Oh my. Ciaza, your efforts to gain battlecow admission into the DH are admirable- but doomed to fail. You brought up his "Jews: A Master Race?" topic in order to prove that he wasn't trolling.
Now look at that title again.
"Master Race"? "Jews"? That's a less-than-subtle attempt to piss off people with "subconscious" (but obvious) Nazi vibes. It's childish; such behavior has no place in the Debate Hall.
Also, what about that "Road to Damascus" post in the PG social thread? Did you think that one was serious? Lol if so.
Juvenile trolling aside, let's tackle the actual issue of his debating.
You say: "His posts have structure and his points not only valid but logically follow too"
Minor grammatical error there, obviously, but that's not the point. Is this really all we require from our debaters these days? That should be a given. Anyone with a high school education and fifteen minutes of time ought to be able to make structured posts with valid, logical points. Battlecow hits the baseline; whoopee.
His vocabulary isn't all that impressive either, frankly, and even if it was- the obvious argument, one that any middle school jock could and would make, is that big words don't make an argument any more compelling. If his point is communicated clearly, that's nice, but most points in the PG are, and what really matters is the
substance of his arguments. Take a look-see here:
I operate under the same guidelines as everyone else; that's why people drive faster than the speed limit. Democracy isn't divine or omnipotent, nor are laws perfectly tailored to fit me. I support democracy in every way it's meant to be supported- it's not like I'm picking and choosing how it should apply in a way that subverts or perverts it.
The status quo's pretty good. We have it pretty good in America. There are improvements to be made, of course, and potential policy changes that could have a massive impact for good or ill (I'm still not sure that you're wrong about the drug thing, for example). I don't think the status quo's god; I'm simply observing it in an unbiased way and noticing that it wouldn't be greatly improved by anarchy or any of its close relatives.
He's been caught in a clever trap by ballin4life. If he admits that he would break the law if he found it to be too inconvenient, his argument that more and stricter laws suffers a serious blow. If he says he'd stop playing video games if they were banned, he comes off as far too stuffy. His response? Incredibly vague and vacuous *****footing. That entire second paragraph comes down to "Things are good now, why change them?" Surely you can see how stupid that argument is; it could easily have been used in the Renaissance, or the 1950s, or whenever. Instead of arguing the point, he makes a clumsy stab at ballin's opinions using the buzzword "anarchy." He also backs down on the drug issue- something he'd been fiercely arguing with ballin' about just days earlier. Now he's retreating like a Frenchman.
Or you could take a look at his response in the "Hacktivism" thread. Now, I happen to agree with battlecow on this one, but his post is definitely not debate-hall material. There's no support whatsoever, for one thing. But the tone is the real killer. He comes off as totally pissed-off, a crotchety old man who wants these damn kids off of his lawn. He's supporting the status quo, he's angry, he's not arguing logically- he's showing exactly the kind of reaction that anonymous and their idiotic supporters love, because it makes him look hidebound, close-minded, and unwilling to accept change.
Or what about his responses in Dre's threads? He tried to cover them up later with a "just chipping in," but the tone was obviously sardonic. There's no need for someone that hateful. You have to be willing to argue it out, no matter how dumb the argument is. As my grandmother used to say: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
No, all in all, the guy would be a detriment to the DH. If he did bring "activity" (something I'm inclined to doubt, seeing as a whole ****load of other people came in at the same time, and most of the "activity" relating to him was people telling him to shut up because he was stupid) to the PG, it shouldn't matter. You need quality contributions to the discussion- and I've yet to see a single one of those from battlecow.
