I have been observing a lot lately and today it finally hit me as to what it was that was bothering me.
There is something going on at this site that disturbs me - and that is "shouting" down the "opposition" and calling names and just generally being rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. I am not pointing fingers at any one member because even in some small way, myself included, we have all been guilty of this.
It is fine to be passionate about what you believe in. It is fine to argue heatedly. It is NOT fine to cross the line and start calling names. To me, when that happens - when someone calls me a name in a heated discussion - I know I have made my point and I have won the debate.
When you feel the need to pop out a "liberal" "commie" "fagot" etc label keep this in mind - what has that accomplished in furthering your argument other than to make you look really stupid? We all came to this site because we had mutual respect for each other even tho we may disagree on things. We did not feel the need to call names. If we were loosing an argument it caused us to look at our own position and either modify it or be persuaded to adopt the opposition's point of view or a third point of view.
Come on folks - let's be civil to each other. We can disagree and still respect each other. And just because we might disagree on one point, doesn't mean that we don't agree on other areas.
Let's quit driving off good folks that help us to expand our horizons and prevent us from living in a closed redneck ignorant mofu world. In fact we should try to coax them back, coax them to express their viewpoint, and when they do welcome them with open arms.
trask
