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Civility on the Forum

SFCRetired

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I know I have been guilty of being, at best, rather uncivil in response to some comments posted by others. For that, I sincerely apologize.

Knowing that this site is under scrutiny by both our friends and our adversaries, might I respectfully suggest that we all, and, yes, I most definitely include myself, make a special effort to keep our posts as civil as we possibly can?

You each have my promise that I will make every effort to keep my posts and replies civil.
 

gogodawgs

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Let me say this, I have over 1600 posts and you can read them all. You will not see me ever attack another poster on the forum. Will I attack the ideas that someone posts? YES, but never the individual. It is a great challenge to find the right way to attack an idea and ignore the individual but it is a challenge that I embrace!
 

eye95

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gogodawgs wrote:
Let me say this, I have over 1600 posts and you can read them all. You will not see me ever attack another poster on the forum. Will I attack the ideas that someone posts? YES, but never the individual. It is a great challenge to find the right way to attack an idea and ignore the individual but it is a challenge that I embrace!
Parliamentary civility. I would add one thing: actions. Take ideas and actions to task. Leave personalities out of it.

Unfortunately, when you criticize ideas and actions, often that is perceived a being personally insulting, inviting a personal insult in reply. Sometimes people have a hard time separating their ideas from themselves.

But, you are right. It is a challenge to walk that fine line that you describe. We don't always walk it perfectly.
 

Haz.

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I come from a land downunder.
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Yeh, and if in my short time hereI said anything to offendanyone, (swine in particular),on this board,it was purely intentional. And I have oink'ly, Hrrrrm, sorry cant spell, only had three standard drinlks so far? The night is still young down under.

Haz.
 

SFCRetired

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cscitney87 wrote:
We are a passionate group. All is fair in love and war.

Yes, we are and there is really nothing wrong with that. But we need to remember that others are looking at what we write and the way we come across to each other.

We know that almost all of us are on the same sheet of music, but the name calling and ad hominem attacks give the impression to others that we are highly divided.

I submit to you that, in today's political climate, we cannot afford to give that impression and that we desperately need to present a united front to those who come here with the hope of disrupting and showing us as incompetent and less than intelligent.
 

cscitney87

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As noted a million times.. no need to quote me as my post was literally just above yours. Lesson learned- moving on.

We ARE divided. I am not ashamed. Are you telling me- because we all open carry- we have to think the same, speak the same, and act the same? No. We think differently- we act differently- and certainly react differently. We are not to be ashamed of our emotions, actions, and ideas. Just because they are different? We are passionate. Our ideas are our love and the details- our war.

I understand the need to exclude curse words and personal attacks. For what have we- if nothing but poor words and expressions?

Keep it real- always.
 

LV XD9

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SFCRetired wrote:
cscitney87 wrote:
We are a passionate group. All is fair in love and war.

Yes, we are and there is really nothing wrong with that. But we need to remember that others are looking at what we write and the way we come across to each other.

We know that almost all of us are on the same sheet of music, but the name calling and ad hominem attacks give the impression to others that we are highly divided.

I submit to you that, in today's political climate, we cannot afford to give that impression and that we desperately need to present a united front to those who come here with the hope of disrupting and showing us as incompetent and less than intelligent.

Oh, the irony. Didn't you just post the following quote yesterday?

SFCRetired wrote:
And there, friends and neigbors, we have the appropriately named "weasel", who has no respect for anything or anyone, not even him/her/itself.

This thing, whatever it might be, is not fit for the company of honorable men and women.
Posted: Tue Jun 15th, 2010 10:46 AM

How can you possibly start a thread like this, blasting others for not being civil, when you just posted this? Seems awfully hypocritical, regardless of the disclaimer in the first post. It should be pointed out that I didn't have to dig very deeply into your posting history to find the above quote. In fact, it was the most recent post of yours, not counting the two from this thread. The old saying about people in glass houses comes to mind...

"You each have my promise that I will make every effort to keep my posts and replies civil." :banghead:How about you manage to practice this yourself for a whilebefore you start preaching to others?
 

cscitney87

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Some people are just Now coming to terms with the fact that you can't make everybody happy all the time.

Some people are just Now realizing that, no matter your best efforts, you will not get along with everyone.
 

SFCRetired

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LV XD9 wrote:
SFCRetired wrote:
cscitney87 wrote:
We are a passionate group. All is fair in love and war.

Yes, we are and there is really nothing wrong with that. But we need to remember that others are looking at what we write and the way we come across to each other.

We know that almost all of us are on the same sheet of music, but the name calling and ad hominem attacks give the impression to others that we are highly divided.

I submit to you that, in today's political climate, we cannot afford to give that impression and that we desperately need to present a united front to those who come here with the hope of disrupting and showing us as incompetent and less than intelligent.

Oh, the irony. Didn't you just post the following quote yesterday?

SFCRetired wrote:
And there, friends and neigbors, we have the appropriately named "weasel", who has no respect for anything or anyone, not even him/her/itself.

This thing, whatever it might be, is not fit for the company of honorable men and women.
Posted: Tue Jun 15th, 2010 10:46 AM

How can you possibly start a thread like this, blasting others for not being civil, when you just posted this? Seems awfully hypocritical, regardless of the disclaimer in the first post. It should be pointed out that I didn't have to dig very deeply into your posting history to find the above quote. In fact, it was the most recent post of yours, not counting the two from this thread. The old saying about people in glass houses comes to mind...

"You each have my promise that I will make every effort to keep my posts and replies civil." :banghead:How about you manage to practice this yourself for a whilebefore you start preaching to others?

If you will look at the post that opened this thread and read it, you will find that I did put an apology in there and admitted that I am guilty of being uncivil. The post you cited is one of the reasons I started this thread; the simple fact that I realized I had made an error and am trying to correct that error as best I can.

I have blasted no one. I made a general comment.
 

GLOCK21GB

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cscitney87 wrote:
Wouldn't that image be exactly the type of thing we are discussing in this thread?

Oh the irony... :banghead:
Nope. that's funny & just a little bit o sarcasm. But it was not an attack or uncivil.
 

LV XD9

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SFCRetired wrote:
If you will look at the post that opened this thread and read it, you will find that I did put an apology in there and admitted that I am guilty of being uncivil. The post you cited is one of the reasons I started this thread; the simple fact that I realized I had made an error and am trying to correct that error as best I can.

I have blasted no one. I made a general comment.

I read your first post, which is why I included "regardless of the disclaimer in the first post" in my response. It just seems odd that someone who posted what he did - a mere day ago, would decide to play "morality police" the next day. I took it the same way I would if an alcoholic, just coming off a bender, decided to stop drinking and then proceeded to tell anyone he encountered that they should curb their drinking with him.



In other words, how about worrying about correcting your own behavior firstbefore making the "suggestions" you did in your posts in this thread? Because right now, in the context of your recent posts, you just seem to be projecting and your posts are coming off as hypocritical (to me, at least.)

Just some food for thought. I don't disagree that we should all be civil to each other (to an extent, at least.) I'm just not a huge fan of being sermonized by someone who hasn't been practicing what they're preaching.
 

cscitney87

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Glock34 wrote:
cscitney87 wrote:
Wouldn't that image be exactly the type of thing we are discussing in this thread?

Oh the irony... :banghead:
Nope. that's funny & just a little bit o sarcasm. But it was not an attack or uncivil.
It was not an attack or uncivil? That's a picture of a black child- "Obama" saying everything bad that happens is Bush's fault... Add the black child is crying and has large ears... yeah- but it's just a coincidence right?

How, on Earth, is that not offensive? I didn't vote for Obama and I didn't vote for George Bush so don't accuse me of being bias.

I'm simply saying it's ironic that you display that image in this thread.
 

cscitney87

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Okay even More ironic of you to say that to me. Even more ironic than posting offensive political material. In a thread about civility.. hah! How funny! :lol:
 

GLOCK21GB

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cscitney87 wrote:
Okay even More ironic of you to say that to me. Even more ironic than posting offensive political material. In a thread about civility.. hah! How funny! :lol:
it's only offensive if you voted for that POS. if it was a white kid, with big ears, saying it's all Obama's fault if would be ok right !! Don't throw the race card around this forum, Political correctness will be the death of this country.
 

cscitney87

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"Keep digging your hole deeper." is the old saying.... isn't it?

While not relating the offensiveness to race- I am declaring the offensive material as having an ironic place amongst posts in a thread dedicated to civility.
 

crisisweasel

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Glock34 wrote:

it's only offensive if you voted for that POS.  if it was a white kid, with big ears, saying it's all Obama's fault if would be ok right !!   Don't throw the race card around this forum, Political correctness will be the death of this country.

No, see, this is the whole problem. Too many people view basic civility, gentlemanliness, and self-respect as "political correctness." You can behave like a troglodyte as per the first amendment, but then you don't get to complain and whine about "political correctness" when someone calls you out on it. Classlessness is classlessness.

You're right about the double standard, but your conclusion is wrong. People often compared George Bush's witless expression to that of an ape. There are pictures all over the Internet of it. But the issue here is TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT.

I would have thought people would have learned this early on. People who offer the excuse, "but the other side does it" - right or left - lose my respect, and the respect of most intelligent people I know.

I don't object to caricatures of Obama or Bush on the basis of being offended in the sense of "I like or voted for X, and now you've insulted him and that hurts my feelings."

I am offended by the way cheap sewer discourse like this assumes I have the same adolescent sensibilities of the person who posted it - that somehow I'd want to look at it / read it. It is ideological spam. It wastes my time. It makes me not only dislike you, but lose respect for you. It's not the actual content and substance of people's political opinions, but the ugly way in which people choose to express those opinions that loses me.

Is it really so hard to take the high road? Is it so difficult to respect the humanity of one's political opponents and allow for the fact that the different way we experience the world on the basis of race, class, gender, and so on, might lead to different political conclusions, and honestly, based on differing theories of how the world works?

I wonder sometimes if I waste my time straining to do this, especially with specific types of conservatives and liberals, each of whom feel the need to denigrate and destroy the dignity and humanity of their opponents every time they express an opinion.

It's ugly. It's nasty. It's counterproductive. It wastes my time as it is essentially content free. It is a sign of limited intelligence and basically a nasty personality. It is almost mob-driven rather than reason-driven. It often recycles the verbiage of media personalities, which leads me to believe people cannot think for themselves.

I have friends all across the political spectrum, including in the military. We can be friends and we can debate things at length because we have respect for each other.

As for the post yesterday which basically called me a "thing," in a pathetic attempt to dehumanize me (for whose benefit I do not know), I maintain now that it says far more about the character of the poster than it does me - especially the idea that the fact that I am anti-militarism somehow is all you have to know about me to form an opinion as to my worth as a human being.

How full of complete festering hate a person must be to react to a differing political opinion with that kind of response. What is it like being like way, every day?

When you post on the Internet, ask yourself WHY you are posting. What is it you hope to accomplish?

When you post some kind of ugly caricature of someone you dislike politically, why do you do it?

Do you hope to win people over with it? I doubt it. Do you genuinely find such puerile, inane, adolescent expressions of disdain amusing, and are hoping to share it with others of similar limited sensibilities?

What is your purpose? And what is the cost? If you alienate someone who you could have allied yourself with - such as for the cause of open carry or gun rights in general, was it worth it? Do you really want to keep the movement small and homogenous, where everyone has a Gadsden flag for an avatar and listens to Glenn Beck? Because I somehow get the idea that people do want that.

We can assume that people who identify as explicitly conservative and right-leaning are already mostly on our side. It would seem to make sense that if you wanted to grow the movement, you'd want to recruit from the opposition, wouldn't you?

Or maybe that's just how I see it. I'm not here to make left-libertarians out of all of you, which is my political orientation. I'm here to learn about, and discover strategies for advocating for open carry and the right of self defense in general - which I support for the same reasons you do. Because I have a family. Because I believe there are dirtbags out there who would seek to do harm. Because people are flipping their gourds and going on shooting sprees once a month. Because the government is out of control. Nothing different here.

Why would you do anything to discourage or alienate others who may be here for the same reason, and don't buy the conservative political narrative, or do you honestly believe you need to buy into conservative consensus to be a worthwhile human being? If you believe that, I'm not even sure what to say, to be honest. That's just sad. Genuinely sad.

We always have a choice when we go to post. We have a choice of lending our political or other opinions dignity, or dragging them through the mud. How I regard people will always have less to do with their political opinions, but why and how they hold them and express them.

Do people want their opinions respected? Or is just about the joy of bloviating and venting spleen?
 

GLOCK21GB

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crisisweasel wrote:
Glock34 wrote:

it's only offensive if you voted for that POS. if it was a white kid, with big ears, saying it's all Obama's fault if would be ok right !! Don't throw the race card around this forum, Political correctness will be the death of this country.

No, see, this is the whole problem. Too many people view basic civility, gentlemanliness, and self-respect as "political correctness." You can behave like a troglodyte as per the first amendment, but then you don't get to complain and whine about "political correctness" when someone calls you out on it. Classlessness is classlessness.

You're right about the double standard, but your conclusion is wrong. People often compared George Bush's witless expression to that of an ape. There are pictures all over the Internet of it. But the issue here is TWO WRONGS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT.

I would have thought people would have learned this early on. People who offer the excuse, "but the other side does it" - right or left - lose my respect, and the respect of most intelligent people I know.

I don't object to caricatures of Obama or Bush on the basis of being offended in the sense of "I like or voted for X, and now you've insulted him and that hurts my feelings."

I am offended by the way cheap sewer discourse like this assumes I have the same adolescent sensibilities of the person who posted it - that somehow I'd want to look at it / read it. It is ideological spam. It wastes my time. It makes me not only dislike you, but lose respect for you. It's not the actual content and substance of people's political opinions, but the ugly way in which people choose to express those opinions that loses me.

Is it really so hard to take the high road? Is it so difficult to respect the humanity of one's political opponents and allow for the fact that the different way we experience the world on the basis of race, class, gender, and so on, might lead to different political conclusions, and honestly, based on differing theories of how the world works?

I wonder sometimes if I waste my time straining to do this, especially with specific types of conservatives and liberals, each of whom feel the need to denigrate and destroy the dignity and humanity of their opponents every time they express an opinion.

It's ugly. It's nasty. It's counterproductive. It wastes my time as it is essentially content free. It is a sign of limited intelligence and basically a nasty personality. It is almost mob-driven rather than reason-driven. It often recycles the verbiage of media personalities, which leads me to believe people cannot think for themselves.

I have friends all across the political spectrum, including in the military. We can be friends and we can debate things at length because we have respect for each other.

As for the post yesterday which basically called me a "thing," in a pathetic attempt to dehumanize me (for whose benefit I do not know), I maintain now that it says far more about the character of the poster than it does me - especially the idea that the fact that I am anti-militarism somehow is all you have to know about me to form an opinion as to my worth as a human being.

How full of complete festering hate a person must be to react to a differing political opinion with that kind of response. What is it like being like way, every day?

When you post on the Internet, ask yourself WHY you are posting. What is it you hope to accomplish?

When you post some kind of ugly caricature of someone you dislike politically, why do you do it?

Do you hope to win people over with it? I doubt it. Do you genuinely find such puerile, inane, adolescent expressions of disdain amusing, and are hoping to share it with others of similar limited sensibilities?

What is your purpose? And what is the cost? If you alienate someone who you could have allied yourself with - such as for the cause of open carry or gun rights in general, was it worth it? Do you really want to keep the movement small and homogenous, where everyone has a Gadsden flag for an avatar and listens to Glenn Beck? Because I somehow get the idea that people do want that.

We can assume that people who identify as explicitly conservative and right-leaning are already mostly on our side. It would seem to make sense that if you wanted to grow the movement, you'd want to recruit from the opposition, wouldn't you?

Or maybe that's just how I see it. I'm not here to make left-libertarians out of all of you, which is my political orientation. I'm here to learn about, and discover strategies for advocating for open carry and the right of self defense in general - which I support for the same reasons you do. Because I have a family. Because I believe there are dirtbags out there who would seek to do harm. Because people are flipping their gourds and going on shooting sprees once a month. Because the government is out of control. Nothing different here.

Why would you do anything to discourage or alienate others who may be here for the same reason, and don't buy the conservative political narrative, or do you honestly believe you need to buy into conservative consensus to be a worthwhile human being? If you believe that, I'm not even sure what to say, to be honest. That's just sad. Genuinely sad.

We always have a choice when we go to post. We have a choice of lending our political or other opinions dignity, or dragging them through the mud. How I regard people will always have less to do with their political opinions, but why and how they hold them and express them.

Do people want their opinions respected? Or is just about the joy of bloviating and venting spleen?
It's people like you that made Political correctness "fashionable" I don't have to be PC, nor will I be PC. ALSO PC has created this liberal anti freedom climate we now find ourselves in.


---Edited for rules violation----
 
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