italstallianion

If that's all you got then I don't need to respond anymore, my work is done. Have fun continuing with Keeper and Dirtdog. Good luck finally beating someone in an argument, but at the rate you're going, it's highly unlikely. You should think about that when you start fights with people smarter than you are. If you didn't start s*** with me, this never would have happened. Checkmate.

More often than not, things are better when you do jump in the middle of things. Obviously not everyone in the world is as calm and neutral as you are, but I don't believe for a second that millions of sports fans over the globe are "pointless and retarded" for hating other sports teams. Nor do I buy that JE is one of those few people who are as level headed and neutral as you are. This doesn't even have to be about sports, it can be about political parties and my point would still remain valid. Am I not allowed to hate George Bush or Margaret Thatcher (or even Michelle Bachmann for f**** sake) simply because I don't know them or have never met them? There's a point where the actions and personality of the person in question trumps the absence of direct interaction whereby it's justifiable to hate someone. Granted, one can argue and debate that limit, and where that line is, but to argue that the line doesn't exist is "pointless and retarded"

Since this is the only part of your entire post with any substance, I'll skip right to it. I guess poor substance is better than nothing at all. You successfully avoided one trap only to fall into another. You avoided being inconsistent, but you set yourself up for either being "holier than thou" than the millions of sports fans out there that hate other sports teams, or you set yourself up to be a petty liar. You can choose which one you want to be, but you'd most likely fall into the later category. Seriously? You don't hate any sports teams? I don't think you can call yourself a true Red Sox fan if you don't hate the Yankees. And as you clearly already don't know, I said that hating people here is not the exact same thing as hating a celebrity or athlete. However, while it isn't the exact same thing, it is close enough to be considered similar. More often than not, there's no face to face encounter, there's often lying or exaggerating about personal details (such as you winning a single argument in your life), and most people that get in arguments know very little about one another. For example, I know very little about you personally. And I doubt that you know much about me personally. While I can't say that I hate you (yet), I don't think that anyone could argue that I'd have every right to hate you if I wanted to. And if one can hate someone in this situation, without really knowing someone, that's very similar to hating someone like an athlete, who you don't know much about either.

When you make points, I'll consider countering them. All you've done is try and act like I haven't made any points, or that my points are stupid, without making points of your own. There's a reason why you're on an island here. I'll stop talking when I'm done laughing at you because you keep on going. First it was you vs. Keeper, then I got dragged into this vs. you, then it went back to you vs. Keeper, then you vs. DirtDog, and now you're coming at me again. What's the common factor in all of these examples? You. You constantly attack people for their opinions, saying nothing other than useless interchangeable (not to mention unoriginal and not funny) insults and saying that they haven't countered points that you never made. If I thought for one second that you beat me at anything, I would never show my face again. The fact is, there isn't really a debate, you just attacked people for their opinions because you can't understand any opinions other than your own. I disagreed with Dipre and Y228 as well, but they don't get out of hand like you do. In addition, I presented my case and explained myself to Y228 to understood exactly where I was coming from. You can't try and argue that I haven't made any points when a neutral party like Y228 acknowledged all of my points. You can't accept that people aren't going to agree with you, so you have to get all "tough" and on the offensive and you troll everyone to keep people responding to your garbage, and when someone finally has enough of you, you continue to respond because you're an attention whore. You'll never be one of the funnier members here, nor will you ever be one of the smarter members here, nor one of the nicer members here. Your niche and reputation is as an immature petulant troll, and unless you do something about it, that's how a lot of people are going to view you. I feel bad for you because you bring it on yourself.

When you talk Y228, I just picture someone like Sherlock Holmes in a trench coat in his library with a pipe and a newspaper.

Definitely, granted, I don't think the Heat will make the NBA finals, but I don't see them being rolled over in any given series. Barring a significant injury anyways.

Don't say that I didn't warn you about what happens when you feed that troll.

I'd say that I was surprised, but this is coming not too long after a big 2 on 1 fight over hating LeBron, so watch what you say about him, because if you even hint anything negative about LeBron, you'll get attacked. And god forbid you keep continuing to feed the troll.

And the fact that you didn't know them or interact with them has nothing to do with their actions.

In addition, I think it'd be hypocritical to say that you can't hate someone you don't know, and then hate a poster here. Sure, you may at least interact with posters here, but if it wasn't for facebook I wouldn't know many people's real names, and if it wasn't for the information under the avatar, I wouldn't know where a lot of people were from. It might make your point less hypocritical Dipre since there is "direct" interaction whereas that isn't the case with athletes, but I think that hating an athlete and hating someone here aren't too far apart in terms of "hating someone you don't know" let alone anything y228 added which piles on top of that. My point, and I think Y228 shares this view, is that it's not fair, or right, to say that in NO circumstances, can someone hate someone that they don't know, or directly interact with.

Yeah you Yankee loving bastard j/k

There are plenty of other logical reasons to hate you. And had everyone stated their opinion in the civilised manner that you did, this whole LeBron battle never would have happened. Why can't everyone in the world be like Y228?

I'm not accusing you of singling me out. I just felt like it was a good opportunity to explain something that I had explained a while ago that seemed to be forgotten. And for the record, I don't hate the CEO of Bank of America, although I would still like to drop a meaty brown chud missle on his front lawn if given the opportunity. And you may have a small point about the meaning of hate being diluted not justifying its usage, and while I disagree, I think that as long as you attack everyone that coloquially uses the word "hate" instead of "am angry at" or "strongly dislike" then you'll have a point, otherwise you'd be guilty of a double standard. In other words, it's so common that I'd consider it the norm. I'd say it's like using "gay" instead of "stupid". Sure, in essence it isn't right, but everyone knows the intended meaning. For example, if I say that the teacher is gay for giving a lot of homework, I don't think anyone is going to think that the teacher is a homosexual, and that his sexual preference had anything to do with him assigning a lot of homework. In other words, in principle I think you have a point, but in practice I don't think you do. Unless you go after everyone that uses (or abuses) this cultural norm, then you'd be setting yourself up for a double standard.

As for the other point, how long have we been arguing this? It seems like forever since Keeper made an arbitrary anti-LeBron post and JE started the fighting by attacking him. It seems like ages. This isn't getting anywhere, and will continue to not go anywhere. Nobody is going to change anyone elses perception on the issue. Many people hate LeBron, and many people don't. Nobody is going to convince anyone to change their opinion, so what's the point in even arguing? I don't think the people on one side or the other have any right to talk s*** or judge the people on the other side of the issue. It's a matter of opinion, or preference, and it really isn't anything that can be debated, and when arguments like this get personal, there may be a winner and a loser, but in the long run, everyone's a loser for getting involved in something stupid like this.

and don't forget how long and arduous it was for McGwire to finally admit it.

As for hating someone that we don't know, I think that the word "hate" has been diluted so much that it loses a lot of its poignant meaning. For example, I don't mean hate to be as visceral as you are picking up on Dipre, which in your defense, you're going by the literal definition of the word "hate" whereas I'm going by the diluted version of hate that seems to be permeating everyday usage. So, as I had said sometime when the original fight was starting, perhaps "strongly dislike" would be a more accurate term. My point is, that there are very few things in life that I hate. Similarly, most of my objects of hate are very temporary. In addition, I think that you're allowed to hate people you don't know, as long as you acknowledge that there's a possibility that the "real person" isn't the same as the media representation. Therefore, I think that everyone has the right to hate the media representation of Lebron, or Favre, or Roethlisberger, or the guys from Jersey Shore etc, however, saying that you hate Jersey Shore is a lot easier than saying all of that. In addition, I think it's a bit hypocritical to say that nobody can hate someone they don't know, when people constantly hate other sports teams, and other posters here. For the longest time I hated a700 and Gom, but I never technically knew them (and I don't hate either of them now). So I don't think that one can say, or even act like they don't hate someone they don't know. I mean I don't know the CEO of Bank of America or Comcast, but I'd love to cage fight them both right now.

For the record, there's a huge difference between hating someone as a player and hating someone as a person. I don't think that any of the "LeBron Haters" are saying that he's a bad basketball player, so there was no point in bringing up the 51 point 11 rebound and 8 assist game yesterday.

It was also bad timing. Suns and RSFFL were fighting WHILE yeszir was online, and yeszir even told them to stop during the battle, so that's probably a lot of it. Whereas I don't think he was online when Forsyth and Dipre, or myself, Keeper, and JE were fighting. I like RSFFL a lot too, but I'd imagine that most of us have been temp banned at one point or another, and I think we've all learned from that experience. If I didn't get banned at one point last year I'd probably still hate a700.

Looks like this thing won't die.

Point taken, but keep in mind that each football team has more WR's than NBA teams have PF's. In addition, while Hines Ward isn't a diva, he is one of the dirtiest players in the league.

I kind of wish that he did play another year or two to try and pad numbers to eventually get into the HOF. Ditto with Schilling.

Finding a great PF that isn't a jerk is like finding a talented WR that isn't a diva. Tim Duncan and Andre Johnson are the rare exceptions.

Don't forget about the greatest of them all, Brian Scalabrine. Class act all the way.

There's a difference between talking bad about KG as a basketball player and talking bad about him as a person. I think he's a great basketball player, just not a great (or good) person.

Just for the record (to add a bit to Forsyth's point) throwing sliders tends to negatively effect your elbow more, whereas throwing curveballs at a younger age has a more direct effect on the shoulder. By the way, when I was in Little League, if you could throw the ball over the plate, you got to pitch. A curveball was basically a lob that let gravity take it's course.