Re: [GZG] List moderation was: Dear John

On Mon, May 19, 2008 at 5:43 AM, Andy Hemming
<nonsense_factory@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Not sure I deserve an opinion - as a relative newcomer and most time
lurker,
> but a web forum would be more my cup of tea... not to say they don't
have
> their problems, but they have their bonusses too.

Everyone deserves an opinion--but if you express it in public, I
reserve the right to slap it down if it's silly.

Which yours isn't, I'm just stating a principle.

Personally, as one of the two merry combatants who provoked the fracas
that led to this conversation, let me make the following Apologia.

I am who I am.	I will not change.  I have, I think, become more
moderate in my old age, but what passes for moderation with me is
still not suitable for High Tea.

I enjoy argument.  It's a delightful pastime, a convivial spectator
sport, and it passes the time.	I try to argue in accord with certain
rules.	One of those rules is that you make statements of fact which
are, by definition, factual.  If you make provably false statements,
statements I can prove false with but a few minutes upon Google, and
refuse to back down when presented with evidence to the contrary
(anyone may, by accident, make mistaken statements--but an adult
acknowledges his imperfections and admits error) I reserve the right
to loose respect for you and start to treat you with contempt, as
someone undeserving of being treated as a rational adult.  At some
point when you stick to your errors in the face of reality you are
knowingly lying, or are so stupid as to be ineducable. Either is
grounds for contempt.  What interpretations you draw from those facts
are up for debate, but I believe in objective reality.

If, for instance, you wish to discuss Vietnam and demonstrate you have
no knowledge what so ever of the difference between the People's Army
of Vietnam (PAVN) which are the conventional armed forces of the
Socialist (or Democratic, depending on year) Republic of Vietnam, and
the National Liberation Front (NLF) aka the Viet Cong (VC) which was
an insurgent force based in and largely manned by (in varying degrees
depending on year) persons from the Republic of Vietnam, you fall into
the category of a small child attempting to argue with adults.	You
become not entertaining to debate with, but in short order, annoying.
And if I'm offended by the tantrum of a child, it reflects on me, not
on him.  A child cannot help being what he is, and many people in
today's society never become adults mentally no matter how old they
get chronologically.  I try to assume that I'm speaking to adults
until proven otherwise.

If the mailing list moves to forum, I will migrate with it.  I will
not change my means nor my ends.  If I'm banned, it is not the end of
the world.  Teh internetz is NOT serious business compared to, say,
playing frogger with Iranian EFPs, which is what I'll hopefully be
doing within the next few months.  Do with it as you will.

John M. Atkinson
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again. We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani

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