correct about something, yes.
      - Dennis
        
        Cowardice prevents you from admitting you think Obama was full of bs when he made that idiotic claim that he goes skeet-shooting all the time.
      - Zython
        
        Well, I didn’t think anything about the comment because, like all non-lunatics, I didn’t care.
      - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
        
        How is that an idiotic claim? Skeet shooting is a somewhat popular sport. The President has access to a fine skeet range at Camp David. Even if he never shot skeet prior to his election, there’s no reason to think that he hasn’t taken it up and enjoyes it.
    - Pawtrax
      
      Can you provide a source for that number? You said 63,376,373 guns have been bought since Obama took office. From what source did you get such a specific number of gun sales from?
      - Dennis
        
        Pawtrax, when idiots pester me with the same impatience as you’ve so childishly demanded, my inclination is to either tell you to fuck off, or to just let you keep on asking. I haven’t decded which way to play it yet.
      - Pawtrax
        
        And why isn’t just giving the source an option?
      - Dennis
        
        Because you’re new here and you’re acting like a jackass. Jackass status is earned here. It takes a while.
      - Pawtrax
        
        So how long do you have to post here before you no longer feel the need to back up your facts with sources? Because I can’t find anything at all on internet that lists such a specific number for gun purchases. Nothing.
      - Zython
        
        Look up “63,376,373 guns” on google. That should tell you why.
      - Pawtrax
        
        And I don’t think you can call it “pestering” when you keep posting comments based on that statistic. Every time you make an assertion based on that number, I’ve asked you to provide a source for that number. That’s hardly what I’d call pestering.
    - Zython
      
      63 million, Zython. Kinda hard for you to make the case that it’s “you guys”.
      
      63 million/300 million = 0.21 = 21%. That’s not even half of the people who voted for Romney.
      
      This, of course, also assumes 1 gun/customer, which is not likely, so the percentage is actually less.
      
      Hey, you were wrong (again). That was pretty easy.
      - Dennis
        
        Zython, are you seriously going to sit here and claim that the astronomical increase in gun sales since Obama took office is all due to conservatives buying guns? This is the time when you usually just flitter away because you can’t back up what you say, but if you have anything to support your idiotic notion, feel free to post it.
      - Pawtrax
        
        Are you seriously going to make an argument without providing a source for your claim at that there have been 63 million guns bought since 2008?
      - Dennis
        
        Google this and you’ll find what you’re looking for, Pawtrax. I can’t link it here without it going to moderation.
        
        FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System
      - Pawtrax
        
        Thanks, Dennis. I searched for that and found the FBI NICS site and, as suspected, you or wherever you got the number from confused background checks with gun sales. In the right hand menu at the FBI NICS page you’ll find “Reports and Statistics.” There’s a PDF posted there for Total NICS Background Checks November 30, 1998 – January 31, 2013 and at the bottom of it, you’ll find this qualification:
        
        NOTE: These statistics represent the number of firearm background checks initiated through the NICS. They do not represent the number of firearms sold. Based on varying state laws and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale.
        
        So you can’t just add up MICS checks and say the number is equal to the total number of “guns bought.” So you or your source didn’t really pay attention to what you were looking at. I suspected this was the case because the gun industry and its lobbying groups have always refused to release exact industry sales numbers. in fact, they like to keep that information secret. No article I have ever read on gun control has ever presented as exact a number for “guns purchased” as you did for exactly that reason.
        
        The difference is important because while NICS checks are good at tracking general trends since 1998, when it was enacted, they aren’t good for determining number of sales: People do get denied by NICS checks, they’re used for scenarios that aren’t always related to direct gun sales, such as reclaiming a pawned gun, and NICS checks are used when applying for a conceal carry permit. There’s more reasons why many people consider NICS checks an unreliable measure of gun sales and there’s a debate about how accurate a reflection they are but I’m sure you can google those up if you cared to. There is no argument that NICS purchases cannot be used as a one to one representation of “guns purchased” as you’ve done. I’ve been following the gun control issue for awhile now and this a basic fact you learn in the process.
        
        More to the point, I posted a graph from a Forbes article in this thread which you may not have seen but the author of that article is a conservative and he actually argues against the very point you seem to be making by using NICS data to track trends. As he points out, NICS checks began to increase rapidly beginning in 2002. Here’s the quote again:
        
        But the thing is the surge is gun sales didn’t begin in 2008. Over the last 10 years (from 2002 to 2011) there has been a 54.1 percent rise in the number of NICS checks and the increase hasn’t all taken place since 2008. In 2005 there were 8,952,945 NICS checks. In 2006 the number topped 10 million. In 2007 NICS checks pushed passed 11 million. In 2008 NICS checks passed 12 million, and then hit the 14 million mark in 2009. They increased slightly (4 percent) through 2011.
        
        The author suggests that this is because of a general shift in attitude towards guns in America, in large part because of marketing campaigns by the gun lobby and, in fact, more relaxed gun control laws. Indeed, he writes:
        
        So attributing this entire trend to President Obama’s anti-gun reputation is disingenuous, yet many in the media like this explanation because by saying the increase in gun sales is only about President Obama they can then write the whole thing off as a simple-minded fear from those who “cling to guns and religion.”
        
        It doesn’t sound like your a member of the media so I’m a little confused as to what your actual point is here. It is clear though, the increase in NICS checks began in 2002 and that you completely misread the number you got from the FBI site or whatever article you picked it up from.
      - Zython
        
        From the New Yorker (because this site hates links now, apparently):
        
        Right-wing opponents of Mr. Obama were behind the frenzied gun sales, saying that they were terrified by the image of an armed and shooting President.
http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth

I’ve never believed in torture either, and I don’t think extra-judicial killings are OK.
The Dark Avenger

I’ve never believed in torture.
http://twitter.com/wetcasements James

A lot of this comes down to ideological worldview. For the GOP, George W. Bush had to be defended at all costs even when he was wrong and destroying the US/world economy with tax-cuts for Paris Hilton.

So a ton of Dems are now criticizing Obama for Drones, but lest we forget there were plenty of libs who’ve been criticizing him for years due to not getting a better health-care bill, not pulling out if Iraq and Afghanistan sooner, going after medical marijuana, not ending all of Bush II’s surveillance programs against US citizens, etc.

Notice how Stalker Dennis can’t even being to process this — he can’t grok that Dems have a long history of criticizing their own, and we don’t stand at attention when Obama puts on a military costume and plays pretend fighter-jet pilot on an aircraft carrier (oh, that’s right, Obama would never do that because it was a stupid, laughable propaganda stunt).

But it sure is cute how this website remains the only things he has going for him in this life.
- Dennis
  
  Jaim, you ran away from your problems to another country. Do all the projection you want to on my life, but you’re a coward who couldn’t cut it here, and you couldn’t put up with the politics of this country or in your teaching profession, so you bailed. You’re a lonely miscreant loser with a blog and a few fellow traveller loser followers. Good for you. You want to know what a stunt is, announcing to the world that you shoot skeet all the time and that you have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations, and then producing a photo of him shooting a gun at a skeet range and then telling all the ‘skeet-truthers’ to go ahead and make our day with the photo-shops of him. If you truly were upset at stunts by presidents and not just conservative ones, you’d have something to say about how idiotic that was of Obama, but you’re unable to process thinking like that. You’re just a whiner who runs from his problems.
  - The Dark Avenger
    
    And you’re a stalker who can’t stand the fact that people don’t think that being a cubicle drone is the end-all and be-all of everything.
    - Dennis
      
      You’re following me around and calling me a stalker at the same time? You have no clue what I do. I could write you a 5 page description of my job function, and you still wouldn’t have a clue. You’ve been out of the work force so long you’re for the most part unemployable at your age, but you disguise it as your not accepting a job that might be demeaning to you, which is bullshit. The fact is, you’re a liberal leach. A taker. A parasite. The funny thing is, you pretend to be proud of it. You’re not.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        And here you are, on company time, taking money for posting in response to a parasite on the internet instead of whatever your 5-page job description entails you be doing right now.
        
        Project much?
        
        Have a good life, Dennis.
      - Dennis
        
        On vacation today. If I didn’t love what I do so much, I’d almost be jealous of you being on vacation every single day of the year, for years now on end, but since I do, I’m not.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Yeah, right, that’s why you bring it up so much.
  - http://twitter.com/wetcasements James
    
    Stalker Dennis, you remain my favorite dancing monkey evar.
    
    I’ll be visiting America in August — still want to pay for my plane ticket so I can kick your sorry ass to the curb?
    - Dennis
      
      Let me know when you arrive at Dulles and we’ll go over finances then, Jaim Galt. I’m good for it, don’t you worry about that.
      
      Why you don’t come back for good this time, instead of running to distant shores and bashing America from afar as an ex-pat?
      
      It’s still a great country.
dbtheonly

Oliver,

Buzz, Ol Froth, & I have been over this. I’ve blown my chance at an invitation to Dinner at Mrs. Chadwick’s by going over the subject on her “Due Process” post.

My only disagreement would be that I believe that President Obama uses the drones only after clear and convincing evidence and after much sober consideration. G W Bush seemed to be much more reckless. So I trust president Obama much further. The holds the power of life and death in his hand.

As I quoted before, “with great power comes great responsibility”.
- Dennis
  
  Shorter db: “Special privileges for leftist presidents to assassinate on their own authority? Of course, why not? How could anyone think I was a hypocrite?”
  - The Dark Avenger
    
    Shorter Dennis:
    
    “I love the terrorists when a leftist President is in office.”
    - http://www.facebook.com/rat0bastard Tom J. Nelson
      
      DA, there was no president before Obama. All of existence literally sprang into being on January 20th 2008. The very thought that the half wit spawn of a corrupt political dynasty could have handed Obama a rapidly crumbling nation so that he could spend two terms cleaning up after his horrible policy is madness.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Yes, it’s interesting that Dennis has been silent so far regarding your version of history here. :-)
      - http://twitter.com/BarryBummer Barry Bummer
        
        *2009
    - Dennis
      
      He campaigned coming into office on the very policies he now embraces, and sheep liberals like you have no response to it. Enraged at Bush, silent with Obama. Go ahead and find something on the internet that somebody else said and copy and paste it here, DA, but you have nothing that makes sense from what you once believed and decried to you abject silence now simply because you ‘trust this guy more’ now.
      - Dennis
        
        Meant to say Obama came into office decrying the very policies of Bush that he now embraces.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        sheep liberals like you have no response to it.
        
        Dennis, could you please go back and find those comments I made, here or elsewhere, that I was okay with what Obama is doing with the drones these days?
        
        And here you are, in your first response to me in I don’t know when, and you start with the name calling.
        
        Aren’t you just as bound by the rules here as I am?
        
        Go ahead and find something on the internet that somebody else said and copy and paste it here, DA
        
        Oh, Dennis, trying to poison the well before I’ve even attempted to bring facts and reasoning to the table on the issue here.
        
        Is this the kind of behavior you want your kids to think is acceptable when engaging in public discourse?
        
        Call me, cowboi, I’m sure we can talk about our differences and come to some sort of peaceful coexistence.
        
        You still have my number, right?
      - Dennis
        
        OMG, The Dark Avenger is threatening to bring facts and reasoning to this blog on his next post.
        
        Happy Googling and good luck.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Nah, because then you’ll pull the old “copy and paste” routine again. So that’s out for this thread, but, nice try, Dennis.
        
        You did manage to keep yourself from name-calling this time, so you do get a 7/10 overall for your response.
        
        Have a nice life, Dennis.
      - Dennis
        
        Your existence on the internet is dependent on the copy and paste, The Dark Avenger. I only do the copy and paste routine with you once every 10 times you employ the C+P strategy to make it appear as if you have your own thoughts to add, but are merely using someone else’s thoughts and words for backup. You’re not using them, you’re depending on them.
        
        You’re not just the typical liberal hypocrite like everyone else here trying to defend himself on some weird nuance meme that makes no sense to anyone but himself, you’re also an obsessively insecure phony. The only time you don’t rely on the copy and paste is when you bizarrely defend Amanda Marcotte.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I only do the copy and paste routine with you once every 10 times you employ the C+P strategy to make it appear as if you have your own thoughts to add, but are merely using someone else’s thoughts and words for backup. You’re not using them, you’re depending on them.
        
        Which is why I eschewed any C+P tactics in this thread, Dennis.
        
        you’re also an obsessively insecure phony.
        
        You’re the phony who doesn’t have the balls to call me up so that we can settle this like civilized men, Dennis.
        
        You’re the one who has to pick fights with me, Dennis.
        
        The only time you don’t rely on the copy and paste is when you bizarrely defend Amanda Marcotte.
        
        She really gets your goat, doesn’t she?
        
        I wish you knew what it was like to have a healthy relationship with a woman, Dennis.
        
        BTW, I had to flag your comment.
      - Dennis
        
        If you had any semblance of a family life you wouldn’t feel the psychological compulsion to stalk my kids’ and Frank D’s kids’ Facebook accounts and report back here on them. Because your wife brings home the bacon and you sit there hoping against hope trying to find purpose with yours, it boggles the mind that somehow worrying about other people’s family members somehow fills that empty void for you.
        
        Loser.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        If you had any semblance of a family life you wouldn’t feel the
        psychological compulsion to stalk my kids’ and Frank D’s kids’ Facebook
        accounts and report back here on them
        
        I didn’t stalk your kids on Facebook, dummy. As for reporting what Dumb Ass Frank D’s ADULT child posted on Facebook, if his kid chooses to be on Facebook and post what he posts, that’s between Frank D and his ADULT offspring, not you or I.
        
        Because your wife brings home the bacon and you sit there hoping against hope trying to find purpose with yours,
        
        Says the guy who obsessively stalks Zython, Actor212, etc.
        
        You’re not such the picture of mental stability yourself, Dennis. Why don’t we take this offline before you start getting pathetic?
      - Dennis
        
        I want nothing to do you with you, you freak, do you not understand that? You are a fucking sick motherfucker who for some odd reason has found something interesting about me that you can’t let go of, and that is just beyond pathetic. Why in the world would I care to feed you any more? What you need is a restraining order. Or a straight jacket.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Third time, Dennis, I’ll have to flag this comment as well.
      - Dennis
        
        Le me know that goes after you continue to post personal information about me like it’s your life’s calling, DA. Like watching college hoops, commit the blatant foul, get away with it, then start whining to the refs for you to get the foul call. Pretty much the liberal MO on this blog.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        What personal information, Dennis?
        
        Wouldn’t that would be copypasta which I already told you I won’t be doing on this thread?
        
        then start whining to the refs for you to get the foul call.
        
        Your petty bickering, whining and amateur psychoanalysis is pretty much the conservative MO on this blog.
        I
      - Zython
        
        Because your wife brings home the bacon
        
        How DARE a woman, a WOMAN, have a fulfilling career and earn a living! The absolute nerve!
        
        What War on Women?
        
        She really gets your goat, doesn’t she?
        
        *Looks up* Well, he HAS shown a hatred of women who don’t follow his archaic gender roles.
      - Dennis
        
        Zython is late and clueless once again. He can’t help it.
        
        Fine for his wife to bring home the bacon. Not fine that he brings home none and instead sits on his computer all day and night stalking other people’s kids’ Facebook accounts so he can report back here on them.
        
        Even worse that this gives his life meaning. That he keeps going back to it, like a bad drug habit.
      - Zython
        
        If you didn’t have a problem with his wife having a job, then why bring it up in your insult?
      - Dennis
        
        Because he’s a loser with nothing better to do. His wife’s job allows him the freedom to waste his life on perverted passions he’s cultivated, like stalking other people’s kids’ Facebook accounts. You would know that by simply reading what I had written, but you’re too careless to do that. You just jump right in and make idiotic comments. You’ve always done that. You’ve grown in age only these last five years, but mentally you’re still the same high school punk that posed as a conservative and ascribed racist screed to her. You haven’t progressed or matured one month mentally since then.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        You would know that by simply reading what I had written, but you’re too careless to do that.
        
        Then why bringing in Amanda Marcotte, Dennis? Why this aura of being threatened by a competent woman, like Ms. Marcotte and my wife?
        
        I only hope you don’t take it out on the people around you like you have on this thread towards Zython and others here.
      - Dennis
        
        I brought her up because, ironically, the only time you refrain from copying and pasting anything is when you show up to valiantly defend her.
        
        Think about that for a second, John Edwards, the most odious scumbag politician in the last ten years, had to drop HER like a hot potato because she hurt HIS reputation. And the only time you venture out on the internets unaided by Google is when you stick up for her.
        
        Extremely bizarre.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I brought her up because, ironically, the only time you refrain from copying and pasting anything is when you show up to valiantly defend her.
        
        Sorry, Dennis, but I haven’t kept track of what I write here to take your word for it. Do you have an example where I defend her without C+P?
        
        Think about that for a second, John Edwards, the most odious scumbag politician in the last ten years, had to drop HER like a hot potato because she hurt HIS reputation.
        
        Yes, I always say that he did her a favor because he dropped her before his affair with Ms. Hunter became known.
        
        You really have a bee in your bonnet about Amanda, you should probably seek counseling about what she really means to you.
        
        And the only time you venture out on the internets unaided by Google is when you stick up for her.
        
        Or this very thread, where you were the one who brought her up, and where I haven’t quoted anything except your
        
        Extremely bizzare
        
        ramblings.
        
        You do remember looking up my cell phone number from teh Google and calling me up out of nowhere, don’t you? But that’s not the sign of a sick mind, right?
        
        What it is, is projection, Dennis.
        
        Have a good life, Dennis. Since it seems to unhinge you to respond to my posts here, why don’t you ignore them, and I’ll ignore psychotic rants that you post here.
        
        Deal?
      - Dennis
        
        You actually want credit for not copying and pasting someone else’s thoughts an on entire blog thread. It’s come to that with you.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        And you want credit for not being a psycho obsessed with Amanda Marcotte.
        
        Sometimes we can’t always get what we want, Dennis. An adult would understand that concept, why can’t you?
      - Dennis
        
        You cling to her like a child clings to its blanket. It’s remarkable that your defense of her is the only time you’re able to articulate a position, albeit an incoherent and rambling one, without resorting to Google, that’s all. When you argue in defense of her positions, you immediately go to Google, but when you defend her character and honor, of which she possesses little of either, you speak all on your own, like a stutterer who suddenly stops stuttering only when he sings.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Dennis, I’m touched that you’re so concerned about my relationship with a woman you’ve never met in person.
        
        It’s remarkable that your defense of her is the only time you’re able to articulate a position, albeit an incoherent and rambling one, without resorting to Google, that’s all.
        
        Any examples so that folks here can see if you’re correct or just blowing it out your a** as has been the case here many times in the past.
        
        but when you defend her character and honor, of which she possesses little of either, you speak all on your own, like a stutterer who suddenly stops stuttering only when he sings.
        
        Good analogy, but, again, post one of my screeds wherein it can be demonstrated whether or not your claim is true or false.
        
        It’s called falsifiability, Dennis, and I’m sorry they didn’t cover it in your college education, but then a second-rate mind like yours never admits to any improvement of any sort.
      - Dennis
        
        Tell you what, why don’t you just simply call me a liar and deny that you’re a frequent vocal supporter of hers who defends her often on her blog, even though she hardly needs your defense. Otherwise, me just copying and pasting something you and I both know is true wouldn’t be at all interesting or challenging to me, and not worth the effort.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        deny that you’re a frequent vocal supporter of hers who defends her often on her blog
        
        I deny that I treat her as a child treats a blanket, isn’t that what you wrote earlier?
        
        You keep bringing her up, like you think I or anyone else cares what you think of here.
        
        Here’s a newsflash, little buddy, nobody gives a f*ck what you think of her.
        
        But keep up with the accusations, it makes you appear so, so smart, and so intellectual.
        
        Have a good day if you can, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        I said you cling to her like a child clings to its blanket. And you do. Deny that and I’ll prove you wrong.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Negative statements can’t be falsified, dummy. You make the accusation, you back it up with some evidence, or shut up.
        
        You’re good on rhetoric, Den-Den, but sh*t-for-brains when it comes to facts.
        
        Don’t ever change.
      - Dennis
        
        You can’t even articulate what it is you seem to be denying. If you think what I’m saying about your weird defense of Amanda Marcotte is false, then be a man and say what is false about it. You won’t do that, because you know you do it and it’s all on her blog. Again, you’re not even clever.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Quote me where I’m doing what you accuse me of, Dennis, if my defense of Amanda is ‘weird’.
        
        You won’t do that, because you know you do it and it’s all on her blog.
        
        Then link to where you can find it on her blog.
        
        Again, you’re not even clever.
        
        And here you are, responding to a parasitic phony who isn’t clever.
        
        Have a good life, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        You accuse me of falsification, but you won’t say what us false because you know I wi blow your statement out if the water. Just like you’re too chickenshit to state your position on EITs and rendition and the drone program under Bush vs where stand now for fear of sounding just as idiotic as poor db. You can’t do it on your own without googling someone else, because you’ve vowed to refrain from that on this thread. So you’re stuck. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        “What us false”.
        
        That’s the truthiest thing you’ve written here, Den-Den.
        
        you know I wi blow your statement out if the water.
        
        You still haven’t quoted me anywhere doing what you’ve alleged me to do, Dennis.
        
        Just like you’re too chickenshit to state your position on EITs and
        rendition and the drone program under Bush vs where stand now for fear of sounding just as idiotic as poor db.
        
        If I were to copy your lack of style, I would sound as idiotic as you.
        
        Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
        
        Fine words butter no parsnips.
      - Dennis
        
        You still haven’t quoted me anywhere doing what you’ve alleged me to do, Dennis.
        
        And yet you won’t deny it that what I’ve said is true, either. You know it’s all on her blog for anyone to go see and me to retrieve once you make a statement of specific denial. Such a conundrum for you. Speak up for yourself and say where you’ve somehow been wronged, or continue to dance and be coy and ask for a link or quote without admitting or denying anthing at all. You opt for the latter.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        And yet you won’t deny it that what I’ve said is true, either.
        
        Demonstrate where I’ve commented on Pandagon as you said I have, Dennis. I deny it’s true, so now you have the burden of proof, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        I never mentioned Pandagon once. You’re not clever, DA. Not clever at all. You’re a loser at life, and a loser at this, even though, quite sadly, you try really, really hard at it. You seem to want make a grievance, but you can’t make up your mind about what your grievance actually is.
      - Zython
        
        Alright, so which blog ARE you talking about, then? In fact, I’m going to call you out and claim you’re making up shit. You’ve been whining about his “weird” defense (as though a man agreeing with a woman is “weird”), and then when asked for specifics, you whine about nothing. So I say put up or shut up.
        
        but when you defend her character and honor, of which she possesses little of either,
        
        Funny, coming from a guy who defends slander as long as people believe it.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I’m sorry, Dennis, but your accusations are so wild, it’s hard to keep track of all my psychotic and illogical defenses that I’ve posted somewhere other than Pandagon.
        
        Have a good life, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        I said you defend her often and it’s about the only time you defend anything or anyone without the aid of Google. There is nothing wild about that accusation, and it is true. You seem to be aggrieved, but you won’t deny the only accusation I’ve made.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        If it’s true, bring on some evidence, demonstrate a link and a quote from that link where I do so. Otherwise, you’re merely repeating yourself like a demented parrot that “It’s true, it’s true”, and making yourself appear as the psycho bully nut that you really are.
      - Zython
        
        Think about that for a second, John Edwards, the most odious scumbag politician in the last ten years, had to drop HER like a hot potato because she hurt HIS reputation.
        
        Or, because he IS a scumbag, that he decided to capitulate to wingnut whinging and take the easy way out, rather than uphold any sort of principals.
        
        Ever think about that? Wait. Let me rephrase that.
        
        Ever think?
      - Dennis
        
        You’re actually defending John Edwards as a man if principles. Ha!
        
        For someone who would pose as a conservative in order to pretend she was a racist anti-Semitic, similar to but actually worse than the backwards B woman, I’d say that was fitting for you.
      - Zython
        
        You’re actually defending John Edwards as a man if principles. Ha!
        
        No, I didn’t. I know the GOP believes that reading comprehension is a sin, but try to keep up. I said that he fired Amanda BECAUSE he lacks principals. Rather than upholding any principals, he took the easy way out.
        
        Now apologize for being stupid.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Yes, I think someone else said it best:
      - Dennis
        
        He fired her because she was an offensive freak who said idiotic anti- religious crap that was going to be a huge liability to him at a time when he was pretending to be a devout Christian and a family man. That act wasn’t going to fly if he stuck with her, so he punted. Her 5 minutes of fame, now you and DA follow her, leach on to her, and defend her because it gives your life meaning. So sad. Makes you feel like the misunderstood rebels. I imagine that when she read about your little conservative racist impersonation stunt, she welcomed you to her blog as an esteemed guest. Same with DA when she found out he loves to stalk children’s Facebook accounts for blog material.
        
        Birds of a feather.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Her 5 minutes of fame, now you and DA follow her, leach on to her, and defend her because it gives your life meaning. So sad.
        
        And you bring her up because her 5 minutes of fame are up and you want her to be obscure again?
        
        That’s leech, not leach like a leach line or leach field, o wise one.
      - Dennis
        
        One last time, iI bring her up because it’s only when defending her that you don’t rely on Google to make your arguments.
        
        Anyone can click on your name above and see your prior posts on any blog you visit, and 75% of the time you post, you are copying and pasting. All day long, that is what you do. Except when you’re defending her. That’s the one time you can speak with your own voice.
        
        Like Zython, you’re a scuzzball defending another scuzzball. I can understand how that’s the one thing that comes easy for you.
      - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
        
        Good gravy…this thread started on a rather interesting discussion on drones, morality, and practicality, and has decsedned into a back and forth on Amanda Marcotte? Jaysus Dennis, you actually started out bringing up some salient points, but you’ve descended into madness.
      - Dennis
        
        Frothy, it’s proof that freaks on the left here that you tolerate really don’t want any kind of discussion. When I didn’t post here, there was no discussion whatsoever, just the occasional abject post by db or someone else mundane just sauntering by. When I do post, everyone has to jump in and be dicks. So here you come along and blame it on me, when you sit there and see that DA posts personal information because it amuses him. That’s the problem I’ve always had with you, even though you’re a good, decent Norside Pittsburgher, you can’t look at anything half-way objectively, but you pretend to be that way.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        “When I do post, everyone has to jump in and be dicks.”
        
        Which is why you brought up Amanda Marcotte, because we were dicks to you.
        
        Get some sleep, cowboi, it’s been a long day for you and your righteous anger here.
      - Zython
        
        When I do post, everyone has to jump in and be dicks.
        
        We didn’t force you to be stupid.
      - Dennis
        
        Zython, what you did is still up on the internet at Sadly No, and it’s one of the stupidest things ever done on the internet. Even the freaks at Sadly No decided they didn’t want someone as stupid as you around to worsen their reputations. When you call someone else stupid, you don’t realize that you make a mockery of even yourself.
      - Zython
        
        Uh, what the fuck are you talking about? I think it’s way past your bedtime.
      - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
        
        Its proof of nothing. And you’re the one who brought up Marcotte, not DA. I’d wager that your issue is that you see everything in terms of absolutes, and have no concept of nuance or an understanding that while people who share broad philosophical and political opinions could still disagree about things. I’d point you to Oliver’s post about the prostitute who was arrested while she had her six year old son with her as an example of where we didn’t all agree with each other.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Anyone can click on your name above and see your prior posts on any blog you visit, and 75% of the time you post, you are copying and pasting.
        All day long, that is what you do. Except when you’re defending her. That’s the one time you can speak with your own voice.
        
        Then it should be easy for you to link to a comment that meets your description, cowboi.
        
        BTW, trying to comment at Pandagon and alicublog as copyburn isn’t going to do you any good, Dennis. You fling the same shit, and it smells just as bad as the rest of the feces you fling here on a regular basis.
        
        Have a good life, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        Google this, Google-boi:
        
        Philosoraptor: Amanda Marcotte Distorts Christina Hoff Summers’s Position
        
        Winston Smith writes about your infatuation girlfriend, and you show up out of nowhere to attempt to defend her. He rips you a new one, and you run away. Here, just as I’ve noted, is the rare instance when you don’t copy and paste anything. It’s remarkable how it’s the one time you feel brave enough to speak from your heart instead of relying on somebody else’s words to speak for you. It’s almost Shakespearean.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I really mean it this time, Dennis:
        
        I’m sorry that having a healthy relationship with a woman will always be beyond your limited capacities.
      - Dennis
        
        You asked. And you knew you wouldn’t like what you asked for, but you did it anyway.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Hey, I can’t help if if you’re jealous of my relationship with Amanda.
      - Dennis
        
        She’s a scuzzball. You can infatuate all you want to about her, to your heart’s content. Denying all this time that you ever defended her was just stupid on your part. Proves you don’t possess an honest bone in your body.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        It took you hours to find that ‘damning quote’, Dennis, and guess what:
        
        Nobody but you gives a damn about your so-called victory.
        
        You don’t have an honest cell in your body, Dennis-boi, spending your vacation time on little ol’ dishonest me.
        
        I’m sorry there’s not a positive female influence in your life, Dennis, I really am.
      - Dennis
        
        An incredibly positive female relationship with my wife of 25 years and two very beautiful daughters.
        
        And guess what, unlike you I don’t prance around popping up out of nowhere to defend a female blogger who I claim to have a relationship with. Which I’m sure is news to her that you two have one.
        
        Freak.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Nope, someone as obsessed about Amanda as you’ve demonstrated here doesn’t have a good relationship with women.
        
        Of course, nobody says “two very ugly daughters”, even if that’s true, right?
        
        And guess what, unlike you I don’t prance around popping up out of
        nowhere to defend a female blogger who I claim to have a relationship
        with.
        
        You brought her up, cowboi, and of course you wouldn’t understand a relationship with a healthy women if it hit you in the face at the speed of sound.
        
        Freak
        
        and the one who chooses to interact with a freak is, of course……………………………………………..
      - Dennis
        
        Again, I only brought her up because when you defend her you uncharacteristically refrain from using Google. You’re the one who keeps bringing her name up like she’s your Muse.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Keep it up, Cap’n Ahab, you’ll get that white whale sooner or later
      - Dennis
        
        Nope, someone as obsessed about Amanda as you’ve demonstrated here doesn’t have a good relationship with women.
        
        Not obsessed with her at all. I told you, she’s an odious scuzzball. And the two in your statement are not in any way correlative.
        
        Of course, nobody says “two very ugly daughters”, even if that’s true, right?
        
        No, no one ever says that, but mine in fact are very beautiful, both inside and out. That shouldn’t bother you. Why your mind even goes there is sad.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Not obsessed with her at all. I told you, she’s an odious scuzzball.
        And the two in your statement are not in any way correlative.
        
        You brought her up on this thread first, Dennis, anyone who has even a smattering of English can see that for themselves.
        
        No, no one ever says that, but mine in fact are very beautiful, both
        inside and out. That shouldn’t bother you. Why your mind even goes
        there is sad.
        
        What is sad that you found you had to be boastful about their outward beauty as if that were some sort of positive reflection or accomplishment of your own. It isn’t, it’s the roll of the genetic dice.
        
        That you couldn’t be proud that they’re considerate, kind, etc., people demonstrates what you truly value.
        
        And that is a real tragedy, Dennis. It really is.
      - Dennis
        
        That makes no sense at all. And God, you are one downer of an individual.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Yes, I’m a Debbie Downer, and you keep interacting with me anyway.
        
        You can’t help yourself, Dennis, and I almost feel sorry for you, I post, and you dance to respond, even when there is a barely logical thought left in that waste of tissue you call a brain.
        
        Have a good life Dennis, this is definitely the last time I’m responding to you. I don’t care if you post that I make Charlie Manson seem like one of the kids from “My Three Sons”, I’m going to refrain from responding to you because it only brings out the dark side in you.
        
        Have a good life, Mr. S.
      - Dennis
        
        Wish I had a dollar for every time you’ve said that these past few years. You say ‘definitely’ like you mean it, but you never do.
        
        You lost again. Ass kicked thoroughly. Now go email Ben.
      - Zython
        
        He fired her because she was an offensive freak who said idiotic anti- religious crap that was going to be a huge liability to him at a time
        
        Well, if by that, you mean Michelle Malkin decided to pretend to be offended by statements opposing the anti-feminist positions of the Catholic church (Michelle Malkin herself had mocked the Holy See before), then yeah.
        
        Her 5 minutes of fame, now you and DA follow her, leach on to her, and defend her because it gives your life meaning. So sad. Makes you feel like the misunderstood rebels. I imagine that when she read about your little conservative racist impersonation stunt, she welcomed you to her blog as an esteemed guest. Same with DA when she found out he loves to stalk children’s Facebook accounts for blog material.
        
        Yes, Dennis, you got us. We also hold secret covens and satanic rituals every Sunday. We then sacrifice a Christian baby and use its blood to make matzah. The vegans use a soy-based Christian blood substitute, of course.
        
        Seriously, this isn’t even strawmanning anymore. This is just chasing phantoms.
      - Zython
        
        Hmm…
        
        Tell me. Why are you so angry and bitter? I mean, with Frank, it was pretty clear that he was blaming liberals for his many failures that plague his life. But you just seem to be angry and revel in misery for its own sake. So seriously, what’s your deal?
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        He’s not a very happy person, and he takes it out on others instead of trying to fix what’s wrong inside of himself.
      - dbtheonly
        
        Z,
        
        His team lost the election. Big. After all those un-skewed polls showed the Romney win. After Dick Morris’ polls showed a Romney landslide. It’s got to be tough when reality smacks your fantasy world up-side the head.
      - Dennis
        
        Fantasy world is not being able to articulate a political position beyond saying you just happen to trust the liberal president more than the conservative one on a tough issue, db. In that you typify the stupidity that populates the commentariat here. You are pretty much the spokesperson here, because despite your stupidity, you go ahead and say what everyone else is afraid to say, but what they actually in their hearts believe.
      - dbtheonly
        
        Dennis,
        
        You flatter me. I would never claim to be the spokesman here. I’m happy if I do my bit.
        
        I say that President Obama strikes me as a more thoughtful and serious person than President Bush, Jr.
        
        You misinterperet it to read libetral/conservative.
        
        Did you miss what I said about trustingh presidents Bush Sr. & Eisenhower? Are they no longer Conservative?
        
        But cheerfully enlarging on your original misinterpertation; you now call me stuipd.for saying that President Bush Jr. did not seem thoughtful?
        
        DA,
        
        Dennis’s score is dropping like a rock.
        
        You were right, the Leopard does not change his spots.
      - Dennis
        
        I didn’t say that your goal was to be the spokesman, merely that it’s ironic that in effect you are the spokesman here on this issue. People here agree with you, but they’re too cowardly to say your moronic, simplified views are hypocritical and based solely on political ideology, and nothing else. The fact you nobly state that you liked other Republican presidents before Bush is of no consequence to your idiotic stance.
      - dbtheonly
        
        Dennis,
        
        Is that your picture in DA’s poster?
        
        You don’t read what I write. I don’t say what you claim.
        
        You’re living in your own world where everything is self-validated. You show me the limits of Sartre-ian choice.
      - Dennis
        
        No, it’s not, but why would you care? You employ the same personal dirt-bag tricks as Dark Avenger does but you carry on this stupid act as if you don’t know what you’re doing, so you can do just like he does and throw up your hands and say “Whatever are you talking about?” It’s not even clever. Just like it’s not even clever to mention Sartre when you have no clue what it is you’re even referring to; you just throw the name out there and pretend it means something. Moron.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        Can’t have it both way, Den-Den. If that picture isn’t you, that I haven’t posted any personal information about you on this thread.
        
        If it is, and I have, then your denial is pathetic, like most of the things you’ve written on this thread.
      - Dennis
        
        Not even clever at all. Not the picture, and not your lame excuse. You’re a sick bastard, and if it weren’t cruel to do it to such a pathetic low life with no meaningful assets, a dark and dank existence and nothing better to do with his life, that guy whose picture you lifted should probably sue you.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        no meaningful assets
        
        Oh, is that how you measure a mans’ life, by his assets?
        
        I’m sorry, Dennis, but I haven’t informed you of any of my property holdings, real or otherwise. Of course, my name is on the mortgage here, , since you already know my address you’re welcome to use Zillow or any of the proprietary programs available to you at the bank to see what’s it’s currently worth. Heck, in about 9 years I could probably follow that nice Fred Thompson’s advice and take out a reverse mortgage, so between that and my social security and a 100$/month tiny pension I have coming to me, I could probably live the life of Riley.
        
        Here I am, a parasite and sick freak, and you still have to come here and wallow in the mud with me and the other liberal lambs.
        
        a dark and dank existence
        
        Funny, that’s what some people say about you.
        
        that guy whose picture you lifted should probably sue you
        
        You’re welcome to find him and tell him about it, Dennis, if you can find him.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        And his comments are getting moderated and deleted. Gee, I wonder why that’s happening right now.
      - Dennis
        
        Are you actually bragging that your tattling gets my comments deleted? Seriously? You post personal information about me continously, then go and tattle on me like a little schoolgirl, and then gloat? This is a good day for you, isn’t it? A moral victory for Team Lib. Kudos, Dark Avenger. Well played.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        You’re welcome to flag my comments, Dennis, but here you are, violating Ben Cohen’s rules, and you’re whining about it like an Alaskan Malamute in heat when you’re caught doing so.
        
        You post personal information about me continously,
        
        So do you, with your comments on my employment status, and my wife, and my relationship with Amanda Marcotte.
        
        Hypocrite, much?
        
        Have a good life, cowboi.
      - Dennis
        
        You post my name, my address, my wife’s name and my phone number, and you get db to do it, too. You’re a lowlife scumbag who runs to the blog owner to deal withhis problems after getting his lip bloodied. You’re worse than Zython, who posed as a conservative blogger using her real name, and as a Jew himself, ascribed anti-Semitic screed to her, as if she said it, along with racist and misogynistic rants. And now he pretends to be offended that I call you a tattler like a schoolgirl.
        
        This is how liberals argue on liberal blogs. Like cowards.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        You post my name, my address, my wife’s name and my phone number, and you get db to do it, too.
        
        Nope, I deliberately obscured your phone number so that nobody could contact you against your will, as you phoned me up out of the blue.
        
        You’re a lowlife scumbag who runs to the blog owner to deal withhis problems after getting his lip bloodied.
        
        Nope, Dennis, as anyone can see, I kept telling you that I was flagging your remarks, and you chose to ignore me like the Dumb A** that you are.
        
        You’re worse than Zython, who posed as a conservative blogger using her real name, and as a Jew himself, ascribed anti-Semitic screed to her, asif she said it, along with racist and misogynistic rants.
        
        And, that hasn’t kept you from responding to him in this thread. All of us horrible scumbag liberals that you can’t keep from responding to.
        
        Poor, Poor Dennis, everyone, can we have a few tears for our conservative rule-following friend.
        
        And now he pretends to be offended that I call you a tattler like a schoolgirl.
        
        Well, if I were a schoolgirl I wouldn’t have to worry about being naked around a closet case like you.
        
        This is how liberals argue on liberal blogs. Like cowards.
        
        More name-calling, I’m going to have to flag this one like a red-haired, 36-C cup, 15 year old schoolgirl turned tattler.
        
        Have a good life, Dennis.
      - Zython
        
        You post personal information about me continously, then go and tattle on me like a little schoolgirl, and then gloat?
        
        What is it with you and using femininity as an insult?
        
        And besides, I remember you concern trolling us about following Ben’s rules. But it seems like you couldn’t even live up to your own advice. Now THAT’S hypocrisy.
      - dbtheonly
        
        No Dennis,
        
        DA doesn’t “tattle” & your own foul language is enough to get you deleted from any responsible web site.
        
        We just have to sit back & let Dennis be Dennis.
      - Dennis
        
        I’m sorry, db, but your Google hero does tattle, and he did tattle.
        
        You need to accept that reality. He isn’t what you think he is. He actually has less honor than you do.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I could only measure your honor with the imaginary i, the square root of -1.
        
        Actually, that kind of describes you in general, doesn’t it, Dennis?
      - Dennis
        
        Why is it that you liberal clowns rely so much on each other for back-up?
        
        And DA, why can’t you put your interest in math into something productive, something gainful, something to get you out of the rut you’re in? I mean, there’s got to be an employer out there somewhere who might be impressed that you reference the square root of -1, don’t you think? Of course there is.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I’d be impressed if there was a employer who would hire you after reading your sick screeds here, Dennis.
      - dbtheonly
        
        Dennis,
        
        “Why is it that you liberal clowns rely so much on each other for back-up?”
        
        DA, Ol, Zython, the Real Burn, Buzz, (lamentably missing) Marco & I really do think along similar lines. There are differences among us (see Buzz & me over at Allison Chadwick’s) but we know how to keep it civil. For whatever reasons you choose not to remain civil. For whatever reasons you choose to harp on past wrongs you see done to you.
        
        You played nicely for a couple of weeks. You’ve changed your mind?
      - Dennis
        
        DA, Ol, Zython, the Real Burn, Buzz, (lamentably missing) Marco & I really do think along similar lines.
        
        Duh. Of course you all do, db. You’re all mental drones that think exactly the same and rely on each other to formulate your thought processes. You all to a man wait for the other guy to speak up and then you rush in to back that man up.
        
        Then you characterize that as ‘discussion’ and ‘civil discourse’.
      - dbtheonly
        
        Good Lord in Heaven Dennis,
        
        You quote my first sentence & completely ignore the second. Is this some kind of game I’m supposed to enjoy?
        
        Ignoring you is much easier.
      - Dennis
        
        db, if that prevents you from continuing to post personal information about me on here, then I think that’s a good thing. I’d prefer that you sitll post and carry on the so-called discussion and civil discourse, but without the posting of personal information, but if those two can’t go together, maybe just ignoring is the best of the available options.
      - dbtheonly
        
        Dennis,
        
        Now you’re all butt-hurt that I’ve published your personal information? When was that?
        
        You want to, “carry on the so-called discussion and civil discourse” while getting your posts deleted for the obscenities?
        
        DA,
        
        Has Dennis been committed recently; ’cause he seems to have lost all grasp of reality.
      - Dennis
        
        Yes, you stated my name and address and the town I live in, and you’ve discussed my wife’s name. And you did it acting like you were innocent about it because you merely just repeated what DA wrote, when you knew what he was doing. That’s f’ing bullshit, when you know you have an identity thief in Zython running around this blog and idiots like DA, who you adore, and Burn doing overtime trying to find out everything they can about any conservative who posts here, and bloggers who own this place who do nothing about it, who in effect embolden the idiots who do it. Yo know DA stalks peoples’ Facebook and that of their kids so he can report back here, and then you support it by repeating what they say in a half-assed, innocent fashion. Please don’t act like you don’t know when or how you did it, because you certainly do.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I just hope he doesn’t have any access to firearms. If he ever went postal, it would reflect badly on his family and this blog.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        You do butthurt extremely well, Dennis.
        
        Fantasy world is what Romney supporters like you lived in, or can you adduce any more evidence for your current allegations than you had for a Romney victory
      - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
        
        Dennis, I’m not sure what you’ve been reading, but many, many voices on the left have serious issues with the use of drones for extra-judicial killings, be they carried out by a Republican or a Democratic president. I’d provide some links for you, but I don’t want my comment held up in moderation, and you’re certainly capable of doing the Google. As I’ve typed, I’m highly conflicted about this, although I recognize that there may not be a feasible way to bring to justice someone who is outside the reach of civilian law enforcement, I’m at the same time appalled that the President, ANY President, can order the execution of someone based on his say-so. There needs to be, in my opinion, some sort of oversight, be it from the Bench or from Congress.
      - Dennis
        
        Frothy, I’m talking about you guys here mainly. The way you all waxed so eloquent, so forthrightly, so sanctimoniously about renditions and enhanced interrogation procedures without due process, and how Dick Chaney was Darth Vader and Bush was Hitler and should be impeached and tried for war crimes at The Hague and how there was no right reason for any of it even in a ticking time bomb scenario. All the things you said out of conviction as if these were all cut and dried answers and Bush was wrong, wrong, wrong in everything he did and how it rankled you so. Because you felt he never did look at both sides of the issue at the time for what he was facing. As if he never was highly conflicted with the decisions. That’s what you want a pass for, where you want us to believe you’re some kind of deep thinker who carefully weighed both sides of the issue and so easily dismissed Bush’s decisions, but now hide behind your own by saying ‘well, what are you gonna do, they want to kill us’. It’s nothing but pure hypocritical phoniness on your part now. It’s nice that you’re highly conflicted by this now, really, it’s touching. Doesn’t seem to change how you used to feel about essentially the same things. It just proves that you’re incapable of thinking along principles and instead defer to your political ideology.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        It just proves that you’re incapable of thinking along principles and instead defer to your political ideology.
        
        Nope, you don’t get to play referee here without evidence, Pasty Dennis.
      - Dennis
        
        Nope, wasn’t talking to you. Freak Kids’ Facebook Stalker. Go find another person to mentally masturbate to, how about it?
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I’m sorry that I’m not as good a stalker than you.
      - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
        
        I disagree with your assesment. I’m deeply troubled by extrajudicial executions, regardless of who is president, and yet I understand that sometimes, there might not be another choice. Had Bush sent in a SEAL team to take out bin Laden, I’d have approved, same as I did with Obama, although ideally, I’d have preferred him to be captured and tried.
        As for my opposition to torture, I oppose it because it simply doesn’t work, and I opposed the Iraq war because it took the focus off the real fight, which was going on in Afghanistan. I’d have opposed Iraq and torture regardless of who was president.
        You’re making the mistake of assuming that I’d have approved of the actions Bush took if he were a Democrat. You couldn’t be more wrong.
      - Dennis
        
        Suddenly you’re a lot more introspective about it, though, Frothy. No introspection about what Bush did then, or now. It was wrong for Bush, and he was evil. Now you’re deeply conflicted, but no way is Obama evil. And no way was Bush not evi. That’s inconsistent, and hypocritical.
      - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
        
        And you are completly wrong Dennis. You have your narrative, and despite all evidence to the contrary, you’re sticking with it.
      - Dennis
        
        I’ve read comments from this blog for years, Frothy. I’ve read what you guys wrote, and how you wrote them. When it was a Republican, he was evil. When it’s a Democrat, it’s
        ‘well, I’m conflicted on this’. There is no contrary evidence to this.
      - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
        
        Well then, I’m sure that you can point to a post where I condemned Bush for launching a drone strike? You can’t because I haven’t, and yet you’ll scream HYPOCRACY based on no evidence whatsoever. You have no idea of nuance or degree, but only tribal and black and white.
      - Dennis
        
        Frothy, would you rather be waterboarded or killed by a drone strike?
        
        Which one are you more passionate about? And why? Obama campaigned just ripping Bush a new one for things he felt were abominable, and then promptly ramps up the drone program, killing Americans without due process, and all you say is you are conflicted.
      - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
        
        I’d rather have neither done. As I’ve typed, and much prefer to have these guys captured and put on trial, yet I acknowledge that in many cases, that isn’t feasible. If we must have a drone strike, I’d rather that there was some sort of check such as a judicial review, rather than just the president’s say so, and if its a choice of having a drone strike or putting the lives of US military personnel in harm’s way, I’d lean towards drones. The biggest isuue for me is tthe vesting of this power in a single person’s hands. That’s deeply troubling, no matter who is president.
- http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
  
  I’d be much, much more comfortable with this if the evidence was presented to a judge or/and to a congressional select committee, and concurrance granted. I’ve come to think that when a US citizen is involved than perhaps a stronger burden of proof should apply? On the other hand, if someone takes up arms against the government, are they still a citizen? I’m very conflicted about this internally, on one hand, I find extra-judicial killings repugnant. I’m not a fan of the death penalty in any case. On the other hand, what do you do about dangerous persons operating outside the reach of civilian justice? As usual, there is no black and white, only shades of grey, but we’ve been vesting more and more power in one person for decades, and I’m not terribly comfortable with that. Just typing out loud.
  - dbtheonly
    
    Dennis,
    
    G W Bush, as an individual President, did not impress me with his gravitas, introspection, and/or deep knowledge. My reluctance was personal to him. I’d trusted either Presidents Ford or Bush Sr. I didn’t always agree with either politically, but I felt that each was a serious, careful man. I really don’t see this as hypocrisy.
    
    Ol,
    
    Again, I can only suggest that you read the stuff I posted over at Ms. Chadwick’s article. You’re right, we are mucking through shades of gray.
    
    But:
    
    I don’t think a higher standard of evidence ought to exist for US Citizens. It’s a human being being killed in each event. My question is not as much with the death penalty itself, but how much force is “allowed” to prevent a crime from occurring?
    
    I can see judicial review, but I’m reminded of Harry Truman’s, “The Buck Stops Here”. I want President Obama to know, that when he stands before the Judgment Throne, he and he alone will answer. Or see Shakespeare’s Henry V Act IV Scene 1 for Michael Williams.
    
    Others have compared this to the Civil War. I see it more like the actions taken against the Molly McGuires in Canada during said war.
    
    I appreciate your comments. Your typing out loud, helps me sort out the issues that trouble & confuse me. I value your thoughts.
    - Dennis
      
      ” I really don’t see this as hypocrisy.”
      
      Hypocrites rarely do see their hypocrisy as such, db. It’s human nature. Your principles are all over the place based on who you like and don’t like, who your politics agree with and don’t agree with, and you rationalize based on those feelings. Obama came into office arguing against the exact policies he is now ascribing to, and you’re fine with that because you trust him. That makes absolutely no sense from a principle standpoint, and makes your argument highly hypocritical in light of your admonitions of Bush’s policies. You can’t justify it, so you bloviate about gray areas and being conflicted and ‘what else you gonna do’, but if you had any conviction about it at all and any sense of consistency, you’d be apologizing first for your harsh criticisms of what Bush had to face. No liberal can do that. Too devastating to their ego. Much easier to just be called a hypocrite and try some kind of half-assed answer to justify it on the grounds that you just trust the leftist president more on the issue.
      - dbtheonly
        
        Dennis,
        
        You’ll forgive me if I fail to accept the charge of hypocrisy on your say so alone.
        
        Do you ignore the fact that Presidents are people & people can have different attributes? Attributes other that strictly political differences? Am I allowed to place trust in the persons I choose w/o the charge of hypocrisy being leveled?
        
        I hoped you’d see that Ol & I (among others) are concerned & troubled by the issue; but see no better alternative. You dismiss this as “bloviate(ing) and look no closer. You make it too easy to dismiss what you’re saying.
      - Dennis
        
        I dismiss it as bloviating, yes, db, because that’s giving you more credit that you’re due. You’re not saying anything other than you’re conflicted, but thank God Obama is the one doing it instead of George W. Bush. I’m embarrassed for you.
      - Dennis
        
        You wailed like a stuck pig on Mitt Romney’s Cayman holdings even though you knew nothing whatsoever about what those even were or why he’d employ them. Now Obama nominates Jack Lew, who also employed them, and you and the rest of the ninnies on the Left are silent.
        
        No principles, no convictions. You just trust Obama more. Oh, and ‘you’re conflicted, but hey, what are ya gonna do?’.
        
        Nice, db.
      - Zython
        
        C’mon, get with the program. Whine about the stuff the other conservatives are complaining about, like his signature, or the fact that he observes the Sabbath.
      - dbtheonly
        
        Good Old Dennis,
        
        True to form. Can take any meaningful discussion & turn it into mindless criricism.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        That’s his shtick, aside from being a corporate and cubical drone.
        
        I think that he really shouldn’t be taken seriously anymore, his rantings should be regarded as mere regurgitations from a diseased psyche.
      - dbtheonly
        
        Agreed DA, Only adding that his foul mouth ought to get him deleted until he learns to play nicely.
        
        The worst part is that Dennis is self-validated so he really is living in his own fantasy world. I wish there was some way to reach him & find out how he reconciles reality to his fantasies. Remember Farris & the election results. There’s something to be learned there.
        
        Did you see the I believe) Op-Ed News article this morning demanding the impeachment of President Obama as a War Criminal? Chalk up another one in the “I feel Conservative” list.
        
        It’s none of my business but who is Amanda Marcotte? And can I help?
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        I didn’t see that editorial, but I’m not ready to impeach Obama, especially when there are right-wing fools who are ready to do so on the slightest and slighter pretenses not involving the drones, in the Congress and elsewhere.
        
        As for your last question, she runs the blog Pandagon at www(dot)rawstory(dot)com, which is a liberal news site. Dennis has a bee in his bonnet about her, and she gets idiots of Dennis’s ilk sometimes, misogynists, right-wing fools and the like, at times.
        
        I actually had an exchange with a young libertarian on the site yesterday where the latter said I had good points to make, so there’s that, sometimes dialog is possible out of the liberal/leftist community with people of good will, who aren’t Negative Nellies like our puffy friend Dennis.
        
        Dennis is nothing compared to a troll who used to call himself Robert Zimmerman there ages and ages ago before her blog came to The Raw Story. Compared to him, Dennis looks like a true Alinskyite, as RZ did everything but accuse Amanda of carrying out abortions in the third trimester bare-handed.
        
        Don’t you think it’s amusing that Dennis is getting moderated or deleted because he can’t follow the same rules he thought were so important a mere few weeks ago?
        
        And I will keep flagging those comments he makes that break those rules, and watch as he ultimately gets his a** banned from here again because he has all the self-control of a honey badger on meth.
      - Dennis
        
        Keep running around on the internet announcing to the world that you have a ‘very healthy relationship’ with Amanda Marcotte, DA, a woman 20 years your junior, while you sit at home all day long on your computer in which your wife works to pay for the cable bill so you can do that behind her back. Keep posting personal information to start a fight on this website and then run to the site monitor for protection when you get your nose tweaked a little more than you’re used to.
      - The Dark Avenger
        
        If you’ll look below, you can see that Dennis is still vainly trying to repeat the same ‘charges’ even though it has been clear than nobody here gives a good godd*mn about what he’s ranting about.
        
        Dennis has always demonstrated a screwed up mind, now he’s getting pathological (on his vacation, no less) but it’s unlikely that he poses a threat to himself or others on this blog.
      - Zython
        
        Of course, your hypocrisy of supporting these actions under the Bush administration is should be conveniently ignored. I’m perfectly happy to discuss the ramifications of the use of military dones, just not with someone whose opinion changed on January 20, 2009.
      - Dennis
        
        My opinion didn’t change, Zython. Yours did. You have to scramble now to rectify your prior convictions with your current ones and why you think Obama deserves more of the benefit of the doubt. You’re not capable of doing that on your own, which is why you hesitate. You still need to do some more googling to find who’s opinion out there that’s written on it might gel the most with how you feel. You have no conviction on it whatsoever other than you hated Bush and the criticisms of him making those same decisions to you were cool at the time, so you went with with them. Now you have nothing. You’ve always been that way.
      - http://frothslosh.typepad.com/ Ol Froth
        
        I have a problem with both Bush AND Obama conducting extrajudicial killings. We continue to vest more and more power in the Presidency, as Congress continues to abdicate their warmaking powers. Its been going on since Korea, and its unsettling. I don’t know how you reconcile that with the mordern reality of failed states, terrorism, and global mobility.
      - Zython
        
        My opinion didn’t change, Zython.
        
        Well, I guess that’s true if your opinion is “The power to kill without oversight belongs solely to white people”.
        
        Yours did. You have to scramble now to rectify your prior convictions with your current ones and why you think Obama deserves more of the benefit of the doubt.
        
        I have no idea what you’re on (probably meth), but you should take less of it. I simply pointed out that you were perfectly happy with the slaughter of foreigners up until 4 years ago. You’re whining is clearly projection and nothing more.
      - Christopher Foxx
        
        Dennis: My opinion didn’t change, Zython.
        
        Dennis is absolutely right. His opinion has been that Obama is wrong about everything and Dennis has never wavered from this.
        
        Obama is wrong when he does something different than Bush did.
        Obama is wrong when he does something the same as Bush did.
        Anyone who ever supports Obama is anything is an Obamabot who supports him in everything. That they make comments critical of Obama are clearly mere smoke screens.
        
        Dennis has been extremely consistent in his opinions.

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