The Canadian Front

[The Wooster]

snip

I find it pretty hilarious that you're always trying to shut down anyone who calls out your nonsense by calling people politically correct anti-US revisionists. LITERALLY no one in this thread had mentioned white people massacring native americans yet you bring that up like it proves your point that no damn 'libruls' can face the hard truth that white people aren't as awful as you claim we claim they are.

Anyway, good strip, even if I didn't know what Tim Hortons was...

Actually, I've mostly been ignoring the trolls I've gotten in response, which have mostly been people responding with the same logic of a four year old who thinks that if he says the opposite it will be true if he wants to believe it or not.

The bottom line here, like most arguements I've been involved in, is that I pretty much "won" right from the get go and people don't like that, and are trying to dance around the fact that it threatens a carefully constructed world view.

You've been posting in my comments section for years and I have never once seen you win an argument. You simply do the same song and dance every time until people give up in frustration.
[ul]
[li] Step 1: Ludicrous Assertion[/li]
[li] Step 2: Accusation of Liberal Bias in Everything Ever That Conveniently Allows You To Ignore Historical Fact[/li]
[li] Step 3: Irrelevant Information Used To Prove How Clever You or to Draw a Useless Comparison[/li]
[li]Step 4: Dubious Anecdotal Evidence[/li][/ul]

It's the same thing every time, but spread out over a billion misused words. And despite the hours - HOURS - of effort you evidently put into your posts, you lack the time or wherewithal to proof read them or even run them through a spell checker.

 

[Eggsnham]

After reading the first page of comments, I feel a strange sense of pride in being one of those who got the joke.

But seriously though, good job, I lol'd.

 

[Therumancer]

But hey, until I mentioned it, all these experts had never even heard of "The Battle Of Stonington" and oddly can't find records of it other than a brief mention of a naval clash.

I still do not see why you think that battle was so important. There were a ton of small skirmishes during that war but most just get subsumed into the larger campaigns that they were part of. I remember driving in Ontario and coming upon a monument commemorating a battle fought at that location. It seemed like a significant battle for the town but was not as strategically important as the Battle of the Thames which took place in the same region.

The overall discussion here was pretty much the assertsion that the US "lost" the war because it lost a battle and The White House was burned. For the most part anyplace where the Brits attacked they were largely turned back, the most famous victory of course being "The Battle Of New Orleans" but if you look at the overall situation they accomplished very little of anything. Pretty much every time they would hit some little burg expected an easy victory they would wind up running into such stiff resistance that they would get turned back. The "Battle Of Stonington" being an example I used simply because it's a quintessential example of the pattern and something you'll find if you look into most of New England and the American Heartland of the time when the war was fought. Serious attempts were made, and it was pretty much a complete military disaster, when you can't even take Stongington that says a lot about how well your offensive is going.

The point here is that every time someone wants to do a bit of US bashing, we get "Oh, I remember when the White House got burned down" amazing how that bit gets taught even in the US, but without the larger context of exactly how this entire war really went.

I also mention it by way of counterpoint to people running in and saying "I'm a history buff, and what your saying is incorrect!". The thing is that I fully understand how people that think they are experts and might even wind up with a degree can wind up with entirely the wrong information. I'm more or less pointing out that as someone who lives in the region and has a good idea of what went on, I can tell you flat out that what you learned is incorrect. If your an expert on the period and the wars of colonial New England, you should be familiar with things like The Battle Of Stonington and other pieces of local history... anyone who had to look that one up and had trouble kind of made my
point for me.

 

[Therumancer]

snip

I find it pretty hilarious that you're always trying to shut down anyone who calls out your nonsense by calling people politically correct anti-US revisionists. LITERALLY no one in this thread had mentioned white people massacring native americans yet you bring that up like it proves your point that no damn 'libruls' can face the hard truth that white people aren't as awful as you claim we claim they are.

Anyway, good strip, even if I didn't know what Tim Hortons was...

Actually, I've mostly been ignoring the trolls I've gotten in response, which have mostly been people responding with the same logic of a four year old who thinks that if he says the opposite it will be true if he wants to believe it or not.

The bottom line here, like most arguements I've been involved in, is that I pretty much "won" right from the get go and people don't like that, and are trying to dance around the fact that it threatens a carefully constructed world view.

You've been posting in my comments section for years and I have never once seen you win an argument. You simply do the same song and dance every time until people give up in frustration.
[ul]
[li] Step 1: Ludicrous Assertion[/li]
[li] Step 2: Accusation of Liberal Bias Everything Ever That Conveniently Allows You To Ignore Historical Fact[/li]
[li] Step 3: Irrelevant Information Used To Prove How Clever You or to Draw a Useless Comparison[/li]
[li]Step 4: Dubious Anecdotal Evidence[/li][/ul]

It's the same thing every time, but spread out over a billion misused words. And despite the hours - HOURS - of effort you evidently put into your posts, you lack the time or wherewithal to proof read them or even run them through a spell checker.

Actually, I type pretty bloody quickly. We could argue about my use of words at length, but I'll concede the spelling. In cases where I've done more serious writing I'd edited myself and know how bad I am with word structure, spelling, and english in general right off the cuff. Being various shades of tired or exhausted 100% of the time doesn't help much either, and to be honest it's gotten worse.

To be frank most arguements or discussions with me usually involve me making my point, attracting a bunch of people who don't want to accept it, and then me pretty much figuring everything that has been said can be said and deciding to nod out, having already "won", by any objective standard, usually pretty early on. Of course I suppose given the nature of these kinds of debates those on the other side or that support it prefer not to acknowlege the victory.

Typically when I bring up liberal bias, it's more because someone is presenting a political position as a fact, with history being re-defined to fit with a modern point of view that oftentimes didn't even exist when the events took place.

In many cases the discussions I'm involved in here amount to a bunch of sheltered idealists who have been told how the world works, argueing with me, someone who has actually been out in the world, and seen how it works from a perspective most people won't ever have. Typically when I get involved and say something, whether it's on a social issue, or very specific areas of legality or history (the same ones which tend to come up again and again), I'm not expressing opinion, I am expressing pure fact as in "I've been right there and seen it" fact.

It's sort of like when I actually bother to argue gay rights nowadays, which I don't because there is nothing more to be said on the subject. Typically 99% of the people I argue with on this forum jump right in and talk about all these studies, and research, and facts, and claim that they disprove what I'm saying. The problem is of course that studies on the nessicary level are impossible to conduct since it would require unparalleled levels of secret surveillance of millions of people for a prolonged period of time. Pretty much the efforts of the combined US goverment, violating pretty much every law on suerveillance and search and seizure for decades, to ever compile the kind of information being stated as fact, and since that hasn't happened it means anyone claiming to have that kind of data is obviously lying. As a result when I, someone who had surveillance authority within a limited context, and happens to have formed a position based on things I saw in the course of my duties (which weren't directly related to snooping gays), I have more validity as a source than any study ever conducted due to the lack of awareness of who I was checking in on. Your only recourse is to basically say I'm a liar and never did this kind of thing to have noticed patterns while doing my job, or of course to produce someone in a similar position who disagrees with me, which to be honest is highly unlikely since pretty much anyone who does this kind of thing largely winds up having pretty much the same view of the world and most issues as a result. I'm just more vocal than most.

To put it into context of this discussion, I had one guy try and claim that being from New England and getting my information as close to first hand as posible, I'm actually less reliable than some textbook he's reading, which might be on the other side of the country, written by someone who claims to be an expert and to have visited these sites and done research, but amazingly contridicts anything he could have learned visiting the region.

When I talk about liberal bias, I do so largely when I'm aware that what someone is saying is a common perception, but where I have personally seen or run into things which show otherwise.

For the most part, there are actually very few areas that I claim to be an "expert" on, it's just that a lot of people like to argue with me about them, and typically it comes down to idealistic arguements based on what someone has been told is a proven fact, as opposed to someone who actually knows.

I don't feel any need to engage in circular arguements, do people's research for them (especially when I know the effort will be wasted, like when argueing with an idealogue who is going to insist any source disagreeing with his sources is inherantly biased and wrong, making it pointless), or have the last word. In fact I made a sort of resolution to get less involved in this kind of thing.

At any rate, I doubt you'll accept what I'm saying (especially in another huge, admittedly badly written post), but the overall point here is that yes, I believe I've won nearly every arguement or debate I've been in on this site. I've conceded being wrong a few times actually, but a lot of the issues pretty much come down to me saying it like it is, based on real world experience, oftentimes explaining how I know something, and then people trying to argue the point when it doesn't match their idealogy.

When all is said and done thing, you'll think what you want to think, and I'll think what I want to think. When it comes to politics and such, we'll probably find some area we agree on someday, but I have no idea when that will be.

Of course given the tone of your post starting with "Ludicrous Assertion" right after the warning I've received in a post above this does mean I'm going to back off here, because this forum is your back yard after all.

 

[Hellfireboy]

Who knew that all Canadian snipers are Sorrowful Men. Learned something.

 

[Susan Arendt]

" I have more validity as a source than any study ever conducted due to the lack of awareness of who I was checking in on"

Aaaaaand we're done. My brain just broke.

 

[Therumancer]

" I have more validity as a source than any study ever conducted due to the lack of awareness of who I was checking in on"

Aaaaaand we're done. My brain just broke.

Not very well written, but my point is that if your conducting a study in the US you by definition have to tell the people your studying what your doing. By definition in a country like the US you cannot conduct a legal study capable of determining whether or not male homosexuals are more likely to be pedophilles. You by and large have to look for volunteers and hope they will confess to criminal behavior, as well as basically contribute information that would lead to unwanted regulation of them as a group.

In order to gather this information you'd pretty much need to have people that are in possession of the authority to gather and compile information on a large scale without the approval or knowlege of those being observed. You'd pretty much need to have the guys doing the study breaking into houses and snooping the stuff of gay men without them knowing it was going on, and then compiling and using that data. This would have to be done on a massive scale involving millions of unaware subjects to gather the kind of data people I tend to argue with claim experts have and was used to prove a point.

In my case while I was not looking in on gay men, or anyone to gather data for a study, I did routinely spy on and snoop people as a course of looking into other things. I've probably searched thousands of bags, hundreds of rooms, and tailed got knows how many people, as well as watching video cameras, eavesdropping on conversations, and other assorted things by way of protecting the interest of my employers. In the course of doing this I was able to notice trends, finding kiddie porn in bags, listening to what people say, tracing their activities, etc... of course my employer had it's own interests and frankly doesn't care if someone is dragging around pedophille porn as long as they aren't doing anything that costs the casino money or reflects on it's operations. You can basically be the biggest scumbag in the world and at the end of the day if your spending money and not doing anything overt enough to hurt the casino, nobody really cares. I could say more about it and the exceptions, but that's the bottom line.

At any rate, the point being that I've actually seen the things that I'm talking about, having been in a position to do so. I've followed people, gone through their stuff, and spied on them without them being aware I was around or doing so. While on a small scale, this DOES mean that I speak with more authority on the subject than any expert conducting a "study" because the experts simply do not have the basic tools or authority to conduct this kind of information gathering, especially not for that purpose. I mostly learned what I did as a sideline to the rest of my job.

This goes beyond gay rights, into a lot of differant things I've said, on a number of subjects, which is why I mention by backround by way of explanation, and occasionally talk about "colored glasses" (to use the metaphor of one of my instructors) and how once you do a job like this, it fundementally changes the way you see the world compared to other people because you get to peek behind the curtain other people take for granted. Over a period of time, even when not snooping, simple experience makes it so you see the world in a fundementally differant, and more informed, way.

At the end of the day when someone here invokes an "expert" working for so and so university that happens to agree with them, the first question you need to ask before even considering his work is how the hell he could possibly know anything if his subject involves information that could only be collected from unaware subjects.

So yeah, my general lack of writing skill is noteworthy, but my point is hardly mind blowing.

Seriously though, I've gotten comments from you in the past, but I'm kind of wondering what your problem is with a rather straightforward arguement. I get that you don't like a lot of what I have to say, and have a very differant set of principles and world view on a lot of these subjects, but I don't think this basis for a lot of my arguements is paticularly unreasonable. At the end of the day, it generally comes down to either dismissing me as a liar, or accepting that there is at least some validity to what I'm saying. As I've also pointed out in the past you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who has first hand knowlege of a lot of the subjects I've talked about whose attitudes differ that greatly. In many cases it comes down to someone who knows from doing, argueing with people who heard things from academic sources that tell them what they want to hear.

 

[Susan Arendt]

*snip*

Oh, you misunderstand one key point. It's not your arguments I don't like - it's you. Or at least the persona you present in these forums. I've never actually met you, obviously, so my analysis is based solely on your forum posts, which naturally could be an inaccurate representation of the real you.

Go ahead and throw a thousand more words at me if you like, it won't matter. I don't like you, I don't like the way you treat people, and I don't have any interest in anything you have to say. Oh, just to be clear, none of that is based on your issues with typos or grammar - I'm not as much a stickler on that point as Grey is.

 

[The Wooster]

You've been posting in my comments section for years and I have never once seen you win an argument. You simply do the same song and dance every time until people give up in frustration.
[ul]
[li] Step 1: Ludicrous Assertion[/li]
[li] Step 2: Accusation of Liberal Bias Everything Ever That Conveniently Allows You To Ignore Historical Fact[/li]
[li] Step 3: Irrelevant Information Used To Prove How Clever You or to Draw a Useless Comparison[/li]
[li]Step 4: Dubious Anecdotal Evidence[/li][/ul]

It's the same thing every time, but spread out over a billion misused words. And despite the hours - HOURS - of effort you evidently put into your posts, you lack the time or wherewithal to proof read them or even run them through a spell checker.

Step 1: Ludicrous Assertion: "My horrible writing drives my enemies away, thus I win."

Actually, I type pretty bloody quickly. We could argue about my use of words at length, but I'll concede the spelling. In cases where I've done more serious writing I'd edited myself and know how bad I am with word structure, spelling, and english in general right off the cuff. Being various shades of tired or exhausted 100% of the time doesn't help much either, and to be honest it's gotten worse.

To be frank most arguements or discussions with me usually involve me making my point, attracting a bunch of people who don't want to accept it, and then me pretty much figuring everything that has been said can be said and deciding to nod out, having already "won", by any objective standard, usually pretty early on. Of course I suppose given the nature of these kinds of debates those on the other side or that support it prefer not to acknowlege the victory.

Step 2: Accusation of Liberal Bias Everything Ever That Conveniently Allows You To Ignore Historical Fact: I think this one is self explanatory.

Typically when I bring up liberal bias, it's more because someone is presenting a political position as a fact, with history being re-defined to fit with a modern point of view that oftentimes didn't even exist when the events took place.

Step 3: Irrelevant Information Used To Prove How Clever You or to Draw a Useless Comparison: "Now we're talking about gays! Are gays relevant? Not at all! But have I mentioned how much I hate them lately?"

In many cases the discussions I'm involved in here amount to a bunch of sheltered idealists who have been told how the world works, argueing with me, someone who has actually been out in the world, and seen how it works from a perspective most people won't ever have. Typically when I get involved and say something, whether it's on a social issue, or very specific areas of legality or history (the same ones which tend to come up again and again), I'm not expressing opinion, I am expressing pure fact as in "I've been right there and seen it" fact.

It's sort of like when I actually bother to argue gay rights nowadays, which I don't because there is nothing more to be said on the subject. Typically 99% of the people I argue with on this forum jump right in and talk about all these studies, and research, and facts, and claim that they disprove what I'm saying. The problem is of course that studies on the nessicary level are impossible to conduct since it would require unparalleled levels of secret surveillance of millions of people for a prolonged period of time. Pretty much the efforts of the combined US goverment, violating pretty much every law on suerveillance and search and seizure for decades, to ever compile the kind of information being stated as fact, and since that hasn't happened it means anyone claiming to have that kind of data is obviously lying. As a result when I, someone who had surveillance authority within a limited context, and happens to have formed a position based on things I saw in the course of my duties (which weren't directly related to snooping gays), I have more validity as a source than any study ever conducted due to the lack of awareness of who I was checking in on. Your only recourse is to basically say I'm a liar and never did this kind of thing to have noticed patterns while doing my job, or of course to produce someone in a similar position who disagrees with me, which to be honest is highly unlikely since pretty much anyone who does this kind of thing largely winds up having pretty much the same view of the world and most issues as a result. I'm just more vocal than most.

Step 4: Dubious Anecdotal Evidence: "Historians are biased but I am a Time Lord."

To put it into context of this discussion, I had one guy try and claim that being from New England and getting my information as close to first hand as posible, I'm actually less reliable than some textbook he's reading, which might be on the other side of the country, written by someone who claims to be an expert and to have visited these sites and done research, but amazingly contridicts anything he could have learned visiting the region.

When I talk about liberal bias, I do so largely when I'm aware that what someone is saying is a common perception, but where I have personally seen or run into things which show otherwise.

For the most part, there are actually very few areas that I claim to be an "expert" on, it's just that a lot of people like to argue with me about them, and typically it comes down to idealistic arguements based on what someone has been told is a proven fact, as opposed to someone who actually knows.

 

[lacktheknack]

snipped for the love of God

I have a challenge for you. I know you won't accept it.

See if you can sum up everything you need to say in twenty sentences or less.

I ask this because you are KING of saying nothing over the course of a paragraph. Everyone else gets their point across with something resembling brevity, and it doesn't drive people away through pure chronic verbal diarrhea. That's the ultimate half-win.

You should drive people away with your general attitude instead.

 

[Therumancer]

snipped for the love of God

I have a challenge for you. I know you won't accept it.

See if you can sum up everything you need to say in twenty sentences or less.

I ask this because you are KING of saying nothing over the course of a paragraph. Everyone else gets their point across with something resembling brevity, and it doesn't drive people away through pure chronic verbal diarrhea. That's the ultimate half-win.

You should drive people away with your general attitude instead.

Lol, the thing is that I tend to predict a lot of what people are going to say to begin with, and answer accordingly. I suppose that contributes to my attitude in discussions when I dismiss things I feel I already answered in the course of my rambling. That said, I do suppose I should work on condensing my posts a bit more.

As far as driving people away, I suppose I should try and reign it in a bit more. To be honest I never set out to win any popularity contests here (or on forums in general), and responses have been mixed. Some like Susan are quite blunt about not liking me, but at the same time I have actually received a fair amount of praise as well, there is a bit of that, with messages going back quite a while, still in my Inbox to be honest, and I've gotten more in E-mail. A common thread seems to be a lot of people who agree with me, being afraid to speak their mind on the forums the way I do, as it is a fairly hostile enviroment as I've mentioned myself. Heck it wasn't too long ago I got an E-mail from someone who saw me use my handle on another forum, and asked if I was the same guy from here, and told me what a fan of my posts they were. I suppose Susan's comments as one of the site admins ruined any real euphoria I got from that one though.

We'll see what happens in the long run, I have some things to think about at any rate.

 

[Starke]

" I have more validity as a source than any study ever conducted due to the lack of awareness of who I was checking in on"

Aaaaaand we're done. My brain just broke.

Your avatar seems hilariously appropriate for this post.

 

[Lyvric]

Ahaha, as a Canadian and coffee lover, I got a good laugh out of this. Great job!

 

[6SteW6]

Is this a reference to the Four eyes and beard podcast?!

Cause if it is, you have my love forever and always!

 

[6SteW6]

Wow. This is ripped off wholesale from the smodcast/nerdist podcast called FEAB. Episode is called Canadian Sniper. Please go back to telling an interesting and unique story with Erin and her illness. Seems when you try to do one shot joke strips they suck, and now you are resorting to theft.

Wow. This is ripped off wholesale from the smodcast/nerdist podcast called FEAB. Episode is called Canadian Sniper. Please go back to telling an interesting and unique story with Erin and her illness. Seems when you try to do one shot joke strips they suck, and now you are resorting to theft. Sad.

Yeah, I totally stole it from this obscure show I've never even heard of. It's not like it's a fairly obvious joke that plays on a well publicized stereotype or anything. Good job, detective Internet.

Whoops, guess it's not a reference then. To be fair though Grey, the joke in your strip and that episode of FEAB are very similar. I wouldn't call theft but I definitely thought they were somehow linked.

 

[TomWest]

To be fair, I heard a very similar joke (WWII based) about 25 years ago on the radio.

I chuckled then.

I laughed this time.

(I think it was the dialog box coming from the trees that really made it for me).

 

[Crazie_Guy]

Had to post for the Modest Mouse nod.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

True story of two Canadians:



Me: "Augh! Are you all right?"

Her: "I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! I'll be OK..."

So yes, the stereotype is true.

There's also the classic "Canadian Shuffle" that happens the nation over several hundred times a day...

Two people walking in opposite directions start crossing eachothers path, they sort of "dance around" for a second, make eye contact, both say "Sorry!" in a surprised manner and then they'll both try to defer and let the other by.

Yup... sometimes there really is a sort of "politeness one-ups-man-ship" that goes on up here

I've done the "Canadian Shuffle" so many times it's not even funny... Well, okay maybe it is a little funny.

The same thing happens in England, but there's a little more muffled swearing.

 

[Compatriot Block]

snip

My body had a rough time transitioning between chuckling at your breakdown of his post and feeling physically ill that someone actually said all of that.