[Rduke55]

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Maybe because Phil made it pretty clear he was more interested in petty trolling than actual debate?

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In this thread?

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I really don't understand why he gets all bent out of shape even if this WAS meant to be an AC thread (which, I don't think it necessarily was, especially when you consider that Boro is a man of science and could easily have been motivated by only that). Is being an ACist not allowed? Since the state in some way will affect basically everything we could talk about, I guess Phil would rather Boro just not start threads, since they *could* all be construed as an "AC thread in disguise" whenever someone asked him a question that begged that answer.

If in one of Phil's threads someone asked him a question that he answered with something to the effect of "public school is good," would Boro or any free market fans bash him for making the thread? "ZOMG this is a state thread in disguise!!1!!!1!" No way. And it's not because we're necessarily any more polite than Phil. It's just that when you're confident in your message you don't really feel the need to resort to nonsense to attack other messengers.

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My problem is that I'm seeing more of threads that go something like what we see here.

OP: -Link- "Blah blah blah"

Responder: What about -link- "Blah blah blah?"

OP: Stop trolling me.

Responder: I'm not trolling you. I'll say again what about this point?

OP: You're a troll.

etc. etc. etc.

And nothing gets discussed - which is the point of this forum.

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If you had to deal with this guy doing this to all of your threads, you'd probably ignore him too, even if he found a nut every once in a while. I don't get why you, especially as a moderator, would defend Phil here.

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Phil and I have had some battles before. I briefly considered ignoring him but got past it, quit with the insults, and started debating his points and I think it worked itself out.

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You accuse Boro of "reverse-trolling".... shouldn't you be more worried about the person doing the "-trolling"?

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Again, I didn't see much in the way of trolling here by Phil. It seems like Borodog has been doing this lately: makes a declaration, people try to debate with him, he responds with the "Market is better than anything.", "You haven't read what I've read", or "you're a troll" instead of discussing the issue at hand.

There is a ton of stuff on public vs. private schooling. Instead of talking about the studies, flaws, etc. we get nothing done.

I asked whether or not these problems could be fixable because he did just give an anecdote about one individual teacher and student. He gave a stock answer, Phil brought up a study disagreeing with Borodog's point and then the T-word started getting tossed out.

Borodog also said that I "really didn't want to hear the answer" which seems kind of odd. Maybe I'm a troll too I guess.

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If you want to layout what exactly you'd like an answer to though, I'm sure someone will address it.

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I don't necessarily care about an answer, I just want to see some actual discussion.

Also, straight AC threads go in politics. Debating public vs. private education stays here.