It can be deceptive. People who aren't familiar with the circumstances don't know that gopc used a lot of the tactics he's crying about now on other people. Thus he gets condolences from people who are writing about their own experiences, not his. He was quite savage when he wanted to be and if there has been a decline in standards during the time gopc was posting, he's as responsible for it as anyone else.
I'd recommend people google some of his Civil War posts to see his tactics at work. His old posts won't be pleasant reading but do provide the context in which to understand his parting shot, which certainly doesn't avoid what you call whining. He did his bit to make FR more contentious and bitter and simply objects to what he started coming back around against him.
If you do a little digging you can come to your own conclusion, but gopc was very much a disciple of Thomas DiLorenzo and his belief that tariffs were more central to the cause of the Civil War than slavery, and he was quite vitriolic and vindictive in pursuing his obsession, conceding nothing to those who disagreed with him. Love of the Confederacy and hatred of the tyrant Lincoln were something approaching a religion for him.
It's not so much what gopc said, as how he said it. He was convinced that his enemies were scoundrels and he was breaking the back of their argument with his latest personal attack, bit of jargon, condescending remark, or factoid plucked out of context. A little of that sort of triumphant nitpicking and name calling goes a long way.
Gopc's style of argument was counterproductive and did a lot to convince me and others of just how wrong-headed DiLorenzo was. After enough time passes one can look back fondly on a lot of people and things that one disliked at the time, but right now I don't regret his leaving.
I don't think he'll leave us much time for that. By leaving on his own, rather than get banned, he has the option to come back, and sooner or later he probably will in one guise or another, and with all his dogged persecutorial zeal, perhaps in response to this very post.
In general, whenever somebody offers a "they" have taken over and are pushing "us" out screed, it's a good idea to look up the facts of the matter, and not simple to take the accusations at face value. Specific issues or specialized disputes get turned into great ideological battles in such opuses, and people who did more than their share of abusive infighting may pose as martyrs in their swan songs.
As always, I have the utmost unqualified respect for your opinions and not having spent the time on the civil war threads in recent years will have to give the instances you cite full credence.
That being said, anyone leaving has my best wishes, even some that I crossed swords with, and the Opus author does not fall into the later category. Heck, I even wrote an Opus thread for Storm Orphan myself. I guess that knowing man's basic flaws and imperfectability as well as I do and wholly accepting them, I always keep a kind thought for the good that does survive unless I find none at all.
x, I think your statement is inaccurate. GOPcapitalist, in his long-running struggle with capitan_refugio, about whom he complained bitterly, was finally vindicated in his last hour on FR by capitan's exposure and banning.
Perhaps you didn't see A Jovial Cad's subsequent post.
What Cad didn't seem to realize, and you still don't, is that capitan had been unfairly twisting people's tails for a long, long time before matters finally came to a head at the very last second.
I think you're familiar with the complaints. What you may be less familiar with, because you were always in-and-out, is that the complaints were substantive and true. I ought to know, I was one of the suckers over whose eyes that guy pulled the wool, selling me a quote from a plaintiff's brief in one of the Prize Cases as part of the Court's holding -- and then, when I replied in good faith, continuing to string me along by replying as if his post were good. I was such a sucker.
And he did that repeatedly -- misquoting or misattributing footnotes from Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld and various passages from Ex Parte Bollman and Swartout, a habeas corpus case involving two of Aaron Burr's coconspirators and an opinion by John Marshall.
So I think your characterization of GOPcapitalist's complaint is misplaced. Some people do have legitimate complaints, even, sometimes, people you don't care for particularly.
Now, if you have another complaint about GOPcapitalist, perhaps you could give an example. I've seen a lot of his material, and you'll have to refresh my memory and show me how something he posted was abusive or reflected the same sorts of things he complained about in capitan_refugio's posts.
Truth in advocacy: By the time of his banning, I had had capitan_refugio on bozo filter for several days and was no longer replying to any of his posts.