133 thoughts on “The Loaded History of “Legitimate Rape”…and Junk Science…(UPDATED!)”

  1. Nice work Nob. The Atlantic link is helpful. The whole purpose of restricting abortion to only pregnancy due to rape as “forcible rape” or “legitimate rape” is to prohibit all abortions, since by definition, no pregnant woman could meet the burden of proof required to qualify for the exception. It has no basis in science, or evidence, or fact, or even reason. Well, reason yes: to prohibit abortion by changing the meaning of the term.

    What’s interesting is the tight little circle of argument employed. An abortion exception due to pregnancy from “legitimate rape” (or “forcible rape” or “assault rape”) is honored only if the woman is pregnant, of course, But pregnancy due to legitimate rape is very rare, implying that the woman (or her body!) consented to the sexual act. But why should a rape exemption be held to that high standard of “forcible rape”, one that only rarely results in pregnancy? Because otherwise women who weren’t “raped” will claim they were in order to get an abortion. Restricting the rape exemption to legitimate rape is necessary to prevent women from lying about being raped to receive an abortion which requires restricting the rape exemption to legitimate rape which requires….

    It’s effing crazy. OPRE.Report

    2. The really perverse thing is that one logical takeaway from the argument is that to discourage abortion we should encourage rape in preference to consensual sex.Report

  2. My “favorite” quote:

    “There’s no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation, fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy. So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one knows, but this factor certainly cuts this last figure by at least 50 percent and probably more.”

    No one knows.
    At least 50%.
    But no one knows.
    But it’s probably more than 50%.Report

    1. Ha! I didn’t catch that when I skimmed that article originally (that piece was one that I found and posted with extreme caveats with regard to both likely publisher biases and my own rapid scan when I got into the discussion and was googling for data for commenters to help check the allegation.). I guess that article is more (in)famous than I realized.Report

  4. But, but, but… Maxine Waters!!!!! And Al Sharpton!!!!!! And “Barry” is the worst President EVERRRRRRR!!!!! And Wolverines Freedom!

    How long before one of the usual suspects (TVD, MFarmer or Scott) says “but this isn’t all bad” and the “Gentlemen”, instead of ignoring the a**holes, concede that “maybe he has a point”?

    As for the Republican response, Mr Akin is still in the race, and his poll numbers have not dropped. The GOP is filled with sociopaths.Report

      2. Kimmi, in their utter disregard for the pain and suffering of others, they have past the pale of authoritarians into truly sociopathic behaviour. Just for one example, consider cutting SNAP benefits. Denying poor children a free lunch — literally starving them, so their buddies can buy another yacht. That’s not just authoritarian.

        It’s so much worse.Report

        1. Denying poor children a free lunch — literally starving them, so their buddies can buy another yacht.

          Starving them? Seriously? Look, as a teacher I know just how important it is for kids to have food in their bellies if they’re going to learn. The brain uses vast amounts of caloric energy, so when your hungry your body conserves by constraining unnecessary brain functions like higher level thought processes.

          But cutting the snap program is unlikely to be the difference between a kid starving or not. Hell, my whole school district got a grant to give out free lunches to all students last year. It was great for me; I didn’t have to choose between a) taking time to make lunches for my kids, b) badgering them to make lunches, or c) paying for lunches. But if the free lunches aren’t there for my kids, they’re not going to starve. If the program was cut entirely, very few kids in that school will go entirely without lunch, and I doubt any of them will literally starve. So you could cut the program by ~80% for my school district without causing any kids to go without lunch, much less causing them to starve.

          Can we please keep the rhetoric reasonable?Report

          1. 1. To suffer or die from extreme or prolonged lack of food.
            2. Informal To be hungry.
            3. To suffer from deprivation.

            I’ll give you definition 1 (although cutting back on Food Stamps in general makes the suffering part all the more likely). But what would you call it if a child can’t concentrate because they haven’t been fed?

            Is that good enough rhetoric for you?Report

            1. Jeff,

              It’s still a loaded term. Its effect is to stir emotional outrage, not considered thought. I’ve got no problem with reasoned arguments for SNAP funding, which I think are easy enough to develop that the emotional rhetoric is unnecessary. I just get irritated by overly partisan/ideological rhetoric, and it doesn’t matter much to me which side of the debate its coming from.Report

    3. Jeff,
      Exactly what I felt reading the Akin thread. I’ve been through this exact argument before on the Rush slutting thread. Someone on the League calls out a politician’s bad behavior and instead of actually accepting the fact that indeed the behavior was bad, certain folks try to distract the commentariat by pointing fingers in other directions (Glyph, I admit I found your comments annoying, but I don’t count you in this). I find this to be bad form and especially by a front pager but somehow it keeps happening over and over and excused for reasons I can not wrap my head around.Report

        1. If I said anything that implied I don’t think you’re a valuable contributor and a good guy to have around, well, I didn’t mean to. I was incredibly pissed off with what you were saying, but it wasn’t personal.Report

          1. No worries at all, Mike. I’d just ask next time if you already know for a fact that an allegation is incorrect, throw a brother a link. It would have simplified so much.

            I got through yesterday with most of my hair and one eyebrow intact anyway, but it wasn’t easy.Report

      2. Joanna, that happens when comments like “The GOP is full of sociopaths” appear. Which doesn’t even raise an eyebrow as anything less than adult c0nversation. If it weren’t for the double standards, there wouldn’t be any standards at all.

        And how I got into this is beyond me. I think the fellow should stand down, as does most of the party.Report

            1. So identify which comments were actually “like” that, so we can judge. Because you know, we can all easily review which comments in that thread you responded to, and see whether any of them actually look “like” that.Report

        3. “And how I got into this is beyond me. I think the fellow should stand down, as does most of the party.”

          Then why not just say that instead of going the route of throwing out charged terms like baby-killer, state that you would vote for this lout over his “Liberal” opponent, blame strategic voting, and bring in Maxine Waters into the conversation? You are not a good magician, your attempts at distraction are not fooling anyone and I find it highly offensive that you could believe that this is good faith arguing or that any of what you brought into the Akin conversation was in any way helpful to the discussion.Report

          1. FWIW, I do not believe that Tom was calling anyone a baby killer (a phrase I have never seen him use, despite writing pro-life stuff a lot.)

            It was my impression that Tom was saying that was most likely what some people’s rationale was going to be for voting for a guy like Akin.. who, I had the impression, Tom thought was a bit of a loser.Report

            2. “…Tom was calling anyone a baby killer (a phrase I have never seen him use, despite writing pro-life stuff a lot.)”

              Mean it or not, that was just one of the things that bothered me. If I were an outsider, coming into the conversation early on how would I know that he didn’t mean it? I was sick to my stomach. I wanted to comment, but I would have lost it. Fortunately, later posts in the Akin thread made it clear that the League overall has a quality commentariat (which I already knew). The earlier comments, the ones that don’t address the critique and try to cast blame elsewhere are what I found truly offensive. I still do and think there is no legitimate excuse for them. Even after he praised the fact that Republican’s are opposed to Akin, the bad taste of the earlier comments still linger.Report

              7. It’s been made public several times before, Tom, not that it matters here. And I didn’t “bring my family into it.” She’s an adult who can come here of her own free volition.

                Nice little bit of sexism there, though. Try to smear her by association with her husband and imply that she couldn’t have come here without having a husband bring her into it. I hadn’t previously realized that you were a sexist on top of your penchant for dishonest argument. But it’s good to see you come out in the open with it.Report

              12. Ryan,

                Some people think Tom’s a racist, too, just because he’s conservative. But I’m damn well convinced he isn’t and will go to back for him on that score. Others think he’s homophobic because he’s skeptical about SSM, but again I’m pretty sure he’s not. So I was really hesitant to assume he was sexist. But this…he’s definitely blown his cover.

                And if you all knew Johanna, you’d know just how ridiculous, in addition to being offensive, the insinuation is.Report

              13. Arthur Schlesinger:

                I remember in 1960, when Ken Galbraith and I came out for Kennedy, and The Boston Globe called my wife and she said, no, she was for Stevenson. Shortly afterwards I got a letter from Robert Kennedy about something and a scrawled postscript said, ‘Can’t you control your wife? Or are you like me?’ Report

              16. Chris,

                I read that one differently than you, as the ignorance of true racial privilege, rather than as real racism.

                This one, though, seemed indisputably to be denying my wife’s status as a thinking person independent of her husband. A real “gentlemanly” thing for him to do.Report

              18. Nice little bit of sexism there, though.

                Offensive, but not necessarily sexist. Back in a previous blog, I was accused of getting my wife to come in and back me up (which, to anyone who knows her and knows me, is laughable) by a woman and a feminist. Which is not to say that feminist women can’t be sexist, but I don’t think she thought of it in those terms. Mostly that I was “losing” and needed help and prodded someone who cares for me to do so.Report

              19. Will,

                That strikes me as being like the difference between a white guy and a black guy using the “n” word. The white guy might be using it as legitimately as the black guy, but you’re unlikely to retire on the winnings from repeatedly betting that way.Report

              20. @Tom
                James didn’t bring me into this. Your offensive commenting did and I speak for myself. If your comments didn’t offend me enough before, you have now reached a new low in my opinion by insinuating my views are influenced by my husband. I have nothing polite left to say to you.Report

              21. I didn’t say he did, Johanna. This is the same handful who disrupt the blog every month or so with this business like clockwork.

                I was letting everyone know who you are for context. I’m not going to fight with another man’s wife, neither did I say anything offensive. Peace, out. As for “offensive,” asked and answered by management.

                Tod Kelly August 21, 2012 at 2:22 pm
                FWIW, I do not believe that Tom was calling anyone a baby killer (a phrase I have never seen him use, despite writing pro-life stuff a lot.)

                It was my impression that Tom was saying that was most likely what some people’s rationale was going to be for voting for a guy like Akin.. who, I had the impression, Tom thought was a bit of a loser.

                REPLYReport

              22. Are you kidding? You can talk to me like the intelligent human being
                I am regardless of who I happen to be married to. As to Tod not being offended, it is Tod’s opinion which he has every right to express. It is not mine and it doesn’t invalidate my offense to what you said since it wasn’t the only issue I offered an example of.Report

              24. @ Will (& James, and Johanna, and Ryan) – this was my thought as well, that Tom was implying that James & Johanna are using ‘family’ to gang up on him – I didn’t think Johanna’s gender was the issue. I suspect he would have said the same thing had Johanna instead been ‘Johan’, James’ brother (or husband! :-).

                Which you can still object to, obviously, but it’s not sexism.

                Unfortunately there’s so much bad blood all around at this point that it seems to me that again, people are jumping to the worst of all possible interpretations.

                Just my .02.Report

              25. “Tom Van Dyke August 21, 2012 at 8:47 pm [edit]
                “I was letting everyone know who you are for context.”

                What the hell does context have to do with anything? On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

                Is this someone posing as Tom? He is quoting Tom but disagreeing with him, the gravatar don’t match, and it doesn’t have the link. There is probably a way I can verify this, though I don’t know how. More importantly, while I think we should discourage if not prohibiting attempting to pose as someone else here, I don’t know if we do and if there is anything we should do besides call it out. So, at the very least, I’m calling this out and denouncing it.Report

              27. I think I’ve figured out who it was, which makes it all the more bewildering, to be honest. I won’t out him/her right here, since this is probably better left to ED or Tod or the other big shots. I’ll enlighten them, I guess? I don’t want to act unilaterally…Report

              28. Okay, just got myself caught up on this. I think the intent was that it was transparently not-Tom. The signing of Tom’s name being meant to be an indication that names are important. Anyone can be a dog, or Tom Van Dyke, if they just sign their name as such.

                I agree that we need a ruling from on-high on this.

                But, if there is any confusion, the comment was not made by Tom.Report

              30. Usually, in all but a few rare cases, when a fake Tom is illegitimately inserted into the comment thread, the body of the blog has ways of shutting that down. At least, that’s what doctors tell me.Report

              31. Hmm, can’t say I quite grasp the comment’s point, even with that explanation. But I’m glad someone wasn’t posing as someone else just with the intent of making that someone else look bad.Report

              32. I’m going to ask that everyone consider the possibility that this thread has gone as far as it can go (or farther!) on the topics that have been discussed. Maybe a night’s sleep would be in order? Or maybe even making some picks for the NFL contest. Or something. But maybe not this.

                Also, DDuck – in the future do not post comments pretending to be a FPer – ever. And yes, I’d consider this a warning.Report

              34. @Tom
                You claim I misquote you (no example) and then bring up the fact that I am married to someone who most recognize as no fan of yours. WTF. James and I are not of hive mind and the examples I gave are solely my opinion given what you wrote in the Akin thread. You can either respond to my specific examples like a mature individual or you can claim you’re being victimized by some gang I evidently have created to attack you without merit.Report

              39. Tom,
                You said “you read someone misquoting me” after my comment in which you ask me a direct question. What am I supposed to infer other than you insinuating I read someone misquoting you? I’ve given actual examples in my criticism, listing items I found offensive. If you had actually responded to those specific critiques rather than tell me me I read something incorrectly and question my relationship, I doubt the “gang” would of had much to attack you on.Report

      3. Johanna: On that last point in particular, you are not alone.

        Tom: You’ll have to remind me how often the front-pagers around here call members of the GOP sociopaths. I tend to save my powder for calling Barack Obama a sociopath, as of course you well know.Report

          1. Aw man, Ryan edited his comment and now mine makes no sense. It was so short-lived, and it was apparently not true, but it was so beautiful for just a moment.

            When are we gonna get an Edit button up in here?Report

            1. Yeah, I apologize for that. It was precisely because it looked like I was agreeing with Tom rather than Johanna that I edited the comment.

              For everyone else who is curious, my initial comment was: “On that last point in particular, you are not alone.”Report

              1. Ryan, can I ask a dumb question that now arises in my mind? Do you agree that the guy should stand down (I assume you do, but could be wrong)? If so, why edit the comment at all, rather than just adding another to Johanna as well? Is it so important to avoid even the appearance of agreeing with Tom on anything ever?

                I don’t want to be anyone’s marriage counselor, but you’re both smart guys and I am puzzled as to why this gets as vicious as it does.

                If this is personal or off-limits I understand.Report

              2. Well, it just wasn’t the purpose of my comment. I replied to Johanna’s post, and my comment appeared where it would, but the placement was confusing. I should, however, have put my reply to Tom under *his* comment. A mistake made in eagerness.

                On the substance, I’m indifferent. Akin still appears to be the favorite in the race, so why step down? He doesn’t seem to be hurting his party. I don’t have much patience for focusing on dumb things people say over dumb policies they support. Nothing he did changed my vote; I suspect I’m far from alone.

                On the Tom issue, it’s because I agree with Johanna. Tom flouts the standards of the League and gets away with it. I’m totally mystified and will keep pointing that out.Report

              9. TVD,
                sure. but support that damn statement! I certainly do when i accuse other people of being authoritarian/cowardly or other things. (and If I havne’t,c all me on it!)Report

              10. It’s like you don’t even attempt to understand anything. I could talk about the implicit differences between criticizing your own side and partisan point scoring. I could point out that my statement occurred in an original post, and thus wasn’t tu quoque bullshit. I could explain how my inveterate language, even if offensive, was used in service of an argument (I do sustain at least three actual charges against Obama in the quoted paragraph, you might notice). I could waste a lot of digital ink here. I suspect none of it would matter.Report

              11. On my planet, it crosses some line to call Obama a “mass-murdering sociopath” who “kills brown people on the other side of planet because he feels like it.”

                But do what you must, brother. Just don’t presume to lecture me on civility.Report

              15. Oh, Tom, we’re not stalkers. If you went and hid out somewhere else we wouldn’t follow you. Promise. I haven’t been over to American Creation in god knows how many months now, much as I’d like to read what Jon’s writing, all because you’re there.Report

  5. this place is amazeballs. i’ve never seen a comments section so hung up on internal trolls. the FP’ers bend over backwards to enable it and the commenters (me included) fall for it every time. it’s like groundhog day in here with no andi mcdowell.Report

  6. I gave up posting here but am still reading. (And sometimes really enjoying.)

    I just had a question about the blog more generally. And I’m being serious.

    Can there be a vote on removing Tom as a FP’er?

    This guy is on your masthead and he kills the threads with red herrings and tu quoques. Then he attacks people personally. (He also seems more interested in defending conservatives as a tribe than discussing political philosophy, economics, or other issues the league is good at discussing.) At any rate, I don’t see him making a positive contribution that would imply that the League needs him as an FP, and he is certainly being sexist.

    Given that the league wants to become more inviting to women, wouldn’t removing an FP for sexism and creating a dismissive environment for women be a good start? I mean, if the League isn’t sexist, why not get rid of Tom from the masthead?

    Every blog has a troll like MFarmer, so no one holds his comments against you. And I’m sure you get some crazy liberal commenters, too. But Tom is a bigger problem in setting a tone for the blog because he is an FP’er and there are more people respecting him. That hardly sets a good tone for the blog for open conversation and now it creates a sexist tone, too.

    All those who want Tom gone as an FP’er, say “Yes.” All those who want him to not go, say “No.”Report

    1. As offensive as I have found Tom, I don’t think this is a good precedent to set. The choice for who is on the Masthead should be in the hands of those running the site and not by popular vote. I personally don’t think that the site would be as interesting if we were to vote on who should remain on the island. It would just be another echo chamber and FPers would be less apt to throw out challenging ideas that might be controversial. I admit I would not be at all disappointed if Tom disappeared into the sunset since the League has other interesting conservative voices.Report

      1. I have long advocated for revocation of Tom’s FP privileges, but agree with Johanna that voting is not the right way to proceed. And, to be clear, this has everything to do with his methodology and nothing to do with ideology.Report

        1. Now your little club is complete. Six of you, one of me. Fair fight. As for Mrs. Hanley, if she were James’ brother, it would be the same. Just pointing out who’s who and what’s what.

          Unfortunately for you, real gentlemen don’t fight with another man’s wife, and do not gang up. We fight our own battles. So now that we know who’s who and what’s what…

          Bye. Play with yourselves.Report

          2. Tom, you could have avoided this by apologizing for the mistaken implication your words might have conveyed. You had no desire to offend. That sort of thing. It would go some distance in resolving this little problem.

            Also, people aren’t ganging up on you, tho you might feel like they are. But you’re wrong. Lots of individual people read what you wrote and thought the same thing at the same time. A simple correction-apology on your part would have ended all this. I think you know that, and refuse to concede even that much to play a different game. So don’t play the victim here. All this is your doing and your choice. You don’t get to decide how other people interpret your words. And you definitely don’t have the right to get pissy when folks interpret them in ways you don’t like. But you can make the choice to clarify what you meant, and apologize if anyone was offended.Report

            1. Of course he wanted to rile people up. Hence his pussy riot comment on a subsequent thread. His is my favorite type of troll: he trolls, then when he gets called on it, he gets offended and pretends to leave in a huff (only to stick around and read every comment, eventually being incapable of resisting commenting further).Report

            2. “people aren’t ganging up on you”

              Sure they are! Maybe he’s provoking it, but let’s don’t pretend that there isn’t a dogpile happening here.Report

              1. Ganging up means that there’s a “gang”, rather than just a bunch of random individuals. It doesn’t strike me that me, Hanley, Chris and Kazzy comprise a gang.

                Christ, we disagree about almost everything else. 🙂Report

              2. I tried to form a gang with Hanley once. I thought that our time together on PL made us a natural fit. He had forgotten about me at PL. I revoked my gang invitation.Report

              3. Damn, you’re not going to let me live that down, are you?

                You should see me every fall term when students return, and I struggle to put faces to names of students I’ve had before. You can tell it bothers them, and I really don’t blame them.Report

              4. Hehehehe. My biggest flaw as a teacher is mixing up kids’ names. And I’m not talking about forgetting a kid or getting some mixed up. I mean sitting there, talking to Bobby, knowing that I’m talking to Bobby, and calling him Susie because Susie happened to enter my peripheral vision and their names end in the same sound.

                Repeat this 100 times a day.Report

              6. My problem is, I rarely call my wife by her name. I usually use one of various pet names, which change fairly regularly. When I do go to call her by her real name, I sometimes have to pause and make sure I know what it is.Report

              7. I usually use one of various pet names, which change fairly regularly.

                Ah, so you don’t even have to remember the pet names. I mean, really, you don’t even have to remember her at all except to vaguely recognize her face, and then you can just make up a new pet name on the spot. Schnookums one day, lovie the next.

                What a great way to hide what a terribly thoughtless husband you are. I might have to give that a try. 😉Report

          3. “Unfortunately for you, real gentlemen don’t fight with another man’s wife…”

            A lot of women are some man’s wife. If you are not willing to engage such folks as equals in the conversation, you should excuse yourself from a blog that welcomes women, married or otherwise.Report

        2. “I have long advocated for revocation of Tom’s FP privileges, but agree with Johanna that voting is not the right way to proceed.”

          Please tell me that this is some kind of joke that I’m just not in the right mind to get.

          Please tell me that you did not just advocate that people you don’t like be Officially Silenced.Report

          1. To be clear, I am not, nor have I ever, called for a ban, which is what I would consider an “Official (Legitimate?) Silencing”. Rather, I think Tom should lose his status as a FP author and his place on the masthead; but he most certainly should *not* be banned.Report

    2. “And I’m sure you get some crazy liberal commenters, too.”

      We’ve learned not to say the primary culprit’s name lest he resurface.Report

    3. “This guy is on your masthead and he kills the threads with red herrings and tu quoques. ”

      And oh what a bother it is that the Hypnotoad forces you to reply to every one.Report

  7. WTF people. This can’t possibly be fun anymore, can it?

    This thread stopped being about anything remotely related to the subject matter of the OP a long time ago. Look, we’ve got some nice civil liberties and immigration posts all over the place.

    So, I’m out. Play nice, please.Report

    2. Burt, considering that one of the inevitable, and I’d say important subtexts of these discussions has been the dearth of visible women in this community (I think we can call it that), and the sorts of things that contribute to that, and considering that this started when one woman came in and talked about things she felt uncomfortable about here, do you really feel like the conversation is that off topic?

      I understand it hasn’t been a very productive conversation, but what do you expect when, in response to the woman talking about what made her uncomfortable, one of the offending parties dismisses her by saying, in essence, that her husband sicked her on him?

      Seriously, though, this sort of shit is going to play out over and over again, and as a conversation like this shows, it’s not just about a few people (or a lot of people) sincerely disliking one particular commenter.Report

  8. I am, admittedly extremely disappointed that this post has turned into an argument about TVD, rather than a clarification of the context of Akin’s comments, which I think when placed in the proper political context of the term “legitimate rape” and Akin’s own voting/political record mean a lot more than some unfortunate wording.Report

    1. Nob-

      Since it’s your post, take a look at this comment:

      “Tom Van Dyke August 21, 2012 at 8:47 pm [edit]
      “I was letting everyone know who you are for context.”

      What the hell does context have to do with anything? On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

      Check the logs and it is clear that it was not done by Tom. Quite easy to ferret out who did post it, poorly posing as Tom, which I think warrants deleting, if not more.Report

    3. Again, I think this is a conversation that was and will remain inevitable. Underlying the discussion of Akin’s comments on the League of Ordinary Gentlemen is a discussion of the relative lack of female voices here. One female voice comes and expresses what she, personally, dislikes about the League of Ordinary Gentlemen’s comment culture, at least on certain gender issues, and she singled out, not by name but by obvious reference, Tom. Tom then essentially said that James brought her here to team up on him, and subsequently said it was impolite to argue with another commenter’s wife. So in a way, Tom is part of the topic, because he makes himself part of the topic. For better or worse, no discussion of Akin anywhere is going to take place outside of a particular context, and in the case of the League of Ordinary Gentlemen, this is part of that context, that is the relative lack of female regulars, the general League atmosphere with respect to gender issues, and Tom’s large contribution to that atmosphere.

      I do think it’s a shame: Tom is a troll, and some of us, including me, keep responding to him, but he’s such a large part of the comment space here that, again, this shit is inevitable. The only way around that is for everyone to ignore him, but I don’t think that’s feasible, particularly since it would mean newcomers, particularly female newcomers, observing his trolling going unanswered. I suppose those of us who are the worst offenders when it comes to answering his trolling could come to some agreement, though, about ignoring Tom. I’m in, and I hope James, Kazzy, Still, and the less frequent but still fairly regular critics (I’m thinking of Jo, but there are others) of Tom will join me in choosing, from this point on, to ignore Tom altogether. I mean not responding to anything he says. That won’t fix the gender issues here, or Tom’s role in them, but it might make Tom a less frequent troll if he isn’t able to get off on us biting his bait.

      I suspect James might not like this solution because he (and perhaps the other two as well) feel that Tom is capable of actually contributing to the discourse here, but I think it’s safe to say that at this point, whatever Tom’s contributions, he’s not going to respond to any of us with anything that will further any real discussion, because of our history. So again, I hope those 3 guys and maybe a few others will join me in ignoring him altogether, even if he might be saying something worth actually responding to.Report

  9. Everyone:

    I’m going to ask that everyone consider the possibility that this thread has gone as far as it can go (or farther!) on the topics that have been discussed. Maybe a night’s sleep would be in order? Or maybe even making some picks for the NFL contest. Or something. But maybe not this.

    Also, DDuck – in the future do not post comments pretending to be a FPer or anyone else – ever. And yes, I’d consider this a warning.

    (this comment copied from threads above)Report

Comments are closed.

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