I have a mix of friends on a social networking site. There are a quite a variety of styles, beliefs, attitudes, and talents. Straight, Gay, Christian, atheist, Moslem, undecided, conservatives of several inclinations, and (this IS my group) liberal commies - err, liberal progressives.
Roger (a pseudonym) is a libertarian conservative - gun-lovin' and truck-drivin'. He tries hard to put up a show of original thought, but the 'I'm so totally independent, and everyone else can damn well be independent too' attitude doesn't hold up well in dialogue.
So, we were discussing my post (on the social site) about states with collective bargaining for educators and the correlation of ACT & SAT scores. Roger does well at looking up material - I am thinkful that he tries hard enough that his contributions aren't always from The Heritage Foudation. He offered a good alternative, somewhat different, example; I provided another and summarized our citations.
The discussion veered into a non sequitur observation from Roger that 'Our Fair City (wages $8) lost an automobile assembly plant to another state (wages $23) because our state isn't right-to-work, but the winning state is.' Now, everyone but Roger saw the obvious: a major company was ok with much more expensive labor. Union labor costs are what conservatives usually assert as anti-competitive, but Roger was trying to claim that unions in our state have failed workers. The lack of a union anti-competitive effect spilled through one of his cracks.
And then came the explosion.
Roger wrote:
Wow... my posts just got deleted... this reminds me of the time that you recommended I post to your blog... but then never approved the posts..... accidental? or are you positions undefendable?
By the time I read this paranoid delusion, Roger's posts had re-appeared (not even * I * can do that!) and he had apologized:
Roger wrote:
sorry about above post.. my {site} must be glitchy today.... the posts are back.
He also made the rant disappear.
OK, Kossacks, here's the deal. This post is not about Roger. It's about you.
Pick an answer in the scientific poll. Show me what you're made of.