Friday, October 4, 2013

C'mon, Folks ...

Let's be civil in the comment threads. Otherwise, somebody will mistake us for floggers, floggerettes, or the haters at RVA-Unity or LibertyLamp.

6 comments:

  1. A word Connie? Since you have insisted that flogger opponents be civil towards the Floggers, you yourself have called them "despicable hypocrites", "despicable liars", "outright liars", and "haters" among other things. Mind you, this is all true and perfectly appropriate, and I am fully aware that this is your blog, buy why are you disarming us and protecting them from the insults that they routinely fling and that you yourself are provoked by? On their sites, they routinely hurl insults and know full well they are protected against retaliation, but why here? These people are, as you have repeatedly observed, vicious, nasty, dishonest, liars. They need to know that they will get as good as they give. Taking the "high-road" is an exercise in futility with this type of sociopathic mentality and these types of pople; just ask John Mccain or Mitt Romney. This is your bog, but I believe, you are making a mistake.

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  2. Austin, the main things I dislike are things like personal insults that have nothing to do with someone's behavior, motives, ethics/integrity, etc. Our opponents are always insulting people's intelligence -- calling them stupid and such -- and I very much dislike that. A person's level of intelligence is usually not something they can choose. To insult or ridicule someone's lack of intelligence is no different from making fun of somebody with Downs Syndrome or autism.

    I have evolved some rules for myself over the years. I used to fling out insults like those aimed at us, totally without thought, but I grew uncomfortable with it and made a rule to stop doing it -- although I do slip up sometimes and break my own rules. But if you look at my insults, they are often aimed at people's lack of integrity (something they choose or not) rather than their lack of intelligence, which usually isn't something people can choose.

    I also don't like insults or ridicule about people's appearance if it's something they have no control over. (I recently broke my own rule about that with regard to Simpson's appearance, but we all have lapses, don't we? And it was meant to be amusing, not to damage or injure him, like some of his insults about us are designed to do) If it's something somebody chooses (e.g., Miley Cyrus uglying herself up, for example), fine, give it down the country. But if it's something they can't control -- beady eyes, big ears -- choose something else. (I also refrain from insulting people being overweight because it may or may not be something they can control.)

    Some of the things I deem fair game -- behaviors, hypocrisy, double standards, motives, lack of integrity, unfairness, hatred, schadenfreude -- and I frequently point out such, and ridicule them.

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  3. Still confused. I recently answered Baker, forcefully and sharply, but in the exact terms he used with me. Yet my reply was suppressed, whereas his comments were not.

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  4. Austin, there are a couple of issues here. I recently sent about four comments to the spam list. When I check them, I see Blogger has given me no way to restore them to "awaiting moderation." Also, in attempting to restore them, I accidentally deleted one of them. I don't know whose, or what it said.

    Part of the problem is that Blogger frequently puts the same post in "awaiting moderation" twice. I don't like to delete anything so I approve one and send the other to spam... but now I realize I have no method for retrieving them from spam.

    I do receive all the comments via email, as well. I will email you your recent comments to you, on the likelihood that you didn't keep a copy of them. And you can post them again.

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  5. Thanks Connie, I appreciate it. And if it helps any, it may be worth mentioning that my own rule of thumb is that I never start with the insults, but I also never let one go unanswered.

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